Beach Pictures

Update: I still have Vertigo. For the past five days, it has felt like my entire life has been uprooted and moved onto a cruise ship. One that's cruising across the North Atlantic. Except there's no Ledo Deck and no little drinks with umbrellas.

Anyways, I have a Dr's appointment Saturday morning, so hopefully it will be something that is easily treated. Of course, if you google "vertigo," the results are almost all related to brain tumors. Sweet.

So, anyways, as promised, here are the pictures I took while on my vacation. Sigh. Vacation.

Currituck Lighthouse

Someone else's family photo

The long, narrow walkway that started the Vertigo issue

Very tall grassy-type plants

My dragon fly friend

Pretty

The lighthouse, from the sound

Canadian Geese

The Captain reads the sign

Pretty again!

Ridiculous squinty picture of me

Blade

My monarch friend

Support your local hookers

Signs, signs, everywhere are signs

Sunset through a foggy lens

Vertigo

Well, I've been at the beach on The Outer Banks of NC all week (pause to let you hate me). I haven't been able to go for the past three years or so, so I was exceedingly excited that I could this year. Chris came as well, but he had to leave this morning because he has to go be a big important guitar player in our friend's band for two performances at Floyd Fest.

I will post some pictures I've taken later... I haven't had the energy to pull them off my camera.

So, the week has been great. I'm on book #4 (yes, I like to spend vacation reading!). I've gotten a bit of sun (no rash yet!), but I've spent most of my time on the beach in the shade provided by this big tent/shade thing my dad has or in the water.

Yesterday, I got this horrible bout of Vertigo (dizzy, light-headed badness) for several hours, and I'm feeling it again today. This kind of shit's not supposed to happen on vacation! I've been trying to drink water, stay out of the sun, eat well, and basically take care of myself, and I'm not sure what else to do. I've gotten Vertigo before (and it has been popping up more often lately), but never for more than one day in a row. I'm not a big fan of getting the spins for no good reason.

Anyways, hopefully it will go away soon. Back to my wonderfully fat book.

Being Civil

Today, I went to a Civil War reenactment of The Batlle of Bull Run/Manassas. It was five zillion degrees, and I got a bit burnt, but it was really amazing to see the battle. Eight thousand people volunteered to take part as reenactors, and they all got really into it. There were real officers giving real commands to real regiments, and everyone's garb looked great. The coolest part was the end, because we got to see a cavalry skirmish. Horsies are nifty.

Because the reenactment took place in VA, there were a lot of Confederate-supporting types there, and I was afraid that people would be yelling obscenities at the Union side or something, but, everyone was civil (ha!).

Tomorrow morning I leave for vacation. At the beach. Hellz yeah. I am at the point where I don't care what the weather does, I don't care if I need to stay out of the sun a little more than years past, and I don't care if the waves aren't great. All I care about is relaxing. Sometimes I have to work really hard to be able to relax, but there's something about the beach that makes it a little easier on me.

I won't be writing too much, but I will surely post some pictures sometime during the week.

Have a great week all!

Gulf Ball

I haven't written in quite a bit, and that's because I was on vacation in Florida this past week. I didn't do the whole internet thing at all, which I highly recommend you do for yourself every once-in-awhile. People were not made to stare at screens all damn day! Although, I came home to about a gazillion emails in my inbox. Blech. Anyways, a good friend of mine and Chris's let us come down with him and several other people and hang out in his family's beach house on the Gulf Coast for a few days. It was pretty frickin' sweet. Chris and I went on a really nice paddle on the bay side of the cape, grabbed a couple seafood dinners (oysters!), climbed the local lighthouse, and went exploring down the coast. All that was on top of much hanging out on the beach, playing games, reading books, and imbibing alcoholic beverages. Vacation is always way too short.

Here are some shots from the trip:

Chris Exploring

Tree Root Tentacle...

Crazy Beach Hair

Palm Tree Corpse

The Van and the 'Yaks

The House We Stayed In: Do Me Good

Now, back to work and the real world...

Homecoming

We headed to Williamsburg Friday night because this weekend was homecoming weekend. Our band was hired to play a short gig at the Alumni House, and we had to get up at the crack of dawn to get there on time. We played a very mediocre show. But, we ran in to lots of old friends, which was nice. Though homecoming day was fun, many of us were more excited about the fact that we were heading to Deltaville, where my friend Darby (percussionist in the band) has a house on the Bay. Well, I should say his parents have the house on the Bay. And we were fortunate enough to be able to stay there.

Anyways, this place is amazing, so I thought I'd show off how I got to spend my weekend:

I hope your weekend was just as good!

Beachy Keen!

Back from the beach and back to reality. Damn that's depressing. So I had this brilliant idea to write a blog post while I was away... by hand. So here it is (and yes, I'm acutely aware that my handwriting sucks):

So, an added note: Chris's van's window did eventually decide to go up, and before it started raining on our drive back on Sunday! I don't think I've ever seen Chris so relieved. The few hundred dollars it would have cost to get that fixed simply wasn't welcome, especially after non-insured doctor's visits and a weekend away.

We headed to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel also on Saturday afternoon, and stopped at the restaurant/gift shop/pier in the middle. Three miles offshore, and you can just hang out. Very awesome.

On Sunday, we went to Fort Story near VA Beach (which is a military base and an historic site). We climbed the old lighthouse (after which my thighs seized up completely. Dehydrated much?), checked out the site where the Jamestown colonists originally landed (hence "First Landing"), and saw dolphins off the coast. T'was brilliant.

Some pictures of our trip for your viewing pleasure:

The walk to the Chesapeake from our campground.

Chris checking out the boats. He likes boats.

A tanker in the Chesapeake.

Posing.

The pier off of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel.

Chris and I on the Bridge-Tunnel.

Old Cape Henry Light= conquered.

The view off Cape Henry.

Assembly of Japanese tent require peace-of-mind...

Oh wait, that's a bunny!

Just another quick note: I've finally updated the Ryan's Recommendations section (which now permanently resides to the right of the posts). I'm trying to update this weekly. Some of the electronics on there now are things I'm in the market for and am on the verge of purchasing. I'm in need of YOUR recommendations there!