little laughs, little adventures: A short vacation

    My lovely parents were so kind enough to come out here for a couple of weeks during our move to help us get settled in and how grateful we were for it. It got quiet pretty quick after they left which was a little sad but we definitely enjoyed having them here. AND they really wanted to watch the kids by themselves so they kind of shooed us out of the door and have a mini vacation together (we wanted one too but we're not very good at planning).
     We knew we wanted to camp so we had all of our equipment ready and headed towards the mountains up north. BEAUTIFUL! It is absolutely beautiful. We ended up in Virginia and drove through the Blue Ridge Parkway. I cannot even describe to you how green and luscious everything was. It was calming and renewing to the soul and it was much needed. Our first night we found a campground that was thankfully opened. We were trying to beat the Memorial Day rush by going a few days earlier unfortunately most campgrounds didn't open until Memorial Day weekend. Luckily we stopped by an information center and, boy, did these two people know their stuff! I guess it is their job after all but we would have missed some wonderful sites if it were not for them. Back to the camping: since we were somewhat early we had the pick of the campgrounds, it was wonderful. Once we picked our spot and were getting our tent out, it started pouring and continued pouring all through the night til early morning. Our rain flap wasn't on very well because we were desperately trying not to get drenched. We failed by the way. But it was some of the most fun we've had in a long time. We just kept laughing and laughing trying to get it on. We needed to stake the flap down and the spot we thought was great had a plethora of rocks that made it problematic. Needless to say we had a mostly dry night with minimal puddleage inside. It's a shame we didn't get any photos.
   The next day when we packed up, our tent was soaking but we needed to pack it up anyway because it was about to rain again. We knew that our tent was going to stink just sitting there in the car, but what are you going to do. It's part of the adventure. We hiked up Peaks of Otter. It is a two hour hike up and one hour down, according to the brochure but we killed it. It took us 45 minutes up and 30 minutes down. I'm not trying to brag or anything but it was just so awesome! After that we drove to a bed and breakfast in Williamsburg, VA where we met some great people and a cordial and comic host. We had told him that we have two little people and he told us; "It's good to leave your kids once in a while but if you don't miss them then you've got trouble." Good thing we missed the kids.
       We went to Busch Gardens and rode some bone rattling roller coasters several times. It was also raining so it wasn't too crowded, which was perfect for us. Got a couple of ponchos and off we went. We also went outlet shopping and came out with a few great deals, then stayed at a hotel the next night and walked over to colonial Williamsburg. After all that excitement we headed home. Thanks to Lolo and Lola for making it happen.