VA Getaway
It has been a busy summer for myself. Right after a brutal finals schedule I was on a plane out to Tucson to begin a month long, forty hour a week pharmacy rotation. As soon as that was over with, I was headed back out here to SC to do a summer long internship in the pharmacy at Target. Once that ended, I was busy moving on up here to my new apartment in Columbia. Needless to say, I had not really gotten a “vacation” during my summer vacation. So, when my friend Jenna, who just so happened to have spent the last seven months studying in Spain, invited me to her lake house for the weekend in Virginia, I jumped at the chance!
Her house was about fifty miles across the North Carolina border, about forty five minutes away from Roanoke (which doesn’t mean much to my geographically challenged self but I thought I would fill you in either way) at a lovely little place known as Smith Mountain Lake. After a four and a half hour drive north from Columbia, I arrived at her house and was greeted by her after not seeing her since the semester ended in December due to her study abroad adventures.
Within twenty minutes of arriving we were out on her boat on the lake. For me, getting out on the water brings back a lot of fantastic memories from when I was a kid when we would go to the lake in Arizona (indeed there are bodies of water greater than the size of a pool out in the desert!). Within forty minutes they had me in the water and were towing me behind the boat on the tube. And within 41 minutes I was bobbing up and down in the lake after having fallen right off that tube!
Over the course of my time being there I became a regular boat expert. I quickly learned how to tie the knot to dock the boat, was jumping out onto the dock as we moved in, and I actually learned how to drive the boat one afternoon!. In addition to hanging out on the water, we took an afternoon and checked out the amazing National D-Day memorial in nearby Bedford, VA. It was truly a moving experience, and I was very impressed by the complex that the memorial was on. After our visit, we hit up a local Amish dairy and got some very tasty all natural ice cream. It was a perfect way to end a perfect day!
Aside from all of the fun, the great view and great friends really helped me unwind after an intense summer. I think I was also inspired to purchase a lake house and boat…in the future when I have, like, a job. Until then I will hold on to all of the fun times I had, and wait until the next time I can take that trip up north. I will also try to think of all of the fun instead of the impending school year. Take care!