V-A-C-A-T-I-O-N Part 1

This year I got to spend my birthday at the beach!  Well, technically, I spent most of my day in traffic.

Heavy traffic.  The usual 3.5 hours that it takes us to get to the Outer Banks of North Carolina took us double the time  - 7 long hours in the car.

Now anyone who knows me, knows that I'm not a particularly good traveler.  I'm worse than most children.  (Are we there yet?)

I got bored in the car and began amusing myself by taking pictures out the window and some not out the window.

Here's a picture of the great pedicure my daugther gave me before leaving home.  My feet look pudgy from sitting so long in the car.

Part of the fun about traveling to the Outer Banks is that we get to go through tunnels.  Now a lot of people don't like tunnel travel, but I've always liked to go through them.  Here's a shot of us going down into the tunnel in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia.

Traffic was moving swiftly at this point (enjoyed it while we could) and that made Jorgie (dh) very happy since he's one of the ones not overly fond of tunnel travel.

This was his happy view - the light at the end of the tunnel.  He always lets out a sigh of relief.

We had an awesome view of the bay after emerging from the tunnel.  Water, water all around.

We also crossed over the Intracoastal Waterway.  I was feeling pretty relaxed and counting the time until I could get out of the car and into a bathing suit. 

Next stop was a time-saving short-cut via the Cheasapeake Expressway.  We surprised our family in the car behind us by paying for their toll too.  Jorgie gets a kick out of this and will routinely pay for the car behind him - family or not.

You can see we don't have a built in GPS, but since we're prone to getting lost wherever we go, we travel with a portable GPS unit that Jorgie has called Maggie ever since the first time he heard her voice.  Maggie often will get upset with us when we veer from her chosen path and we'll hear her "recalculating" our route.  I often think she's really muttering obsene words under her breath. 

At this point in our trip, I really had high hopes that we would get to the beach ahead of time.  Traffic jams had leveled out and we were speeding along without any hang-ups.  My birthday cake and ice cream was just a memory.  And a saved picture on the camera.

I don't know if you can see it, but Jorgie got a question mark candle for the cake.  Last year he forgot to get a candle and for a few minutes I didn't have a candle to blow out and make a wish on.  This year he made sure I had a candle to make my wish. 

When we stopped for a break, I noticed that family member Brittani didn't look too thrilled at our progress.  She was yearning for waves and sun. Not more traffic. 

I'll have to see if I can't put a smile on her face before the day is out.  She's much prettier than this grumpy face shows.

As soon as we passed into North Carolina, it seems that we picked up beach traffic in earnest.  We kept moving along, until about 40 miles from our destination.  Then it took us 3 hours to go that distance.  No fun.  In retrospect I feel sorry for Jorgie since he had to put up with the clogged traffic and with amusing me.

Finally we got a glimpse of the sound. 

Now we're talking.  If the sound is outside the car window, surely the ocean can't be far behind.

Or maybe not.  That 3 hours of sitting in traffic kind of took the love out of the day.  Stop. Go. Stop some more.  And I was getting hungry.  Now we were stuck on the Wright Memorial Bridge - the bridge that leads into the Outer Banks.  Nags Head, North Carolina was our destination.

Finally off of the bridge, I was sooo happy.  But we still weren't moving.  I couldn't resist taking a picture of the speed limit sign.  Well, we had one of the numbers right.

At long last (and just before I could think of going postal) the sign for Nags Head. 
YIPPEEEE~~~

Next post I'll show you non-travel shots.  We really did have a great vacation at the beach.  Perfect weather, perfect people to spend the time with.  It just went too fast. 

Until next post....

Kat