Outer Banks

The end of the summer marked the third annual Reid Outer Banks vacation. The only difference this year was the addition of a new generation. Getting to Nags Head with a 7 month old was about as difficult as I imaged. She actually did really great on the plane rides. I got her to fall asleep after we boarded the first flight and she slept through 90% of it, including takeoff. We had a long layover at JFK so she napped there and was wide awake for the second flight. She only fussed a little when we were trying to make her do stuff she didn't want to (sleep and eat), but no screaming like I was expecting. 

I'm not really sure what the deal was, but I had a sinus headache the entire time. It started on the plane ride into Richmond, feeling like someone was stabbing me in the forehead with an icepick. After I landed it was much better, just a dull ache, but it was there the whole time. I just ended up taking some Sudafed each day which helped me out a lot.

We had a tent on the beach which really saved us. I could last a little while in the sun on the beach, but no way Claire could have. She sat on her blanket in the shade and sucked on all of her toys. We took her down to the water every day and put her feet in, but she didn't like it too much. The water was probably too cold for her.

Claire absolutely loved looking at traffic driving by from the upper deck. We went out there multiple times a day to let her check everything out. Too bad there wasn't much traffic at 6am when she got us up.

The week was pretty uneventful, which is good for a vacation, with the exception of a wooden spoon catching on fire in the dishwasher and almost burning the house down. Ok, slight exaggeration, but a wooden spoon did catch on fire in the dishwasher. It had fallen through the rack and landed up against the heating element at the bottom. During the heated-dry cycle it actually burned the wood. It kind of smelled like marshmallows being toasted over a fire.

I was really disappointed at the lack of awesome vanity Virginia license plates. Last year I saw a bunch of them and searching for them really helped pass the 3.5 hour drive. On the way home I only saw one vanity plate, and it totally made up for not seeing any others: "VUGAY." At first I was puzzled, wondering why this guy would basically create a mobile invitation for a hate-crime, but then my sister noticed it was a Virginia Tech plate, which has a notorious rivalry with Virginia University. Awesome.

Flying back was very similar to the trip down. Claire slept almost the whole first flight but was awake and kind of fussy for the second one. She was just done with traveling, just like me, and could only be entertained for a few minutes at a time by something. At one point the flight attendant was walking by slowly collecting garbage, and when she got to us Claire reached out and grabbed her ass! In her defense she was aiming for the plastic garbage bag the attendant was holding and simply missed. I was glad to see she laughed instead of punching me in the face thinking I pinched her.