DAY ONE IN OCEAN CITY

I spent over an hour last night putting this post together and with one click of a button the whole thing disappeared.  Never to be seen again.  I hate when that happens.  But here goes.  I will try to recreate it.

The day started with me getting up at 6:00 a.m. and doing wash, dishes, cleaning, etc.  After getting breakfast for Joe and myself, I got ready to go see the dentist.  I have been having trouble with a couple of my teeth and especially one that I have a crown on.  When I went to my regular dentist she took an x-ray, saw a shadow beneath the tooth and sent me to a root canal specialist.  My appointment was for 9:45 a.m.  I got there at 9:30, filled out the paperwork (which took half an hour) and got taken back to the room fairly quickly.  After taking x-rays the tech said the dentist would be with me shortly.  That was 10:13.  I know because I looked at the clock.  The dentist came in to see me at 11:45.  Now I realize this is a HUGE practice, but come on.  No one could even come into the room and say he was held up with another patient?  But he is a great dentist.  I like him a lot.  He said the shadow could be an infection or it could just be because it is an old root canal.  He doesn't know if it's been there for years or if it is something new.  So he is having me come back in 6 months to see if it has changed.  If, however, it gets worse painwise, I am to come back right away.  So obviously I did not make it down to Ocean City by 11:00 a.m. as I had planned.

I got home around 12:30, got us something to eat and finished the housework and the packing.  I hate to come home from vacation to a dirty house.  I don't like leaving dirty dishes in the sink either.

So we ended up leaving Philly at 2:30 and getting down here around 4:30.  Fortunately we left in time that we did not hit rush hour traffic and it was an easy drive.

We come down each year and meet our friends Bud and Karen.  Bud and Joe are both elders in our church.  Bud and Karen got married right before we did and we are all around the same age so we hang out together a lot.  They were already here and had been down on the beach.  As we were checking in Karen called my cell phone and asked where we were.  I said the office so they came to meet us.  They are in the room right next to us.  It was so good to see them.  It's been about a month since we were together and that's rare for us!

Here I am coming into our room.

  We are on the ground floor.  The rooms were damaged during Hurricane Sandy so they are all freshly painted, have new carpeting, furniture and mattresses.  We are the first people to stay in the new rooms.  It's nice.

The patio area is newly fixed up also.  And so pretty.

The area right outside our room.

Looking toward the pool.

By this time it was getting late so we went back and forth on where to eat.  Bud and Karen wanted to treat Joe for his birthday.  We settled on the Ocean Cafe, one of our favorite places on the boardwalk.

 

They have wonderful Italian food.  Karen and Joe had spaghetti with clams and mussels that the chef made specially just for them.  Bud had penne in a creamy tomato sauce and I had handmade gnocchi with tomatoes and basil.  So good!   We waddled out of the restaurant.

It had gotten really cold and I definitely was not dressed for it.  I was shivering so badly that my stomach and back hurt.  So we ran into the Ocean Front store and I bought a sweatshirt jacket.

Karen had bought one earlier in the day for exactly the same reason.  Hers is purple.

Then we went to Fudge Kitchen.  Joe insisted.  He got some sugar-free almond bark and bought me a chocolate and peanut butter paddle.  I guess you know that I ended up eating that last night.  Yum!

 
We walked along the boards for awhile.  The beach is closed.  They are trying to restore it following the devastation from Hurricane Sandy last fall.  It was bad.  You can even see the new boards that have been used to repair the boardwalk.  I guess they are trying to get everything fixed up before Memorial Day weekend.  There will be loads of people down here then.  The unofficial beginning of summer.

 

Even when it got dark they kept on working.  They just put up lights to see.

This one seagull kept following us around.  It had a pitch black head, white body, gray wings and black tail.  I have never seen a bird with those markings.  I was fortunate enough to get a picture of it.

 

  And here's Bud and Joe talking about what they are doing on the beach.  I understood nothing of what they were saying, but they seemed to know.

 

 You know me and sunsets.  And the sunset here was beautiful.  The pictures don't do it justice.

This one's my favorite.  I like the mist off of the ocean.

 We were sitting on a bench opposite the Polish Water Ice place.  We all love Polish Water Ice (so different from Italian -- almost like a sherbert) and saying we wished it were open.  All of a sudden the front window opened, the lights went on, the sign lit up and music started playing.  We all laughed so hard.  It was as if we wished it into existence.

We were all really cold so we started walking looking for a place to get something hot to drink.  But we ended up going into Shriver's Fudge to get warm.  They had all kinds of old-fashioned candy there.  We were playing "do you remember this?".  Well, let's see how old you guys are.  Do you remember:  candy cigarettes?  pixy sticks?  wax bottles?  wax lips?  Of course there was fudge (they are famous for their fudge), jordan almonds, non-pariels, and any other kind of chocolate you can imagine.  Oh, and salt water taffy.  They make the best.  I like Fudge Kitchen for the fudge and Shriver's for salt water taffy.

By this time I could barely keep my eyes open.  And my hip where I have the arthritis was killing me.  So I told them I was heading back.  The three of them wanted to stay out a bit longer, so I told them to have a good time and I went back to the hotel.  It was a long walk while I was in pain and I had to stop a couple of times to rest.  The boardwalk was pretty deserted.  Not at all like in the summer when it is so crowded that it's hard to move.

 

They came back about an hour later and Joe had bought me this pretty necklace with a seahorse on it (the symbol of the Pavilion where we stay every year) as a souvenir of our vacation.  They had a lot of fun, but I'm glad I came back and laid down.

I woke up at 4:00 a.m. this morning and have not been able to go back to sleep.  It's almost 6:30 now, so I think I will get dressed and take a walk down to the boardwalk and see if I can get some sunrise photos.  More to come...