This certainly wasn't the first time I'd stayed in a hotel by myself, and certainly was not the first time I'd been traveling on my own, but it was the first time it was a purely recreational thing, and purely my choice. I had been wanting to head north into Virginia for a few weeks by the time weather and other obligations permitted me the entire weekend to myself. I booked the cheapest hotel I could find - a La Quinta just off the highway - and set off on Saturday to see what I could find.
I chose the Hampton area because I had been "exploring" Google Earth for interesting-looking places within a reasonable driving range and had stumbled upon this overhead shot of Newport News:
This, to me, looked like a town center with a lovely fountain and plenty of downtown to walk through for an afternoon. Perfectly reasonable assumption, yeah? That what it look like to you? HUH? DOES IT?
I had another bridge crossing moment, like in Washington and New Bern, where I catch a glimpse of my final destination from a bridge and get really excited.
Yes. I took a picture while driving. I apologize. It's also not a very good or clear picture of what you're meant to see. But anyway.
I checked in to my hotel, picked a spot I was reasonably sure was where I was trying to go on my GPS, and set off. I eventually found my fabled city center:
...although it turned out to actually be an outlet mall.
I did find the fountain:
So that was nice. And it wasn't a bad area by any means. It just wasn't an actual city center.
I thought this was amusing:
Who goes all the way to Newport News just to swear?
I finished my walkabout of the shopping center, but still wanted to see the town proper, whatever that may be. So I got back in my car and headed in a direction that felt like it was going downtown. I don't really know how to measure or justify it. It just feels like the right way.
Turns out the "downtown" area of Newport News is very uh is uh very uh is not so nice. Newport News is a shipbuilding town, and as such the main population area is very industrial and not too pretty to look at. It's all a bunch of rundown factories, basically. I didn't get out of the car for this part, so I only managed to get one picture:
That one was actually pretty neat. The shipyards were closed to non-employees, though, unfortunately.
Anyway, depressed by my chosen destination's lack of interesting features, I set my sights on nearby Hampton, hoping to fare better, and thinking that maybe this was "The Hamptons", fabled neighborhood of the rich and very rich.
It's not. That's on Long Island. Duh!
There did seem to be one redeeming point of interest, though:
I think this was called the Virginia Flight and Space Center, but it's been almost a year since my visit and I don't really remember for sure. Something like that. Anyway, it looked really interesting from the outside. I could see through the massive glass front a myriad planes and rockets to the moon on display, some hanging from the ceiling, some out on mid-floor pedestals like a dinosaur skeleton in a museum. The attached IMAX theater had posters up for Skyfall, coming soon(!). And it was, all of it, closed for the night.
Great! Finally I find something interesting and potentially worthwhile on this, My First Solo Overnight, and it's closed! By then, nearing 7:00 PM, the sun was on its way down, and in mid-October, the air was dropping too cool for my liking (I am very much a warm-weather person). I wasn't having any fun. What was the deal?! I thought I liked travel!
I thought about it the next morning as I was leaving the La Quinta to return to Greenville and my job. I loaded my suitcase into my car and wondered how I would be feeling if this were just a stop along the way, if my "trip" were far more than just one night in Newport News and were instead a trek across the many states, or even the whole country. And I figured that, if that were the case, I wouldn't care that there was nothing too terribly interesting on this stop. Big deal. There will be fantastic things on this journey, so one little semi-disappointing stop isn't the end of the world.
But of course, this wasn't just the beginning of a larger journey, this was everything. This was the whole vacation, and after this, it's back to work, for at least a week before my next opportunity, or as it turned out this time, for months before I'd travel again. I had so few moments, that each one wasted hit a bit harder. It's a percentage thing.
Plus, if I had more time, I could have just gone to the Space Center the next day, and that would be that. But I had to rush back. And so long as I worked for a living, at least for that pay and amount of vacation, the most I'd ever really have was a weekend drive to a nearby town. I was a travel junkie now, and I needed a bigger fix.
On my way back Sunday morning, I passed through the small town of Suffolk, and on a whim decided to stop and have a look around.
It was great. I think the slightly warmer weather helped, but somehow this short walk around a small town on a Sunday morning almost redeemed the whole trip. The churches were just getting out when I arrived:
I also found a bell:
And here's a tractor:
So the trip wasn't wonderful, but it took a turn for the better there at the end, and in all I am glad that I went. It was still a good experience. And it was an important trip to take, making me realize that travel, especially self-guided, toss-a-dart-at-the-dartboard style travel, was not always going to be this wonderful adventure you picture when you're stuck at the office on a Tuesday afternoon. Sometimes it's going to be frustrating and disappointing. And that's alright. I know it's cliche to say this, but you're almost always richer for the experience.
As I mentioned, I am not a cold weather person, to put it mildly, and by mid-October it was already eeking into the territory I call "too cold". While I took a few short hop-skips-and-jumps in November - one to visit my family in Charlotte, another to see a friend in Raleigh - I can't really count those as "excursions". And certainly once December hit, it was far too cold to go anywhere. So the Great Virginian Excursion was to be my last trip for a good while. But it was not the end, oh no, not the end at all.
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