Bukkit Tour Day Fifteen: Last Stop Virginia Beach

Day fifteen of the Bukkit Tour brings us to our final destination, Virginia Beach, VA. We packed up our room in the morning and loaded up the car. We couldn't check into our hotel at Virginia Beach until 4:00. Checkout time at the Holiday Inn was 11:00 so we had five hours to kill. We decided to hit up Colonial Williamsburg to see if there was anything we could quickly visit before making our way to the beach. We parked the car and started walking around and what to our wondering eyes should appear but Boy Scouts. Scouts as far as the eye could see and now they were armed with Snap-N-Pops. There's nothing more annoying than dozens of teenage boys throwing Snap-N-Pops at each other. We quickly sought refuge in a local eatery.

It was a fine restaurant, but it just wasn't our lucky day. We got the no-confidence n00B waiter, Laela received the wrong sandwich (which ended up being tasty), and I got a bowl full of cucumbers. I hate cucumbers. Since we were in the south, Laela also ordered a mint julep. The bartender filled must've filled up the glass 3/4 of the way with whiskey because it was STRONG. You could smell it before the waiter put it down on the table. Needless to say, there wasn't much of that consumed and it was actually the most expensive thing we ordered (more than our entrees). After lunch we went over to the visitor's center to see if there was anything of interest and didn't really find anything. So we made our way through a few gift shops and then set out for the beach.

For the most part, the ride to the beach was uneventful but there was one memorable moment. About three cars ahead of us there were a pair of ladies riding metric cruiser motorcycles. Traffic had slowed down to a crawl. The next thing you know, someone jerk in an automobile cuts the two motorcycles off and the second one ended up on the ground. The first bike didn't see the second bike drop, nor did the RV they were travelling with because it was up front. Traffic stopped and I threw on my flip flops and hopped out of the car (Laela was driving) to go and make sure the lady was okay. She seemed to be fine but she was shaken up. She was also incapable of lifting her Vulcan 900 off of the ground. I stood the bike up for her and helped her and her bike over to the side of the road. The motorcycle wouldn't start after being on it's side because there was no gas in the carbs. By then the The RV had pulled over and the other rider she was with came over and started yelling at her. They were both of Eastern European origin and not speaking English. I asked them if they wanted any help getting the bike started but they waved me off. So I hopped back into the car and we arrived shortly thereafter at Virginia Beach.

The Countryside Hotel we are staying at is kind of a dump but it's the only hotel that had a "suite" available during the time we were booking. It's got a great ocean view though. We really just hung out in the hotel room, went to the beach for a little bit, got cleaned up and went out to dinner at Otani, yet another hibachi restaurant.

After dinner we performed a Behler family vacation ritual and found a miniature golf course. It was Pirate's Paradise Mini Golf. It was just like any other mini-golf in a tourist trap town, but the best thing about this was it's proximity to an AWFUL lounge band playing at an adjacent bar's outdoor patio. They were singing all of today's top 40 hits but the singer couldn't carry a tune if it had a handle on it. It's made all eighteen holes painfularious. Got a couple of good photos with the "pirates" and then left. While we were leaving we got to witness yet another auto accident. A stupid woman was trying to text and light a cigarette at the same time, ran a red light and got slammed into by a mini-van. There are cops all over the place at Virginia Beach so it wasn't but one minute before one had showed up. We drove back to the hotel afterwards and went to sleep. Looking forward to an uneventful day sixteen.

Bukkit Tour Day Fourteen: Busch Gardens, VA

Started off day fourteen of the bukkit tour after a refreshing night's sleep at the Holiday Inn. The girls and I took our time and got ready for the day and packed up the room. We figured it was going to be a hot day requiring lots of energy (the forecast called for 106 degrees Fahrenheit). When we pulled in on day thirteen, we thought to ourselves "What luck, there's a pancake and waffle restaurant right next door." So that's where we ate. Just as advertised, they had pancakes and waffles. The girls both had an order of apple pancakes and I had pigs in a blanket. Mmmmmm...blaaannket covered piiiiigs.

