We traveled about 20 miles down the road from First Landing State Park (see entry below) to the lovely beach community of Sandbridge Beach. On a map, both locations are in Virginia Beach. Sandbridge bills itself as the "Outer Banks of Virginia", which has been geologically confirmed by our Oceanographer daughter. It is a narrow bridge of sand with two parallel roads running down the length and a few cross streets tying them together. Most of the houses are rentals and they vary from 1950's bungalows to 2013 multi-family mansions.
We came here to celebrate Thanksgiving with our family and needed lodgings (and an oven) larger than those provided by the motor home. We rented an older house right on the dunes with a beautiful view of the surf. This was our second visit to Sandbridge. We love that it is quiet, noncommercial and has a beautiful wide beach perfect for long walks and for playing fetch with Tiki. If you walk north far enough, you come to Virginia Beach. If you walk south far enough, you come to North Carolina. If you are thinking of coming to Sandbridge, we rented our house through Sandbridge Realty.
We took advantage of the spacious storage compartments in the motor home when we packed for the stay in the Sandbridge house. Our challenge was what to do with the frozen turkey. We had to plan for 4 days at First Landing before we got to the house, and the freezer in the motor home just wasn't designed for a large bird. But, it was cold outside. So we stuck the turkey in a cooler with blue ice packs and tucked it into one of the compartments. It was still frozen when we arrived.
The Adventure
One of the many assets of Sandbridge is the Back Bay Wildlife Refuge that forms the southern boundary of Sandbridge Beach. The refuge provides feeding and resting habitat for migratory birds traveling the Atlantic Flyway. Parts of it are closed to the public during the winter to provide safe havens for the tundra swans, snow and Canada geese and a large variety of ducks that find refuge there during the winter migration. You can see and hear them from a distance in the bay. There is also a viewing stand, but we didn't see any birds there.
We rode our bicycles the 5 miles down to the Refuge from our house in the northern part of Sandbridge and then another several miles inside the refuge itself. It is a fun ride past the crazy assortment of beach houses and then in the natural area along the dikes.
The Motor Home
We needed to choose a house to rent where we could also park the motor home. That meant it had to have a long enough and wide enough driveway and space for the cars of the rest of the family. We also had other criteria (beach front, allows pets, numbers of bedrooms and baths, location in the northern part of community). We narrowed our search down to several possible homes. Then we went on Google maps Satellite View and "measured" the length of the driveways to find the best fit for us.
We arrived at our rental in a rain storm. The driveway was long enough and (barely) wide enough but it had these wood bollards on both sides of the entrance restricting angle access for backing the motor home in. However, it also had an auxiliary parking area that we hadn't seen on the map in the front yard that was the perfect size for the motor home.
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