BEACH 'BERRIES

Saturday, June 22, 2002: The Eager Journey Begins

This was a watershed vacation. Jennifer had been struggling for far too long to escape the clutches of a Confederate madman at her old job, whose strongest virtue was that he’d someday no longer be among the living. The gods of serendipity must have been smiling upon her, because we had planned the trip far in advance of any foreseeable changes in her career, but it worked out that she received a new job offer with enough time that she could successfully give her notice to the boor. It worked out that she served her last day in that hellhole right before the vacation began. She would ultimately get to begin her new job after a refreshing time at the beach.

Cartoon depiction of the attitude and mental capability of Jennifer's soon-to-be ex-boss.

Overall, this vacation was intended to be a very different experience from our Washington DC vacation back in July 1999. That vacation was a “grab and scramble” blitzkrieg experience, where we tried to cram in as much as possible. This one would be exactly the opposite; we didn't plan beyond a couple of events so we could just kind of do what we felt like. It was loosely structured and intended to be slow paced.

First flying experience

So that morning found us eagerly waiting to get our baggage checked at the customary lines of the airport. Another hour wait at our concourse, and then Jennifer and I shipped out punctually at 6:00 a.m.

I'd have to say that my first takeoff was not a pleasant experience for me. A quick segue...those who know me are aware that I have a disdain for roller coasters. Many of them believe I don't like roller coasters because I fear falling, but this is not true. The reality is that I just don't like that sick feeling in my stomach that is caused by the plummeting. The fact is that I have a fear (a phobia even?), of being violently sick in a public place. I’ve always been puzzled at how everyone else seems to love that sensation. To me, people who love roller coasters should also love contracting the flu, since it causes that same “fun” sensation of rolling and heaving in the stomach and is safer, to boot.

Anyway, that initial lifting into the air gave my stomach leaps and rolls for most of the flight, and I had to avoid looking out the window for the first part, else my empty stomach would have released bile and other biological nasties. It was bad enough watching the cabin spin before my eyes. But I have to say that once the plane leveled out, it was a truly unique experience. Jennifer told me, "If you can stand it, look outside...we're above the clouds!" On this and all subsequent flights, I was struck by how much having the skyline below us felt like we were traveling over a cloud palace or something. Coolness.

Despite all the stories about airline security, we were fortunate that we were never asked to step out of line for a random search. One poor older woman, however, was not so lucky. At our first layover, she got pulled aside and forced to stand with all limbs extended while the crack security team frisked her wantonly with an electronic wand. We felt sorry for her, because she was taking a gift on board with her, and it was wrapped up already in nice paper. The uniformed heavies forced her to completely unwrap it, so I doubt it looked as good when she gave it to whomever it was intended. We just had to wonder how threatening a gray-headed matronly woman could look.

The Tunnel of Bliss

We had a layover in Detroit, Michigan, which was a gray depressing city that inspired us both to slice our wrists and bleed our life’s blood all over the closest concourse. Fortunately, we were saved from such temptation by the gigantic Tunnel of Bliss [resonant echo] evidenced in that airport. Basically, it is a quarter-of-a-mile long passageway with a conveyor belt that ferries customers through what looks like a gut filled with mellow lights. The lights cycle through a rainbow spectrum of soft, fuzzy colors, while the acoustic ceiling reverberated with a symmetrical chop suey of sounds designed to keep we irate passengers docile.

A Churn With Wings?

From this otherwise dismal bog of a city, we caught our flight into Norfolk, Virginia. This plane was even larger than the first one, and we were all the way in the last seats, right against the engine. Conversation wasn’t possible because of the noise, and it rattled our teeth the entire way there. If we had consumed curds on board, we’d have wretched up cheese by the time we touched down. Most definitely a churn with wings. Jennifer hated every queasy, undulating moment of it for exactly the reasons I preferred it; she couldn’t orient herself to the plane’s motion, because she wasn’t able to see outside. This was probably because she got the window seat that time, and her window was blocked off. Overall, despite the poorer accommodations, I enjoyed that flight much better, as I did the two return planes. I got over my initial queasiness, and was even able to watch the scenery as our planes touched down.

