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This is a drawing I did in high school that my late mother had saved. It was an assignment I did in art class where I did something known as scratchboard or scraperboard.
I drew this beach scene that featured a puffin and a sandpiper standing on the beach. Two seagulls are flying overhead. The ocean, sun, and a sailboat can be seen in the background.
I haven’t done this type of art in years and I’m grateful that my mother had saved it. Maybe I should try this again in the future.
Today was the absolute last day of my trip. I decided to do something that I haven’t done before. Here is some background.
For years I’ve had my LGBTQ friends talk about how much they loved vacationing in Rehoboth Beach in Delaware. That beach resort had long catered to LGBTQ people even in the days when same-sex relationships were frowned upon.
I was always interested in checking it out once but, until my marriage ended, my then-husband used to insist on the two of us vacationing in Ocean City with members of his family for a week each summer. One year one of his relatives wanted to take a side trip to Rehoboth Beach in the morning where we could do some shopping and she invited me to come along. So I agreed figuring that I could at least see what the place was like since so many of my LGBTQ friends loved it so much.
Unfortunately she wasn’t interested in going into downtown Rehoboth Beach itself. Instead she only wanted to shop in the many outlet stores that are located outside of the town. No matter how much I begged her to consider going into the town for at least a half an hour, nothing I said could get her to change her mind about spending all of the time at Rehoboth Beach shopping at the Playtex outlet store then the other outlet stores to buy clothes and kitchen gadgets.
I remember the Playtex outlet the most because there was a bin full of bras which had a deal where if you buy three you get the fourth one for free. Not only did she insist on going through that bin, she pressured me to do the same. You wouldn’t believe how time-consuming it was to go through a tall bin full of bras that were all mixed together so you might pull out a 38C sized followed by a 28A size followed by a 42DD size and so on. So I eventually found four bras where I could take advantage of the “buy 3 get one free” offer. All of those bras I purchased at the Playtex outlet store that day ended up literally falling apart six months later. That’s pretty pathetic considering the fact that the bras I usually purchase at discount big box retailers like Target and Walmart can last at least five years (if not longer). Let’s just say that I haven’t shopped for any bras at the Playtex outlet store since then. I also gave up on the idea of actually going into downtown Rehoboth Beach with either my ex-husband or any of his family members.
That was then and this is now. Since I was vacationing by myself, I had the option to actually go into downtown Rehoboth Beach and skip all of the outlet stores. So I decided that this year was going to be the year where I finally get to step foot inside of Rehoboth Beach itself.
Once I checked out of the motel I took Coastal Highway north until I hit downtown Rehoboth Beach. I parked close enough to be within a short walking distance of that town’s Boardwalk. I took a couple shots of the beach.
Like the day before, the temperature was in the low 90s with high humidity. The only reason why I didn’t even go into the ocean on that day was because I was due to go home and I didn’t have a place to stay in Rehoboth Beach. I would’ve had to go through the effort of searching through my packed suitcase for my swimsuit, coverup, and beach towel, searching for a place where I could change into my swimsuit/coverup, finding a place to park my stuff on the beach while I went into the ocean, then search for a place where I could take a shower before changing back into my street clothes then walking out to the car to put my beach things away. It really wasn’t worth the effort for just a few hours.
So I decided to focus on the Boardwalk instead. Compared to the one in Ocean City, Rehoboth Beach’s Boardwalk is relatively less crowded and quiet. It’s smaller than Ocean City’s and it seems to be way more laid back and less raucous. (Unlike Ocean City, I didn’t hear any stores play loud music.)
I ate lunch at Grotto Pizza, where I ordered this personal size white pizza that was excellent. The service was excellent as well.
Here are some more shots of Rehoboth Beach’s Boardwalk, including a business with a rainbow flag (which indicates Rehoboth Beach’s longtime reputation of being LGBTQ friendly).
Rehoboth Beach has an amusement park on the Boardwalk known as Funland, which has a variety of different rides.
Like Ocean City, Funland has its own haunted ride that’s known as the Haunted Mansion. The line was long but it moved very fast. I went on that ride and I have to say that it might be better than Ocean City’s Haunted House ride. Maybe it’s because I’ve been on the Haunted House ride numerous times since I was a child and it was the first time I’ve ever ridden the Haunted Mansion ride so everything is new. In any case, I enjoyed it.
When I was a child and teenager I remember that the Boardwalk in Ocean City used to have fortune telling machines that purported to tell you the future. I haven’t seen any of those fortune telling machines on my most recent trip to Ocean City so I was pleasantly surprised when I found one in Rehoboth Beach. This one is known as Zoltar Speaks and he’s basically an animatronic who moves his head and hands when you put money into the machine until a piece of paper comes out with your fortune.
