Monday, August 17, 2009

Virginia Beach-- the good, the bad, the ugly!



Some might say our trip to Virginia Beach was awesome, some may say it was awful. I guess you can decide for yourself!


Map Quest says it takes 4 hours to get to our destination. It took us 6.
1)Kaci kept her pants dry, never had an accident in the car!
2)We never got so sick and tired of driving we couldn't stand it anymore.
3)We saw cool places like Williamsburg and James Town.
4)We finally have a map of Virginia

5)We visited William and Mary College, the FIRST college in America
6)We drove straight to the beach so we would see it the first day in case it got too late to come back after setting up camp.


- It was stinkin' hot and humid at the beach and our campsite the day we arrived. We set up camp as quick as possible and headed back to the ocean. It was so fun to be back by the ocean again. I had no idea I missed it so much. Kaci loved playing in the sand. I found lots of broken shells aka treasures and Brad didn't have to DO anything! We loved it.

We brought our bikes (thanks to the Shavers) and rode them on the super long boardwalk. It went on for miles. We really liked riding on a flat place again. The hills in the Burg are so tiring, especially with Kaci on the back of my bike. Her extra twenty pounds even slows Brad down.

We drove the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and Tunnel! It's 20 miles over the ocean. That's right folks, just me (well and Brad and Kaci) my car and the open sea. I had so much fun. It blows my mind that they built that. How the heck do you build a bridge IN the ocean?? Moreover, how do you build a tunnel that goes under the ocean? It's mind boggling. I added driving the Florida Keys to my live list afterwards. Same thing, but more of it. Someday, someday! I also want to add the run/walk they do on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge to my live list, but it's not regular enough to be able to plan it, but it would still be amazing, maybe I'll add it just in case, ya never know!

So what went wrong?? The 30% chance of rain turned into an all night storm with the most incredible lightning and thunder.
We got a little worried about hanging out in the tent, so we thought we'd wait it out in the car. Around 1 AM it let up a bit so we tried to go back to the tent. The air mattress was floating in a 3 inches of water. Back to the car we went. It was so miserable in the car. Humid, hot, sweaty, and uncomfortable. Kaci slept great, because one of us held her all night which only magnified the awfulness if it.
So the next day, I woke up and got out of the car the second there was light. I ate breakfast and started cleaning out the tent.
We hung up an amazing clothes line and hung everything we brought with us up to dry. We changed into our wet swimsuits and headed out with the intent to do everything we came to do over the next two days in one day so that if our stuff never dried or if it rained again we could just go home rather than sleep in the car again. By 2 o'clock the rain came and re-soaked our half dried out stuff.
We each had only our pajamas that were dry to wear home. We cleaned up camp aka shoved all the wet stuff in our trunk and showered up for our drive home. While showering, Kaci decided to pee on my only dry t-shirt. Awesome. With that, we called it quits, but we were still smiling and decided to make the most of the drive home. We took the scenic roads aka not the interstate, stopping in Yorktown to complete our historic tour of VA and of course for ice cream because no road trip is complete without a pit stop purely for ice cream!

5 comments:

Kim's just sayin' said...

well at least you got ice cream! sounds like you guys made some great memories and that's what road trips are for right?!?! :)

Dadra said...

What an adventure!!! It sounds like you had some really great moments mixed with some pretty awful ones. I love that part of Virginia though. We went last fall which was a much better time to visit (at least we didn't have rain or humidity to deal with!!)

Cierra said...

haha oh my goodness...what luck! but you guys made the very best of it and that's why i love you! way to laugh at frustration in the face. :) and i also like that kaci fell asleep with a bag of chips in her hand.

newsinaminute said...

my favorite pic was your wading in the ocean--in spite of the let downs--being able to get in an ocean (most any ocean) makes it a plus--the only 'salt water' we've made it to lately is the great 'salt lake'--(: hee hee--not near as fun as the ocean--by the looks--of the pics--
so yeah-hoo for making the most of your trip and taking the good with the bad
-loved your descriptions--of it all

Liam said...

Sounds like classic adventure to me.