A Legend Born: the Trial With the Luggage

It happens all the time. Everyone knows it happens. And they fear they’ll be the ones to whom it does happen. The Lost Luggage [insert resonant echo]. Jennifer and I got directions to the baggage claim area from one of the luggage drones outside the noisy plane and went down the escalator to that ominous conveyor belt. There, we waited while bag after bag rolled past us, all of them sharing in common only two features; they looked exactly the same and they weren’t ours. At first, we didn’t worry too much, since there were hundreds of bags rolling through and we figured ours would eventually show up. But the minutes ticked by, more and more other people found their luggage and left and ours was nowhere in sight. Then the panic began to settle into our previously churned guts. It didn’t help when another luggage drone stepped onto the conveyor belt and started hurling innocent bags roughly out of the way, so new bags—also not ours—could start to fill the conveyor belt.

So we split up to better enable us to watch both ends of the circulating belt, but I was slowly starting to reconcile myself to having to go stand in the line of doomed souls at the office of lost luggage. Time dims my memory now, but I’m certain there were letters of hellfire over the door spelling out, “Abandon All Hope, Ye who”…well, you get the idea.” Then I heard Jennifer call my name and turned to find that she’d fetched out luggage from what was apparently a late delivery cart. With relief, I realized we would, in fact, have fresh underwear for the duration of this vacation.

Luggage in hand, we rented our car without mishap and made the 18-mile trip on the old, familiar I-64 to the humble Sundial Motel. [Sigh] The worst was over. Now it was time to enjoy the surf!


The Beach- More Breasts Than You Can Imagine

Once we got settled into our motel and grabbed a much overdue dinner, we headed straight for the sandy eastern coastline. Having been there before, I was prepared for the marvel of the salt sea, but I couldn't resist turning to Jennifer to say, "Welcome to the Atlantic!" She was totally wowed by it...the smells, the sounds, the infinite spanning into the horizon. And there were near-naked people everywhere! We agreed before we left that we would both be allowed (for the duration of the trip) to gape without guilt at the people with perfect, golden bodies, and there were plenty of them! Breasts were a-bobbling everywhere we looked (those b*tches), along with guys with perfect pecs and washboard stomachs (those bastards).

We’re Gonna Rock Down to At-lantic Av-a-New

Aside from that, however, we spent much time walking up and down Atlantic Avenue (which I couldn't help singing to the tune of Eddy Grant’s “Electric Avenue”), the boardwalk where we could watch the surf, and the people riding the bicycles built for four. At one point, we purchased a couple of "frozen ices," which amount basically to a snow cone with sweet syrup poured over the top. I got lemon flavor, and I think Jennifer got some nasty-ass berry flavor. We were lucky to get to be at the beach during a full moon, so at night, we got to see moonlight draped across the ocean. From the huge-ass pier we visited, it was a very tranquil experience.

Sunday June 23, 2002: Up Front (and Bouncy) and Personal

Personally, I felt no need to frolic in the sea, and I knew this when we left. When I did that last around the year 1988, I felt some creepy crawly on the ocean bottom grab my toe. My brother almost got hit in the back with a jelly fish, that same trip; given these conditions, I have never been able to stomach the thought of being out there again.

Lady J Vs the Atlantic Ocean

However, when the sun dawned on the Atlantic for our second day, I strongly encouraged Jennifer to enjoy herself.

And so she did.

I went barefoot and allowed the ocean to wash over my feet, while I held her towel and sandals for her so she could wade out and allow the surf to pummel her. It was funny, because while she was joyfully jumping around in those salty crests and troughs, she was slowly being pushed to the north, such that I had to keep walking up the beach to keep her in sight. It wasn't until almost the end of her playtime that she realized she'd been moved close to 1,000 feet from our original starting point. She emerged jubilant from her first bout with the Atlantic Ocean.

The Cabana Cafe:

This was a nice little outdoor restaurant and bar that was right next to the beach. We went there three different times, mostly for alcohol, but generally because it was a comfy spot where we could look out at the beach. Since this was a vacation, we decided to try a couple of different drinks while we were there. On this particular day, we both had Bahama Mamas.


