Virginia Beach 2014

This is the second year A-Woww and Cooki (aka Mom and I) went to Virginia Beach for a getaway. Last year we went and I felt as if I was cheating on the Jersey Shore. This year? Eff the guilt. Virginia Beach is beautiful. There are NO beach fees and yet they manage to do lovely things like rake the beach every morning.

We left on a Tuesday morning and stayed until Friday. I was a bit apprehensive because I hadn’t driven Molly for long distances yet. And it was raining. But we persevered.

We hit the beach for a little bit after we arrived on Tuesday. Then some storm clouds came through. After dinner, we had a nice lightning show from our balcony. When we woke up on Wednesday morning, there wasn’t a cloud in sight.

We packed food for breakfast and lunches. Breakfasts were had on the balcony overlooking the pristine beach. Lunches were lunchmeat sandwiches, packed in a cooler and eaten on the beach. For dinner, we ate like royalty. We ate at Catch 31, Watermans, and Salacia. All three offered tasty gluten-free options for Mom and ALL THE BREAD for me. Win-win! My orange dress came from Go Fish, a beachy little chain store. I have to wear it again soon before the summer fades. (weep!)

The beaches aren’t crowded. There is no shoulder-to-shoulder, towel-to-towel feeling. I think that has to do with the fact that you can hop into the ocean at any point, not between two flags fifteen feet apart a la Ocean City, NJ. The lifeguards watch the whole beach.

Because the weather was perfect, we spent all day Wednesday and Thursday on the beach. We rented an umbrella and rotated around it all day, alternating between sun and shade. On Wednesday, the ocean was closed to swimmers because of abnormally high bacteria levels. I’ll admit, that reminded me of home. But Mom and I aren’t ocean swimmers, so we weren’t bothered. If anything, it meant there was more room on our strip of beach, as families moved to the blocks where swimming was allowed. Because, you know, glorp knows to stop along arbitrary street boundaries. Very polite glorp.

OllieBear came along, too. His next planned trip (and mine, too) is Atlanta in October.

The pink swimsuit came from Land’s End (not a sponsored link, I suck, blah blah). I splurged on it because I was tired of every vacation picture here and on Facebook showing me in the purple striped suit. Yes, I am that vain. Now I have two swimsuits!

This trip was much better than last trip. Some of it was due to the perfect weather, but the rest of it was due to knowing what to expect. I’d love for this to start becoming a yearly mother-daughter tradition, and I also think I’m going to start socking away money to add another night.