Finally, after years of hesitation, we’ve made the trip! We visited Ocean City, Maryland.My kids have always wanted to go visit the beach. We postponed for a number of reason. The kids were too young and might not appreciate (or remember) the trip. We’ve always heard that the place was always full during summer, and, we are generally not beach-loving people. I would prefer to soak in a pool than sit under the blazing sun on a sandy beach. No riptides, sharks or jelly fishes to worry about. But everybody ought to at least try and see if our worries are unfounded, and this was the day.
We arrived Tuesday evening and stayed at the Hyatt located a short walking distance from the beach. Driving down “SOMETHING” street we notice a large amount of kids. Turns out that this week they were observing ‘Graduates Week’. I thought they were college kids but we would find out later they were mostly high school graduates. Looking at all the bars offering drinks to all the graduates I was left wondering whether my observation was correct. After all, we only got to talk to three who would confirm that.
So here we are, and we start to setup our plans for the next three days. Definitely, we were going back home on the 14th. In an effort to save money (due to the high gas price and the cost of hotel) we bought enough food (read instant noodles, TV lunch/dinners) to last three days.
- June 11. Get up around 7:00 am and have breakfast at the hotel. Yes, actual breakfast of eggs, toast, pancakes. Rest about 30 minutes then walk to the beach and play in the sand. Hyatt was only a walk away from the beach, which is nice. We planned to start to start midday so there were not too many people. We could get our pick of prime beach location. There were actually less people around than we had anticipated. From about 9:00 am to 10:30 am it was mostly us. The crowd started to grow around 11:30 am and the sand was getting hot. Time for us to leave. In the afternoon while my wife was out with some friends, I was at the hotel pool with the kids.
- June 12. Get up midday and head for the beach. No breakfast this time. Basically a repeat of yesterday except in the afternoon we headed for the mini-golf course for a short game, then some ice cream for the kids. The game confirmed my suspicions. I do find golf to be boring. I do not know how Tiger Woods does it.
- June 13. Third day at the beach. Same morning schedule and routine. Played mini-golf again around noon, then took long walks along the main road, and caught up on some shopping. Well the kids did anyway. We then decided to visit this resort, the …. Resort. It holds some possibilities,… for next year. Yesterday, some friends arrived from Germantown. Their daughter had not been to the beach yet, so, you guessed it. It was back to the beach for them. Not me, I was exhausted at this point.
- June 14. No visit to the beach this time. The boardwalk is a place we are often told to visit. So we got up early. We knew to expect a crowd because of all the conventions and graduation activities going on. The best thing to do would be to park as close as you can, and walk. And the crowd did not disappoint. The beach, the boardwalk, the restaurants were all packed. In my younger days I would have loved it here, more so the night life, which we did not see. Ah yes, in my younger days. On the other hand I do not know how anybody could sleep here at night. I suppose that really isn’t the point anyway. In a sign of what people here normally end up doing, we had the fortune of seeing this guy stagger of his chair in a restaurant, walk a few feet and collapse…drunk.
Alas most good things have to come to an end. It was getting late and we still, had a long drive ahead of us. Driving over the bay bridge at night is not one of those things I look forward to. Now did I mention that earlier during the day our A/C gave up on us? We had it checked before going to the board walk and was told that the likely cause was too much coolant was added. This is our second vehicle to encounter this problem and this was the last time I was taking any to Sears for an A/C check. We’re going on a long trip with no A/C on a hot, humid day. Woo- Hoo!
It looks like the rain is about to start.
