Sweet and Salty Virginia

By Abbey Littlejohn

Going on a vacation was the medicine I needed to rejuvenate myself from trying to balance a serving job and an internship over these last few weeks. This 10-day excursion started with a drive down to Busch Gardens in Williamsburg, Virginia in a packed vehicle with enough stuff to get us through the Great Depression. With my limited knowledge, I originally thought Busch Gardens was an actual garden. Turns out it’s an amusement park, which is way better than looking at weeds.

My previous experiences with Cedar Point made these crowds and the lines look like nothing. We zipped through the lines on the major roller-coasters, drank unlimited amounts of slushies, and made the spinning teacup ride an extreme sport.

Our day at Busch Gardens came and went, and the next day we were already packed and headed for our main destination – Virginia Beach. After what seemed like days being stuck in the car, we were itching to get out onto the sand and throw ourselves to the waves of Neptune. We barely stayed inside our condo long enough to breathe before we were already on the beach trying to catch sand crabs.

We couldn’t have asked for better weather. Each day of the week included plenty of sunshine, not counting the few evening storms we got (which made part of my bathing suit blow off the balcony and out into the parking lot).

The more pleasant evenings involved walking along the boardwalk to eat cotton candy and peanut butter fudge on the pier in addition, to making a couple trips to Ben and Jerry’s for cookie dough ice cream. You can say I nailed getting in all my important food groups.

The breath-taking moments of the trip came from waking up at 5:00 am to watch the sunrise on the beach. It was surprising to see how many people come out to the beach that early. But by how colorful the world got in those first couple moments of dawn, it was no wonder. We were even lucky enough to see a dolphin swimming close to shore. The dolphin was lucky I didn’t have a suit on at the time, because I would of swum out to it and tried to ride it.

Overall, this vacation was one for the books, being both relaxing and leaving me with less burns than normal. It sucks to know I’m not waking up to the view of the ocean anymore, but that means there’s something to look forward to for next summer.