Summer Travel Part 3: Random shots in Portsmouth, VA

Knowing my love of old buildings and quaint shops my daughter took me to Historical Down Town Portsmouth. I was very pleased to find so many unique old buildings with different architectural styles all in one place. Here are a few of my favorite shots.

Nestled among the shops, business, museums and restaurants was this beautiful old church.  I was drawn to the gate in the five foot brick privacy wall.

As I started to enter I noticed the grave stones haphazardly positioned around the tranquil courtyard.

My granddaughter grabbed my arm and said "NO Grandma it is spooky in there!" So I had to settle for a long shot of the church corridor.

Another thing I love about historic districts are the unique and ornate street signs. To me these signs are a testament to those that established and cared for the city streets. They not only tell the name of the street but show that the caretakers of these streets took pride in them.

 Further down the street we came to this quaint cafe with it's tree shaded patio.

Having enjoyed our outing we got in the car and headed back to Norfolk. Along the way I was lucky to get some nice shots of ships in the harbor and city skyline.

So far I am enjoying my vacation very much.  Hope everyone is having a good weekend.

Summer Travel Part 2: Having fun

So far the weather has not been very co-operative. The weekend was so hot we were not able to go out much. Then the rain came. In South Dakota the days get very hot and humid then the rain comes and afterwords it is much cooler and the humidity all but gone. Not here in Virginia, after the rain it seemed even hotter and definitely much more humid.

Not so Wordless Wednesday Submission

After the rain stopped I thought I would go take some photographs of the rain drops on the trees but that didn't work out. The foggy appearance of this photo is because the humidity was so high my camera lens was fogging up.


Yesterday was hot but did cool down in the late afternoon so we were finally able to go for a walk.

I like the white picket fences and colonial style homes in the Military Housing tract where my daughter lives. Scattered throughout the housing tract are a number of nice playgrounds, which of course we are making use of.

Although today it was once again hot and overcast we decided to head to a park along the beach in hopes that it would be a little cooler and we could take some fun photos.

We did not plan to actual go swimming, although maybe we should have. Little H was thrilled and was all excited to hunt for sea shells. Little J was excited also but then decided he didn't trust the water and did not want to venture off the dry sand.

As you can see little H had no such fear. After walking along the shore for a bit we headed over to the playground before heading home to change into dry clothes before going out shopping.

Tomorrow we are planning on going to see some historical areas, so hopefully the weather co-operates.

Summer Travel Part 1

I have always loved road trips, and am very happy that my children and now grandchildren also enjoy long road trips. Although they are much more enjoyable when you are not strapped for time and can make stops along the way they can still be a lot of fun.
Before we left Val showed Little H the route we would take on a local playground US map.

The first day of our two day drive started very early before the sun had completely risen. It was still pretty dark but as you can see Little H is wide awake and animated as usual.

This next photo of the sunrise was taken leaning over into the back seat and thus the odd angle.

Because we were on a tight schedule we weren't able to get any real sight seeing done. Instead we played games, sang songs and took photos along the way of things that caught our attention.

It was really cute to hear Little J with his "Picture it Grandma" requests every time he saw a bridge or a car he liked.

 Although the flooding along the Missouri river has gone down since the beginning of July parts of Interstate 29 was still closed, causing us to have to reroute our trip.

By the end of the day we all were pretty tired and ready to reach our hotel. 

However, when we got within three miles of the off ramp we ran into a major traffic jam. Construction had the highway so backed up it took us 45 minutes to travel the three miles to our off ramp.

Even though we were more than ready to call it a day by the time we got to the hotel the trip went pretty smooth.