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There was much hype about the upcoming Tropical Storm Elsa, which wound its way from the Caribbean all the way to Canada. I was bracing myself for Elsa’s arrival in the Washington, DC area so I had this idea of shooting a short video showing my Elsa doll patiently awaiting for the storm that bore her name then later shoot more footage of the doll looking at the storm from outside of the window.
So I initially shot some early footage of Elsa waiting for the storm. But then something happened. The storm itself decided to by pass the Baltimore-Washington, DC area completely and strike the Eastern Shore exclusively.
I was initially going to drop that video project entirely since there was no tropical storm at all until I saw footage on TikTok of how destructive Tropical Storm Elsa was when it struck New York City. The subway stations were totally flooded, many streets also became flooded, and even some apartment buildings encountered leaky roofs and falling debris. So I had an idea of salvaging my original video idea where I spliced in footage from the affected areas on the Eastern Shore and New York City. I uploaded it on to TikTok and YouTube.
Today was the day that we had to vacate our rented condo. We spent the morning packing and loading our cars. Once we left the condo, we drove to Harpoon Hanna’s in Delaware where we saw live coverage of the last space shuttle launch ever that was broadcast on one of the TV screens. After the space shuttle Atlantis was successfully launched into space, we did some web surfing using the restaurant’s free wi-fi while eating lunch there.
After lunch we drove on to this store called Made by Hand which specializes in handcrafted goods made in many countries around the world where the workers are paid a fair wage for their work. The store also sells a variety of foods that has the Fair Trade designation on the labels. I purchased a bottle of olive oil that was made in the Galilee area of Israel whose profits would help Arab growers receive a fair price for their olives and to find international markets for their olive oil.
Afterwards my husband and I said good-bye to his sister and we went our separate ways. My husband and I drove through the Eastern Shore until we hit Easton and my husband wanted to take a break so we went to a Panera Bread where we ordered drinks while doing some web surfing using the free wi-fi there.
After that break, we continued on Route 50 at the same time as this nasty storm front came in. It started to rain really hard. In fact the windshield was barely visible because there was so much rain coming down at once. We began to see cars pulled off to the side of the road because the drivers just couldn’t handle the poor visibility.
At that point my husband and I decided to make a return visit to Harris Crab House, the same place where we ate steamed crabs for lunch on the second day of this trip. It was 5:30 p.m. by then so we decided to eat dinner while waiting the storm out. We split a half-dozen of the largest crabs available while we ate our own appetizers (I had fried onion rings) then we finished the meal by each ordering a bowl of their cream of crab soup that has a shot of sherry in it.
After dinner it was still raining but it was nowhere near as heavy as it was earlier so we continued on to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge then eventually made our way home.
All in all it was a pretty good trip despite the Fourth of July crowds the first few days of the trip and the frequent storms that cut our actual time on the beach short.
Yesterday was my last full day in Ocean City, Maryland and I was determined to make the most of it. It was also one of the few days that had no rain in the forecast and it was sunny and hot all day long. That morning I finally was able to do the one thing that I couldn’t do earlier either because of my back problems or the weather or both—go for an early morning stroll along the beach. Aside from a few early-morning swimmers and angler fisherman, the beach was mostly clear, as you can see in this photo below.
After my brief stroll, I returned to the condo for some breakfast. After that my husband, sister-in-law, and I decided to make a last visit to The Bookend Cafe where we had some drinks, browsed the gifts and books sold there, and did some web surfing using the cafe’s free wi-fi. On the way back from the cafe, we stopped off at the same Fenwick Island lighthouse that I took a nighttime photo of just a few days ago. Here is what the lighthouse looks like in daylight.
After lunch we spent some time in the afternoon at the beach where we took a few last dips in the ocean then did some final book reading on the beach. Then we changed out of our swimsuits and headed to the Boardwalk for one final time. Unlike the last time I went to the Boardwalk, the day was much brighter and I was able to do some more walking than I was before since I didn’t have to worry about raindrops. Here’s a photo I took of the landmark Esskay Clock. When I used to go to Ocean City as a child with my extended family (including my cousins), we kids used to be instructed to wait by that clock if we somehow became separated. I remembered when I did just that one crowded night when I got separated by my family and they were all happy that when they found me at the clock.