We walked back over to the car and started it up and the temperature reading was 97 degrees in the shade at 11:15. Laela and I were convinced that the day was going to be miserable and weren't looking forward to it at all, but this was the one thing that Miranda asked to do while we were on vacations so we were determined to make it happen. We had to rearrange our schedule a bit. Busch Gardens was supposed to be the very last thing that we did before coming home, but a tiny hotel issue had occurred which necessitated rearranging the schedule and I'm glad we did. Finding it was easy after leaving the hotel because we were so close to the park that all we had to do was follow the signs. I was really surprised by how expensive the tickets were. King's Island and Cedar Point are just a little over 1/2 the cost of Busch Gardens. The turnstiles to get you into the park aren't very efficient either, there was quite a line to get in which had me feeling very dubious about the rest of the day.

We hooked up a fast pass so that ol' wheezy McGee didn't have to swelter in the lines all day. There was a really nice older lady that helped us out with the pass. She set it up for four people and told Miranda that she should find some lucky fella to round out the four and that if she saw a bachelor in his seventies to toss him her way. It was really funny.

So we were all excited about the park, grabbed a map and started trying to figure out which rides to ride. Much to our chagrin, there are only four roller coasters in the whole park. I guess we're a little spoiled in Ohio with Cedar Point and King's Island. We rode the following: The Griffon, the Alpnegeist, Apollo's Chariot, and the Loch Ness Monster. All of them were fun steel coasters. The Alpnegeist was a foot dangler similar to the Raptor at Cedar Point. The Griffon is kind of odd because they seat you 10 across and if you are on the end during the ride, you don't see any track under you especially if when the stop you at the top of the 90 degree drop and let you dangle for a few seconds before they let you go. An interesting historical note on Apollo's Chariot: On opening day 1999 Fabio was in the first car on the first ride. As it plummeted down the hill a goose struck him in the face. When he exited the ride he was covered in blood, fortunately (depending on your point of view) he only suffered a cut on his nose.

We also took in some other rides, notably the water rides. There were three of them: your standard log flume, Roman Rapids your standard whitewater tubing ride and Escape from Pompeii which is a combination of King's Island's Adventure Express and Congo Falls. The water rides were fantastic for cooling us off and certainly made the day's oppressive heat more bearable.

Other park notables: We had dinner at the Festhaus. Guinness on tap plus "authentic" German food. There was a big gazebo in the middle of the hall and I said to Laela, the only thing we need is a polka band. 10 minutes later we had a polka band and dancers. It was silly fun and we enjoyed the entertainment. After dinner, Miranda and I rode the Alpengeist and Griffon coasters again, we stopped by the fudge shop and went back to our car. I took about ten minutes to unwrap my "meat toes" as Laela calls them. It was good though, an once of prevention (individually wrapping each of my toes before we left for the day) is worth an pound of cure and my digits were no worse for wear when we got finished.

So we make it back to the hotel and there is a tour bus parked in front of our parking spot from last night and it is filled with Boy Scouts. Let's take a moment and discuss the invasion of scouts on the Bukkit Tour. Once we had gotten to Washington, DC there were Boy Scouts everywhere. Apparently there was some kind of Jamboree in the DC area. They did not call us in advance and clear that with the Bukkit Tour coordinator. So everywhere in DC we went there were throngs of scouts. We figured we were finished with that after we left DC. Not true. Busch Gardens was also packed with scouts and of course a bus full of them were staying at our hotel. Now don't get me wrong, I was a scout back in my misspent youth. The problem is, I was a scout back in my misspent youth and I know what kind of shenanigans will be wrought by clusters of teen age boys traveling in packs. Ever since we arrived in DC, I've had a crick in my neck because I've had to strain it giving the evil eye to young men gawking at my daughter. Our favorite thing to do when we get to a hotel is to go and take a dip in the pool. Guess what? Full of scouts causing a ruckus. So we look over at the hot tub. Full of scouts. We got in the pool and huddled in a corner for about ten minutes and I got sick of it. I told the girls "Watch me go clear out the hot tub and then follow me." I walked over to the hot tub and there were about nine kids in it (small tub so it was packed like sardines. Scowling all the while I took the last seat available on the bench and three of them immediately hopped out. The "leader" of the last six saw Laela and Miranda get out of the pool and start walking over and said to the rest "Why don't we get out and make some room for them?" Walrus powers ACTIVATE! We relaxed for a while went back up to the room and got cleaned up.

