Oh, To Be Independently Wealthy ...

... and just LIVE at the beach! :) I get three weeks of vacation a year from my employer, and unlike most ministers, I receive no study leave. For the last three years, I have burned off the first two of those three weeks in D.Min. residencies during the first two weeks of JANUARY. It was truly a gift this year to get away from Charlotte and take the family on our first real vacation, i.e., driving to visit Grandma or Grandma and Grandpa doesn't count.

We didn't get off to too good a start. The week before last, we cycled, one by one, through the four of us coming down with a stomach virus. I was mother AND father towards the end of that week, then on Saturday night before Easter Sunday, it hit me. I missed Easter services for the first time in 22 years, spending it in bed instead. So, when Monday morning rolled around for us to leave on vacation, we were not yet packed and ready. Still, we managed to get out the door by noon and got to Williamsburg, Virginia by dinner time that evening.

We spent the next day, sort of, going through Colonial Williamsburg. I say "sort of" because the sky opened up around noon, and we got rained out of most of it, spending the afternoon drying out in the hotel room. It was not the high point of the week, but it had the advantage of being over quickly.

On Wednesday, we spent the morning at the Jamestown Settlement, and although the weather was still cold, windy and damp, at least we didn't get poured on. A wonderful time was had by all, and if nothing else, the girls came away knowing that Columbus never made it to Jamestown, and the three ships that came there were not the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria ... we know now that it was John Smith (you know, the guy in the Pocahontas movie?), and the ships were the Susan Constant, the Discovery and the Godspeed.

That afternoon, we left Jamestown and continued on to Virginia Beach. The weather when we got there was still cold, windy and damp. Just what one would want for beach weather. However, we did get to spend the evening walking on the beach, and we ate pizza out that night.

Thursday morning, the weather had not improved much yet, but it was supposed clear up and warm up that afternoon. We took a look at the map and realized that we were only an hour and a half away from Kill Devil Hills, the site of the Wright Brothers' historic first flight. My wife's birthday was yesterday, and she had always wanted to go there. It's a nine hour drive from Charlotte, and here we had already taken the bulk of the trip. So, for her birthday present, I gave her an extra day at the beach so that we could go to the Wright Brothers Memorial without giving up a day at the beach. Since the morning was so dreary anyway, it was not as though she lost that day anyway.

This turned out to be everything she had hoped it would be, plus, she still got to spend her sunny day at the beach on Friday. Kill Devil Hills was, as one might expect, windy. The wind was probably around 35 to 40 knots with 60 knot gusts, as best I can tell. Let's put it this way -- at the top of the largest hill, my wife stood behind me for a second to get out of the wind, and when she stepped back out from behind me, the wind blew me back a step. Here they are, leaning effortlessly into the breeze.

After the memorial, we went to a store called Kitty Hawk Kites, where I purchased a kite in the form of a blood red Fokker D-7 tri-plane. Snoopy was nowhere in sight the next day for a dogfight when I flew it on the beach, but we had a blast with that. Finally, Saturday morning came around, and it was time for us to return home. We got back Saturday evening, and we had the whole day yesterday to recover. It was a trip that we will remember for years to come and a welcome break after three years. I suppose now I have no excuse for not writing the dissertation!

Posted by Mike at April 19, 2004 06:56 PM | TrackBack