Day 7 - GA to DC Spring Trip 2026

April 2, 2026 - The goal for this trip was to find some warm weather and good bike trails —- Check!

We arrived at First LandingState Park at about 11:00. We both slept better than expected at the noisy rest stop so we were up and ready for another adventure in the morning. We couldn’t get onto our campsite until 1:00 so we had lunch and rested/read until then.

First Landing turned out to be a great stop. The sites are large and there are boardwalks from the campsites, over the beach dunes, to the beach. The Virginia Beach boardwalk and all the restaurants, shopping and activities along it are only an 18 minute drive away.

After getting settled onto our campsite we headed out to explore the bike trails. After one wrong turn, we located Cape Henry Trail. The main bike trail in the park. While the trail at Jekyll Island wove in and out of wooded areas, this trail was completely in the woods. We were protected from the hot sun, it was at least 80 degrees, by a thick canopy of trees, pine and cypress. The undergrowth was wet. Big cypress stood in pools of swamp water. The knees of the cypress poking out of the water. The path was paved for the first mile then turned to hard packed gravel/dirt. It was 100 times better than the so called trails at Biltmore (thank you state park systems, yay for public lands). Pine needles covered much of the path and we had to navigate roots and sticks. It was like mountain biking on an easy wide trail and we really enjoyed it.

Before dinner we went for a short walk on the lovely beach. Nice sand, more like Michigan sand than fine Florida sand.

We explored the famous Virginia Beach Board Walk and found dinner at a Mellow Mushroom Pizza place. Our waitress had large jelly fish earrings, lol. We enjoyed both the pizza and the boardwalk. A big moon raising over the ocean kept us company