Two Lane Adventures: Day 13 of our 2025 RVing Adventure with Historical & Musical Interludes

On day 13 of our 2025 summer adventure Gary, Sheryl, Milton & Gaby, Charlie, and I rode the trolley into Virginia Beach, for some time in the sun and the sand! On our trolley ride, we picked up a father and his two daughters on holiday from Quebec. His wife was on holiday with several of her girlfriends in the Bahamas. So, Dad decided to bring the girls to Virginia Beach.

There are many murals in Virginia Beach, but these two hold a special place in my heart!

Our first stop was a short walk from the trolley stop at 21st Street. We were headed to the Naval Aviation Monument. The Naval Aviation Monument on 25th Street at the Oceanfront honors Virginia Beach's extensive aviation heritage. Commissioned by the Hampton Roads Squadron of the Association of Naval Aviation, the monument showcases three eras of naval aviation.

The monument was designed by sculptor Michael Maiden who relied on his experience in the Army National Guard to bring his ideas to life. Maiden worked hard over a two year period to get every detail right, researching the subject in libraries and museums, visiting the aircraft carrier Midway in San Diego, and even hiring models to pose in vintage aviation clothing.

The resulting bronze sculptures are lifelike and convincing, from the realistic sculpted WWII weapons and modern NAS Oceana flight gear down to Eugene Ely’s 1910 flight jacket and safety football helmet.

The first statue depicts Eugene Ely, the first aviator to fly off a ship's deck.

Another scene shows a World War II pilot and his crew scramble out of a flight deck hatch.

A male pilot, female pilot, and maintenance chief gathered around an unloaded bomb skid depicting the modern era of aviation.

And finally, the scene of a wife greeting her pilot husband with their children reflects the joy of a Navy homecoming.

Some of us had walk walk on the sand!

And put our feet in the Atlantic Ocean!

We walked to the Virginia Beach Pier, but we did not need to spend $4 per person to walk out on the pier. The ladies did hit the gift shop!

Since Milt is still recovering from his recent knee replacement, we took breaks on the benches!

We grabbed a trolley and headed to Chix on the Beach for lunch. We picked it for a spot on the beach with something for everyone! We learned that it is a sister restaurant to Waterman's (where we ate yesterday!)

In the 1950's a restaurant was opened—the Sun-N-Fun Bathhouse Grill, which stands in the very spot that Chix on the Beach stands today. The Year was 1977... Jimmy Carter was in office and polyester was on the upswing thanks to John Travolta's bold dance moves in "Saturday Night Fever." It was a scant decade after the "Summer of Love" and somewhere between the disco and shag scenes

Laverne Burlage quietly opened his first restaurant—a modest little seafood shack with a killer view of the Atlantic ocean. Since opening its existing doors in 1977, Chix has seen many presidents in and out of office, fashion styles that change like the Atlantic breezes, and millions of locals and vacationers coming and going through its doors in four decades. Verne was no stranger to the restaurant industry. In the early 40's, his family had opened a restaurant right across from where Chix restaurant stands today, Called Chix—serving hamburgers, chicken and hot dogs.

In 2015, Mike and Mariah Standing, owners of Virginia Beach's icon & Original Crush House, Waterman's Surfside Grille, purchased Chix from Laverne Burlage to give him some time to work on his retirement and love of travel, to enjoy his family and to fine tune his break dancing skills. The New Chix on the Beach is the perfect union of the old and the new—mixing yesterday's traditions and nearly 40 years of history with the best new recipes of today.