One last day at the beach......

When Harry and I moved to Richmond we thought it would be so easy to just pop over to Virginia Beach whenever we wanted for a day at the beach. We went to Chick's Beach (bay side) once in June and decided to not bother again until fall. The drive over is easy as we're early risers and can beat the rest of the world, but coming back is a nightmare. Whatever good kharma you get from the beach is destroyed in a matter of minutes as you fight your way back home. So, we promised ourselves that we would return one day in the fall. We finally made it back on Sunday. I wanted to see the ocean this time instead of the bay, so we went all the way into Virginia Beach and headed north into the residential area. Parking is readily available on the side streets and it was a quick hop over to the sand. The rest of humanity is off doing fall activities so we had the place almost all to ourselves. I brought a book but didn't even open it as I was entertained all morning by this catamaran that was out in the surf with a family of dolphins. I wanted to swim out and ask if I could hop on and share in the fun. The dolphins swam all around them for hours - popping up out of the surf and making a racket with their blow holes. We must have been at the surfer beach, too, because as the day progressed we had that entertainment as well. I must have been a sea creature in a former life as a day at the beach delights all of my senses. The sounds of the waves and the birds, the sight of sunlight on the water, the feel of the sand and the water (I did go for a swim - according to my mother, salt water is the cure for everything), the smell of the salt air and Coppertone and the taste of salt water and soft ice cream on the boardwalk all combine to put me back into alignment for a while. Virginia Beach has acquired a very impressive sculpture of Neptune since the last time I was there. The statue was dedicated to the City of Virginia Beach on September 30, 2005 during the Neptune Festival Boardwalk Weekend.

Artists from around the world were considered before Virginia-based sculptor, Paul DiPasquale was commissioned to create Neptune's statue. DiPasquale has created numerous permanent public installations, including the bronze statue of Arthur Ashe on Richmond's famous Monument Avenue - just a mile or so from our house. I'll have to blog about Monument Avenue another day.

We headed home around 2 as I was feeling guilty about leaving the dogs home alone and thought we'd get ahead of some traffic - Hah! There was a five mile back up on I-64 and so we ducked into York and went up the Colonial Parkway through Williamsburg - another place to explore now that we're so close.

I know I've said it before and I'll say it again - I love living in the state of Virginia. I could be her ambassador. Ocean, bay, rivers, mountains, cities, farms, great climate - enough gushing for one post. Virginia is for lovers of all of the above.