Been in Virginia Beach for a week. So far, it's rained for half of the time I've been here.

The neat thing is watching spring unfold. Every day, something else is more green. And I love the little wildflowers everywhere. Dam Neck is right on the beach, and there's a lot of marshy ground. The grasses grow in scattered clumps of long, thin stalks.

The last few days, the berry brambles have been blooming. I imagine the berries will be quite safe, though, because intertwined with the brambles are the shiny leaves of poison ivy and poison oak.

That stuff is everywhere! I wonder if it's allowed to flourish just to keep all of the sailors out of the woods--since Dam Neck has a couple of A schools (read that as a lot of young sailors of both genders finally free of boot camp) I can't imagine any other way of keeping them out.

The class is pretty intense. A lot to learn and all of the study has to be in the classroom. Ick. But at least I'm familiar with some of it--just more indepth in some areas.