One of my earliest memories of marveling at giant construction projects was reading about the construction of the Bridge Tunnel in 1961.  I can recall watching the "Today" show the day it opened on April 15th 1964. I had never ridden through a tunnel, much less seen one in those days.  Since that day I have wanted to drive over it and through the tunnel.   Sometime in the early 1980's my friend Skip Jennings and I made a trip to Virginia beach and we were going to drive over it then.  But it was raining like hell and we decided not to. 

Since then I've driven through many tunnels as I've traveled the country, but still there was an unexplainable excitement of finally arriving here. 

It was fun, but almost 40 years later, the climax of the moment was a little less than I expected.  Still, it was fun.  In the 1960's the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel was a one of a kind engineering marvel.  Taking three and a half years to build at a cost of $200,000,000, it is still the largest bridge tunnel in the USA.  Measuring 17.6 miles in length, with 2 mile long tunnels, it saves you 95 miles when traveling from the Virginia Beach / Norfolk area to the Eastern Shore of Maryland.

I read somewhere that the original bridge tunnel was a single, two lane bridge, just as the tunnel segments are, but in recent years a second parallel bridge has been constructed the entire length, making for 2, two lane bridges.  There is not a lot of traffic on the bridge tunnel, at least when we were traveling over it.

The Sea Gull Fishing Pier is located on the first of 4 man-made islands on the bridge tunnel.  There is also a 1960's era restaurant and gift shop there.

The toll for a passenger car is $10.  It's a nice ride and worth the effort if you're ever in the area.