Virginia Beach

This is Trent's last week of leave before reporting to CLAMO. We took advantage and drove down to Virginia Beach on Monday. We stayed at the Navy Lodge and then went to the beach Tuesday morning before coming home.

The drive down was great. After we checked in, Monday afternoon and evening turned into a potential lampoons movie. The lady at the front desk of the Navy Lodge told us about a water park on base that sounded like a lot of fun. We got the kids suited up and sunscreened and went to check it out. Turns out it is closed on Mondays. There is also a beach that is accessible from the base when it isn't being used. Wouldn't you know it, the gates were closed, because they were using the beach for an amphibious training exercise. We drove into town to check out the parking situation for the next day and then started looking for someplace to have dinner. Other than Arby's and Subway, most places were closed either because they sold only breakfast and lunch or because they were just closed. Mugging the Pizza Hut truck started looking like a possibility. We found a little Mexican place that looked decent. Turns out it was a step up from Taco Bell. Sigh. We still had a good time.

Tuesday morning, we got up early and got everyone suited up. We ate a quick breakfast and headed for the beach. In case you missed the news earlier this week, the east coast has had a nasty heat wave. The high for Tuesday was supposed to be around 102. With the humidity, it makes it unsafe especially for the kids. Therefore, we arrived at the beach around 8:30. The water was cool and felt great. The kids couldn't wait to get in and play around. By 10:30, there were shade structures (umbrellas etc.) up all over the beach. I took a break shortly after that, and I realized how hot it was already getting. When we were playing in the water, it wasn't that noticeable. It only took a minute or two out of it to start sweating standing still. Wow! Luckily for us, Trent had purchased a shade structure at the Exchange the evening before. It worked out great for stowing our stuff and for giving us a place to go sit down and get some water periodically. Good thinking Trent!

We left around 11:30. It is a testament to the heat that none of the kids argued with us when it was time to leave. Dad bought some replenishing slurpees and we were off for home. It was a short trip, but we sure did have a great time.

Cool Jon sporting his new sunglasses

Our shade structure (I took a picture of all of the umbrellas and blue caves along the beach, but it ended up being an unintentional picture of the lifeguard in her bikini, so I will leave it out.) The Monster House sand castle Trent built with Jon


There is a great statue of Neptune at the beach. I took some pictures as we left. I am so used to California (west coast) where the sun sets over the ocean. Here, it rises over the ocean (east coast duh). As a result, the sun was in our eyes out over the ocean and makes it hard to see the great detail in the statue.