Our flight left Salt Lake City at around 3:00 pm and we arrived in Norfolk at around 2:00 am, so it was a very very long day for us. Added to that was the little problem of our car rental company not being open until 5 am, and you can probably guess that by the time we got the RU, we were a little wasted. We had to pull over on our drive from Norfolk to Chincotegue to sleep, and were able to get about 2 hours of sleep in the car.

We got to the conference room, the last ones to arrive, of course. Sam was just raising his arms (I have no idea why) and I took advantage of the fact that we were behind him and he hadn't noticed us yet to tickle him. It was a great start to our RU experience. :-)

Everyone gave out their giveaways (we didn't have anything to give, because we are not organized enough), and then we played that memory game that I'm always bad at, but I got 36 this year! Even with being incredibly tired, I was able to remember a lot. We also did a lot of other things, which are kind of hazy, because I was so very tired.

We went to lunch at a place called Maria's, where the food was decent, but the A/C was broken. It was very hot. This led Schnookie to start up a discussion with Monkeyman, Sam, and several others about how A/C works as opposed to Evaporative cooling, which is what he does for a living. It was fascinating, I tell you. Fascinating.

We went back to the hotel and were finally able to check in, took showers, changed the clothes we'd been wearing since the day before, and went back to the conference room. Everyone watched Wizards of the Lost Kindom II, but I fell asleep spread out on several chairs. I woke up in time to catch the last 15 minutes or so of the movie, and hear lines such as "Do you think you're too good to be evil?" and so forth. Gems, really.

After that, Don(Schnookie, that is, not Monkeyman) and I decided to go eat some dinner and then go to bed. We decided to go to Steamers, because it was close to the hotel. (Right next door, actually) The food was excellent, but very expensive. We had a really great time, though, and Don managed to not get any crab on me. (That came the next day)

The next day, we got up to try out the hotel's "continental breakfast" and were sorely dissapointed in the options. We could have powdered donuts, or chocolate donuts, or cake donuts. I think there were a few things like tiny little muffins, and such, but really, how sad a breakfast is that?

After breakfast, we went on the bus tour of Assategue island, which was great. We got to see wild ponies, birdies, and lots of bugs trying to get in our bus. The tour guide thought that we were all one big family getting together from all over the US (and Canada!) for a family reunion. She also suggested that we should put together a website, where we could all keep track of each other. I think that's a wonderful idea, and someone should start on that right away! (Sam, I'm looking at you, here.)

Then we went to Don's restaurant, where Don(Schnookie, again) managed to spray crab all over me, my salad, and my drink as he was trying to get it out of the shell. That was the highlight of the day! I had been worried about Leen, but Don got me, instead.
After that, we went and got swimming suits and went to the beach. I got wet. The Don's got burried in the sand, we read The Eye of Argon, trying not to laugh at all the strange descriptions and awful typos. I also got a tiny bit sunburned. I guess the spray stuff Leen lent me was really good, but only in the places I managed to spray it onto. Oops.

For dinner that night, we went to Not Just Salads which was pretty decent. I got the all you can eat salad bar. There was a sign saying that you needed a fresh plate for every visit to the salad bar, and they kept the plates under the register. I guess this is so they can completely dissapear and not give you another plate, so you won't go for more salad. It didn't work, though. They weren't there, so I just used the same plate. HA! I pwned them.

Then we went back to the hotel, parked, and walked two doors down to the Ice Cream place. The Yummiest Ice Cream Place on the Planet, is what it should be called. It's not, but it should be. Or The Longest Line to Get Ice Cream Place. I can't decide. Don didn't want to wait in line and didn't really want ice cream anyway, so he went back to the hotel and watched tv in our room. But back to the Ice Cream Deliciousness. I got Strawberry Cheesecake ice cream in a waffle cone, and I still crave it, to this day. I wants it!!!!! Must... have... it...

Ah hem. Where was I? Oh yes, ice cream. So, we took our ice cream to the hotel and a bunch of people played Rinkworks Scrabble, which looked awesome, and the rest of us sat around talking. Then I decided that I had to go to bed too, said goodnight, and got attacked by people wanting to hug me. Ok, not really attacked, but everyone was afraid that they wouldn't see us the next day, so we said goodbye to a lot of people then, just in case.

The next morning, we woke up at about 8:10 and discovered that Sam and Leen had left at 8:00. **Pout** They had left the pass onto Assategue island for us, just in case we wanted to go back, though, so that was handy. Schnookie and I drove over there and thought we'd go on a nature trail. This turned out to be a bad idea, as we had no bug spray with us. The mosquitos there are sneaky. You don't know you've been bitten until they are all done. The little suckers.

Then we followed Ross and Amy to the NASA visitors center, wandered around there for awhile and bought many silly things in the gift shop. We got dehydrated ice cream sandwhichs, which turn out to be not as good as the Ice Cream That Was Invented By The Gods (who knew!) and which cost $2.50

After that we said goodbye to Ross and Amy and also Kelly, Monkeyman, gremlinn, who had shown up after awhile, and drove to Norfolk. After many long hours, we were finally home. Hurray!

It was a really fun RU, and we totally look forward to going to all of them after this. We especially look forward to RUL.