Tuesday may have been a wash, but things still went quite well!
August 25, 2005, 10:39 AM
Tuesday was mostly a wash, unfortunately, with rain causing me to scrap most of my outdoor activities. Sad. But I did get to peruse the strip, and got “part 2” of the holier-than-thou attitude of the management of the Holiday Department Store at the corner of 19th and Atlantic (diagonal from my hotel). I photographed a sign on the door of the “boy’s stockroom”, which is just as bad as the one I got last year on the back door about boxes. The writing is readable, and I shall transcribe it when I get back home (I’m at the library again).
Anyway, though, the strip was good, and I made a discovery. To discover the strip, you really only need to walk maybe six blocks in either direction from your hotel (if that), because the strip repeats itself. You have a few classes of stores on the strip. Stores that sell souvenirs and beach crap, stores that offer henna tattoos, oxygen bars, little convenience stores, and restaurants for seafood or pizza. Then they start to repeat. Seriously. Even the same stores. I went a ways south on the strip, and found another “Holiday Department Store”. I found three “Sunsations” stores. It all repeats.
Since it was still raining quite hard by the time dinner came around, I pulled out the umbrella and took a walk down the strip in search of the food that struck my fancy. I walked a LONG way south and didn’t find anything exciting. Not wanting to walk all that way back, I took a VB Wave trolleybus up to about 24th Street and then walked south again. I found a seafood restaurant, and had dinner there. Quite enjoyable, though I hate restaurants with mirror walls. I don’t like looking at a mirror image of myself eating while I’m eating.
Wednesday was gorgeous. I took a couple of hours and went swimming in the ocean, with a heavier-than-normal surf. The lifeguards had their red flags out to indicate this rough surf. But since I know how to swim and am quite comfortable in the water (thank you to Mom for emphasizing swimming as a child), I did just fine. In fact, normal surf is kind of boring. So this was fun.
Then after that, I got out, went back to the hotel, got all cleaned off, reapplied my SPF 30, and went back out, this time with Big Mavica. I was getting some beach photos, and they’ll turn up in the Life and Times set I plan on doing on the trip. Possibly also a Photography set, considering how many shots I got, and how some of them really came out well. I walked a good distance down the beach, and crossed under the fishing pier. There, I went back to the boardwalk, cleaned off my feet, and there ran into a couple formerly from DC. You know how much I love talking about DC, and so we got into a nice conversation about that. Then from there, I went up onto the Fishing Pier again, and did some photography, and saw a lot of people catching fish, and even saw some fish getting cleaned – rinsed off, de-scaled, gutted, and then rinsed-off inside. Yeew. This is why when I go fishing, I do it in a grocery store. All the joy of eating fish, without the blood and guts.
Then dinner on Wednesday was a trip to the pizza place next to the Mexican restaurant I visited on Monday. However, going there, I ran into a singing group from Canada (the city of Virginia Beach provides street entertainment on evenings with good weather). They were singing a song I was familiar with! It was one of the songs from the “Medley of Canadian Folk Songs from Newfoundland and Quebec that Sharon, Lois, and Bram sang on Today’s Special.
Then today I got ready to go. Sad. I have to go back home now. But this vacation was fun. I was watching CNN news, and they showed a picture of Cindy Sheehan’s son (killed in Iraq) on the TV. Cindy Sheehan, for those of you who don’t know, is the woman who set up a vigil outside Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas to protest the war. The picture of her son was a drawing based on an official military photo. I saw that, and I thought, I know I’ve seen that photo before! I recognized it from my Day of Activism photography set that I did in 2004. Someone then had been holding up a large photo of a serviceman at the demonstration at Arlington National Cemetery, and it looked like the one. Looking at the set just now, it was a pretty good match. I don’t have the resolution on this monitor to make out the name on the uniform, but I think it said “SHEEHAN” on it. I’ll check the high-resolution original when I get home to make a positive ID.
So all in all, my vacation was fun. I look forward to seeing everyone both in person and online when I get back home tonight.
Web site: Wikipedia article on Cindy Sheehan
Song: Medley of Canadian Folk Songs from Newfoundland and Quebec
Quote: All in all, a fun vacation! See you back home!
Categories: Anti-war, Photography, Travel, Virginia Beach