Chillin' at the Beach

“Ready for an adventure?” said my boss on a phone call a week ago yesterday (that’s Thursday for you calender buffs).  I was walking down the side of a moderately busy six-lane road in a modest suburb of Nashville when posed the question. I walked over to a car wash, which was shut down in the 10 degree weather, and had a seat by the car scents vending machine.

 “Sure”, I said.

 “I need you to go to Virginia Beach”, came the reply.

 “You mean the beach in Virginia? I love the beach!”

 “Yeah, that one. I need you there as soon as you can safely travel”. 

This was going to be great! The sea breeze, sunshine, seagulls calling (or cawing – isn’t that what they do…?) I told him we’d get right on it and be on the way Saturday. 

Which we did - sort of.  Friday night, on the advice of the weatherman, we made the decision to delay and leave Sunday instead of Saturday to avoid some snow in the mountains. We planned a quick overnight stop at Mom’s near Johnson City, TN.  You’ve been there with us a few months back in the blog here.

Early Sunday we hit the road and had an uneventful ride, backing into the driveway before dark. Hellos and hugs were exchanged and presents of long underwear were disbursed.  Hey - parents give you underwear - that’s how they do things.

Even though we wanted to stay much longer we hit the road early Monday morning to time our arrival before another “wee bit of snow” was to arrive on the east coast. The cold front chased us all the way east and LuLu handled the 30 mph gusts like the true lady she is – with no complaints.  We arrived at the RV park in the town of Newport News (just north of Virginia Beach) before dark in gusty but dry conditions.  After setting up we settled in and I prepared to go to work the next day. 

On Tuesday morning I made the short trip to Hampton to meet with my trainer.  The job is the same everywhere as far as the basics but each location has it’s own way of doing things. We usually spend time with a local technician before venturing out on our own. After spending the morning surveying with him we got word that we would be stopping after lunch due to the impending winter storm.  It had caught us and now the “wee bit of snow” was becoming a storm to be remembered. 

While I was headed home Tuesday, New Orleans was seeing snow. Atlanta was being brought to it’s knees by ice.  Eastern North Carolina had sleet and snow and we were seeing the beginning of what would turn out to be 10 inches of snow in Norfolk  – just down the road.

  

It’s Friday as I write this.  We got to the store only yesterday to replenish the basics – like milk, Chips Ahoy cookies, chips, salsa and beer.  I haven’t been back to work since so have been hitting the cupboards pretty hard of late.  Hopefully after this weekend things will get back to normal and we can make our way out and about – and I can get back to work.

Official beer of LuLu

The basics - chillin'

Margo has more to tell of this tale. I hear it will involve something about trains, the dogs get snowshoes and how she survived being “snow-bound” with yours truly for a whole week in our happy aluminum home.