Next to the Esskay Clock is a newer Boardwalk landmark. This is the Firefighters Memorial and it was erected to honor the firefighters who perished in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.
Here’s a different kind of landmark. For many years a sculptor and minister Randy Hofman has been creating these gigantic sand sculptures based on events in the Bible. They are really a sight to behold.
If you want to see more of Randy Hofman’s work, check out his website right here.
The Boardwalk have long been home to would-be artists and musicians who try to ply their trade among the vacation-goers. Sometimes you’ll see someone who is both an artist and a musician, like the guy in the photo below.
After walking around on the Boardwalk, we headed to the Angler restaurant to take advantage of its dinner and sunset cruise. We ate a wonderful dinner in the restaurant then we went out on the dock in the back of the restaurant where we boarded a boat. I took a whole bunch of sunset photos. Here’s one of the sunset over the Route 50 bridge that leads into Ocean City.
Here’s another sunset photo, this one over Assateague Island.
And here’s sunset over West Ocean City, Maryland.
And here are a few sunset photos of the Boardwalk, where you can see the bright lights from far away.
In this photo, you can see the kites that are located right outside The Kite Loft. The kites are flown day and night during the summer.
Towards the end of the boat trip, things took a really dramatic turn. Our boat got word of another boat that had literally run aground and the boat I was on decided to go over to see if it could offer some help. By the time we arrived, the Coast Guard had already arrived to offer aid to the boat. I managed to take a few photos of that ship that ran aground but it was really dark and my camera had a hard time picking up the image so the next two photos are blurry. Here is the white boat that’s stuck among the rocks.
The blue lights in this photo are the ones from the Coast Guard boat.
Man, the weather has really been variable on this trip. It has gone from rainy to blistering heat to more rain. My back has adjusted accordingly. If it is going to rain, my back tends to hurt worse. But once it rains, my back feels normal.
When I woke up yesterday morning my back was aching a lot. It was very cloudy outside and the ground was wet from the rain the night before. We were wavering as to whether to even go down to the beach or not. I went on a few errands after breakfast and, while I was out, the weather became very sunny and it turned really hot and humid. I took a few photos while I on these errands in both the northern part of Ocean City and Fenwick Island, Delaware.
Happy Harry’s was a chain of pharmacies that was prevelant throughout the Delmarva area until Walgreen’s took over the chain a few years ago and converted the bulk of them to Walgreen’s. This Happy Harry’s store in Fenwick Island, Delaware is one of the last of the pharmacies that still has the Happy Harry’s name and logo. Even though this store carries bags that has the Walgreen’s name and it carries a number of Walgreen store brands, the store is still known as Happy Harry’s. I don’t know how much longer it will be known as Happy Harry’s so I decided to take a few photos of it for posterity (I’ll admit that the drawing of Happy Harry reminds me a lot of comedian Drew Carey.)
On the way back to the condo, I decided to treat myself to ice cream from Dumser’s Dairyland on 124th Street in Ocean City. Next to that ice cream parlor is something I have never seen in Ocean City before—an abandoned mini-golf course. For those of you who have never been to Ocean City, I’ll say that this place is loaded with all kinds of mini-golf courses with a variety of themes ranging from dinosaurs to pirates to vikings. Miniature golf is probably the second biggest thing to do right behind going to the beach. Normally min-golf courses are very profitable businesses, which is why I found it jarring that there was an abandoned course. I guess the ever-worsening economy is a factor in this particular golf course being closed permanently.
These space aliens wait in vain to greet miniature golf players who don’t visit anymore.
One mini-golf course is closed but another mini-golf course opens for the first time this season. I saw this place under construction last year and it is now completed. This one is located close to my condo so, after dinner, I decided to check it out. This mini-golf course is an indoor course, which is great for those rainy days. It also has a small arcade complete with an air hockey table.
This indoor course is really big. It has a jungle theme and, as you can see, it’s a very elaborate course.