I got a kick out of using a fortune telling machine for old time’s sake.
Like I wrote earlier, Rehoboth Beach has long had a reputation for catering to the LGBTQ crowd and they even have t-shirts especially for them.
Even the stores in a supposedly pro-LGBTQ place like Rehoboth Beach sold Donald Trump t-shirts. At least this particular store sold one anti-Trump shirt (the “Pendejo” one). It also sold a “Fuck Putin” t-shirt with the lettering done in the blue and yellow colors of the Ukrainian flag. But the majority of t-shirts I saw were obviously catering to the MAGA Donald Trump-loving crowd.
There were also t-shirts that had nothing to do with either LGBTQ people or politics.
At one point I decided to walk about a block on a side street away from the Boardwalk where I saw all kinds of cool things. I saw this neat dolphin statue.
I also saw this really cool building that housed a British fish and chips place that was called Go Fish! Unfortunately I was still full from lunch and it was too early for dinner so I just took this one photo of the outside. (At this point I began to kick myself for not trying to get a hotel or motel room in Rehoboth Beach so I could stay for one or two nights and I could actually go swimming in the ocean and eat a meal in a place like Go Fish!)
During my time at Rehoboth Beach I made only one purchase. I bought a pastel the-dye souvenir t-shirt at a Sunsations store.
Shortly before I left I noticed some ominous looking clouds were starting to come in. The next picture showed how cloudy the weather became. I saw on my phone app that it was calling for rain again! I decided that it was time for me to leave Rehoboth Beach before the rain started.
I was in a laid-back mood so I decided to just continue taking Coastal Highway north until it became US 113. I continued north until I hit Dover then I took Delaware Route 1 and I arrived at the Christiana Mall. By that point I was hungry so I ate dinner at the Shake Shack. By the time I finished my meal it began to drizzle. Plus it was getting late in the day and I really wanted to be back in Maryland by nightfall.
Unfortunately the rain was a bit heavier but the good news was that it didn’t rain as hard as when I was driving to Ocean City. But I felt very nervous after sunset and I was driving along I-95 in northern Maryland and everything was unfamiliar, the roads were very dark, and, on top of it, I was dealing with very wet streets and tons of drivers who were speeding as if there was no rain at all. I began to wish I hadn’t stayed so long in Rehoboth Beach while a part of me felt glad that I had stayed as long as I could.
I began to relax a little bit when I reached Baltimore and there were plenty of bright lights. My GPS suggested taking the exit on to the Baltimore-Washington Parkway as a quicker way of getting home. I didn’t mind that suggestion because there were so many crazy people driving on I-95, including truckers, that taking the parkway would at least have me avoid the crazy truck drivers who were driving so recklessly in the rain. (The Baltimore-Washington Parkway is restricted to cars, buses, and motorcycles only.)
So I reached the exit only to find that there was construction on that exit. A sign said that the exit would be closed on the following day for renovations. At least I was lucky that I could still use that exit.
Here is where things became harrowing. There were traffic cones and giant steel drums set up along half of the road so the exit ramp was way more narrow than usual. One misstep while driving and it would’ve been total calamity for me. So I was driving very slow in the hopes that I could avoid hitting a cone or steel drum with the sky continuing to rain.
This went on for several minutes until I reached the Baltimore-Washington Parkway. The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful for me. By the time I got home it had mostly stopped raining.
The next day I was unpacking my suitcase when I found something pretty amusing with the deodorant that I had brought with me to the beach. I had the suitcase in the truck and it was hot back there. It caused my deodorant to literally change its shape as these photos show.
The deodorant is still usable. I just have to remember that the stick is narrower than usual.
In any case, that’s a wrap for my 2022 beach vacation. I really enjoyed myself this time despite the frequent appearance of rain. Having the opportunity to go to the beach on a bright sunny day made up for the rainy periods. My only regret was that I underestimated how cool Rehoboth Beach was because it’s one of those places that warrants at least two days in order to appreciate it. Otherwise I felt it was the perfect vacation for me.
I’m thinking that if I were to do this again, I would definitely spend at least one night in Rehoboth Beach so I could have the chance to leisurely enjoy the beach and the ocean. Well, there’s always next year!
Other Posts in My 2022 Beach Vacation Series
My 2022 Trip to the Beach Day One: July 25, 2022
My 2022 Trip to the Beach Day Two: July 26, 2022
My 2022 Trip to the Beach Day Three: July 27, 2022
My 2022 Trip to the Beach Day Four: July 28, 2022
My 2022 Trip to the Beach Day Five: July 29, 2022
If there was a day where I can say that it was a very perfect beach day, my last full day in Ocean City, Maryland was it.
