Redefined Timeline

This will be the last episode of “Guinness Goes to…” before the Hubs and I FINALLY depart on our first international journey of 2022. Stupid COVID. Anyway, in the weeks before Hubs’ shoulder surgery, I decided to take a weekend away. We took the short jaunt three hours south out to Virginia Beach.

Enroute to our accommodation, we elected to stop at New Kent Winery. The ex-husband and I visited once long, long ago when the establishment was brand new and not busy at all. Whelp, a lot has changed and New Kent outgrew it’s britches. The grounds were crawling with people, to include the younger, screaming and crying ones. We plopped down at a table as far from other humans as possible, enjoyed a wine flight, took advanced of a Guinness photo op, and departed.

Not knowing much about this part of Virginia, I had no idea where we should stay to avoid the seedy parts of town. I chose poorly, as our AirBnB, while quite nice inside, was sandwiched between a ramshackle abode and an overgrown mess of trees. Across the street were a few newly constructed homes, but that did nothing to help with the caliber of people roaming the streets and the constant skunky smell of marijuana wafting through the air. Being the intelligent humans that we are, we elected to walk almost everywhere we went in the area. Bars, dirty streets, stray animals, broken glass, and several criminally inclined hooligans dominated the area.

A chunk of the daytime hours consisted of us walking the dog. One of the strolls was a three hour jaunt, which for Guinness, in her old age, is quite a challenge. Since it was an unknown area, she did exceptionally well! The other was a nice meander around the botanical gardens. She was pooped by the conclusion of both.

If you’ve ever perused my ABOUT ME section (and actually read it), I’m divorced and remarried. The ex-husband and I parted on good terms. Hell, I’m the one that drove him to the airport the day he moved to Italy a few years ago. I adopted Guinness while still with him, and he still has an affinity for the pup. Whelp, ex-husband now lives in Virginia Beach with his girlfriend, so I gave him a ring and asked if he’d like to meet up with us for a drink. He elected to join, but advised his girlfriend had other plans. Apparently, she isn’t as comfortable as Hubs with awkwardly sitting down for drinks with her significant other’s former wife and dog.

Ex pulled up in his shiny Viper since the man can’t NOT have every toy out there. When he rounded the corner, I let Guiness go and she bolted to him. For three hours, we all imbibed of the breweries cervesas and chatted. Any outsiders likely had no idea how the three of us are connected. Unless they listened to the crack that spewed out of Hubs’ mouth partway through. Allow me to set the scene…

The three of us are talking about our ages (I’m the youngest of us and still in my 30s). Hubs and Ex have both already reached 40, so they’ve officially reached “old” status. Courtesy of my incredibly loving, and compassionate, husband, he blurted out that I would be “old” in less than two years, which prompted he and Ex to point and laugh at me. I responded with a resounding, “Fuck you both!” To which Hubs excitedly, and with a giant smile on his face, shouted, “You have!!!” Ex’s eyes grew to the size of saucers as he tried to figure out how he should respond to the comment. Before he was able, Hubs and I started roaring with laughter. I mean, he wasn’t wrong.

Math is not my strong suit. When reserving the condo, I miscalculated the days and dates, and shorted us a night. Oops. Instead of returning home with our tails between our legs, I found a hotel that accepted pooches, was on the beach, and in the nicer part of town. We frantically packed as the cleaning crew looked on, and made the short drive to Wyndham Virginia Beach Oceanfront. The Wyndham was in a desperate need of a remodel, but it would suffice for a single night. At least we had a water view instead of a putrid street landscape. We had brought food with us, but without a kitchen to cook in, it simply sat in the room’s fridge.

Due to the lack of cooking facilities, we discovered The Atlantic on Pacific, a delightful oyster and craft cocktail bar. I despise oysters, cooked or not, so why am I calling this restaurant delightful? Four words… Virginia Blue Crab Hushpuppies. We enjoyed those little suckers so much, that we ordered a box to go. The entrees were delectable, the mixed drinks were tasty, and the bartender entertaining. Or was it us who entertained him with our booze-addled antics?

We earned the thousands of calories we ingested that evening since we not only walked to the bar, but then skipped (me, literally) back to the hotel. It amounted to approximately two miles there and two more back, and rounded out my steps for the day to a nicely uneven 27,514. And just like that, Guinness’s adventures come to a close for the year.