This and That

Since it straight up sucks to be a fan of MN sports right now....Twins season comes to an early end...and even though we got the Super Freak back on the Vikings, we still can't pull off a prime time win.  Since firing the coach of the MN Wild 2 years ago, that's nothing to look forward to, and the Wolves? Well, the Wolves have been nothing since getting rid of Kevin Garnett... So, I'm turning my focus on my upcoming vacation to visit Dan.  I'm super excited only 43 days to go (but who is counting?:).  Dan's always telling me "I wish you were here so we could do this together"  and "I wish you were here so we could go do that together" With my flight purchased and time off approved, we've got our chance to do this and that together.  So I must ask Dan, what should we do when I get to town?  This always goes over well.. I think he should come up with something to do b/c he's always talking about this and that... and he wants me to come up with something since I'm in town, and he wants to bring me to places I want to go....
The nice thing about having friends spread across our country is that when I want to take a trip somewhere, I've got places to go, and personal tour guides to their cities.  I usually leave it up to them to make a plan, because I'm pretty much down for anything... and if I do the planning, we'd probably end up in some tourist trap...They know where the cool stuff is, they know where the good food is. After all, they live there and I don't.  I can tell you the best place for a juicy lucy in MN... I suspect if someone went looking online, they'd find a bunch of places that have them, but I know the place that has the best juicy lucys... You see where I'm going here?!
Anyway... Last spring we talked about going to the Natural Bridge when I was in town. We didn't end up going there, just sticking around the Richmond area since it was raining in the mountains... So I revisited that idea... It's something I found when googling what to do in VA.
Dan went camping in the mountains over the weekend, and had lots of time to think...think about what we could do in VA.  Something he's done, something he hasn't... Anyway, he talked with his buddies he was camping with to see what they thought...where we should go.  Just as I figured, the Natural Bridge is a tourist trap (see...that's why I don't want to do the planning).  He got a few ideas.... and now he wants me to decide where to go from there.... and they couldn't be two ideas that were more different, or two ideas that where anywhere near each other in the state of VA.
The first is a place called Luray Caverns. I checked out the website, it looks pretty cool. I'm not too thrilled with the website, I can't tell if these caverns are all in one area, or if we have to drive from one cavern to the next... And I couldn't find any map that shows you where these are compared to one another. 
Luray is in the mountains. That's one thing Dan and I have yet to do while I visit.  If we were to do this we'd find little cottages or a bed and breakfast to stay in.  I loved the Garden and Sea Inn b&b we stayed at last year...
Last year when I visited Dan over Thanksgiving went to Virginia's Eastern Shore, at Chincoteague Island.  This was fun, but since it was November, it's totally the off season, so there wasn't many people around, nor much to do.  But, what it was though, was on the ocean.  I love the ocean. 
The ocean is the other option Dan mentioned... Virginia Beach.  Again, it's off season, but it's the ocean. Did I mention I love the ocean? Sidebar: the more I write ocean, the more it looks wrong... I know it's right, but it looks wrong.  Anyway, from what I'm looking at there, it does not look like anything special, just a city on the ocean.... However, that means awesome seafood, and you know we don't get much of that here in MN... If we were to go to VA Beach, we'd try to find a cheap hotel to stay at since it's the off season...
So the debate is on... the mountains or the ocean........