We had bought some fudge, chocolate covered Oreos, and candy fruit slices at BG but we didn't have any milk. Laela and I Froggered our way across the street to the 7-11 and bought some milk, came back to the room and snacked with Miranda while watching the Boondocks on Adult Swim.

So that was day fourteen of the Bukkit Tour now in the books.

PS: No stickers have been found at Busch Gardens or any other stores in Virgina to apply to the Bukkit :(

Bukkit Tour Day Thirteen: Farewell DC on to Virginia

Friday was our last day in Washington DC. Laela and I got up early, went downstairs and had breakfast by ourselves while we let Miranda sleep. It waas nice to sneak away for a couple of minutes on our own. It was one of the few times that Miranda's habit of sleeping late didn't drive me bat sh!t crazy. We got French Toast take out and delivered it to Miranda so she could have breakfast too. We packed up the room and had the hotel come get the bags and bring the car around. We hopped in and started making our way towards our last Washington, DC site: The Arlington National Cemetery.

Getting to the Arlington National Cemetery required us to travel the DC streets in a direction we hadn't gone before. One would think that when the United States declared it's independence from Great Britain that we'd have have left some of their more stupid ideas on the other side of the pond. Case in point....roundabouts. Roundabouts are the absolute stupidest means of traffic control for more than six simultaneous cars ever created. We had to pass through four of them before we got across the river into Arlington, VA. Fortunately I was was able to successfully navigate all of them but the other drivers had a little more trouble. Accidents were avoided.

Once we made it to the cemetery, we set out on foot. Let me state for the record that I'm glad we only had one activity today because it was super hot. Our car's outside temperature thermometer actually hit 103 at one point today. We didn't know what to expect or have a real plan. We walked through the visitors center and then onto the footpaths. We visited the Kennedy Eternal Flame, saw the changing of the guard at the tomb of the unknown soldier, visited the Arlington House, the Space Shuttles Challenger and Columbia memorials. It's tough to put into words the patriotic feelings that swell while walking through the cemetery and the profound respect and honor for all of those who have paid the ultimate price for defending the freedom of the United States.

I had the foresight to program our into the GPS destination before we left so that was helpful because we didn't have to give AT&T Navigator ten minutes to figure out where it was. So we left Arlington and proceeded onto I-95. I thought I was doing great. The traffic was kind of slow and the highway split into carpool lanes and normal lanes. The car pool lanes seemed to be going much slower so I didn't even bother to try to get over to them. I stayed on the "normal" lanes. I was passing all kind of cars in the HOV lane and was getting a little smug about it. Big mistake. Before I knew it we were stuck in a huge gridlock and what should have been a quick two and a half hour jaunt ended up turning into a five hour ordeal. About two and a half hours in my nerves were frazzled and Miranda was hungry so we got off the highway for a quick bite to eat. We stopped at McDonald's and went inside. After a quick meal we were starting to head back out onto the highway when Laela spied a Border's Book store. Surprisingly, Miranda has been reading quite a bit and had exhausted her literary supply. So we stopped and got her restocked. I got quite tired after eating so I relinquished the wheel to Laela and she guided us safely to our hotel in Williamsburg, VA.

We got into the Holiday Inn, got our stuff settled, and then went across the street to the 7-11. DC had been so go go go, that I wanted to have a couple of beers tonight and then enjoy the hotel's hot tub and swimming pool. That's exactly what I did. Laela, Miranda, and I went down to the pool around 9:00 and stayed until a little after 10:00. So here I am, cranking out today's blog entry and getting ready to go to bed. Forecast calls for 106 at 3:00PM tomorrow (feels like 116), so it's going to be a long day trudging around Busch Gardens.

