A drive down Hampton Road in Hampton, VA brings back memories of summers spent at the family vacation house on the Chesapeake Bay. Those were the days, mornings crabbing along the beach, swimming and playing, afternoons fishing and having incredible seafood for dinner every night. Summers always seemed too short. We would get to the house usually around the 4th of July and before we knew it the days were getting shorter and cooler the smell of fall would be in the air and Labor Day weekend would come along. We would close the house up over Labor Day weekend and head back home to begin another school year.

Those were the best two months of the year if you asked me. I love being near the ocean and on the bay. Sometimes we would even get out on to the bay with friends in their boats. My dad never got a boat more than a canoe and rowboat. He just was not going to have to maintain a motorboat he would say and besides they are too noisy. Of course he would never refuse a chance to go out boating at anyone else’s offer. I suppose the old adage holds true boats are great as long as they belong to someone else.

After dinner as the sun was setting the beach would become dotted with bon-fires of drift wood as everyone settled in for the evening telling stories and listening to the waves crash on the shore.

I haven’t been to the old stomping ground in many a year. I am sure everything has changed. Somehow I suspect all those summer homes we and the other family’s had are gone and replaced with larger year round residences. Nonetheless I am curious to go and see. I’ve made reservations at Hampton hotels and will be going for a week to see what of those times I can relive.

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