Often these days life gets in the way of me writing. It use to be a way of decompressing and something I enjoyed in my free time. These days with more responsibilities at my paying job/career and more attention needed for my growing family; writing and updates to these blog often get put off to the side.
So I pulled up the site for the first time in quite awhile to notice an entry from last year that was never posted.
====================================================================
It's our one year anniversary and time to get away. As I've stated before my job as allowed me to travel all over the United States over the last twenty years. I have seen a lot of this country and been most major cities. Pam has only been to a few places in her short time here. So we planned a trip for our one year anniversary. We did the Mid Atlantic swing, as I like to call it, with stops in North Carolina, Virginia, and Washington DC.
Pam doesn't have a whole lot of relatives in the US. One of her cousins lives in the small town of Jefferson, North Carolina which is nestled up in the Blue Ridge Mountains. We made plans to spend the weekend with them.
The first night of our trip we stopped in downtown Charleston, West Virginia. The city had some charm and a fairly bustling scene for a Friday evening in July. We walked around for awhile, stretching out from a long day of driving. We ate at a local pizza and beer joint before retiring back to the hotel for the evening. The next morning it was a four hour drive up through the mountains to our destination. We lost cell phone service and I certain the only way we found their house was because Steve was standing near the road and we saw him on our third pass. After settling in and having a late lunch; they took us on a tour of Jefferson. The next day we got a scenic tour of the mountain and surrounding areas and ate a great meal at a BBQ restaurant. Early the next morning we headed out as Leah and Steve both had to work. It was a short but fun stay with breathtaking views. Now it was onto our real vacation... Virginia Beach!
After a few hours of driving we arrived at Virginia Beach and our first stop was Jollibee of course! Pam had to get her Chicken Joy craving out of the way. Then it was three days of sunny beaches and relaxing and exploring the city. We kept it low key, staying near the Boardwalk Area of the beach most of the days. We did head over the Virginia Beach Aquarium one morning followed by a stop at a Filipino resto. After three days of fun, sun, good eats, and beer it was time to head to the next destination.
For a change of scenery we headed to Ocean City, Maryland for a day. We checked in the hotel and walked to the beach. This time we didn't stick around the beach. Instead we cooled off at the Ocean City Brewing Company for awhile where I sampled a couple of local flavors before eating delicious crabs from down the street.
Now it was off to Washington DC to spend the weekend with my friends Chris and Teri. On the way we made a tour Dogfish Head Brewery. Pam always puts up with my side trips to these places. We arrived at my friends apartment late in the afternoon. There was nothing too exciting on night one as we just was catching up with one of my best friends. Saturday came and we headed downtown to see some sites like The White House, Capitol Building, Mint, and Washington Monument. Smithsonian Natural History Museum and American History Museum were also on the agenda. All fun stops. We made them Filipino dinner that night and cooled off from morning. Sunday morning we decided to hit up the National Zoo. Once again the rest of the day was spend cooling off and hanging out. Early Monday morning came and once again we hit the road so our friends could get to work. Another short weekend stop but it's always good to see those two.
Eventually we got back home and decompressed for a day before I had to head back to work. It was a good vacation. My goal was to always take Pam places.To see places and parts of the US. On our trips, I am seeing old roads and places through a new set of eyes. It puts a new spin on it all for me. Plus it is a hell of a lot more interesting traveling with my lovely wife than the days I traveled alone in a box truck full of AV equipment.
Observation of An Illogical mind by Sean Kimmel is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at http://www.seankimmel.com.
Please feel free to share the link but contact me for any other uses or publication. Thanks.