Bukkit Tour Day Twelve...and the Rest (guest author Laela)

Hi Everybody, it's Laela, I'm guest blogging today. I know I am no Rob with the crafting of the words, but please give me chance. Here we go......

Yesterday while walking about town we saw a bike tour and a Segway tour. (D.C. is not really set up for walking around like the other cities we've been to.) With Rob's meat toes we wanted to do the Segway tour, 'cause when else would we get a chance to ride around on those thing, but D.C. has a law you must be 16 to ride Segways. So after some poking around we found a bike place that had tours leaving at 10 a.m. If you've been reading this blog, you know that Rob has complained and complained about his girls sleeping in (what he doesn"t tell you is that we haven't been getting to bed until 1 or 2 am each night), and 10 am is EARLY for us, but we got up and made it over there. What the site didn't say was to call and make reservations, and they were booked. However, they did have day rentals of the bikes without a tour. Turned out to be the best idea EVAR.

First spot we rode to was the International Spy Museum. I am highly recommending this if you travel to D.C. It had interviews from former spy's, and all these cool little gadgets. We spent almost three hours going through there. It's a little off the beaten path, but there were plenty of people there. It is not free, like the Smithsonian, but we got our moneys worth.

We took two steps out the Spy Museum and started debating lunch. This has become a daily chore, because we never know what's close, or what's good, or what Miranda will eat, and what we'll eat want. Miranda hates trying new things, and Rob and I just want to try all the local foods. The two visual choices were the Spy Cafe, or Gordon Biersch. Gordon Bierchs had beer so it won out. Miranda got out of her comfort zone and ordered some stir fry. I was so proud of her.

After lunch we visited a bunch of places on the bike real quick, please keep in mind that it's summer and nothing is open to the public. We saw the Capital Building, the Supreme Court, and the Library of Congress. There is a fantastic fountain outside of the Library of Congress. I made everybody stop so we could get our picture taken. (I still think the Worthington Library is better, cause the people who work there are The Best.)

We then took the Behler show over to the Museum of Natural History. Miranda was really excited to visit here. It had some cool/gross stuff all over the place. From there we rode over to the Jefferson Memorial and the FDR Memorial. Each Memorial is awe inspiring in their own ways. The Jefferson is classic, but the FDR is modern, and makes you contemplate the issues FDR had to deal with. Ann told us not to miss it, and she was completly right.

We made two more stops before we turned the bikes in. We visited the Vietnam Memorial and the White House. The White House looks so small from Pennsylvania Avenue. There a police everywhere around the street. The police are friendly and will let you hang on the rails (just in case you were wondering).

Here is the portion of the show where I tell you that the bikes rocked. It's the only thing that worked out around here. The metro, while easy to figure out, has the weirdest paying system, and I'm sure we WAY over paid for the amount we used it. Not to mention the metro stops are few and far between, and the escalators were never in working order. I know your thinking "what a stupid thing to complain about" but if you're with Rob it becomes an issue. I also want to say the people here are either SUPER rude, Über snobby, or overly helpful. The city may be clean, but it's not my favorite.

So we've called it a night. Everyone has taken a shower and are relaxing on the bed. It has been very hot everyday we've been gone. We are headed into Virginia tomorrow. I think we are all looking forward to getting to the beach before we head home. In case you haven't heard, we miss you. It would have been great if everybody could have come along for the party, but life doesn't always give us what we want.

Thanks for reading, I'm sure Rob will post his regular scheduled Blog later.

Bukkit Tour Day Eleven: Smithsonian Institutes

Sorry for the lateness of the day eleven blog. We got an early start on day twelve and I didn't have time to write it. So without further ado, day eleven...

