Where In The World Is Sum1?

This Is A Vacation?

Virginia Beach, Va

         The weeks of 6/3 and 6/10 found me (us) on vacation, something different for me that's for sure.  Our plans were to go to Virginia Beach for a week or so, mainly to drop off our Akita to his breeder (Faith is her name) for a couple of months so she could train him to be shown at a dog show.  My wife has shown dogs in the past, but now she is too old and out of shape to do it, I have no experience with this, so it would require both of us being trained, and who would train us?  Faith was more than happy to be reunited with Buddy (Our Akita) for a couple of months.  So Virginia Beach was a logical destination.

         I started vacation on Monday, but we didn't leave until Thursday around noon.  In retrospect, we should have left Sunday and spent time seeing other destinations and/or sites.  Oh well, I can't undo what's been done, huh.  The drive there was not the best on Thursday.  Someone (me) had it in his wacky mind that we should drive to Peru Indiana to see a man I know (well, know is a stretch) on FB.  He owns a donut shop there, and seems to write well.  I was going to encourage him to join WDC.  But I never considered that he would open the donut shop and arrive very early (say 5 am), so he would leave early too.  We arrived a little after 4, he leaves around 10 or so.  Yeah, I should have planned that much better, huh.  Anyway, we spent Thursday night in Dayton Ohio.  It should have taken us 5 hours to get to Dayton, but ended up taking almost 9 hours.  <sigh>

         The next two days went as planned though.  We spent Friday night in Cumberland Maryland, but not before having dinner at Penn Alps.  This restaurant is in an area that is inhabited by people of Scandanavian & Amish descent,  The restaurant has an excellent buffet that serves good, down-home country type food.  We love this place, and dine there whenever we pass thru.  My dinner was a Salad, a cup of their Clam Chowder, Ham, Green Beans, Butterflied Shrimp, Fried Fish, one hush-puppy and a dessert sampler (sort of).  I failed to grab one of my favorite items though, Fried Clams!  Saturday found us stopping in Leesburg, Va to visit a Produce Stand we found long ago.  Brossman's Produce Stand.  They have THE BEST Lime Pickles there.  No, not Lime as in the Fruit, but Lime Pickling Powder.  Here's what I found about it on a quick search.  "Pickling lime is sometimes used during the pickling process to give pickles an extra crunch. It's a form of food-grade calcium hydroxide. Traditional canning recipes usually suggest soaking freshly sliced cucumbers or other vegetables in pickling lime for 10 to 24 hours before canning them."  We bought 4 jars of those pickles, and gave a jar to Faith, and my daughter Jennifer who we met for lunch while there.

         We arrived in Virginia Beach Saturday afternoon/evening, and stayed at The Founders Inn.  This is the hotel that hosted the Akita National Specialty Dog Show two years ago.  The hotel is very nice, and is spread out around the grounds, instead of being a high rise like many hotels.  We used Hilton Honors points instead of Credit Card, and the rate was very good!  It was 40,000 points/night, which is what a typical Hampton Inn runs.  Did you wonder about the value of those 150,000 Hilton Honors points I raffled last year during the WDC Birthday month?  We used about 175,000 of those points on this trip.  The only card charge was a pet fee each night.  So cash out for pet fees was about $200.  Still, think about how much the hotels would have run (I  refuse to stay at a Motel 6 or Super 8, or even Comfort Inns anymore) if I'd paid with a credit card.

         The time in Virginia Beach was all too short, even though we stayed an extra day.  We really enjoyed our time there, but dang, the traffic!  Wow.... plus it was too crowded everywhere we went.  I got a kick out of taking my wife to the Norfolk Naval Base.  She got her first 'up close and personal' view of the aircraft carriers USS Gerald R Ford CVN 75, and the USS Harry S. Truman CVN 71.  Her amazement at their size and such was amusing to say the least.  Even though I retired 31 years ago, this is still 'old hat' to me, so her reaction was cute.  I didn't try to get her a tour on board one though.  That would take advance planning/permission, and both of these ships were not available for a tour, nor would she be able to handle the ladders/passageways, not to mention the walking across the brow to get on board.  Heck I can't even get her on the USS Intrepid, a museum aircraft carrier in New York City because of the brow issue.

         The drive home was uneventful, and only 2 days in length, instead of the crazy 3 day drive getting there.  We arrive home, and I was beat, just beat.  This was not what I'd call a vacation, I thought those were relaxing.  Still, it was a fun time though. That's all for now.  Til next time, keep on writing, most of all, keep on loving those special people in your life!

JimD