Jackson Creek, Piankatank River

When on a boat like My Weigh, once one person wakes up, everyone tends to wake up -- the space is too compact for it to be any other way -- today, we were all up by 7, feeling refreshed from our Crabfeast adventures and ready to take on another day.

It had rained very hard overnight but had stopped by the time we woke -- everything was wet, but we could see patches of blue forming in the sky -- perhaps the weatherman got it wrong this time. Sue, ever full of energy in the mornings, prepared our standard "guest" breakfast, bacon and eggs. We ate on deck and the sun briefly appeared -- the weather had promise.

Jon and Rachel were planning to leave by noon or thereabouts, so we hadn't planned much for the day -- after a brief post-breakfast discussion, we settled on taking Scarlett to a park to give her a chance to get some air and burn some energy before the long car ride home -- all we needed was a park to take her to.

You might think this would be an easy thing -- Google "park" or "school" or "kindergarden" or any other number of terms and "poof", there it would be, a short ride away. Well, not so fast Kemosabe -- Google doesn't know much about rural Virginia and what it does know "a'int necessarily current". So, after following a number of Google generated "false leads" generated by multiple adults using multiple cell-phones and driving perhaps 10 miles out and back from the Marina's creek, we eventually "stumbled across" such a park, at a "Community Center", not more than a mile or so from our boat. So much for modern technology !

We did hang at the park for an hour or so -- Scarlett loved it -- the swings, the slides, the "monkey bars", all of it. At one point she became "inspired" and started "directing" all of us in her inaugural play, "the princess" -- I was the cook (then the king), Sue the good witch, Rachel the princess, Jon the prince and Scarlett the "super"- princess -- the story line of the play was to keep the apple away from the princess and have the prince kiss her awake. She was very emphatic about her direction -- something her grandmother found very familiar. Scarlett clearly could be headed for a career in theater or film!!

Loves the swings

G'ma and mom join the fun

Dad watching the fun!

Wheeeeee !!!

G'pa joins in the fun

G'ma taking a break from her role in the play

G'Pa trying to be 4 again !

On the way back from the park, we stopped at a local cafe for a cup of coffee at a local cafe; from there, Grandpa Jack and Grandma Sue walked Scarlett back to the boat (perhaps .5 mile) to further "wear her down". By the time she was in the car and ready to go, her eyes were drowsy -- she was going to be sleeping for a while on the way home -- score one for the grandparents ;-)

Thanks for a great weekend !!!!

The rest of the day was occupied by a long walk for Sue and I -- we started out for Stingray Point, the place where Capt. John Smith was stung by a stingray that he had lanced with his sword; as the story goes, he almost dies but recovers quickly, so quickly that he ate his share of the stingray for that evening's dinner -- ya gotta love local history.

As it turned out, what was going to be a "couple of" mile or so walk turned out to be a marathon -- the day had become very sunny and hot and we thought we'd might stop at a restaaurant for a cool drink -- Stingray Point was at the end of the creek and the creek was lined with large Marinas, and they often have restaurants attached to them so, we thought, we should be easily abe to find one. Not!!! After walking out along the whole length of the creek searching for a restaurant, we finally had the good sense to ask a couple that happened to be passing by on their bikes where one might bet; they told us the only restaurant on the creek was on its other side which meant we ended up walking  all the way back to the creek's end, up the road to cross to its its other side and then almost all the way out its other side -- oh well, we had nothing else to do :-)