Friday Fun with just a little soapbox...

I was a bad mom yesterday, depending on who you ask.  I decided perfect attendance in school for the year simply wouldn't live up to our high adventure standards and took the kids out of school early!  I think it's utterly ridiculous that the kids here attend school until almost the end of June and made a command decision.  Loch was a bit skeptical of my plan but I assured him he would indeed grow up to be a decent member of society if he missed a day of school in the 3rd grade.  

After picking each of them up from their schools yesterday morning, we went to one of the Naval Bases down the street for hubby's squadron's picnic.  While hubby & I did the requisite mingling and endured the ridiculous Top Gun soundtrack being played on a loop (in jest!), the kids had fun dunking each other in the dunk tank.

After a couple of hours of listening to Kenny Loggins wail about the Danger Zone (bahahahaha), we walked across the street on base to the beach and took in about an hour of that.

While there I got a Facebook alert that we were under a tornado watch... really?  Looked pretty peaceful to me, although the Blue Angels were roaring overhead and there were 25 kt winds and blowing sand, there didn't appear to be any menacing clouds at the time.

After that we went home and packed a picnic dinner and decided to go hiking at a local state park.  We figured we would be less obtrusive hiking in the dense woods instead of being lightning rods on our bicycles or out on the water.

All this beauty is only about 7 miles from our house.

Note I don't name the state park?  LOL, if you are unfamiliar with the Tidewater area and are ever visiting the area and want to know anything about the places we go, email me and I'll tell you all about it - until then I like to keep it a secret to the "outsiders" :), you know - the people that might be tempted to come here and their idea of fun is to throw their trash all over.  I say this because even in this beautiful park hubby returned loaded down with trash he picked up along the trail.  What I found interesting was lots of bags of dog-do... so people were responsible enough to pick up the dog poop, but left the bags lying there?  It was better left unbagged if that's the case...

Here are some shock and awe photos of the madness I'm talking about, and this is all the tourists usually see or even want to see:

 If you can believe it, this is our oceanfront "strip", there is no sign of the maritime forests that used to stand, and this is only 3 miles from my house, and only about 2 miles from the beauty of the park I posted above and below.  There are times when I am hiking on those trails that I just want to cry thinking about the garishness of what has replaced so much beauty.  Money, money, money.  I will say however, that the city does a fantastic job of cleaning up the sea of red Solo cups, cans and other trash at the end of every day.

Back to the finer things...

Can you believe this is the way Coastal Virginia seashores should look?  Luckily a few areas have been protected from the Miami Beach - like look of the "Hotel Strip" on the Oceanfront now.  The white open areas beyond the trees and Spanish Moss is actually open water.

Although we did see this while hiking in the salt marsh... yes, that's a helicopter landing dock!  Looks like someone has some cash burning a hole in their crab nets.

What I find interesting is that parts of our salt marshes remind me of the swamps in Minnesota!  Different vegetation and animals and brackish or saltwater instead of fresh - but the "look" is very similar.  No moose heads peeking up here though - you are looking for osprey, herons, crabs and water moccasins :)

Trail leading to one of many "Secret Spots" at the shoreline.

Hiking in the maritime forest is also good for blocking out whatever might be happening out in the rest of the world... like only about 20 miles across the water?

Indeed, NOAA wasn't lying about the tornado warnings!

We had several of these water spouts pop up all over the Chesapeake Bay after dinnertime, and were inundated with severe storms during the night.  This morning however, the temps are down to a really nice mid-70's and the humidity is down a bit.  Not sure what's in store for today yet, but it will not involve the garden until Monday at least - we have had several inches of rain in the past few days and it is gross and wet out there.  Until it dries and we can go mow the grass and dump the standing water from things I want no part of that jungle!

Hope you all have a great weekend!