Hit the Beach -- and More

Driving through a downpour to a beach resort can either ruin your mood or test your optimism. We took the high road.

As my husband and I headed down Interstate 95 to Virginia Beach, we ruled out sunbathing and body-surfing. The drizzly August day, we figured, could be saved with museum-hopping, a lunch of down-home fare and browsing the shops. The raindrops mattered less than the hope of discovering something new, odd, delicious or even breathtaking.

The prospects were good. Virginia Beach is a great whale- and dolphin-watching area. The city is promoted as a family-friendly place, with no-profanity signs posted near the oceanfront. And unlike some resort destinations, Virginia Beach doesn't shut down after Labor Day. The lazy, hazy, crazy days continue into September. The 33rd annual Neptune Festival starts Saturday with King Neptune's Grand Ball and Presentation and ends Oct. 1 with Boardwalk Weekend.

The weekend is the blowout finale of the ocean king's party, and one big event requires water, sand and lots of imagination. The North American Sand Sculpting Championship draws 300 master sand artists from around the world, along with gritty locals in amateur divisions. In past contests, sculptors have created elaborately detailed pirate ships, fantasy ocean palaces and unearthly landscapes. Along the oceanfront, food vendors will dish out everything from turkey legs to ice cream, musicians will play near the boardwalk, 275 artists will display their work for sale and spectators will watch sporting events -- surfing, volleyball, sailing and more.

"This is not one of the most important things that occurs in September, it is the thing," said Nancy Creech, the festival's president. She said the event originated in 1974 at a time when visitors cleared out after Labor Day. Back then, the event drew 50,000 people; now the turnout for the $1.6 million, volunteer-run celebration is roughly 400,000.

After a 4 1/2 -hour drive from Columbia on a recent Thursday with only coffee and a dim memory of breakfast, we pulled into the nearly full parking lot of Mary's Restaurant (lovely name). In addition to its regular menu, Mary's offers five rotating lunch specials. The German chocolate cake, among four homemade kinds available that day, was dark and velvety, probably the best I'd ever had. The tab for two, including sweet tea, was $15.64.

After such a sweet deal, it was time to see the sights. Virginia Beach has been a resort destination since the 1880s and is now the state's largest city, with 432,000 residents and 3 million visitors a year. But ask where downtown is, and you'll get two answers: the boardwalk area or the Town Center, a 17-block complex of upscale restaurants, stores, residences, offices and hotels about 10 miles west of the oceanfront.

"We really didn't have a town center before," said Jessica Rinck, spokeswoman for the city's convention and visitors bureau. The Town Center, which has been expanding since its groundbreaking in 2000, offers the familiarity of chain establishments such as the Cheesecake Factory and Ann Taylor Loft. Our hotel, the Hilton Garden Inn Virginia Beach Town Center, was new and comfortable and had an indoor pool.

But for a taste of beach life, we headed to the "other" downtown. Atlantic Avenue is prime people-watching territory, a lively place to have a drink or frozen custard, cavort in a fun house or shop for end-of-summer bargains. Lined with hotels, restaurants, bars and arcades, the avenue is parallel to the three-mile-long concrete boardwalk, and the soft, tan sand beyond. On summer nights through Sept. 3, Beachstreet USA features free bands, singers, puppeteers, magicians and others performing from 17th to 31st streets. One evening, a twangy-voiced singer-guitarist drew fans with his country songs; nearby, a jazz quartet riffed on the "I Dream of Jeannie" theme song.

Atlantic Avenue is also home to the Old Coast Guard Station, a museum with exhibits on shipwrecks, lifesaving heroes and local maritime history. Several blocks north, Neptune, a 26-foot-tall bronze giant surrounded by sea creatures, reigns at 31st Street and Boardwalk.

One attraction listed in a tourist brochure caught my eye. Virginia Beach is home to the headquarters of Edgar Cayce (1877-1945), the renowned psychic called the "sleeping prophet" for his ability to enter a trance while making medical diagnostic "readings." I'm drawn to this sort of thing in the same way that my husband craves seeing new golf courses. So we drove north of the boardwalk to the Association for Research and Enlightenment, founded by Cayce in 1931 to study such subjects as holistic health, spirituality, dreams, ancient mysteries, intuition and reincarnation. We weren't sure what -- or who -- to expect at the place, which looked more like a library than a temple of spirituality. During a tour, we found out that the property does have a library -- one of the largest metaphysical collections in the world -- along with a peaceful meditation room and a 48-foot-diameter labyrinth modeled after one in the cathedral in Chartres, France. Not really a museum, although a few of Cayce's personal items are displayed, the center is a place for seminars, classes, fellowship and research and has the atmosphere of a college classroom building.

Our tour group of 14 was mainly vacationers, with a few Cayce aficionados. The guide told us about Cayce's psychic techniques, his predictions and a bizarre incident involving his ability to see auras, outlines of color around people said to reflect vibrations of the soul. Cayce was in a department store one day and pushed the elevator button, the guide said. When the car arrived, he looked in and saw no auras around any of the riders. He decided to wait for another elevator. Moments later, the story goes, the cable broke and all inside were killed. True or not, the tale was enough to prompt me to lay out $15 for a book about the man.