Odd fact about our new apartment #19: The ice cubes made in the freezer here form no stalagmites, unlike our previous apartment and, when fully frozen, don't pop as they hit hot tea. Not that we know anyone who puts ice cubes in hot tea every morning or anything...Anyway, we're very late in updating our most recent photos and travelogues. This might have to do with the chaos of moving, then four days later leaving for an extended weekend. It might also have to do with the post-vacay letdown we're experiencing. I'm taking solace in early morning saltwater taffy rations, but the sting of the grindstone overpowers memories of the shore.
Nearly a week ago, we set out on a cloudy Charlottesville morning toward Newport News and Virginia Beach, and had the exciting pleasure of driving over the way-cool 23 mile Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel.
After many miles of potato and peanut farms, smoked ham shacks, saltwater marshes, and highway-side tag sales, we found ourselves among family and wild ponies on Chincoteague Island.
What could be better? ;-)
For Ben, the answer is to live out a tiny fraction of his boyhood astronaut dreams. If you can't go to space camp, you can at least visit the NASA Wallops Island Flight Facility and try on a space suit. 
Space Bear, who wears a similar suit, says, "Roger that, Houston." The geek-faction of the group even saw an exhibit on Sam the space monkey (featured very recently on PaidinSunshine!) and learned about telemetry receivers, rocket launch sites, uninhabited aircraft, and aeronautical balloon flights.
The worst part about Wallops was, of course, the mosquito population, lurking and vicious. I'm still scratching at their mean bites. The best part: watching nerds in their fully space glory discuss lunar samples and Apollo Missions. Missing were the pocket protectors, though I witnessed both of them sliding glasses up their noses for emphasis.
After all that learnin', we needed a sleaze fix, so we headed to Ocean City, Maryland, where we were appropriately sleezed out by the outrageous tans, fast cars, and animal print bikinis, and continued up the coast to Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, which is much more to my (slow, plodding) speed.
Sunset board walkin'
Skee ballin'
Bird watchin'
And (absolutely delicious) Dogfish Headin'.After MAshley headed back to rescue Luke from the sleeping hammocks and cleansing baths of the doggie spa, the rest of us headed west on the peninsula over to St. Michaels for the true Eastern Shore experience (and for a little ultimately unsuccessful Dick Cheney spotting).
In Easton, MD, we visited the nation's oldest continuously operative church, the lovely Third Haven Friends Meeting, with its welcoming wooden benches and still, calming quality during a Tuesday morning rainstorm.
Since we were nearly there anyway, we also walked around Annapolis as the clouds gave way to a steamy afternoon. We leave-delayed it up with lunch and a multi-mile, sunscreen-dripping walk to Canoe U.
At the Naval Academy visitor's center, by the way, we saw more exhibits about astronauts. All this is a precursor to what will be an awesome visit to the Goddard Space Flight Center, where we'll stop next time we head to NJ. In Annapolis, we also saw beautiful views, Soviet architecture, plebes, and plenty of starched uniforms before our sad goodbyes (and my inadvertent thefting of J's iPod).
After a steamy ride back to the western-most border of the Chesapeake Bay watershed in the glaring sun, fifteen feet off the exit ramp into Charlottesville we were caught in a flood-producing downpour, complete with hail and lightning.
The bags sat in the car until the skies cleared while we caught up on some DVRing, just to extend vacation a few seconds longer. Wish we were going again this weekend.
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