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Cape Charles Nature, history and old-time Americana are the draws here. The area has one of the highest Christmas bird counts (more than 150 species) north of Florida. The October birding festival attracts thousands, and more species are sighted here than in better-known Cape May, N.J. Monarch butterflies migrate through. Birders band everything from hummingbirds to bald eagles. Eastern Shore of Virginia National Wildlife Refuge, 5003 Hallett Circle. This 750-acre wildlife refuge at the northern end of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel was established in 1984 to manage and protect habitats for migrating birds along the Atlantic Coast flyway. Audio-visual displays in the state-of-the-art visitor center detail everything one could want to know about shore wildlife. Two stationary telescopes and two sets of binoculars in an observation room with large glass windows yield close-up views across the salt marshes toward the barrier islands. Pictures identify birds frequently sighted. Young and old enjoy what a ranger called the “think tank,” a touch-and-feel display of exotic shells and skeletons. Twenty-seven videos lasting from four minutes to an hour are available for showing in the auditorium. In front of the replica of a waterman’s shack, we listened to a recording of Cigar Daisey of Chincoteague talking about decoy carving. Outside, a half-mile interpretive trail loops past an old graveyard to a World War II bunker, where a 60-foot-high observation platform overlooks marshes, islands, inlets and ocean. Offshore beneath the bridge is the Fisherman Island wildlife refuge, a special haunt for birders. (757) 331-2760. Open daily, 9 to 4. Free. Kiptopeke State Park, 3540 Kiptopeke Drive. Situated along the Chesapeake Bay three miles north of the bridge-tunnel is Virginia’s newest state park, established in 1992 and under development as a mecca for nature lovers. Near the boat ramp is the old terminal building for the ferry service that moved here from Cape Charles in 1950. The 375-acre park has a swimming beach, picnic areas, camping facilities, a hiking trail, a fishing pier, a hawk observatory and a bird banding station. Visitors join volunteers to participate in bird banding on fall weekends. (757) 331-2267. Parking, $4 weekends, $3 midweek. Touring Cape Charles. Points of interest are detailed in a brochure and map published by the town’s B&B association. Sights vary from several Sears, Roebuck mail-order houses to two houses that have settled toward each other to the point where their roofs overlap. The landmark water tower visible as you approach town turns out to have been designed in 1992 and patterned after the old Cape Charles Lighthouse. Nearby, the old Delmarva Power Plant was converted into the Cape Charles Museum and Welcome Center, open seasonally weekend afternoons. Two railroad cars were being restored behind the museum for excursions to neighboring towns. Virginia’s first memorial library is housed in an old Presbyterian church at Tazewell and Plum. Visit the gazebo at the foot of Randolph Street, where a dolphin sculpture is beside the path to the public beach. A narrow boardwalk parallels the beach along Bay Avenue. There’s a jetty pier at the harbor, where Applaud the Sunset parties are staged in the Key West idiom. A parade is the highlight of the annual Cape Charles Day celebration in September. The Pride of Baltimore showed up one year at the annual Schooner Feast, part of the Great Chesapeake Bay Schooner Race from Norfolk to Baltimore. The Fourth of July fireworks here are considered the best on the Eastern Shore. Look across the harbor for the pioneering Port of Cape Charles Sustainable Technologies Industrial Park, the first of four in the nation. It is designed for companies that do not generate waste or that use as a resource the discharge of those that do. A technical center is expected to be of interest to visitors. Visitors also may want to check out the progress on
the developing Bay Creek 1,700-acre golf and marina residential
community, billed as “the best value on the East Coast.” The 18-hole
Arnold Palmer-designed golf course opened in 2001, and the 18-hole Jack
Nicklaus signature course is expected to be completed in 2005. The first
