Today we headed over to Ft. Story to see the Cape Henry lighthouse. Chris had found it on the internet. Being from the desert I never thought I would get to see one. It was so cool.
We were getting hungry by the time we got close to the base. We decided to stop and eat lunch before we went on. We just stopped at one we saw called Taste Unlimited. It was a soup and sandwich shop. The food was great. I had fresh clam chowder and was in heaven.
Got over to Fort Story and of course we were stopped at the gate by the military police. We told them we had come to see the lighthouse. They asked to see Chris' ID and our rental contract for the car. It never occurred to us that we would need that. We had left it back at mom and dad Weidman's. We drove off the base and set for a minute trying to see if there was anything else around us that we wanted to see. There wasn't anything close and so we decided just to go back and get the paperwork. When we came back we showed it to them and then had to have the car searched before they would let us in.
Cape Henry lighthouse was builit in 1792 on a dune looking out onto the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. In 1864 the replaced the oil soaked staircase with a cast iron spiral one. In 1872 they noticed cracks starting up from the base. The inspector said some of them were inconsequential, but the ones on the north and south faces were compounded by windows. It was deemed as unsafe.
It took 6 years to finance and build the new cast iron lighthouse and it took over in 1881. It was built 357 ft away, and is still currently in use. To everyone's surprise, the old one is still standing and safe. It is the third oldest lighthouse still standing in the U.S. It was really cool to be able to climb the stairs and look out. A little bit of history.
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