Leatherness and I, once we got the last child out of college, started doing serious "day trips." To the mountains of West Virginia at first, but gradually, more and more, to the Chesapeake Bay tributaries. I grew up on water, and the water maintained its pull after all these years. We finally wound up in the Northern Neck of Virginia, near the birthplace of George Washington, in country steeped in early American history, and rife with creeks and rivers leading to the bay.
We were steered to a little point of land on a creek off the Great Wicomico River in Northumberland County--a county with only one traffic light (a flasher at that). The point had 3.5 acres and 880 feet of deep-water shore. The cottage was (is) a one-bedroom apartment over a two-car garage. It now sports a 1000-sq. ft workshop/barn as well, built single-handedly by the two of us, if that makes sense.
It's about 2-1/4 hours drive from "home", and it's about the most tranquil place on earth at times.
Land--especially waterfront--in the Neck has boomed recently, and our place is worth easily twice the $160K we paid for it 9 years ago, and maybe more. We might sell one day and move to the low country of South caroline, as that's an area we like to. But for now, "Cabbage Point" (dubbed so for a Grandson who kept confusing "cottage" and "cabin") is our weekend refuge from the madding world of Northern Virginia.