My day began when I decided to drive into the neighboring town of Fenwick Island, Delaware where I could go shopping without paying any state sales tax. (That’s right, Delaware does not charge sales tax on anything.) The first thing I did was to purchase some caramel popcorn at Fisher’s Popcorn.
The next thing I did was to go to a two-story building that I attempted to go to on my last visit to the area last year only to find out that it was closed on Wednesdays. This time I went on a Thursday and it was open.
The lower floor of the two-story building houses Sea Shell City, a store where you can purchase all kinds of sea shells along with assorted souvenirs like t-shirts, toys, and decorative items (such as framed art). The upper floor houses the DiscoverSea Shipwreck Museum, which specializes in items that were retrieved from actual shipwrecks. I haven’t been there since I was married so I was very happy that I got to visit it again.
Unfortunately the only photo I have to show for it is this one featuring two pirates that are situated at the front entrance to the steps that lead to the museum.
That’s because the museum has rules regarding photography and videography. Shooting video is not allowed. Taking pictures is okay as long as they are for your own personal use. You cannot post any photos you shoot online without permission from the museum.
So I ended up just viewing the exhibits. That museum is just as I remembered it when I last visited it in 2011. It’s so fascinating seeing coins, books, and even china that were retrieved from shipwrecks. My personal favorite is the broken china that had coral growing through it, which made it look like a piece of avant-garde sculpture.
After I finished touring the museum upstairs and checking out the store downstairs, I decided to drive back to Maryland. On the way back I briefly stopped at the Fenwick Island Lighthouse, where I took this picture.
On the way back to the motel I decided to stop at the nearby bagel shop, Shmagels Bagels, where I ate a lunch featuring a bagel with cream cheese, a bag of potato chips, and a diet soda.
After lunch I went back to my motel room where I changed into my swimsuit and walked to the nearby beach. It was the perfect weather. The temperature was in the 90s and it was very humid. But getting into the ocean was totally refreshing and I was able to cool off quickly. On top of it I had sunscreen with me so I had the absolute perfect beach experience. Here is what the beach looked like that day.
For the next couple of hours I alternated between getting in the ocean then going back to my beach towel and read a trashy paperback novel that I had brought with me. (I purchased it at Five Below for only $5. It’s one of those novels that is so bad with cliched dialogue that it’s funny.) Towards the end of my stay at the beach I saw some nasty clouds starting to move in so I decided to return to my motel room where I took a shower and changed clothes.
Since it was my last night in Ocean City, I decided to go to OC Wasabi, which is a sushi restaurant that’s located near the motel. As I parked my car and started to walk to the front door it started to rain. At least I had this excellent dinner that was artfully arranged, as you can see in the next photo.
I decided that—rain or no rain—I was going to spend my final night on the Boardwalk. By the time I reached the parking lot it had stopped raining and I saw the remnants of this rainbow that appeared in the sky. Here are the photos I managed to take before it completely disappeared.
The Boardwalk was incredibly crowded that night. The next photo shows a long line of people waiting to get on the Haunted House ride. I got in line after I took that picture. I enjoyed the ride so much that I wanted to ride it again but I saw that the line was nearly twice as long so I decided to drop that idea. (I once shot a video years ago showing how lame the ride was but that ride has definitely improved since it underwent renovations a few years ago. One of these years I’m going to actually film the ride so I could do a comparison “before and after” video of that ride.)
The last time I was on the Boardwalk I didn’t have much energy to do a lot of walking because I had spent the afternoon walking around the Salisbury Zoo. I came up with an idea which enabled me to see more of the Boardwalk. I got on the Boardwalk train where I rode it until it reached The Kite Loft then leisurely walked back until I reached the parking lot where my car was parked. While I was riding it I was treated to a bunch of lovely sunset photos where the clouds turned a variety of very pretty pastel colors.
I finally reached The Kite Loft, which was another store I haven’t been to since 2011. (I didn’t visit that store last year because I had to cut my Boardwalk visit short due to the hurricane remnants that arrived in Ocean City.) As you can guess from the name, The Kite Loft specializes in kites and related products (such as wind socks). Here are a few photos I shot while I was in that store.
As I was walking on the Boardwalk I noticed a Hooters restaurant that wasn’t there the last time I was in that particular part of the Boardwalk back in 2011. Ocean City had long prided itself on having locally-owned mom-and-pop businesses on the Boardwalk and Hooters is a national chain. (I’ve only eaten at Hooters twice and both times I found the food to be not very memorable. I only ate there because I was with guys who wanted to eat there. That’s what happens when the owners focuses more on hiring sexy young women to wear skimpy uniforms so men and boys can ogle them and less on having tasty food that would actually entice people to come back.)
I saw this guy dressed as Batman on the Boardwalk.
