The Benefields rolled out to the Virginia Beach Area for spring break this year with weather more suited for a snow skiing trip. It was nearly freezing the day we left and it was rainy and cold at the beach.
Our little Fort Story beach cabin was adequate for warm weather, but not really designed to contain a high spirited group of kids like ours. We discovered within minutes of arrival that it was very hard to even think with the kids running wild in the house. We went on a short walk, but a hungry fox was stalking us, so I had to chase him away and then calm down the kids. In order to get the kids in bed earlier, we gave the kids the bedrooms and we slept on the fold out couch in the living room. We made that decision before we actually folded out the couch. I laid on the bed first and Cammie asked if it was comfortable. If being poked by bed springs in the ribs and legs and parts in between is considered comfortable, this bed rocked! I warned Cammie that unless she had spent some time in prison I didn't know about, this bed was going to suck worse than any she had ever slept on. I was right. So, after 17 years of marriage, Cammie is now also my prison girlfriend after the night we spent on that bed.
Our first full day at the beach started with James having war with a spider at the foot of our bed and was characterized by floods and road closures. So we were going to have a day inside, but not, Lord willing, in the tiny prison cell we were renting. We put the kids in front of the TV while we developed a plan, so they embarked on a rainy day Evan Almighty marathon. They never asked me to build us an ark, but I know they were starting to worry as the stormy ocean outside made the movie storms look very calm. Or maybe the little people were paying closer attention to Evan Almighty than I thought.
On viewing three of Evan Almighty, I went to the ticket office at Fort Story and bought tickets to the Pirate ship, Nauticus and USS Wisconsin for the family. This was a http://www.nauticus.org/ great family event, but I think the adults may have been more interested than the children.
We all had fun, but we were "starving to death" as Jay Allen says, by 1500! After trying to put dinner off with a family sized pretzel, we gave in to hunger and journeyed back to Bubba's seafood restaurant. By 1600, we were seated for dinner. The kids were somewhat well behaved, but as an elderly couple walked in, James saw the silver haired lady with glasses and yelled, "GRAMMY!" It took some convincing, but we finally got James to believe that the lady was not his grammy. Of course, that was nicer than what the boys called her husband. After all the Evan Almighty watching, my boys called the elderly man the "weirdo with a beardo." We could not get them to quit saying this in spite of elevating to Threatcon three (threat of a public beating). I am thankful that the weir...I mean the elderly man is hard of hearing or he might have well been offended.
It is important to us as parents to keep our promises, so we took our children to the beach as promised on Tuesday, even while the risk of hypothermia and frost bite was still very high. The kids played until they turned blue and made us to promise to come back each day until we left, though sunshine and warmth was not forecast until the day after we left. Maybe we should extend at the beach a day.
Besides the beach, we played a lot of baseball on this vacation. I have two little league ball players in the family and Carlie is very dedicated to practicing. She had me out in the yard playing catch for two or three hours a day. Jay Allen participated a little, but Carlie practiced relentlessly. I have to admit that she came back from the beach with much better catch and throw skills and is a possible starter at second base! Heck, I came back from the beach with much better catch and throw skills - just in case Bobby Cox is reading this.
Wednesday was not super warm, but relatively warm compared to the other days. We hauled it back out to the beach and hung out until we were all blue and shivering again. Carlie had awaken me at 0630 that morning to look for dolphins and we had seen none, so when I spotted a large group of dolphins early that afternoon, there was great rejoicing in the Benefield family! These dolphins didn't dance on their tails the way the Jekyll Island dolphins did, but making an appearance was huge for our animal and ocean loving children.
The dolphins were a great finale to our beach visit that day, so we loaded up to re-visit the USS Wisconsin (the tours were closed due to rain and slick decks the first day). As we started toward town, Jay Allen declared, "James doesn't have on any pants!" And he didn't. Not sure how he got in the van in his drawers without us noticing, but he did. After we ran back to our cell to get pants on James, we got back to the Wisconsin and had a great time walking through the old ship and its history.
As much fun as the dolphins and Wisconsin were, the big event was visiting the Polings, Bob and April. Our kids love to visit and they thought that Bob and April's house was "awesome". There were cats to terrorize and kids to play with and a pit of balls that James thought was the best thing ever, despite the bad things Bob said about the pit of balls. Visiting with the Polings is always great, and being able to work that into vacation is a definite bonus.
As Wednesday came to a close, we realized that we needed one more day at the beach. When we asked to extend one night in our prison cell, the lodging staff told us that it was taken and they had no room except for the VIP "CG's cottage." Cammie's first instinct was that we were out of luck, but I wanted to know who was in the CG's cottage and whether we rent it. The lodging staff could not answer this for us, but they did put us in touch with the CG's office. Come to think of it, the lodging staff was not overly helpful during the entire stay. When Cammie tried to drop some mail with them, they told her that they could not mail her letter because they were "federal employees." Luckily, the people at the post office did not make the same protest or we would have never gotten that letter mailed!
Back to the issue at hand, the CG's office attacked our lodging crisis as if we lived at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (and no, I didn't tell them that). They were great. After they checked with everybody and their brother to make sure no real VIPs wanted the CG's cottage, they instructed the lodging office to rent it to us. After working through the fact that they were federal employees and what was in their job description, we finally got our sleeping arrangements for our final night worked out.
Quick aside for Jesus - I don't think it is any accident that we were upgraded from a prison cell to a mansion during Holy Week. How appropriate! I just need to remember that when life's springs are poking me in the ribs that a mansion does await me!
The VIP quarters were wonderful. They were so comfortable, we hardly wanted to come back home. Our last day at the beach was awesome and closed out a great week.We grilled more seafood from Bubba's on the grill and it was cooked perfectly (if I do say so myself). Nothing better than seafood at the beach.
After wrapping up our all-time favorite family beach vacation, it was time to head home. The family did indulge me a quick stop at the Global Supply Solution http://www.gssgear.com/home.html store to buy some Vibram Fivefinger shoes. I bought the shoes, wore them out of the store and we headed home (I will post more on these shoes later).
We fueled up Lucky the Van and filled our bellies at McDonald's and headed north. As Lucky ran with traffic at about 70 mph, a helicopter attempted to land on our roof. At least, that is what Carlie said it sounded like. I thought it sounded like the loudest jake braking ever and Cammie wondered who was running down the shoulder on the speed strips.Other than the sound effects, the blowout not very dramatic and we were all unfazed and thankful. The kids never even paused their video games, but we all realized it could have been much different.
For anybody wanting to have a picnic, I recommend the 105 mile marker on I-95. If you can forego the blowout, all the better. We were spread out in the median like the Clampetts and road side assistance took an hour to get to us. At least we were not hurt or freezing and Lucky the van survived another chapter in its life unscathed. Worse than the blowout, the temp tire almost got us smoked by a semi. Those tires are supposed to be rated for 50 mph driving, but I don't feel safe at any speed with the temp tire. We would not be traveling the remaining 80 miles home on this bicycle tire for sure. We swerved like drunken sailors in the first mile and looked for a place to get our real tire fixed.
We pulled off at a nearby exit and found a tire repair shop co-located with a Cracker Barrel. Thank you, Jesus! For the record, the tire repair cost the same price as the "Fish Fry" at Cracker Barrel, so my wallet came out of the blowout better than it came out of dinner. And that is how I like it - if I am going to spend money on a spare tire, I want it to be the one around my middle!
Well, that is all from Vacation. God Bless you all and have a great Easter!