Later on during the trip, Jennifer ordered a pina colada, while I tried to order a “Hurricane.” They didn't know how to make that, so I asked the one-handed bartender if she could manage something with whiskey. A few minutes later, I got a red, punchy drink with cherries on top. “Denise,” the bartender, came over a few minutes later to ask me if the drink tasted all right and I rightly guessed that she had never made it before in her life. It turns out that she had called a few people, and asked what one could do with whiskey. In the end, she had made basically a whiskey sour with a shot of grenadine, “to make it look tropical.” I loved it! At long last, I had a fruity drink I could make when Jennifer wanted her “tequila sunrises” or margaritas. Denise was, by the way, missing her right hand, so I referred to my new drink choice for the longest time as a “sour lefty.”

The rest of Day #2 was pretty slow and we wouldn’t have had it any other way.

Monday June 24, 2002: Beyond the Beach

Today, Jennifer wanted to travel up and down one of the bays, and see some of the sights there.

Dredging and Artillery- The Tour Through The Shipyards

A boat tour was one of only two activities that we actually planned before leaving. We loaded ourselves into our trusty rental car and puttered our way to another location on the edge of the North American continent; the Hampton Roads Harbor. Four miles long and 40 feet deep, the harbor is the point through which the waters of the James, Nansemond, and Elizabeth rivers pass into Chesapeake Bay.

We slathered ourselves two inches deep in sun block and climbed aboard the little tour ferry, where I purchased an overpriced Killian’s beer. Then we sat back to watch the sights. Mwow!

We got to see a dredge boat, whose purpose was to send down a large crane to scoop up mud off the ocean bottom. Why? To widen and deepen the bay for larger ships. But these weren't the most amazing sights. No, those were the huge naval ships we got to view, including several battleships (one flying a Turkish flag), and one very large supercarrier. The tour guide told us that at that time, there were only five in the entire American naval fleet. That SOB was almost 22 stories tall, held a crew complement of 6,000 people, and had everything a small city would have, including a bakery and butcher shop!

ABOVE: A couple of supercarriers, at least one of which could hold a population of 6000 people!
BELOW: A formidable battleship, one able to track hundreds of incoming targets simultaneously.

Clunk! The Camera Crashes

The title says it all. This was the only downside of this little adventure. We were getting plenty of good shots of the ships in the various shipyards, until Jennifer's high-end Minolta Maxxum 9000 camera suddenly locked up in mid-shot, leaving the shutter permanently covering the lens. Try as she might she couldn't get it to unlock. An obsolete model, it still proved itself a high-end product when Jennifer snapped a beautiful stilled image of a twin rotor military helicopter. Once it locked up, however, we weren’t even able to get a picture of the boat that carried us. Jennifer really wanted that, so it cast a bit of a shadow on that chapter of the trip. Jennifer would later travel on alone to a camera repair facility, to see about getting her baby back up and running.

Alas, the patient was ruled to have died on the proverbial table; the repairman informed her that the bare minimum for a repair would be a part that was more expensive than the entire camera and it would have to arrive by mail. We’d be long gone from the beach by then. So she elected to purchase a cheap pink camera instead, one that looked like a gigantic lozenge that could be sucked down to nubbin if one could find a mouth big enough to ingest it. Girly. Puke. Nonetheless, the nauseating cheapass camera was the valuable workhorse of the day, and we used it to finish out our vacation.

Help, Thomas Has Gone Blind!

Jennifer was quite annoyed when she returned to the room with the cheap camera, so we agreed that we could get our groove back if both of us went back down to the pool for a refreshing immersion.

It was on our second jaunt that I got the bright idea to swim underwater more, and we started playing some games like swimming between each other's ankles on the pool bottom. That required some coordination, so I spent most of that period with my eyes open underwater. What does your mother always tell you about that? I never did that much as a child. Now I “see” why (yuk, yuk).

It started when we first climbed out of the pool. I looked around, and everything was covered by a white nimbus, as though I was looking through a veil at the world. Try as I might, I couldn't get my eyes to clear up. And that was just the beginning of my suffering. An hour or so later, they turned blood red and started to burn and itch. Imagine eyes full of sand, and you've got the idea. I could only hold them open for a few seconds at a time before they filled with tears and ran down my face.

"Weird Al" Yankovich's vibrating, distended eyeballs captures how Thomas felt after foolishly keeping his eyes open too long underwater.

