The Great Outdoors: Sandy Point Beach

Lifeguard at Sandy Point beach.

We went to Clare & Don’s Beach Shack for lunch on Saturday, which is one of my favorite restaurants in Falls Church. I always feel like I’m in Florida when I go there. And they’ve done a great job reopening. They’ve set up a big tent outside and have a bunch of tables in part of the parking lot. And yesterday there was a nice breeze. So I savored my shrimp ceviche while my son gnawed on greasy onion rings.

The regular entrance to Clare & Don’s.

Additional outdoor socially-distanced seating.

Mmmm, ceviche.

And on Sunday we went to the actual beach at Sandy Point State Park near Annapolis, Maryland. So this turned out to be our one and only beach weekend this summer! But honestly, I’m not that heartbroken. I love the ocean. But the beach annoys me sometimes. It always sounds so much more amazing and relaxing than it actually is.

You get sand in everything. You burn your bare feet walking to the water. This particular beach had a lot of shells and gravel at the waterline, so if you don’t have water shoes your feet feel beat up by the end of the day. (We shopped for some yesterday but couldn’t find any.) Plus the water is super murky, which is kinda creepy. I like to be able to see the bottom a little bit if it’s shallow enough to stand in.

If you’re a single parent, you have to choose between guarding your stuff and spending time with your kiddo in the water. Happily, my son did hang out with me on the towel for a while building a sandcastle and digging a nice moat around it…and running back and forth to the water with Tupperware to fill it. And I did get to play in the waves with him a bit. I even caught a glimpse of Sandy Point Shoal Lighthouse at the other end of the beach over all the umbrellas, which coincidentally looked quite a bit like the sandcastle that my son built. 🙂

The castle and moat.

Sandy Point Shoal Lighthouse (courtesy of Flikr).

I had really wanted to go to the beach over Fourth of July weekend but figured it would be a madhouse. So we went today, and I was stunned by the amount of people that we were there. We did find a spot that was a good distance away from everyone around us, but it felt crowded, which I don’t enjoy even without pandemics.

But we were the lucky ones! We’d left home about 9:30am this morning, and it takes about an hour from Falls Church to get to this beach. We stopped for gas, and again for donuts, and spent some time after we arrived trying to find a toilet without spiders in it, or my son wouldn’t use it…lol. There was a bit of a line at the entrance, but they had three lanes open, and we maybe had half a dozen cars in front of us.

When we left at 12:30pm, it was a whole different story. All three lanes were closed, the police were turning people away or rerouting them. And the highway near the exit was at a dead stop for what seemed like miles, which I’m sure was a combination of beach and bridge traffic. But, boy, was I happy to be driving in the opposite direction!

So that’s probably it for our outdoor adventures in the DC area. We have three weekends left in the States, and I need to finish organizing the house before packout and figure out how to say good-bye to people. Thank you for joining us on our DC adventures!

The Great Outdoors: Seven Oaks Lavender Farm

View of the farmhouse at Seven Oaks Lavender Farm.

This cute little place had been on my radar for several months. But I hadn’t quite mustered the motivation to drive an hour just to walk around outside in the heat. This problem was solved a couple weeks ago when our local power company decided to shut down the grid that our apartment complex was on for eight hours to “improve the electrical distribution facilities in our area.”

Why they couldn’t do this in the spring when it was cooler outside was beyond me. But suddenly spending hours driving aimlessly in an air-conditioned vehicle sounded like a fabulous idea! So I walked the dog in the morning (and missed being stuck in the elevator by about five minutes), dropped him off at the climate controlled doggy daycare, and we set off to Catlett, Virginia to find some lavender.

A lavender bush at the farm.

The farmhouse at Seven Oaks was built in 1860, and their website has lots of great information about the history of the farm and the local area in Fauquier County. Once we got off the highway, it was a pleasant drive through rural farmland. We found the place easily enough, parked in their little grassy parking lot, and wandered over to the check-in tent. Because of the coronavirus, the usual admission fee of $15 was half priced; people were expected to wear masks and social distance; and the café, gift shop, and children’s play equipment were all closed.

But you could still walk around the field and smell the lavender, which wasn’t quite as strong as I thought it would be. Maybe because there were fewer flowers than I imagined. The farm charges 15 cents a stem for people who wanted to pick their own, so half of it was probably gone. But you could also order gift items online, and the staff would bring it out of the shop for you. You could check out the little pen with rabbits and goats.

And they had a little tent set up where you could buy lemonade and lavender snacks. So we picked up two mason jars of lavender lemonade and a few lavender lemon cupcakes. There were some folks that were having picnics on the lawn, but it was a bit too warm for me. So we took a few pictures and headed back to the car to eat our snacks.

Lavender lemonade and lavender lemon cupcakes. Yumm!

After that we drove around the countryside and took the scenic route back to our apartment, stopping for lunch at Taco Bell. We made it home around 2:30pm, and thankfully the power (and air conditioning!) had been restored. So it was a nice way to pass the day, get out of the house, and cross one more item of my DC bucket list.