Catching Up, 2024 Edition

Well once again this blog has sat dormant for a long stretch, but having just gone through the trouble of picking the whole thing up and moving it to a new web host, I figure I might as well generate some content.

Actually there’s not much to report, so I’ll just use this as an excuse to add some pretty pictures. In September, Grace, Laura and I spent a week in Nags Head, NC with Grandma Patricia and enjoyed doing as little as possible. Our house was almost alarming close to the beach, which made for some pretty views even if the first couple of days were a bit unnerving thanks to rough seas. We did get this nice view of the Moon once things calmed down.

And yes, that image was taken from the deck and not on the beach, and I didn’t even have the zoom engaged on my camera phone. At the end of the week, a rental firm came by and dropped off some beach chairs for the next renters, but I could’ve told them to save their money; in that house, the living room couch was pretty much a “beach chair.”

That said, we at least had a few feet of land between us and the water, unlike a house down the way, where entering the home at high tide would involve first wading to the staircase to start your climb up.

We saw a dredge boat hard at work one day, but it’s going to have to put in a lot more hours to build the shoreline back up based on how much has washed away. A lot of the dunes were falling away even as we watched, and taking boardwalks and fences with them.

One morning, Grace and I headed out to Jockey’s Ridge for a hike and had the place very nearly to ourselves. At times neither the sound nor the ocean were in view and it almost felt like we’d wandered into a scene from Lawrence of Arabia.

On our last morning, I got a few nice shots of the sunrise, including one Grandma’s using as the inspiration for a painting.

Otherwise there hasn’t been a lot going on. We had a bit of a scare in June when a wheel nearly came off our van on I-64 just outside Charleston, WVa, so there’s that. Not a good day, but we’re all okay so it definitely could’ve been worse. Scott’s into the first semester of his Sophomore year at Roanoke College and still enjoying performing with the Jazz Ensemble. Grace just took the PSAT and feels pretty good about how it went. Jason managed to reclaim his title as Virginia State Chess Champion and was featured in the UVA Today newsletter. We’re all trying to keep our heads down to survive another election year and whatever chaos might follow it. That’s about it.

Okay, so having filled in the blanks since the last post, I’ll try to get back on something like a regular schedule. To whoever might still be reading this stuff, thanks for checking in, and stay safe and well.