After I checked out the indoor mini-golf course, I drove by the Fenwick Island Lighthouse located near the Delaware state line. This lighthouse hasn’t been used to help boats in decades but it still gets lit up at night.
The weather has veered between rain and hot and humid so much that we weren’t sure whether we would go to the beach that day or not. In the late afternoon, my husband and I decided to try the beach because it became very sunny, hot, and humid. (My sister-in-law opted to do some shopping instead.) By the time we put our suits on and smeared suntan lotion over the exposed parts of our body, the clouds returned. We decided to go to the beach anyway and we managed to get a brief swim in the ocean. (I still stayed in the shallow end. It was just as well because the waves were a bit on the rough side.) We hung around on the beach (I was still using the tall chair from the balcony of my rented condo) reading our books for a while until we felt raindrops. We managed to get an hour’s worth of beach time despite the crazy weather, which wasn’t bad considering the circumstances.
I know I ended the last entry about my trip on a melancholy note. Well yesterday was a bit better. My back didn’t hurt as much, which was good. I still have ear wax in my right ear but I can hear a bit better than yesterday.
My husband, sister-in-law, and I spent the Fourth of July close to the condo. We didn’t drive anywhere because there was a lot of traffic on the road. In fact, the public parking outside our condo was filled iup by 9:30 a.m. and there were a lot of cars going up and down that street in a vain attempt to find parking.
We hung around the condo then walked over to the beach late afternoon. My husband had a perfect solution for my problems with sitting in beach chairs with seats slung too close to the sand. He picked up one of the heavy patio chairs from the balcony and hauled it to the beach. It worked perfectly for me. I was able to get up and down from the chair without a hitch.
I still stayed close to the shallow end of the ocean because I didn’t want any waves to knock me off my feet with the bad back. I was okay overall. We hung around the beach until some nasty clouds came in and the temperature got considerably cooler. Amazingly my back didn’t feel worse, which is usually the case when rain is going to come.
We ate dinner at the condo, which was when it rained very hard outside for quite a while. We had originally planned on going towards the park on 125th Street to see the fireworks but we decided to stay indoors and watch the live broadcast of the annual Concert on the Mall and Fireworks from Washington, DC on television instead. After the DC fireworks ended at 9:30 p.m., we began to hear loud noises from outside. I investigated and saw that the fireworks from the park were going on. They started a half-an-hour later than originally scheduled (probably because of the storm). What was cool was that I got a great view of the fireworks from the second floor balcony area of the condo where I’m currently staying so I didn’t have to walk down to the park. I alerted my husband and sister-in-law and we all watched the fireworks from the condo. I took a few photos of the fireworks although, to be honest, they really don’t do them justice. They were much more impressive in real life.
The weather has been acting weird. It started off with showers this morning then it was cloudy and cooler than usual. Then it alternated between being cloudy and sunny and some of the clouds looked like they could produce some more raindrops (but it didn’t). By the late afternoon the sun came out and everything seemed like a normal sunny day. By that point, we weren’t in the mood to change into our swimsuits.
My husband and sister-in-law spent the day talking about their childhoods (which I couldn’t get into because I didn’t meet either one of them until after I turned 20) and they talked so much that they ate breakfast then lunch way later than usual. As for me, I ate on time. đŸ™‚
Then they really got into spending huge amounts of time chopping up fresh produce and stuff. It’s a far cry when I was a kid and my parents used to share a condo with my grandmother, aunt, uncle, and four cousins. We basically ate either cereal or donuts or Pop Tarts for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch, and either frozen dinners or something that could be done quick (like dunking chicken in barbeque sauce or pouring McCormick’s Season All on a slice of steak). None of the adults were into chopping up vegetables or cooking up anything that was too complex (even making scrambled eggs was considered too much work <LOL!>), or making exacting schedules on which meals would be eaten on which day and when they would be eaten. As far as they were concerned, they were on vacation too and they didn’t want to do as much cooking as they usually did at home. (Don’t worry, we kids survived extremely well, we were still well-fed, and none of us were angry or bitter about the adults’ decision to not cook as much as usual.)
I spent time trying to get rid of this excessive ear wax that’s been clogging up my right ear for the past two days now. (I purchased some ear wax removal and I’m making some progress but I’m going to work on it some more.)
