stephanie is: 
tired…
long day, nice vacation, but happy to be home. thank you for housesitting moose!
so yesterday was my birthday. it was pouring in the morning and they were calling for rain all day. we had coupons for the hotel’s hot breakfast buffet so we went there once we were both dressed. it was not so good. since the one thing i really wanted to do while we were in the area was mostly indoors – the virginia marine science museum – we decided to go there.
it was only 2.5 miles away so it was a quick drive. the rain had switched from it’s over-night downpour/thunderstorms to a light rain. we arrived just after they opened and there were only a handful of families in front of us in the ticket queue. i picked the 3-D movie as our imax choice. the museum was a nice mix of marinie science exhibits/activites and aquarium habitats. my favorite in the main building was the sea turtles. i looove turtles (and have collected turtle trinkets since sometime in high school). there was a huge sea turtle that was swimming over to the glass as we approached. he looked like he wanted to come home with me. we bumped noses through the glass for a while. i was ready to liberate him and let him live in our shower.
the second building was beyond 1/3 miles of trails and wooden walkways across marchlands. since we don’t melt much we headed out into the light rain to see it (other people drove over so we had the path to ourselves). it was so peaceful and pretty. the best part of the other building were the river otters. they weren’t swimming around but they were still super cute. they were yawning and rolling around all sleepy-like under their cave awning. danny bought me a little $4 stuffed otter. we walked back to the main building to see our imax movie. were were a bit surprised as to how many people there were when we got back. there was a line going out the doors. the movie was very pretty – all sorts of fish and corals in 3-D. plus, the host was a sea turtle. it was cute the way people would reach out to try to touch the images. i couldn’t resist when they had a dolphin stick it’s nose in my face. we left after the movie. the museum was packed and there were tons and tons of people waiting to get in. the rain had stopped.
we walked around the boardwalk area for a while after we got back. we grabbed food at a pizza place.
in the afternoon i went off to the hotel pool while danny relaxed in the room. i read a bit of my anne mcaffrey book by the outdoor pool since it was overcast enough for my pale skin. when an ocean breeze kicked up and made in a bit chilly for laying out, i got in the pool. i was lucky and for a while it was just me and a little girl who was sticking to the pool stairs. after about 15 minutes i was getting cold and some teenagers invaded my space. i went back tot he room and took a hot shower to warm back up.
we had thought about doing some late night mini-golf, but i hadn’t drank enough throughout the day and was feeling the dehydration ($7.50 per persona nd the fact that i woke up at 5am were additional reasons to skip it). we watched “panic room” and went to sleep.
on tuesday we skipped the hotel buffet and walked to a pancake house on atlantic ave (the streets by the beach are all monopoly streets… is this on purpose?). we got discounted busch garden passes from a vacation promotion store on the same block. we had a nice walk along the boardwalk. back at the room we packed up and checked out at 11am. it was about an hour drive from there to busch gardens (and on our way home).
at the park the weather went from the partly-cloudy they had predicted to super sunny and knock-you-out hot. i liked all the european style towns (danny had said i would because i like epcot). if i come back again at a point in time when i have spending money i would enjoy browsing the shops – especially jewelry in ireland (all the earrings i wear every day are celtic). i stayed out of the shops (which limited the amount of things to do, but saved me the temptation of spending more money). we rode the sky tram over the rollarcoasters. i am not a rollarcoaster person. i very much dislike the feeling of falling and that pretty much defeats the purpose of getting on one. we did go on one ride by my request – that big spinning swing ride. fuuun but i was also scared because (as danny said) i am a dork. i need one of those things in my back yard.
when we were ready to go home we couldn’t find the exit. the signs kept pointing us to dead ends. it was very hot out and i was very low on energy after walking up and down hills in circles for so long. i finally asked a store clerk and we made it out alive.
the weather stayed clear for the drive home and danny made reasonably good time considering it was rush hour. there was a phone message for me from that morning regarding a job i applied for. i need to call them back tomorrow to set up an interview.
here are a few more pictures and a poll (i will add the vacation gallery to the members’ section tomorrow):
