Norfolk Excursion

Norfolk and I have a deal. I stay out of it; it doesn't make me get lost. But I had a health sciences librarian certification thing to do at EVMS (Eastern Virginia Medical School) which just so happens to be in Norfolk. I promised Norfolk it would be a quick in-and-out situation; I would take the most direct route from the interstate, and get right back on it at the end of the day. In return, Norfolk allowed me to know exactly where I was the whole time I was there!

It was a two-day class, so after a successful trip to Norfolk yesterday, I got a little cocky today and thought I could stop by a few neat places to take photos. Norfolk guffawed heartily at this plan, and conjured a combination of traffic and parking situations that made those plans impossible to carry out.

TL;DR version: I didn't get all the photos I wanted in Norfolk. But here's what I did get:

The library at EVMS

One of the many beautiful churches in Norfolk; this one was walking distance
from EVMS, so I strolled past at lunch

Remember the Virginia Beach dolphin? Here's a Norfolk mermaid!
I know it's hard to see Clyde under her arm, but it's even harder to see
the Caduceus on her - ahem - chest

Okay, this was my last-ditch effort to get a photo of the ENORMOUS
Carnival cruise ship (what looks like a building on the right)
in the port next to Nauticus (a museum). I tried to park
in the roundabout in front of Nauticus, but there was security guiding people through
because of all the cruise passengers, so I couldn't stop.
So this was from a red light, through the back of my car, further down the road.

I'm sure I'll find another time to go into Norfolk and get photos of the other things I wanted to see (most notably, the battleship at Nauticus, and some of the neater Norfolk mermaids).

Mail Call!

We went to EVMS (Eastern Virginia Medical School) for certification classes for health sciences librarians, but more about that tomorrow, after the rest of the classes. When we got home, I found this in the mail:

A postcard from phoenixfiredesigns' and Anana's visit to DisneyWorld! Thanks, guys!

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!

Oysters

Fiance's dad grows oysters under the dock at the house. Not only are they good for eating (in other people's opinion... I'm not a fan) but they're good for the Bay, because they're little water filters! Fiance's friends J & L are in town for the weekend, so we went out to the dock last night to try to fish. (It was too cold to catch anything, and we only saw a handful of jellyfish and minnows, a teeny tiny blue crab, a heron across the water, two raccoons fighting - which we heard rather than saw - and two guys on a speedboat.)

These are sea grapes, or sea squirts. They grew all over the oyster pod and this rope.
They won't grow above the water line because they're filter animals like oysters. They fill with water
and stay puffed out like this until they dry out or get burst (by stepping on them or
poking them too hard. Ours aren't half as pretty as the photos on Wikipedia.

Clyde and the oyster basket. It's too blurry to tell, but there are quite a few
sea squirts on here, too.

(Same photo with the flash. It was about 9pm so the lighting was less than ideal.)

Some of the oysters that came out of the basket!

Week 6 Challenge: Where's Clyde?

(I skipped last week's challenge, "Numbers," because I had no good ideas, unfortunately.)

This week's challenge is to take a "Where's Waldo?" type photo where you have to hunt for the LV. This one isn't the best, but it serves two purposes...

So, do you see Clyde? (I took a photo of my last LV, Peanut Butter, with this sign, but he was teeny so he fit inside the circle logo on the left...)

That's also the sign for the Portsmouth campus of the school I work at. But I'll only be working at the Portsmouth campus through the end of next week. I'll be using my maximum hours (I'm a part-timer) at the Virginia Beach campus (which means less driving, more money, and more hours in a professional position as opposed to a paraprofessional.)

Star Trek: Into Darkness

We went to see Star Trek: Into Darkness yesterday at Fiance's & my favorite movie theater. (It's the kind where you can order a full meal... but it has little tables between regular movie theater seating, instead of big tables like our Cinema Cafe does.)

You can see that we went to see it in 2D... I don't like 3D very much, except The Hobbit... that was awesome in 3D.