I'm back from a week in Virginia, Part 1

Well, not quite a week, since we left last Friday and got back a few hours ago...only about four days or so, but I doubt using "week" like that is of any particular importance.
First of all, sorry for not posting any updates while I was away...I wasn't able to get on the internet in Virginia.
Also, just like some of the other trips I've gone on in which I wasn't able to post a daily account of events, this could take a while to finish.  But I'll get going on it when I have a chance.
I'll post some photos after I get a chance to look through the ones I took some more; I took quite a few during the week.


Tomorrow I'm going to have my left wisdom teeth removed, and I'm not particularly looking forward to the appointment.  Oh well; there are more painful things that I have experienced, and it doesn't last forever.
Still, it's annoying, especially considering there's not only the painful procedure (I'm going with shots again), there's the discomfort afterwards since I didn't use any pain medication (or if I did, it was very mild) and the bleeding that lasted for quite a while.
Speaking of my last appointment, I did make a friend from church happy that she had the IV sedation and didn't go with the method I did.


[9-15-10]
I got back a while ago from getting my two left wisdom teeth...it wasn't fun, but at least it's over - the operation, anyway.  Once again, I didn't get any pain medication, so I'm just dealing with the pain...it could be worse.
Anyway, about the trip:


Day 1 
We left for Williamsburg on Friday morning or afternoon - I forget exactly what our time of departure was, but once on the road, we traveled for around 4-5 hours and eventually got to our hotel.  
I might not write too much else right now (my mouth is not feeling the greatest at the moment, to say the least), but I'll post a photo or two in the meantime.

In the hotel room with my 10-22mm ultra-wide-angle lens

Update: My mouth is feeling better, but I'm out of time for tonight.  Tomorrow I'll try to finish the process of sorting through and weeding out, editing and watermarking my photos.

In the meantime, you can look at what I've been doing with photo editing (using Windows Vista's built-in photo fixing tools) to a variety of photos, including the ones of the hotel chandelier light, or whatever you call it.

http://picasaweb.google.com/richter.max/

OK, continuing with day 1:
The hotel was not particularly impressive: it didn't have free Wi-Fi internet access in the rooms (it had cables and modems, I think, but I didn't test them out), old "cube" TVs, and other not-too-recent features, but it was OK.  I slept on the floor as usual, since the little ones sleep in the beds, and there is no way I am going to share a bed with someone else.
At the hotel, I stayed with my younger siblings while my parents were in the sessions downstairs.
Once I took them down to the pool, but it was too cold for some of them, so we went back upstairs and either watched movies or played the Wii or PS2.  Unfortunately, Super Smash Bros. Brawl wasn't working (it still isn't), so we mostly played Mario Kart Wii and Star Wars Battlefront II on the PS2.


I believe we may have eaten at the in-house restaurant that first evening.  The food was ridiculously priced, but some of it was very tasty.  Anyway, we had a total of $300 from our voucher to spend on food, so we didn't have to worry about that.  

Day 2:
On Saturday morning we did basically the same thing: eat at the restaurant, play games, etc.
However, in the afternoon, we went to Busch Gardens, since we had free passes.
Here are a couple of photos (naturally, I can't post all the photos from each day on here, but there will be more on my Picasa or flickr pages) from the amusement park:

While we were trying to get in, I needed to get my ID for verification, so I had to run across multiple parking lots to get my wallet, which was kind of tiring even though I wasn't going very fast.  Man, I need to get back into shape.  

No, I didn't go on any of the scary rides; doing so just makes me feel queasy for a long time afterwards.

Having my stomach jump into my throat is not my idea of fun - even though I don't like heights, I'd probably be able to deal with it if I didn't drop.  And I'll admit it, I do have a fear of heights, but it's a fairly rational apprehension - it's partly a fear of falling from a high distance, I think.

For instance, at the top of the Cape Hatteras lighthouse, I stayed as far away from the rail as possible, partly because I got a sense of vertigo, and partly because there was a possibility I could fall over the not-particularly-high rail.

To sum it up:

If I could fly, I don't think I'd have a fear of heights anymore.

I'll continue the account of our stay in Virginia in a later post.

-Max out