There was another store on the Boardwalk that I wanted to visit. Ocean Gallery is an art gallery that has been on the Boardwalk as far back as when I was a child. I remember my parents going there where they purchased two paintings that hung on the living room walls of the house that I grew up in when we lived in Glen Burnie. It was such a fun place with seeing the eclectic outside and the walls literally covered with art. I had looked forward to visiting it again only to find out that it’s no longer open in the evenings, which was a bummer. I don’t know how much the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent Great Resignation had to do with the now-limited hours. It looks like the next time I go to Ocean City I’ll have to go in the daytime. At least I shot some photos of the outside so you can get a general idea of how unique that store is.
For years there have been an artist who makes these giant sand sculptures featuring Christian images. You don’t have to be a Christian to appreciate how amazing these sand sculptures are. This person spends so much time on each sculpture that is destined to eventually melt away by the wind and the rain.
I took a photo of some of the t-shirts that were on sale on the Boardwalk.
Here are a couple of photos of the 9/11 Firefighters Memorial.
Here’s the Esskay Clock. (Esskay was a local Baltimore-area manufacturer of hot dogs and sausages. The face of the clock includes a hot dog graphic. The company has since been taken over by Smithfield Foods and it discontinued the Esskay line. The clock is one of the few Esskay relics that still exists.) When I was a child and my family used to go on vacation with my aunt, uncle, and cousins, we kids were instructed that if we ever get lost while we were on the Boardwalk, we were supposed to wait at the Esskay Clock. I actually got separated from the family once when I was young so I waited by the clock for a few minutes where my mother found me. I remember she praised me for doing what I was instructed to do.
I ended my evening on the Boardwalk with a visit to Dolle’s Candy shop. Dolle’s specializes in making salt water taffy in a variety of flavors, including exotic ones like coconut, peach, and piña colada. I purchased a small bag of taffy in chocolate, vanilla, key lime, lemon, and cinnamon.
The last photos show what I purchased that day. I purchased a the-dye Fenwick Island, Delaware t-shirt from Sunsations that morning.
I also purchased two tiny sea shells from Sea Shell city for only 98 cents each.
They are perfectly scaled for my Disney Nuimos.
Other Posts in My 2022 Beach Vacation Series
My 2022 Trip to the Beach Day One: July 25, 2022
My 2022 Trip to the Beach Day Two: July 26, 2022
My 2022 Trip to the Beach Day Three: July 27, 2022
My 2022 Trip to the Beach Day Four: July 28, 2022
I ate breakfast with the cereal, paper bowl, and plastic spoon that I brought with me from home along with milk I bought the day before on the road. (At least I didn’t have to eat out for breakfast.) Given the weather forecast for storms throughout my days in Ocean City, I had to schedule beach time around the weather. So much for spontaneity on this trip. Basically if I wanted any beach time, I had to go in the morning. I tried putting on my 20-year-old pair of swim shoes only to discover that I couldn’t fit them over my feet. Either my feet have gotten bigger or my swim shoes have shrunk. (I’ve had them for over 20 years.) In any case I wore them like clogs when I was walking to the beach.
At least I was actually able to go into the ocean, unlike my last trip. (I didn’t have to contend with remnants from hurricanes this time around.) There was a light breeze, which was a far cry from the hurricane force winds that whipped grains of sand in my face last year.
When I went in the water I felt very cold but then I quickly got used to it. Had it been a very sunny day, it would’ve been perfect. But I was grateful for the clouds because I realized that I forgot to pack sunscreen and my skin tends to burn.
The beach area near my motel was a designated surfer beach so I was able to see people on surfboards.
I left the beach around noon because my weather forecasting app said that it was going to rain soon and I was hungry. After taking a quick shower I decided to go out for lunch. I discovered that the bagel shop that’s located closest to my motel closed around 1 p.m. but another bagel shop was opened a little later so I drove there.
By the time I arrived at Uber Bagels it was starting to rain very lightly. As I enjoyed a garlic bagel with lox spread it started to rain harder. By the time I finished my lunch the place started to close down for the day (it closed at 2 p.m. but I was only allowed to stay long enough to finish my lunch then leave immediately). I stayed in my parked car for a while until the worst of this rainstorm ended. I took this shot of my car’s windshield.
I thought about driving into Delaware but after a mile or two I saw that the street was totally flooded and I was literally driving my car through water. I took a U-turn and decided to head back south. I ended up driving in the middle lane because the right lane was literally flooded. I even saw a car that was stalled in the middle of the right lane with water coming up to the lower part of the door. I managed to take these two pictures of cars driving through flooded side streets on to the main highway while I was stopped at a traffic light.
