the Dalaverse

Well, just returned from a very short trip to Virginia Beach. I do believe it is the family's shortest summer vacation ever. We left Saturday at 4-ish. I got to drive the second half of the trip! Yayness. I played one of the new mixes I made, since Dad had already gone through half of his tapes. He enjoyed the Indigo Girls song the most. My mother was exceptionally annoying in the backseat -- I cannot STAND driving with her in the car, she's always making comments and nagging me and tutting. It's really quite distracting. Anyway, we stayed at the same hotel as last year, the Colonial Inn (except we had an older, crappier room). Big highlight of the first night there was...Sonic. Dundundah. My favorite restaurant ever. Oh, it was sweet, it really really was. To think I've gone years without tasting a cherry limeade! But then on the way out of the Sonic, we had a genuine near-death experience. Deciding to make a left across five lanes of unfamiliar traffic, my dad pulled out in front of a big truck, coming nearly to a stop between the two halves of the road. I was in the backseat, sitting with my legs on the other side and facing the opposite window, which is my favorite Jeep position. I did not have my seatbelt on. I sat there and stared at out the window at this oncoming truck, the driver of which didn't even have enough time to honk his horn. It was close, man. I stopped breathing for a few seconds and I shook all the way back to the hotel. The next time we went to that Sonic, Dad turned right and made a Uvie further down the road.

We certainly picked a miserable weekend for the beach. It was cloudy on Sunday, but the three of us trooped on down to the shore anyway. I sat huddled under a towel, waiting for the sun to come out before I'd do anything more than dip my feet in the water. Of course, then it began to rain. We grabbed our stuff and hustled back to the room. I made a sad try for the indoor pool, but for some reason it wasn't heated as well as most indoor pools, and it was freezing. Bastards. A later trek to the beach saw still no sunlight, so I sat in my chair for a couple of hours and read The Last Girls by Lee Smith, which is most excellent and a perfect beach book. The rest of Saturday saw us taking the trolley up to the Lighthouse Restaurant, which had shitty flavorless ribs. It was cold and raining and I had stupidly worn shorts and a tank top, so I bought a nice navy sweatshirt. We walked up and down the main street, drifting into the all-alike beach shops. The mini-amusement park wasn't running its best rides because of the weather, so that was a bust. I did find my favorite t-shirt shop, though, and bought a black-sleeved baseball tee with the Born to Run cover on the front. Very very good purchase, if I do say so myself. You can't find Bruce shirts in Hot Topic.
Monday morning it rained again. I decided to undertake one of the most sacred quests imaginable, that for the Krispy Kreme Doughnut, at the 7-11 three blocks away. Actually, first I stopped in at the little convenient mart across the street, but figured that fresh Krispy Kremes were worth the walk. Naturally the minute I got far enough so that it would have been stupid to turn back, it started to really rain -- in fact, it was pouring. My new sweatshirt got soaked through and I kicked road grit all over the backs of my legs. Needless to say, I rewarded myself with a whole extra doughnut when I finally got there.

So we decide to head to the Marine Science Museum instead of the water park since it was still raining. Because my family is cursed, the rain stopped and the sun came out the minute we had checked out and loaded our bags into the car. Mom pitched a fit and wanted to stay at the hotel pool, but Dad and I were not having that, so the museum it was. I hadn't been there for a few years, so it was fun. Saw a great IMAX movie on coral reefs (though truth be told, any IMAX movie suits me; I have seen some of them twice). An otter barked at me. His partner kept swimming around in crazy circles, twirling around and around. He did this the entire ten minutes or so that we watched him, and he also ran in tight little circles when he got out of the water. Otters are fairly intelligent animals and I kind of think the captivity had given him some sort of psychological problem. Everyone else thought it was cute, but Dad and I found it sad (thought not nearly as sad as the bald eagles with clipped wings and the gray wolves turned into trained circus dogs at Busch Gardens. I mean, I know people study these animals in captivity and find out all sorts of useful things about them, and I know they try to help keep species alive. But sometimes it disturbs me and I'd rather not be witness to it).

Both nights I kept up with my recent trend of having trouble sleeping. And for some reason, on the way home I got struck by a powerful sadness. It wasn't because the trip was over -- it's not like it was a successful one, as I hope I've made clear. It's sort of a combination of the end of summer, and that most of my friends are gone right now, and...I don't know. I'm just sad.