My wife and I had a mis-communication. I won’t go into it here, but the end result was that I had booked a family vacation to a location she wasn’t interested in, at a time that was quite inconvenient to her. Rather than be miserable, she stayed home, and I took the kids with me on a trip to Virginia Beach.

There isn’t much in Virginia Beach except, well, beach. A beautiful beach, steps away from the hotel. But April in Virginia is not beach weather, and we needed to wear jackets to brave the sand. Still, it is rather conveniently located two hours north of Roanoke Island (the site of the lost colony of 1587), two hours south of Jamestown, Williamsburg and Yorktown (the sites of the first successful English colony, the colonial capital for 100 years, and the conclusive battle that ended the Revolutionary war, respectively) and half an hour from Norfolk (the site of a huge naval center for more than 300 years.)

We had a great time. Each day we would pick a direction and explore this wonderful, historically rich area. The first day, I dragged the kids to Roanoke Island, and they went with good spirits, but from there on, I let them choose every destination, acting only as their adviser. In the end, we didn’t see Jamestown or Williamsburg, but my kids got to go to the battlefield site at Yorktown and learn about that important battle, walk on the deck of a Battleship, play in an underwater archeology museum, and see the biggest aquarium in North Carolina. In the end, everyone’s favorite site was “Jockey Ridge”, an active group of sand dunes in the Outer Banks that inspired the Wright Brothers to launch the first powered flight in 1903 off of Kill Devil Hill, about five miles to the north. What made Jockey Ridge so fun? Rolling down the face of the largest dune, at an angle of about 50 degrees or so. It felt like free-fall, and the speed and lack of control was breathtaking. We all loved it.

And my wife? She seems to have done just fine, enjoying our beautiful house for five days without kids. Nothing wrong with that. In the end, we all win.

One

wild

precious

life.