Coldness, blustery wind keep visit short at Virginia Beach and Cape Henry

Virginia Beach is a familiar haunt for Lee Ann, although I doubt that the cold, windy, overcast and partially rainy day we experienced when stopping there on May 20 was anything like the fond memories from the years of living in the Virginia Beach/Suffolk/Glouster area.

She didn't warn me about the 34-foot cast-bronze statue of King Neptune that stands at the gateway to Neptune Park and the beach and ocean behind it.

So, I spent a little time photographing Neptune, most enjoying the one leading off the post, in which Neptune seems to be looking intimidatingly at the small bandshell/performance venue across the boardwalk in the nearby park. A band would later perform there, too.

The smaller shots in this section of the text were among the other shots I took of the king, who first graced the park in 2005 at that year's annual Neptune Festival. The small photo at right shows how Neptune is a popular backdrop for visitors' pictures and selfies.

Virginia has a 3-mile-long boardwalk, but we didn't think to try and cover it all on this cold day. We stayed long enough to walk about a half-mile, take some pictures, grab a bite to eat then head to an area of town where the convention center was located. My interest in that was, again, photography (see photos below).

From there, we ended the cold- and winy-day itinerary with a brief stop at Cape Henry to see and photograph the lighthouse. I made only 13 photographs there; five of them are presented here.

As always, click on any image to bring up a larger, sharper version. This is particularly useful if you access the blog using a mobile device. Click on the link in this sentence to view full galleries of the images I made from my May visits to Virginia Beach and Cape Henry.

Photo geek stuff: I shot all of my photos with my Canon 6D and Tamron 28-300mm f/3.5-6.3 Di PZD VC lens. I bracketed all compositions for three exposures to allow for melding in high-dynamic range (HDR) software in post-processing. Many of the images in this post were treated that way. 

Neptune Park has both a covered bandshell (above) and a larger stage-covered amphitheater (below).

A look at a section of the Virginia Beach boardwalk (above) and a view of the amphitheater and commerce district (behind the amphitheater) below.

Above and next two below: Examples of the commerce near the boardwalk. The second photo below features a replica of the lighthouse at Cape Henry.

Above and next two below: There really is a beach at Virginia Beach, so I thought I should include photographic evidence. The photo above shows a lifeguard station displaying a red flag, indicating that because of the cold and strong winds, swimming is deemed dangerous and inadvisable. 

Above: Not sure I'd ever seen gulls flying in this formation before. It was worth photographing.

Above and next five below: Shots taken at the convention center and Veterans Memorial Park across the street.

Above and next four below: The current lighthouse at Cape Henry, the modest visitors center (first below), the lighthouse keepers' quarters (second below) and the original lighthouse, now preserved in a landscaped area behind the visitors center. 

Next up: Days 1, 2 and 3 at Charleston, S.C.

Previous posts in this East Coast swing series:

James Madison's Montpelier

George Washington's Mount Vernon

Barboursville Vineyards, Barboursville, Va.

Alexandria, Va.

Berkeley Plantation, Charles City, Va.

Virginia Capitol at Richmond, Va. 

First Colonial settlement at Jamestown, Va.

Battlefield and modern-day town at Yorktown, Va.