We got going for the day at noon time. Since we wanted to start taking in the sites as soon as possible we had brunch at the Chartwell Grill & Lounge. That is the restaurant in the hotel lobby. It was decent food but nothing to write home about.

Driving in Washington, DC kind of sucks and all of the parking around the museums is one or two hour so we decided that we'd take the Metro rail. There is a stop in DuPont Circle which is about five blocks away from the hotel. We'd managed to figure out the trains in Boston and New York so we figured that DC wouldn't be any more difficult. (In the interests of full disclosure, Anthony was always with us in New York.) The first thing we tried to do was purchase tickets in the same method that we did in New York. Put all of the money on one ticket and pass it between us. Guess what? That doesn't work in DC because you have to pay when you get on and when you get off. As soon as you scan your ticket to get on, you can't use it again until you scan it through the exit turnstile. When we asked for an explanation of how it worked, the Metro transit worker just got pissed and let all three of us through the handicapped gate. Of course that didn't do anything to help us out when we got to our destination. Fortunately, the one nice public worker we encountered in DC was working at the exit. He took us over to the machines and split the money we had put on the one ticket into three tickets.

We got off of the train and started making our way to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. I was so excited! I'd always wanted to see the Wright Flyer, Spirit of St. Louis, Glamorous Glennis, and Apollo 11 Command Module in person with my own eyes. Being that close to history was truly an awe inspiring event. I didn't realize that there was another hanger in Virginia which houses many other historical air and space vehicles. I was slightly disappointed that we didn't get to go there, but the only thing I really would have wanted to see would have been the Space Shuttle Enterprise. Honestly, the Air Force Museum at Wright Patterson Air Force base is a more impressive museum. The problem is that it the experience at Wright-Pat always felt cheapened a little bit because the actual history making vehicles weren't there. That's how I got the bug to go to DC and see the actual vehicles. We spent a good deal of time there and saw a movie in the planetarium about stars. Bonus, it was narrated by none other than the air and space pioneer....Whoopi Goldberg!?!

We left the museum and stopped at one of the snack carts because it was H.T.B. outside. Walking around in 94 degree heat all day gets exhausting. The girls each got ice cream treats, but it seemed like the most logical choice was the lemon frozen ice. That's what I got and it was the big hit between the three of us. We consumed our frozen goodness while making our way over to the Smithsonian Museum of American History.

Now, I'll be honest with you. The big reason for going to the Smithsonian Museum of American History was to see the popular culture exhibit. Aside from Fonzie's jacket and Kermit the Frog, it was a bit of a letdown. The exhibit was contained in one rather small room and was kind of underwhelming. The rest of the museum was awesome and I enjoyed seeing the items pertaining to the American Revolution and the presidents themselves.

This would be day two of trying to find decals for the bukkit, but no souvenir shop seems to sell stickers. We started getting worried that we wouldn't be able to find any because all of the gift shops are almost exactly alike.

We got on the subway to make our way back to DuPont Circle with no hassles this time until we got to DuPont Circle. The up escalator was out. I'm not normally one to be complaining about climbing steps because it doesn't bother me. I prefer it over elevators, but the tunnel to get down to the subway is almost straight down and a LONG climb. Given my current condition, I really had to stop when I got to the top because I felt really winded. Check out the photos of Laela and Miranda on Bukkit Tour Day 11 album on my Facebook page to see how steep the subway stairs are. I finally caught my breath. We were really hungry at this point because we hadn't eaten a meal since noon and it was now after 9:00. We went to Five Guys Burgers. Holy carp, that was a good choice. The burgers taste just like they would on the backyard grill and the toppings are excellent. They also give you a mountain of fries when you order them. I got the fries with the cajun lovin' spices and I was stoked!

We finished dinner and started making our way back to the hotel with one quick pit stop at the liquor store. I wanted to get a beer to have back at the room. I went in and what to my wondering eyes should appear, but Yuengling Lager! I grabbed a sixer, we went back to the room and I enjoyed a couple while we got cleaned up from the day's adventures. Finally turned in at about midnight. What a day.