Jungle Golf

Because we have an oceanfront, we obviously have mini-golf. Lots of it. But the best one by far is Jungle Golf. (I've taken friends there for two of my last four birthdays.) And we just so happened to have three free passes. (Fiance is an EMT and they saved the owner's... mom? I think?... so he gave them free game cards as a token of thanks.) So Cassy and Karen and I polished off our day at the beach with mini-golf!

Clyde helpfully goes after my ball...

Holding on to Cassy's ball while she waits for her turn

Hanging out with a hippo

Riding the lion

Cassy won (she was only one over par, which is 36) and Karen came in second. I got a 42 though, so I was still pretty happy.

Beach Day!

My friends Cassy and Karen came to visit this weekend, and we went to the beach for several hours, until it started to look like the storms promised by the weatherman were actually coming in. (They didn't for several more hours, but that was okay.)

Cassy and Karen love Clyde! He made two new friends :)

Clyde and my flip-flops in the sand

Clyde and the ocean
(We had pretty big waves - for Virginia Beach - since there was a storm coming)

I got some pretty killer sunburn on my back. (I thought I had done my back, but I got distracted chatting and completely forgot about it... and I was sitting with my back to the sun most of the time we were there.) Ouch!

264

This is a shot I've been trying to get almost since Clyde arrived. Interstate 264 only runs from the Virginia Beach Oceanfront to the far side of Portsmouth, so it's very local! And I drive on it at least once a week, but most of the signs are not placed in such a way as to encourage stopping to take a photo safely. But I found this one by the sidewalk on the Oceanfront end!

Also nearby was the sign at the entrance to the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA, formerly CAC - Contemporary Art Center):

And the reason we were at the Oceanfront was to pay the catering deposit for the wedding, which means a visit to the Aquarium! And their new exhibit (and IMAX movie) is all about butterflies...

...so there's a giant one on the side of the building! Cool.

Marshmallows

We had a get-together at Fiance's parents' house last night for Memorial Day weekend. We had a big Costa Rican dinner, and topped it all off by toasting marshmallows and making s'mores!

You can kind of see the bay up there at the top, too. It was a little chilly out when it started to get dark, but the fire was nice and toasty!

Mount Trashmore

This is where I wanted to go for the "high places" challenge: the highest point in Virginia Beach... Mount Trashmore!

View from the top, facing Town Center; you can also see I-264 running left-to-right

It's 60 feet high, which is sort of embarrassing to have as the highest point in a city, but our average elevation above sea level is 12 feet. The fence behind Clyde in the photo above encircles a giant state seal (which is REALLY hard to get a good photo of, because it's on the slope and surrounded by bushes).

Looking out at Lake Trashmore off the other side

There's a kids' play area called Kids Cove, and a skate park, and another smaller hill (I think it's called Mount Encore or Encore Hill or something like that). There are also lots of running/walking/biking trails that wind around the park.

There were some people flying kites at the top!
There were also people having picnics and jogging with dogs and whatnot.

Mount Trashmore was opened in 1974, and it is what it sounds like: a landfill. In 1992 they reported that there was a dangerous buildup of methane gas and it could cause a fiery explosion, but that was apparently fixed, since here we are in 2013 still walking around on it.

Looking down the stairs

The last time I went to Mount Trashmore was with my last Little Visitor, Peanut Butter... It was something like 30 degrees that day. Today, it's a little over double that, somewhere in the 60s... MUCH better!