I managed to get away from the condo to purchase some caramel popcorn from the Fisher’s Popcorn that’s located just one block over the Delaware state line. While I was still in the town of Fenwick Island, Delaware, I checked out this shopping center that has a new cafe that’s also offers free wi-fi plus sells used books called The Bookend Cafe. It’s a charming place and, in fact, I’m typing this entry from there.
At one point in the late afternoon I took a brief walk along the beach. I cut it short because I saw this elderly couple sitting in low-slung beach chairs and I became upset. That’s because this couple is a few decades older than me yet they were able to sit in normal beach chairs with seats slung close to the sand. As you may have read yesterday, I have a hard time with sitting in beach chairs with seats that touch the sand because of my back. It’s so unfair that I’m younger than that elderly couple and I can’t enjoy the beach like I usually do because of my back. (That’s right I have excessive ear wax in my right ear that’s clogging up my hearing—it’s like having an ear plug lodged in my ear—AND I have back problems.) I got so upset that I left the beach after only a few minutes because I just couldn’t take it.
I brought my camera with me during my brief foray to the beach and took a few photos. Here are a few American flags and other patriotic-themed decorations among the sand dunes in anticipation for tomorrow’s Fourth of July holiday.
The Good Humor ice cream truck makes its periodic stops along the beaches of Ocean City, Maryland while playing "Turkey in the Straw" over and over.
One classic feature of the beaches in Ocean City is the frequent appearance of planes hauling advertising banners for the beachgoers to watch as they fly by. These planes have been flying as far back as when I was a child.
I’ll admit that this entry is melancholy. Part of it is because of my health issues and part of it is because we’re pretty limited as to where we can go to avoid the excessive crowds that are here only for the Fourth of July holiday. After tomorrow most of the Fourth of July revellers will be gone and the area will be less crowded so we can go to places like the Boardwalk and not have to wait in long lines to get a cup of soda or worrying about bumping into people because the area is so packed.. For the time being we’re limiting our expeditions to walking to the beach or going into neighboring Delaware to check out some of the upscale shops and the sales tax-free shopping.
Like I wrote in a blog entry earlier today, my husband and I ate lunch at Harris Crab House. We consumed a dozen of the large crabs. We’ve been going to Harris on the way to Ocean City every time because the food and service is so good. In addition, all of the windows face the water and it’s kind of nice seeing a boat sail by while eating crabs.
After that, we drove to Ocean City. We’ve unloaded the bags and luggage when we arrived at the rental condo then just crashed for a few hours. We ate dinner at an Irish pub called Slainte that’s located a few miles over the Delaware state line. (Our condo is located just a mile from Delaware so we can take advantage of sales tax-free shopping.)
We’re still unpacking stuff and putting them away. We’ll probably unpack as much as possible until we get tired then go to bed.
We arrived at Kent Island late afternoon. We checked into the Hilton there then ate dinner at one of the many seafood restaurants in the area. The food was okay but it was very heavy on the salt. In fact I kept on waking up several times throughout the night to get a drink of water because I was so thirsty. I finally got smart and kept a glass of water by the bedside.
Today my husband and I are going to check out of the hotel and eat lunch at our favorite seafood restaurant in the area, Harris Crab House. We’ll get the usual dozen large steamed crabs and eat them. After lunch we’ll take a leisurly drive on Route 50 until we reach our final destination—Ocean City.
In the meantime, here are a couple of photos I took on Kent Island. The first two photos I took in honor of someone I know through a political discussion board known as Dr. Imi. My husband and I met him in person once when we travelled to London back in 2008. (He a British citizen whose parents immigrated from Afghanistan right around the time of the Soviet invasion back in 1979.) Imagine our surprise when we came upon this building on Kent Island.
I’ll be heading out to my annual trip to Maryland’s Eastern Shore as of tomorrow. I’ve lined up a few entries in this blog ahead of time and they’ll slowly go live while I’m away. I’ve already put my Etsy shop on vacation mode until I return. My Zazzle shop will remain open because I don’t directly handle the fulfillment.
Sagittarius Dolly 
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