Often when I meet people and mention I work for State Parks I hear stories about their many family visits to one park or another. As my boss, Joe Elton (State Parks Director) likes to say, “We’re in the Memory Business.”
Due to a not particularly pleasant experience one guest had at Douthat State Park I had extended conversations with this customer. She told me many stories. My favorite was the story she told about the bat coming down the chimney. Probably not the best experience at the time, but it was a family memory that goes in the scrapbook of the brain. One of those things you tell yourself they will be funny later – and they are.
David and I have great memories from local site seeing, there is Smith’s Fort, Bacon’s Castle, a tour of the Surry Nuclear Information Center (I visited in 8th grade), and downtown Smithfield, are some of the key spots to hit. You are a ferry ride away from all the history of Colonial Williamsburg, Jamestown and Yorktown, not to mention Busch Gardens and Water Country. Fourteen miles out of town you hit Wakefield and you shouldn’t miss a stop at the famous Wakefield Diner, famous for its peanuts. Civil War buffs will find that Chippokes is also a good place to stay to visit Petersburg and Richmond battlefields as well as the Museum of the Confederacy.