The good news was that further south on the island the right lanes were less flooded so I managed to slip inside of a Candy Kitchen that gave me serious Willie Wonka vibes, including the fancy colorful plastic furniture and the cute and colorful plushies.
While I was at Candy Kitchen I purchased a couple of small bags of salt water taffy and dark chocolate nonpareils.
The temperature plummeted along with the rain and I realized that I forgot to pack a sweatshirt and a pair of jeans for those occasional cool nights. I stopped at Sunsations to go sweatshirt shopping. While I was there I saw these tacky shot glasses, one of them had the rainbow pride flag.
I ended up buying a cool looking sweatshirt that would be especially useful when the weather gets cooler in a few months. I decided against buying long pants because the sweatshirt had cost close to $30 and the matching long pants were just as expensive. I decided to just wear shorts with my sweatshirt. I also purchased a new pair of swim shoes to replace the over 20-year-old pair that no longer fit my feet.
For my last errand I stopped off at CVS where I purchased a bottle of sunscreen (which I also forgot to pack) and two boxes of tissues.
I returned to the motel room where I took a photo of what I purchased that day.
Here’s a photo of me modeling that sweatshirt.
For dinner I ended up walking to Higgins Crab House (which is located across the street from the motel) while I wore my new sweatshirt.
The restaurant was crowded so I ended ordering a crabcake sandwich and fries as a takeout then brought it back to my room where I ate it. The meal was very good. I had thought about going to the Boardwalk that evening but the weather was too rainy so I ended up spending the evening in my room where I surfed the web and read a book until I fell asleep.
Other Posts in My 2022 Beach Vacation Series
My 2022 Trip to the Beach Day One: July 25, 2022
My 2022 Trip to the Beach Day Two: July 26, 2022
My 2022 Trip to the Beach Day Three: July 27, 2022
I devoted my last post to my three-day and two-night trip that included Ocean City and Berlin in Maryland along with Fenwick Island and Dover in Delaware. I packed a few toys on that trip, mainly my 15-inch Ariel the Little Mermaid doll and my Disney Nuimos.
I packed Ariel because the box that she came in said that one can actually take a bath with her and engage in other types of water activity, like a pool. I tried dunking her in the ocean where I had her wait along the shore until a wave rushed over her while I filmed the whole thing. I uploaded the video on TikTok and YouTube.
I did another trip related video featuring both Ariel and the Disney Nuimos. It’s basically a slideshow I shot of the various toys in various places in Ocean City (the beach, the motel room, and the Boardwalk), Fenwick Island (the Fenwick Island Lighthouse and a dolphin-themed wall mural that’s on the side of a Sunsations store) Berlin (the Mermaid Museum), and Dover (the Johnson Victrola Museum). I uploaded that video on TikTok and YouTube.
After my sudden spate of car drama in Southern Maryland that reached a crescendo on September 10, 2019, I ended up taking the following day off from Census Bureau work mainly because I had no car. I basically relaxed in an effort to get over that trauma (which included having a local threatening to shoot me and the tow truck driver who was rescuing me from the car breakdown).
My housemate told me that he suspected that it’s a problem with the alternator. (Like I wrote in that last post, my problems initially began with a dead battery and it got replaced by AAA but my housemate said that the alternator problem is commonly related to the battery problem.) During that day I got a phone call from the Meinke place telling me that, my housemate was correct, and it was a dead alternator. An aftermarket alternator in good condition would cost $700, including repairs. (I shudder to think how much a new alternator would cost.) The good news was that, thanks to my recent Census Bureau job, I could afford to pay for the repair. The bad news was that I had to pay for the repair but I had no other choice if I wanted to continue working that Census Bureau job.
So the morning after that one day of decompressing from the car drama I got a call from Meinke saying that the car was ready. I needed a ride to La Plata in order to pick it up. My housemate kindly volunteered to drive me there. (He works at a local library where his hours are from noon until 8 p.m.) I decided to take both my work and personal laptops with me. I arrived at the Meineke place where I noticed that they had this really cool looking metal sculpture that looked like it was made from car parts. (I only didn’t notice it earlier because I was pretty frazzled the other day from that drama.)
I picked up the car and I decided to drive to the nearby La Plata Plaza to decompress and eat breakfast (which I didn’t get a chance to eat because my housemate needed to leave early enough to make the nearly 90 minute trip to La Plata then drive to his job in Takoma Park in time for the start of his shift). It was the same La Plata Plaza where I walked to the other day where I waited for my housemate to pick me up once he got off of his shift.
