Day 45 – Man of Steel & Killer Seafood

Scribe – Grant
Based In – Virginia Beach / Blackpool (Virginia)

Today’s Photos - http://www.flickr.com/photos/32017704@N03/sets/72157611427397018/

I woke up feeling distinctly weird this morning. No headache. Only averagely appalling breath. The alarm hadn’t yet gone off. Still hours to go before breakfast finishes. Could this be what it’s like to wake up not having drunk the night before? I don’t like it. Given these unbelievable circumstances, I wanted to take full advantage and went about planning a day that would make Lance Armstrong look like a couch potato.

First up, the obligatory dog walk. First Landing State Park (has a day gone by without a visit to a state park?) is just a few miles down the road and a quick scan of their web site showed a sack full of hiking trails but none beyond 3 miles. However, my computer like brain quickly pulled together an ingenious combination of 5 trails resulting in a 7 mile walk worthy of our new-found energy. The bad news, I didn’t have access to a printer so I had to rely on a home-made sketch of the trails to navigate my way round. Now whilst God/Buddha/Vishnu blessed me with a brain capable of amalgamating hiking trails (not to mention this incredible body), he/she was having a laugh when he/she portioned out my artistic ability and, in summary, it is a Christmas miracle that I am back at my hotel and able to type up this blog without the assistance of the emergency services. Still, maybe I am doing myself a disservice as I either didn’t get lost once or I got lost so many times that it all balanced itself out.

The walk, however, wasn’t without incident. For a start, Molly had an evil glint in her eye that makes me want to half-volley her back to the Singapore Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. You don’t need all the details but her evil routine starts with completely ignoring any suggestions to stay within visible distance and ends by rolling round in shit…and today was no different. The look of unadulterated pleasure on her face as she writhes around in fecal matter never ceases to amaze me. Maybe I’m missing a trick? Maybe not. The other incident was less stomach churning but no less annoying. One of the trails I went on is shared with a biking trail and I was passed, unannounced, by a floppy haired youth at what seemed like a gazillion miles an hour. The problem was, my brain misread the situation and I honestly thought I was being charged by a bear, despite being literally hundreds of miles from any bear inhabited areas. Net result, every square inch of air in my body left through my mouth and I let out a grunt that nearly forced the cyclist to fall off…but unfortunately he didn’t. It’s good to know that, if I was attacked by a bear, I would be completely useless. Sorry Kate, you’d have to be the man and wrestle it whilst I curled up in a fetal position and shivered uncontrollably.

Next in the exercise-a-thon (after bathing the shitty dog) was cycling. Four miles back to the state park, ten miles off-road in the park and another four miles home. I haven’t done much cycling on anything other than concrete and I have to say that the park based riding was an unexpected pleasure. It wasn’t particularly undulating but the various contrasting surfaces (rock, sand, leaves and mud…lots of mud) made it really interesting and, despite several wobbles, I managed to stay upright throughout. Good job considering the health insurance doesn’t kick in for another 13 days. Really good fun but I was, as they say in the sporting world, properly knackered by this point. And covered in some fairly foul smelling bog mud. Close enough to fecal matter to realize that it’s not for me.

After a much needed clean up and well deserved lie-down, the final round of the exercise sandwich was another long walk with the pup. Despite having driven Virginia Beach’s strip numerous times, I hadn’t walked it. So we did. It was a bit of a weird walk as there are Christmas tunes blaring from the lampposts yet very few people to hear it. There’s a street called 23 ½ Street (presumably where Harry Potter stays when he vacations here) and sporadic signs that indicate swearing is banned. I’m not sure if it’s OK to scream obscenities outside the range of these signs but I’m not going to test the theory.

All this work deserved a decent meal and I’m pleased to say it got an awesome one. My meanderings discovered that the only two places that consistently contained a decent throng of people were, conveniently, an easy walk from my hotel. The closest place, Harpoon Larry’s, advertised “killer seafood” (a risky description) and delivered (in a good way) in spades. The place resembles a dive bar and allows smoking which, in this day and age, just seems plain weird. Now I have officially stopped smoking but I was very happy to suck on the second hand smoke. Just to add to the feel good factor, the place served my favourite beer (Magic Hat Number 9) and the staff were super friendly. I ordered the crab soup to start (which I am slowly becoming addicted to) and it was extraordinary despite being having a loser consistency than I would have liked. Next up what the “Not So Huge Combo” which is a smaller version of the “Killer Combo” that comes on a plate resembling a satellite dish. Mine had two oysters, two clams, three mussels, three Cajun shrimp, three crawfish and ¼ lb snow crab legs. Everything was steamed (I would have preferred the oysters and clams raw but no substitutions allowed) and it was probably the nicest plate of shellfish I have ever had the pleasure of gnawing on. And it was just $11. Crazy. 30 minutes later I had a lovely, satiated glow about me whilst was wiping fish juice off my elbows and considering myself a very happy camper. Sorry about the lack of photos but, as happy as I am dining alone, I refuse to be that guy that sits alone AND takes photos of his food. It just wasn’t that sort of place.

I contemplated more beers in the other inhabited place in Virginia Beach (CP Shuckers, looks good) but thought I would get back to keep Molster company. And not a moment too soon as she was being terrorized by a fly. She would be even less use than me in the event of a bear attack.

Leaving Virginia Beach tomorrow to head back north towards Washington DC. Kate arrives back in a couple of days and I’m pretty sure it would be inexcusable not to at least be in the same city. See, I’m not THAT bad a husband.