Great concert . . . but we were late. No fault of our own though, since we left Richmond headed for Virginia Beach with plenty of time to spare (more than 1.5 hours earlier than should have been necessary).
First, we got caught in a brutal thunderstorm—hail and everything. That slowed us down, but not enough to make us late. Then, passing through Hampton, we approached the bridge-tunnel and traffic stopped. Not just slowed, but stopped (see the photo Melissa took of us dead-stop next to a sign that says, what else, “No Stopping”). We inched ahead a few feet at a time for well over an hour, eventually seeing a sign that helpfully informed us that a disabled car was in the tunnel and thus (inexplicably) the tunnel was closed. Way to operate a tunnel, guys. I don’t know whether to blame Virginia Beach for this idiocy or VDOT and the state legislature for their perennial failure to fund transportation.
We finally got through and parked past 8:30 for a show that started at 8:00 (and without getting our planned dinner) and took a small spot on the grass at the venue nearer to 9:00 after the long hike from the lot. The remainder of the show was great, despite fairly poor (last-choice) seats, but I’m pretty mad we missed almost half of it. Oh well. Virginia Beach will not likely be a place we travel to in the future for concerts, since their roads seem to be pretty unreliable. At the right you’ll see grainy, low-quality pictures (the second of which is artificially enhanced to make it show . . . anything) of Billy Joel on a big screen and a wacky crowd of people.
What are your experiences (if any) with Virginia Beach area roads? Should I give them another chance?