I ended up going to the Safeway in that shopping center where I purchased a box of Lucky Charms cereal along with a small pint of cream and a Rubbermaid Serving Saver that was about the size of a cereal bowl. (I only purchased the cream because the smallest milk size they had at the Safeway was a quart, which was way too much for a bowl of cereal. I also didn’t want to buy a quart because I would’ve had to keep it in the car and with the hot weather at that time of the year, I was worried about it spoiling the extra milk pretty fast.) As for the spoon, I swiped a plastic one from the salad bar. I also purchased a 20 ounce bottle of Diet Pepsi so I would have a jolt of caffeine.
So I sat at one of the tables at Safeway, poured the cereal into the Serving Saver, poured the cream, and ate a pretty rich breakfast. I pulled out my work laptop, logged into it, and found that I had another assignment that was also in the La Plata area and it was located just a few miles from the shopping center. So I put the rest of the Lucky Charms cereal in the grocery bag then went to the nearby restroom to go to the bathroom and wash out the Serving Saver before putting that in the grocery bag as well. Then I got in my car and drove off to my next assignment.
As I was driving I saw a couple of houses that had two flagpoles that were flying two flags. One was the American flag, which isn’t that unusual in this country. The other was a navy blue flag of the same size that had the name TRUMP in white letters. Basically these houses were flying a Trump flag alongside the American flag, which was pretty unsettling. I learned that Donald Trump is receiving a level of adoration from his supporters on a level that I have never seen before. I don’t recall President Ronald Reagan, who has long been a darling of conservatives, ever receiving THAT level of adoration. It’s almost like the people who fly the Trump flag next to the American flag have equated Donald Trump with the United States of America, which signals that a cult of personality have been created around Trump. These people would probably think that even a mild critique of Trump equals an attack on America and I find that alarming.
Sure I currently like Bernie Sanders, Liz Warren, and Andrew Yang but I would NEVER fly any banners with their names alongside the American flag because it just feels like it would desecrate the American flag just as much as burning it, walking on it, or taking a shit on it.
Fortunately I didn’t have to stop by those homes with the Trump flag flying side-by-side with the American flag. I passed by them while I was looking for a certain address, which I punched into Google Maps on my smartphone. The GPS led me to a two-lane country road that was all farmland. Basically Google Maps led me to a barn as the address. I was taught during training that sometimes people do live in what is known as “unconventional housing” and that can include tents, boats, recreational vehicles, and barns. So I pulled my car to a grassy area near the barn and I investigated it. It looked like one of those tobacco barns because a few of the wall panels were lifted up so I was able to peek inside. I saw an empty barn with no evidence of any kind of habitation.
I saw another building just a few feet away that looked like a house. I suspected that it might be the actual place that I was looking for and Google Maps had simply confused it with that barn. I decided to get back in my car and drive to that other building.
So I got in my car and started it. The car started fine. Then I put it into drive and I couldn’t move the car. Then I tried putting it into reverse and I couldn’t move the car. I tried putting it into drive and all I was doing was spinning my wheels. I tried putting it into reverse with the same result. I discovered to my horror that I had parked the front of the car into a small dip that was deep enough to trap the car.
Yes, I retrieved the car from the repair shop due to a bad alternator only to get that same car trapped in a dip on a grassy area just a few hours later! I can laugh now at that predicament but, at the time, it was simply more stress and upset, especially since—once again—I was stuck on a country road in the middle of nowhere. I ended up calling AAA to help me again for the second day in less than a week. Once again I was broiling in the hot and humid mid-90s temperature while waiting for a tow truck to rescue me. I took a few pictures of the car because AAA wanted me to text them so they can get an idea of what they were dealing with and give the right information to the tow truck driver.
While I was waiting I had one local stop his car close by asking me if I needed help. (He was an older gentleman who had grey hair and a matching grey mustache.) When I showed him the car being stuck in that dip, the guy laughed and said, “You’re really stuck.” He looked at the car but he said that I would need a chain and he didn’t have it so he couldn’t help me. He asked me what I was doing in the area and I told him about working for the Census Bureau. He asked me if I intend to ask people the citizenship question that President Trump wants to put on the 2020 census forms. I told him that I would ask if I was required to do so. (As of this writing, Trump hasn’t succeeded in adding that question to the census and he seems to have moved on to other concerns, like the possibility that he could be impeached and removed from office.) He mentioned that one set of his grandparents came from Italy and they followed the law when they immigrated. I just politely nodded. I didn’t say anything because I really didn’t feel like getting into any political arguments because I was already preoccupied with both the latest car trouble and the hot and humid weather. He drove off after a few minutes.
Later a car with two teenagers (a girl and a boy) stopped by and asked me if I needed help. I told them that my car was stuck in that dip, I called AAA, and a tow truck was on its way. They wished me good luck then drove off.
The tow truck driver eventually came. He was a different person from the one that rescued me a couple of days ago. He had the equipment needed to get my car out of that dip. I started the car and it was driving again normally. I thanked him and he drove off.
