Sunrise Over Hampton Roads

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Living in Tidewater Virginia it is difficult not to be influenced by the abundance of water and, in general it adds a wonderful element to life - hurricanes and severe northeasters excepted, of course. The view above is from Chesapeake Avenue in Hampton (our street, which is sometimes referred to as "The Boulevard" since it runs for three miles along the north side of the road stead) looking south across Hampton Roads toward Norfolk.  Wikipedia describes Hampton Roads as follows:

The water area known as Hampton Roads is one of the world's largest natural harbors (more accurately a roadstead or "roads"), and incorporates the mouths of the Elizabeth River and James River with several smaller rivers and itself empties into the Chesapeake Bay near its mouth leading to the Atlantic Ocean.

Given that Hampton was founded in 1610 - that's right, a decade BEFORE the Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth Rock -  the body of water eventually took on the name "Hampton Roads" in 1755 when the Virginia General Assembly formally approved the name.  The image below is an satellite view of  the area.  Chesapeake Avenue runs along a section of the arch shaped shoreline of Hampton in the top portion of the image.  Our home is roughly half way between the Monitor Merrimac Bridge Tunnel to the left and the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel to the right in the photo.  The area to the south with the massive piers is the Norfolk Naval Base, the largest naval base in the world and source of many cute gay boys, and the adjacent Naval Air Station.  The seven mile long James River Bridge can be seen to the far left of the image.

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