Catch Up: SUMMER!

SUMMER: I started nursing school and realized quickly that I will have no life until it ends in August 2011. My summer consisted mostly of Pharmacology (nearly 3000 page book condensed to 6 weeks - 9 tests total. The last test covered 25 chapters and we were only taught approximately 3 of them). I am not sure I completely recovered from that course until mid-fall.

When the semester was over, I had 10 days to make up for my long lost summer. Ryan and I went to Viriginia Beach...and went camping. We packed up our little Hyundai, grabbed some supplies (like a tent), and started driving. Camping by the beach seemed so lovely, until we arrived. We were welcomed by 100% humidity, drizzling rain, and a damp ground. My poor hair didn't stand a chance. I was wild woman for a couple days. But, being the champ that I am, I helped set up camp and start a fire. This is the only day we took pictures, simply because I was probably in fight or flight response the rest of the trip (and I was afraid of killing my precious camera with the salt cloud hovering over our site).

See how wet it was when we arrived? The mat in front of our tent is soaked.

The rest of the days were drowned in rain and intense heat/humidity. The tent, although having mesh 'windows' on all four sides, kept the air completely stagnant and the only relief from this painful weather was to lie completely still on the damp sheets that covered our blow up mattress (I like the finer things in life). We only had one day that was sunny and gorgeous, and instead of sticking around the camping site or the camp site's beach, we drove to the pier at Virginia Beach. We sat on the sand, burned, watched schools (is that the correct term?) of dolphins swim close by, waded in the ocean, and indulged in all you can eat seafood. That evening we welcomed a cool breeze and sat on a grassy area listening to a pretty decent cover band. It was fabulous. We had a couple hours the next day that were nice, but we were both too burned to do anything else but read. I certainly was not reading in the tent, so we decided to invest in a beach umbrella and relax by the ocean. That was one of the best moments of the trip.

Then we trekked back to the muggy tent.

And then I think we both decided that sometimes it is just worth it to get the motel room.