317 miles, 11 hours.

This was the first day for the four of us to tour together. It was also the first day that Tamara and I were riding together- which was really nice. I've missed her over the past 2.5 weeks.

Before we really got going this morning, we had to pack up both bikes, then run some errands. We stopped at a post office, Safeway, a gas station, and a hardware store. Naturally, that took quite a while.

We then rode from DC to Annapolis, and rode through Annapolis proper. Annapolis has such a cute little city center- great brick buildings dating from the 1700s, a small harbor extending right into the city, and so on.

We then rode east, heading towards the Bay Bridge. The goal was to be on the east side of the Chesapeake and to take the small roads right along the Atlantic. However, traffic on Hwy50 was REALLY bad. I changed our route so we would simply ride down the Chesapeake to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel.

We stopped a couple of times along the peninsula- once at a farmers' stand for a watermelon (which we cracked open and ate right there), and then at a fish market for a meal. It turned out to be a good meal- we shared a plate of jumbo shrimp and hushpuppies, as well as a crab cake and a fish sandwich.

Unfortunately, traffic on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel was horrible. The tunnels are two lanes (one in each direction), and the bridges are four lanes. That means the bridges were very expensive parking lots for the tunnels. It took us about 40 minutes to go under 4 miles on the bridge- we were all overheating, and Dad said that his Harley was having issues, too. Both of us had very sore clutch hands from the "hurry up and wait" traffic.

Once we got into the first tunnel, traffic started moving somewhat. At least we weren't stopping all of the time- traffic was probably moving in the 20-40mph range. That meant we got some air past our bodies and past the bikes, which helped.

After the second tunnel is a little restaurant/gift shop and fishing pier. We stopped, took off all of our gear, got some cold liquid in us, and watched the guys fishing on the pier. They were fishing for flounder, and they had to be over 19.5 inches in length or they had to throw them back. We saw one guy pull up a flounder that was too small, and saw another guy pull up some sort of flying fish.

After the bridges/tunnels, we had a quick jaunt down to Elizabeth City, North Carolina for the night. Much of the ride was through the Dismal Swamp, which meant a long, flat lowland highway. There were signs along the highway warning us about bears. I'm not sure if I've ever seen a road sign with a bear on it before!

After checking in to the hotel, we walked across the street and ate at a local place, Famous Franks, that served hot dogs, hamburgers, and sweet potato fries. It was good, and we had a great time with the waitress. It was definitely a highlight for the evening.