Norfolk

We spotted a mermaid in Norfolk! Unsurprising, since it's on campus and we were on our way to a meeting... but fun nonetheless. Actually, if you sit right in front of this particular mermaid, you can reach 3 Pokestops at once... so we sat there for a little while.

Donuts? Duck!

Duck Donuts may not have originated in Virginia Beach, but we do have TWO of them! Over the weekend, we took Stella there.

You can sit and watch them making the donuts fresh.
They only make ring donuts, hot and fresh, and you can
choose from several icings, toppings, and drizzles.

Originally from Outer Banks NC

Then, later in the day, we made some poke! If you aren't familiar, it's raw tuna marinated in onion, soy sauce, sesame oil and seeds, garlic, and some other stuff, then you serve it on top of rice with avocado (or any of a number of other things, that's just what we had around). It's a great meal for a rainy summer day.

Beach Day

My friend Cassy is visiting Virginia Beach for the weekend. She loves the beach, whereas I go maybe once a year (usually because she's here and wants to go) even though I live a few minutes from it. So today, we visited the beach! (First we went to the DMV but that was not fun.)

This was supposed to have dolphins in the water behind Stella, but I think I missed them.

Stella says: "Don't forget your sunscreen!"

Ah, right at home for a wee little octopus! Sun, sand, and surf.

In the shade under the umbrella!

Cassy needed to submit a photo to her book of the month club
using this silly straw and their book of the month! (I actually was
reading the book, because I forgot to bring one with me,
and it's really good so far!)

Cassy shared the book with me, so I shared with Stella!

Making new friends with Cassy!

They're so silly.

We had a great time at the beach! We planned to leave around 2-2:30, and we heard the first rumbles of thunder at 2:20, so that was perfect timing!

Mt. Trashmore

Sounds like a joke, right? But Mt. Trashmore is the highest point in Virginia Beach. It used to be a landfill, and they sealed it up tight and covered it with grass and slapped a park on top of it, with Kids' Cover (a playground area) and a skate park, and several walk/run/bike paths.

Today, there was a 5K there (which I did not know when I chose to go there) and I think everyone else in Virginia Beach was there too! There was some cloud cover when we got there so it wasn't horribly oppressive (oh, the humidity!).

Our primary objective was to catch some Pokemon.
My coworker, who runs, told me he got a Dratini at
Mt Trashmore, but I didn't run across any today.

The stairs to the top

The view toward "downtown" from the top

Ahh, relaxing on the grass after climbing all those steps.
(I don't know what Stella needs to relax for; I carried her!)

There's also a Lake Trashmore. It, however, is not full of trash. It's actually quite lovely.

Pokemon Go!

I am very much on the Pokemon Go bandwagon, and today, Stella helped me catch my favorite Pokemon: an Eevee!!!

Independence Day

Stella and I had a fairly quiet Independence Day (in the sense that not being busy is "quiet"... we heard a lot of fireworks so it was not that kind of quiet). It was a mix of being home after driving across the US, wanting to get some home organizing/cleaning done, and preparing for my husband to start clerkships today (the unpaid intern part of med school). Plus, it was rainy off and on all weekend.

This was the rain we were faced with, leaving work on Friday!

We made a mad dash for it (Stella had the benefit of hiding in

my purse, with a plastic bag around the whole thing, while I got

more drenched than I would have if I had just stepped into the

shower in my clothes!) and of course, the rain cleared up after

we got in the car and made it about a mile up the road!

It was fun though. I'm a firm believer in running through a good

downpour about once a year.

Not knowing what would be open for lunch on the 4th, we decided a safe bet
was our favorite sushi place, since they're open pretty much all the time.

Fireworks! (I promise Stella is in the photo,
it was just really dark.) We go to my in-laws' house
for fireworks, since there's a country club across
the water that does them every year, and that means
we don't have to worry about parking or crowds.

Cross-Country Drive Part 4 (KY, WV, VA)

And our last three states: Kentucky, West Virginia, and back to home sweet home Virginia.

The library in Lexington KY is only a few years old, and beautiful!
Stella wanted to hide in the letters of this sign... can you find her?

Behind the rest area in West Virginia. We had to do this really quickly,
because the sky was about to open up. We didn't know until later
how serious the weather was really going to be.

Welcome to West Virginia!
Where we're having flash flood warnings, tornadoes, and severe rainfall
and thunderstorms all across your path through the state!
It was genuinely terrifying, so I let Stella hide while my husband
expertly drove us safely through the state. No photos!

I've never been so happy to see this sign.

Stella the navigator! We had a weather radar map up on my phone,
and compared it to the road atlas to see just how much of the storm
we were going to have to plow through to get home.
(Luckily, this was in Virginia and we were already through the worst of it.)