We asked our server at Eurasia the night before about where to eat breakfast the following morning. She and the other waitstaff were all in favor of
Doc Taylor's down at the beach, so we planned to head down to the beach, have breakfast, walk on the beach, and make our way back to the Sandler Center by noon for the concert.
After a 10-minute ride down to the beach the next morning, we found out that parking at the beach is a gigantic pain in the ass even during the off-season. After going around and around with no luck, I was looking for a place to turn around, so I pulled into a driveway to start turning around. Once in the driveway, I spied a tiny sign saying "Parking only for Doc Taylor's." Pulling around behind the building, I got the very last parking space. After 10 minutes of frustration, this seemed like a good omen.
Good omen, except, they were on at least a 30-minute wait. Not knowing anything about Doc Taylor's, we didn't understand that waiting here is not that big of a deal. Right next door, they have a lounge with a long bar and $2.50 Bloody Marys. And the bloodies are pretty damned good too, the glass being rimmed with lime juice and Old Bay. Our wait was probably closer to an hour.
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| Bloodies and Coffee Get the Morning Going |
Good thing the bloodies are good because the food is not so great. I had one of their most popular dishes, the Ray Ray, a fried egg, bacon, cheese, and grilled parmesan tomatoes on an onion roll. I got mine with grilled potatoes rather than hash browns, figuring the hash browns would be terrible. These so-called grilled potatoes look pretty bad and they tasted worse.
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| The Ray Ray |
I think Ann fared better than me by just a hair with her Eggs Benedict, but only by a hair. Her hash browns were terrible as expected. Thank goodness for the Bloody Marys.
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| Ann's Eggs Benedict |
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| Sailfish Sculpture Outside Doc Taylor's |
After breakfast, we strolled the 100 yards or so to the beach and walked for a little bit. The rain had stopped, but the day was cold and grey and the beach was largely deserted.
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| Empty Beach; Grey Day |
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| Windy and Chilly on the Boardwalk |
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| Lots of Wind for Kites |
After our quick foray to the beach, we headed back to the Sandler Center. They actually let me take my camera in, probably because it wasn't a professional performance, but it was too dark and the stage was too far away (we were in the first row behind the orchestra pit) and my lens was too slow to take anything useful.
The concert was just amazing. There were two choirs made of the best kids from each district in Virginia who came together on Thursday, learned new music under the direction of guest conductors, and then put on a wonderful performance on Saturday morning. They spent the vast majority of time in rehearsal and really had no free time to get into trouble. And it showed in the quality of the performance.
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| The Sandler Center |
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| Sculpture Outside |
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| Ann Gets a Rare Hug |
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| Ann, Carter, and Joey |
After the concert, we stopped back at the hotel so Carter and Joey could pick up their bags and change and then we hit the road for the long ride back to Winchester. What should have been a 4.5-hour trip ended up taking nearly 6. At times, we were creeping along at 5mph in bumper-to-bumper traffic on I-95. It was a long, long day.
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