phase of the residential development surrounding old Those interested in seeing Cape Charles from the water can sail with tall ship captains Greg and Laura Lohse aboard their two-masted schooner Serenity. It offers daily sunset sails from Cape Charles Harbor for $30. Arts Enter Cape Charles, 17 Mason Ave., Cape Charles, (757) 331-2787. This multi-disciplined arts venture symbolizes the rebirth of Cape Charles. “We started in 1996 with nothing – just a group of people who wanted to talk about the arts,” said Clelia Sheppard, founder who became executive director. From a room in the old high school, where art classes are taught, the community-based enterprise expanded into the art deco Palace movie theater. It added a Stage Door Art Gallery around the corner at 10 Strawberry St. Movies are shown twice monthly, visiting musicians perform, the Virginia Symphony of Norfolk scheduled a summer pops concert and Arts Enter thespians produce several shows a year. The 500-seat theater, undergoing restoration, is a marvel of Art Deco style with tapestry murals, terrazzo floors and a walnut foyer. Local artists show in the Stage Door gallery, which is open Tuesday-Sunday. Eyre Hall, Route 636, one of the best preserved 18th-century houses in Virginia, is a state historical landmark down a shady lane off Route 13. The 1735 home is open during Garden Week in April, but the rare boxwood and perennial gardens may be visited year-round. The family graveyard is walled in brick delivered from England as ballast in sailing ships. Eastville. Compared with nouveau Cape Charles (founded 1884), the somnolent Northampton County seat about six miles north appears positively historic. It was settled shortly after Captain John Smith explored the peninsula in 1608 on his way to establishing the first permanent English colony in Jamestown. The Colonial Courthouse, built about 1731, contains the oldest continuous court records in the nation, dating from 1632. They can be examined at the court clerk’s office on the first floor. Outside on the tiny Courthouse Green are a confederate monument, a debtor’s prison, an ancient whipping post, and a couple of ancillary buildings that now are attorneys’ offices. Shopping. Abandoned storefronts, indeed blocks, strike visitors along Mason Avenue, the once thriving main street. Between them, however, are some promising newcomers, as many as ten in one year alone. The standout is Cape Charles Trading Co., which started as an antiques shop but evolved into an eclectic gift shop. Founder Paul Dwyer, who commuted weekends from his work at the Library of Congress, sold to his niece, Meredith Dwyer. She oversees a veritable bazaar of one-of-a-kind gifts and collectibles that you don’t expect to find in Cape Charles. Nearby is the small retail showroom of Delisheries, Ltd., wholesaler of gourmet baking mixes. Patterned after his mother’s Sugar Plum Bakery in Virginia Beach, the enterprise is overseen by Chris Marshall and his wife, Meg, who were preparing “easy, one-bowl mixes” for cookies and muffins in the back production area at our visit. One of the first participants in the new Sustainable Technologies Industrial Park, the pair plan to train handicapped workers to help with production. In 2003, Gail Keck was planning to open the Cape Charles Coffee Co., an upscale emporium also offering meals. A special place up the shore at Onley is Turner Sculpture, the foundry and gallery where world-renowned artists William and David Turner, father and son, produce remarkable bronze sculptures of wildlife in action. One of their pieces, two Canada geese about to land, is on display outside the entrance to the visitor center at the Eastern Shore of Virginia National Wildlife Refuge. . Extra-SpecialCharmar’s Old Country Store Museum, 213 Mason Ave., Cape Charles. This is a turn-of-the-century country store like no other – partly because it’s a museum and nothing’s for sale, partly because it reflects one man’s labor of love, and partly because everything is authentic (the soap boxes and containers are full, not cardboard or metal showpieces). Antiques dealers Charles and Margaret Carlson opened the museum by happenstance in 1979 in a storefront next to their Charmar’s Antiques shop. Why? “It’s a long story,” said Charlie, holding forth in his museum. “My wife says I’m a sucker for buying anything.” It seems a friend called one day to offer a 21-foot store counter and cajoled the dealer into accepting it if it was delivered. “We stuck it in here and I started filling it up with all the boxes of stuff I had collected.” Soon he had a full-fledged country store, with a post office in the back, a potbelly stove, shelves of merchandise (from cow tonic to lice killer to Blossom Bloomers to a can of Caster Oil axle grease). We could relate to all the old soap detergents of our youth, if not to the strange wire contraption he called a chicken catcher. “See my customer,” he pointed to a mannequin. “And my butcher.” Quite the character, Charlie had great fun showing one and all the intricacies of his special collection. Margaret was continuing his tradition following his recent death. (757) 331-1488. Open by appointment or by chance
via the antiques shop, Monday-Saturday 10 to 5. Donation.
Material excerpted from Inn Spots & Special Places / Mid-Atlantic, by Nancy and Richard Woodworth. Copyright 2003. Wood Pond Press E-mail feedback to: Home
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