Like I wrote a few paragraphs ago, before I had that “car stuck in a grassy dip” drama, I was originally going to investigate whether that building that was located a few feet away from the barn was really the house that I was looking for and not that barn that Google Maps said was the correct address. I drove to that building and found that it was a house and it was actually the address that I was looking for. Had I driven to that house without stopping and parking at that barn first, I could’ve avoided that whole stuck car drama entirely. Ugh!
So I continued with my work and it was quite a trip. I was frequently driving on unpaved dirt roads, which was not fun. I feared getting stuck in another grassy ditch or worse. I saw three deer emerge from a field and dart across the dirt road in front of the car before disappearing behind another field that was on the other side of the road. I was glad that I was driving slowly and they ran fast enough so I didn’t have to add “collision with deer” on top of all of my other car drama.
Doing the last house on my case was really harrowing. I was driving along a very narrow dirt road that was barely wide enough for one car. There was fields on the left hand side and the Potomac River on the right hand side. I kept on thinking “One wrong move and this car will end up in the river.” I arrived at the house and I was fortunate that it had a driveway where I could turn the car around so I could easily get out of the area. I kept the engine running while I made a few quick observations of the house and recorded them in my work laptop.
By that point I was ready to leave the area. I looked on Google Maps on my smartphone when I found that I was located just south of the twin beach towns of North Beach and Chesapeake Beach. I hadn’t been to any beaches in a few years due to tight finances and I had found myself wishing that I could go to any beach, even if it was only for just one day. So I punched the address of the North Beach Visitor’s Center into my Google Maps app and I drove north.
I arrived to North Beach about a half an hour later. I parked my car and started walking around despite the fact that the temperature was still around 95 degrees at 3 p.m.
I saw the beach but then I realized that I hadn’t packed a swimsuit so I couldn’t go swimming. But just seeing the beach with the Chesapeake Bay was enough for me at that point.
The one thing I learned is about the fees. Usually non-residents are charged a daily fee to use the beach and the fishing pier in the summer. When I arrived at North Beach after Labor Day, I found that the Welcome Center where you pay the admission fees in exchange for a paper wrist bracelet that gives you access was closed. It seems like North Beach only collects those fees during the summer before Labor Day. That’s good to know for future reference since the days can get hot in early September.
I went to Sweet Sue’s Bake Shop & Coffee Bar where I ate a bagel with cream cheese as a late lunch. Since I didn’t have a swimsuit I decided to bring my personal laptop with me and I did some web surfing while cooling off in the air conditioning.
Once I felt better I decided to resume my walk in the 95 degree heat. I had hoped to check out some of the stores only to find that most of the ones in downtown North Beach either close after 4 p.m. or they are only open on the weekends. (I arrived on a Thursday around 3 p.m. and I had taken a long break at Sweet Sue’s.) I ended up walking over to Wetlands Overlook Park, which is located just on the edge of town. I had never been there before on my previous trips so I thought it was worth checking out. I saw some spectacular nature scenes that just I couldn’t resist photographing.
There was also a wooded nature trail but the heat was getting to me at that point and I was starting to feel tired.
I decided to put off exploring that wooded nature trail for a future trip and head back to the downtown area, where I took some more shots.
I finally arrived at the other edge of North Beach where it borders Chesapeake Beach. (This explains why North Beach and Chesapeake Beach are frequently referred to as twin towns.)
During my previous trips to North Beach I would eat dinner at Ledo’s Pizza in Upper Marlboro on the way back home mainly because it was cheaper than eating at the main seafood restaurant in town. Thanks to my Census Bureau job I was able to do something I had never done before: Eat dinner at Neptune’s Seafood Pub.
I found the place to be very cozy and intimate, although I didn’t take any photographs of the interior because I was running low on battery power and I used one of the plugs to recharge my phone while I was there. I managed to take this picture of my meal: a crab cake sandwich with waffle fries. It was very delicious.
While I ate my meal this rain storm suddenly appeared and I saw the windows of the restaurant being pelted with raindrops. It was a brief storm because by the time I finished eating dinner and paying the $20 bill, the rain had largely subsided to a drizzle. The temperature was also much cooler than earlier. I also saw this incredibly awesome rainbow that was over the Chesapeake Bay.
I was pretty tired after all of the day’s excitement. I was glad I went to North Beach because I was able to relax for a bit plus I got to see a rainbow. I also saw this awesome sunset as I got back to the car so I could go home.