Not to be deterred, we were determined to get another walk on the beach (and another drink at the Cabana Cafe), so we purchased some eye drops, which did finally start to help...but those hours without clear eyesight were absolutely horrible. Next time we went to the pool, I learned my lesson. Swim underwater with your eyes closed, and use your hands to tell you where you are…and whose parts you’re touching. ;)

We ended the day with a nice evening walk around the beach.


Tuesday June 25, 2002: The Virginia Beach Info-Dump

The next day would be a much more cerebral tour of the area than the one before.

900-Foot (Jesus!) Cape Henry Lighthouse

This adventure was one that Jennifer suggested after we arrived. Basically, it was a 200-year-old, 900-foot lighthouse first authorized by Congress around 1789. The old sandstone structure was built at Cape Henry, right at the mouth of Chesapeake Bay.

All the history aside (and we had a detailed pamphlet on it), the damn thing was still a pretty tall structure. After getting gouged by those who sold us the tickets, we went inside and traveled up the spiral staircase, all the way to the top. There were no real stopping points, so imagine going almost all the way up a nine-story building, except without any breaks in the staircase.

Whew! We were so exhausted and tired! At the top, there was an excellent view, but it was so damn hot! The information booth said that temperatures in that glass apex could reach 110 degrees, and I could believe that! Jennifer got several pictures.

The lighthouse isn't used any more, in favor of the “newer” one that stands across the street, which was completed at the end of the 19th century. At one point, some know-it-all other tourist decided he’d start dictating the geography and history of the region while we were up there, but we had little patience for such nonsense…that was the first part of our brains that bubbled away in the intense heat. So we ignored him and he kindly visited upon us the boon of his absence.

We otherwise walked around the Chesapeake Bay area. It was a nice opportunity to get pictures of the beautiful surroundings, read the monuments of Revolutionary War heroes and see the massive break-walls that line the coastline and protect the shores from storm-driven high waves.

Neat scene capturing both the elder and younger Cape Henry Lighthouses.

Hell on Earth at the Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center

Children, children, everywhere.

Yes, as the vacation was spiraling down, this sentiment became omnipresent. Basically, we were just getting tired of people. But the worst was when we went to the Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center, a suggestion of mine. I'm quite a fan of museums and had hoped this one would be jolly good fun. It did give us the chance to see a tank filled with sharks, some seals, river otters, and snakes. We didn't have any video technology with us, but you can see someone else's taken some years later:


I even got to see what it would be like for someone in the last seconds before a shark swallowed them whole [shudder].


There was also a great exhibit on Antarctica, about which I previously knew nothing at all.

However, many of the exhibits didn't even work properly (“push this button and see...”), and the ones that did were covered with screaming kids. They tended to rudely hog in wherever we were, and then they took over so we couldn't really enjoy ourselves.

Lady J Shoves Water Down the Kids’ Throats

A bit frustrated at the crowds by this time, we returned from the museum and went for what we hoped would be a peaceful dip in the pool.

Not surprisingly, however, it was not to be.

Again with the kids!! Jennifer got angry because three of the unwholesome brats kept splashing around right next to us. No matter where we went in the pool, the little bastards kept showing up, and we couldn't figure out why three children had to have the entire pool. Jennifer splashed around in an angry huff at one point, and glared at one little boy until he got scared out of his wits. The pool water may have been just a bit more yellow after that….

Sore Yin Yangs—When you Pay Through Them too Much For Beer

Among other reasons, we were glad to be moving toward Kentucky because the prices were outrageous...a case of Killian’s cost about $8, and we never had a meal for less than $20. Our money disappeared very rapidly, yet another casualty of vacationing at a tourist trap. The ol’ yin yang gets quite sore after one pays through it enough times.

Wednesday June 26, 2002: Bodies Hurtling Back Home

Ready to go back home, Jennifer and I packed our things and drove our trusty rental car back to the airport. This entire chapter was largely uneventful, which is always desirable when one is hurtling through space at more than 500 miles per hour.

Home never looked so beautiful. With the previously mentioned prices and the piles of children, we decided that next time, we may only schedule four days instead of five. That way, we'll leave before the annoying parts become overwhelming.

Another thought we had...if we ever go back to the beach again, the Travelin' Thornberries might just want to invite some good friends along! ;)

Ye Ende



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