awesomeness

This past weekend I went to Virginia Beach with my family. My sister couldn't make it & even though we were sad she wasn't there, we still had a good time. I hobbled along with my busted foot/ankle to the beach, which was way too hard & painful the day we got there as it was boiling hot. XD My parents did gt me a camping chair to sit in, so I sat & read. Then hobbled back. T.T Our seafood dinner that night was awesome! :D The next day, we did an easy nature trail, which was nice. I'm amazed that these peeps let their kids jump off their boat & splash around & climb on the bank in water moccasin territory. XD And yes, we did see one on the trail that slithered on by in front of us! o.0 Lunch was crappy McDonald's & you know it's bad when they get the orders wrong & peeps come in off the drive through to yell at the manager. We had more seafood for dinner. XD The next day was another nature trail through some wetlands. We saw a beautiful little bird called a redstart. *LAUGHS* The bird was mostly grey with yellow spots on its wings & tail. XD https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/American_Redstart/id

Lunch was better at Wendy's, but dinner was at this Italian place & while my meatballs were tasty & biggish (I could only eat 2 out 3), the spaghetti I ordered to go with it was dry & burnt tasting. XD I ate it, but didn't enjoy it. I did have fun that afternoon watching some crows playing. We were on the top floor of the hotel (floor 14) & they would jump off the top of the building like lil cliff jumpers, with wings held out to catch the breeze. Even the seagulls were riding the wind. :D The crows were too funny! They also harassed some ospreys, trying to make them drop their catch. We also saw a bald eagle fly by! I've seen them on the Island near where I live & I've also seen them fishing at Connowengo (sp?) dam, but never on the beach! XD

While we were there, they had an end of summer festival on the boardwalk, which was cool. The one night we walked around a bit, saw The Ambassadors, who played some awesome reggae! They were playing outside in this lil area outside a fried chicken place. (It was for peeps to eat outside instead of inside.) at first there was just us & a couple of other peeps, but they soon had nice crowd inside the eating area & out on the street watching them. Peeps were even dancing along! Other bands were playing too, up & down the board walk as part of the festival. There were food vendors, crafters, peeps selling all sorts of stuff. :D We could see & hear the music from our balcony.

The last day was spent at the aquarium. We even wandered onto their lil nature trails, but all we saw was some sort of raptor that was silhouetted, so it was hard to tell exactly what it was (probably an osprey), a couple of crabs & a ton of lil snails that made the reeds look like pussy-willows. It was a marsh area. We also saw some skinny7 squirrels. XD They probably weren't skinny, they were just normal sized, unlike the fat & sassy ones that like to empty my bird-feeders. XD

I liked the aquarium & the wetlands trail, where we saw a water moccasin curled up under the brush along the water bank & the one we saw swimming! Dang! That thing swam like it was trying to be the next Michael Phelps! o.0 We also saw a Heron, the redstart, what I call "flying spiders" (They're HUGE & they hang their webs between trees, so they look like they're hovering in midair. XD), a wolf spider that I thought was a lil tree frog until it came out onto the leaf (I don't knwo what you call it, but it's some kind of tall grass that grows around the cattails), a pretty lil spider with jewels on its abdomen. The food at the aquarium was good too. We had fish & chips, except it seems peeps they eat their fish with tater sauce. YUCK! XD So no vinegar, but I did improvise & snagged a packet of Newman's Own lite Italian. That tends to be a bit on the vinegary side, so it worked in a pinch. :D

And because I didn't have access to my compy, I want to wish those on my f-list who celebrate, a happy, healthy, and sweet New Year!