I had spent some time at the Virginia Military Museum in the morning and still have some time to kill. I had originally planned to get some lunch before hitting Busch Gardens, but my breakfast still had me satiated… Well, my buddy riding with me was in the same shape, so I recommended we hit the Mariner’s Museum, since we were passing it anyway. He had never been there and I know we could easily spend a few hours there.
Well, we pulled in and headed to the Monitor and Virginia section of the museum. The display has a number of artifacts and reconstructed interior ship sections. There are also some full scale mock ups of the Monitor’s turret and even a full scale mock up of the ship top section out back.
You can also go by the restoration area and see the tanks that are being used to bring back the original Monitor turret and guns! From there you can pass through some model areas and go through the history of shipping. Time had run out for us, so we speed walked through there and headed out. It works out well, an hour and a half and we saw what we went for and were on our way to our next stop! Another nice little stop for those that are interested in anything nautical.
- Manteuffel.