Fun In Virginia

Michelle and I were able to attend Christopher's AIT graduation (as previously posted) this past week. Much of Christopher's time was spent doing outprocessing, etc., so Michelle and I had some time to kill while we were in town. We really enjoy spending time on the East Coast (and in the South), so enjoy the photos, like this one here on the right; it's so picturesque eastern seaboard!

We flew out there using my American Airline miles, and getting award tickets from Boise on AA partners is getting increasingly difficult. Therefore, we woke up at 4am Monday (3/29) and drove down to Salt Lake City to fly out from there. Nothing quite like driving 5.5 hours to then fly for 5.5 hours (in two flight segments). It works, though; we're getting used to that BOI-SLC drive.

On Tuesday, we had the opportunity to crisscross the state, driving three-and-a-half hours (each way) to visit a friend of Michelle's in Front Royal, VA, in the Shenandoah Valley. We spent a couple of hours with Lanette, one of Michelle's former missionary companions from Rouen, France. We had a very nice lunch and visit with she and her husband. We really enjoyed all the scenery on the drive up there. Pictured here is an example of the many farms we saw on the drive up there and back.

Christopher was done with his activities on base for the day on Tuesday, and we were able to pick him up for dinner. He took us to one of their favorite places to eat while he was on base, the Quaker Steak & Lube. Pretty yummy place! Then after dinner we went and flicked out. Saw the new Jennifer Aniston movie, Bounty Hunter. A chick-flick love story, but with the prerequisite number of explosions, etc. so that Christopher and I were not required to turn in our Man Cards. :-)

On Wednesday after Christopher's graduation, he had to finalize all of his outprocessing, and while he was doing that, Michelle and I went to check out their local and very exciting (note the sarcasm) Patrick Henry Mall. That entertained us for all of about three nanoseconds, and then we went to check out a local Civil War site, a place called Civil War Endview Plantation. It was actually a pretty cool place. Though the formal tours and the buildings there were closed, we were able to walk around the grounds, and it was easy to envision Civil War battles being fought on the fields of that plantation - in fact, they do war reenactments there.

After we dropped Christopher off at the airport Wednesday afternoon, Michelle and I went out for an anniversary dinner (our 22nd anniversary was five days earlier, on March 26th). We went to a GREAT restaurant right on the boardwalk at Virginia Beach, a seafood restaurant called "Watermans." And after dinner, a nice romantic walk along the beach, where we got to see the moon rise (and dang... I did not have my camera!).

Wednesday afternoon, too, I took a bunch of pictures down near Christopher's barracks on base. You can't see them in this shot here, but in front of their barracks are a lot of plastic alligators. Their unit name is the "Gators" so the alligators out front were appropriate.

Anyway... Michelle and I flew back to SLC starting early Thursday morning, and after arriving there early afternoon, made the drive back to Boise, arriving late Thursday evening. We had a GREAT time while away. To see all 64 photos and 1 video of our time in Virginia, including Christopher's graduation, you can check them out here on Flickr.