At least I was able to return home with no problem at all. The one thing I learned from that day is that Melody Beattie had the right advice in her book The Language of Letting Go when she said that if you have a dream, wish or desire, just whisper it out into the universe. A lot of times it will come true when you least expect it. For the past couple of summers I had a desire to go to a beach and I wasn’t able to do it because of tight finances. But then, one night before I went to sleep, I whispered, “I wish I could go to a beach.” In fact I said it a few times over various nights this past summer, although I don’t know how many times I actually did this. That desire came true because I was able to go to North Beach. Okay, so I missed out on swimming because I forgot to bring a swimsuit and most of the stores were closed because I arrived so late on a weeknight. But I was still able to walk around and enjoy the scenery. And I got to see a rainbow and a lovely sunset to boot.
And, yeah, North Beach is pretty small compared to the ocean resort towns like Ocean City. But I felt that it was better to go to North Beach than no beach at all.
The biggest takeaway from this is that sometimes your dreams will come true in ways that you don’t expect.
I had a pretty busy August 3 in Baltimore. First I was working on a customized doll in collaboration with the YouTube channel Dollightful and I created the Pink Flamingo Mermaid. I was taking photos of the doll at various locations in order to find the perfect shot for the big collaboration video.
I decided to go to The Sandlot in Baltimore for the final shoot before the deadline when I found out that BronyCon was also the same weekend. I wanted to go since I hadn’t attended in four years due to tight finances. With the deadline looming I thought about skipping BronyCon until I found out that this year was going to be the last time that BronyCon was going to be held ever.
So I had this dilemma: Should I go to the last-ever BronyCon or should I skip BronyCon altogether and just go to The Sandlot? Then I hit upon a third option: I would do both. I woke up early and went to BronyCon with my mermaid doll in tow. (I had her in a cloth bag that I carried around.) If I had found anything that seemed tropical at that convention (such as a display), I would have shot my mermaid doll at BronyCon. But I didn’t see anything that was suitable so after I spent a few hours at BronyCon, I left the Baltimore Convention Center, hopped on the Charm City Circulator bus and headed towards The Sandlot.
Once I arrived I was able to make a few shots of my Pink Flamingo Mermaid doll, including the one that I ultimately submitted to the Dollightful video.
While I was there I also took some shots of the beach that didn’t include my doll. The Sandlot was like a typical beach except you aren’t allowed to swim. But you can do other things like play volleyball and bocce ball. They even had swings so people of all ages can swing in them.
There was also a bar and restaurant part of The Sandlot. I thought about eating dinner there until I discovered that this place does not accept cash at all. I had basically stuffed my pockets full of cash while I locked my purse with my wallet that has the debit card in the trunk of the car before I took the light rail from North Linthicum to Baltimore a few hours earlier. So I ended up eating fried chicken from a local Royal Farms for a late dinner when I was on my way back home.
I have loved going to the beach since my family used to go on vacation to Ocean City, Maryland as a child. The last time I went to Ocean City was in 2011 (which you can check out here, here, here, here, and here)—just five months before my husband left me. I would like to go back to the beach, either to Ocean City or even a different beach like Rehobeth Beach or Cape May but I’ve been financially struggling so much since my separation and divorce that I just couldn’t afford such a trip. At this point even a one-day trip to Ocean City is currently out of the question.
In the years since my husband left I visited some of the beach towns facing the Chesapeake Bay like North Beach (in 2012 and 2014) and Chesapeake Beach (in 2013). Granted these towns are a far cry from Ocean City but they have a charm of their own that’s perfect for a day trip on a severely limited budget. I haven’t been back in a few years because my finances went from being merely tight to extremely dire when the court-ordered alimony from my ex-husband ended before I was able to land a job.
Now that I’m working again I thought about making a return to North Beach last Friday because I thought I had a free day. But it rained very heavy that day, the temperature plunged to the high 60’s, and one of the my jobs had called suddenly because of a sudden arrival of work that came from out of the blue.
Instead I decided to devote day one of The Drawings of Summer to a generic beach scene.
I used a free tutorial on how to draw a beach scene with palm trees on WikiHow. Since the sun in that tutorial is so close to the horizon, I decided to color in the sky to reflect either sunrise or sunset (when the sky turns into a variety of different colors).
Drawing that beach scene has made me more wistful for not visiting a beach this summer—with the exception of the beach-themed Sandlot that is located near Fells Point in Baltimore, which was where I did some location shooting of the Pink Flamingo Mermaid that I did as part of an online collaboration with the YouTube channel Dollightful.
I may visit North Beach in the fall, especially since that town has the Wetlands Overlook Park where one can see migratory birds during the spring and fall. It really depends on how much time and/or money I’ll have this fall for such a trip.
Day One of The Drawings of Summer down and six more days of drawings to go! Come back tomorrow to see what I’ve done over the hot summer months.
Sagittarius Dolly 
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