Day Nine: Wisconsin in Virginia

Our Virginia Beach campsite was a lot of fun. We stayed up late dancing to music by the pool and playing in the arcade. In the morning, after the kids played on the playground, we drove to the U.S.S. Wisconsin.

This battleship was built in 1943 and was used in WWII, the Korean War, and Operation Desert Storm. The ship is still part of the inactive fleet which means it could be called into action if needed. In the museum we were able to see photos of the ship during war time, one of which showed the entire lower bow of the ship completely missing due to a collision. On board the ship, we spoke with a retired serviceman who served on the ship in the Pacific during WWII. We learned that ships have an interesting plumbing system with different colored valves to indicate different fluids, from fuels to water to hydraulic fluid. There were over a dozen different colors/fluids.

Eli's head in a cannon.

Lucy in a re-creation of an old ship

On our drive to Myrtle Beach, we stopped off at a place in North Carolina called Belhaven Memorial Museum. This was held in the top floor of the Town Hall of a tiny little town. It consists of the collection of oddities that a local woman collected. She began with a button collection that grew to 30,000 and her collection now holds a wide array of things that include a whale skull, 19th century clothing, fleas in clothing, and a jarred two-headed pig. It was….an experience.

We drove onto Myrtle Beach where our tentsite was within steps from the ocean. While Mike set up the tent and Eli and Lucy snoozed in the car, Charlotte and I sat in the sand and watched fireworks being set off on the beach right near our campgrounds.