Heaven.....On Earth

After leaving the Outer Banks we headed up to Virginia Beach. Mike found a really cool State Campground there. It’s kind of on the end of a piece of land sticking out. On the very end is a State park and then the campground. Since it is winter most of the campground was closed but a couple sections were open. Most of the spots are too small for us but we found one that we could just squeeze into.

The big problem was that there were huge stickers EVERYWHERE except right down the middle of the pavement. The dogs couldn’t even take one step out of the RV with getting their feet full of stickers. So Mike had to put down a large 6’x9’ piece of matting outside the door so the dogs could get out. Fortunately the beach was void of stickers so we’d walk down the center of the road to the beach. It wasn’t very far and there was a boardwalk from the road to the beach which was really handy.

The beach wasn’t accessible except through the campground. And since most of the campground was closed and the open part was fairly empty, we pretty much had the beach to ourselves. We’d see a couple other people way down the beach once in a while but that was really it. I’d say the beach was at least a couple miles long.



I remember that I did a scrapping page once titled “Happiness is a deserted beach.” And it is still true. We took the girls off leash and within seconds they were down the beach and out of sight. Sparkie just loves having room to run. There is nothing better than seeing a dog run just to be running. And just like the old days Wazzu chased Sparkie all the way down the beach. A little while later Sparkie would come running back just as fast as she had left. Wazzu on the hand took her time coming back.

Sluggers eyes got as big as baseballs when he saw the water. This was a perfect spot for him – and the weather was in the upper 70’s and lower 80’s. Even at night it was so warm we didn’t need coats on the beach. How perfect.

When Slugger swims he doesn’t want to go anywhere so he is pretty safe off leash. But what he does like to do is get the stick out of the water and then rush off to some bushes to kill the stick. The problem is there are miles of bushes here. So just to be safe we decided to attach him to a long line so that he could swim way out in the ocean and we could keep him from running too far away to kill the stick.

He was in heaven. I think the reason we like to watch him swim is that it truly is the only time that his inhibitions are completely gone. It’s so nice to see him be able to spend some time not being afraid. He can just relax and not worry about a thing.

We find it interesting for a dog that is afraid of just about everything, he has absolutely no fear of the water. This wasn’t a smooth lake! This is an ocean with large waves. He’d rush out to get his stick, waves would come and literally crash down over his head. He’d disappear for a couple seconds – sometimes we’d see just legs stick up out of the water – and then he’d reappear and continue on his journey to get the stick. He didn’t want to stop. He wanted to do it again and again.









We found it interesting that after just a few times he learned the wave patterns and would actually try to push himself up out of the water to “jump” over the waves so he wouldn’t get tumbled about in the waves. He got really good at it.

Wazzu’s big joy on the beach was to dig – hmm, a familiar pattern do you notice. Up where the sand kind of meets the grasses there were holes in the sand. I don’t know what kind of animal made those holes but there were hundreds of them. Wazzu would stick her nose in the holes and dig and dig and dig. We never had to wonder where Wazzu was while we were playing with Slugger.



Wazzu did manage to go in the water a couple times to cool off after all her digging.




Sparkie like to dig in the holes as well. But she is multi-talented when it comes to beaches. She runs the length of the beach fast as she can. Then she wants to chase tennis balls on the sand and in the water. Then of course you have to check the entire beach for any food someone may have dropped! And just in case Wazzu is finding anything in the holes you have to go back to digging with Wazzu.



I love the beach. And there is only one thing better than a nice secluded beach – and that’s a WARM nice secluded beach! And this was it. And this one had additional perks. There was some kind of Navy station (is that what you call it?) nearby and we could see all sort of different Navy boats in the water not too far off shore. It reminded me of when I used to play the game Battleship. You could see all the kinds of boats we had in that game. We also saw a couple hovercraft zooming around and a large cargo ship with a full load. It was so interesting.





After getting the dogs tired in the morning we took off for a driving tour of some famous historical places. This isn’t my forte (as you well know) but I think we saw Yorktown, Jamestown, and the outskirts of Williamsburg. We were short on time (since there are so few hours of daylight this time of year – what’s up with that!) and my legs were bad so we didn’t get out of the car much. There were so many interesting looking places. And it was quite beautiful. Some of it was beautiful more than once! Mike got lost and we ended up going down some streets three or four times! I tried to give him a fun bad time about it but he didn’t seem too amused!

Anyway, even I thought it was interesting and was a little sad that we couldn’t get out and explore things more. Mike was very irritated that he didn’t really get to see anything. Too bad we didn’t have more time. He has now vowed that we won’t spend just a day in a place again and that we’ll come back here some day so he can really explore the area.

In light of this, he’s changed our travel plans for next week so that we’ll see one area in more depth and skip others altogether. Totally fine with me….remember, I’m just cargo.

It was time to leave to head to our next trial but we just had to get in one last romp on the beach before we went. And what a glorious time it was. None of us wanted to leave. We’ll definitely come back here some day.

Debbie
11/8-9 /06.