Friday, July 23, 2010

To the Sea

(July 16, 2010)

Today has been such an amazing day!

Jack Johnson was playing a show down in Virginia Beach and on my list of things to do (located in the right column of this blog) is an item titled "see Jack Johnson in concert".

An opportunity to check something off my list would not be missed.

We decided to take the day off from work and head down to the beach early to make a day of it before the evening concert.

My husband went searching online for a surf shop where we could rent boards and happened upon a place called Surf and Adventure Company.

Not only did this place carry surfboards, they carried Stand Up Paddle boards!

We were introduced to the SUP (stand up paddle) boards back in December while spending Christmas vacation with my family in Hawaii....so we were pretty excited about getting back on!

Even cooler, we would be paddle-boarding through a National Wildlife Refuge to get to an open bay area.

It.Was.Amazing.


















Surf and Adventure had a docking station behind their shop so we were able to pick up the boards and get right on the waterways.....




























































It seemed like we were paddle-boarding through a jungle in some far-away land....it was surreal.

There were birds, what seemed like millions of dragonflies, fish jumping out of the water....and snakes...

(the light brown/greenish/yellowish stick on right side of photo is some kind of snake)























































We had the entire waterway to ourselves.....


































Once we cleared through the waterways and marsh areas we reached an open bay, however, the water was so choppy I didn't get any photos for fear of dropping the camera into the water.

After about 2 hours of just us and nature...we started paddling back to the shop.























Then it was time for Jack Johnson.

We arrived at the concert fairly early so we could grab good lawn seats.

Jack Johnson has been donating 100% of his concert proceeds to charity and had set up a village green area where the non-profits could set up booths and talk to concert goers about their organizations, etc.

As we walked up to the village green area a concert volunteer told us that G-Love (opening for Jack Johnson) would be doing an intimate performance at the village green as a thank you for checking out the non-profits.

We decided to stay and wait for G-Love to perform.

Just as the volunteer said, G-Love emerged and started playing what is now one of my favorite (stuck in head) songs "Cold Beverages".

Next thing we knew.....Jack Johnson walked up and joined G-Love.

















Jack Johnson was literally 15 feet away from us.

I was STOKED!!!!!!
















It was absolutely amazing to be this up close and personal with Jack and G-Love.

Especially considering I knew we were going to be pretty far away for the actual concert.































ALO, G-Love, Jack and special guest Paula Fuga put on the most amazing concert I'd ever been to.
















It was a beautiful day.

Short video taken from my paddle-board while we were heading back to Surf and Adventure Co.:


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