Back to the Beach
To start, I woke at 7:30 to the sound of my watch alarm. Ben wasn't up yet, and Shannon and I had agreed we could kind of wing it in regards to getting up with him. Usually, she takes weekdays, because I work, and I take weekends. Bath and bedtime is vice-versa. My mission was to take some beach pictures during the good morning light. Well, it turns out I missed the best morning light, but I got a couple that I posted.
My solo trip to the beach was good, but not perfect. The temperature was cool and the wind blew harder than it had the day before, with gusts hard enough to kick up sand. The sun was not where I expected it to be, so some of the photos I envisioned were not going to happen. I snapped a few frames of some sea kayaks and a couple of early beach goers.
As I took a few pictures that didn't make the cut, a woman asked me if I had seen "the sea turtle." I said, no, and she pointed out where it was. I had never seen a sea turtle in the wild, and they are one of my favorite animals. I walked over and saw a large sea turtle with a barnacled back. Something didn't look quite right about the way it was moving on the surf. After watching it wash up and then back out a few more times, I realized that it was dead. So, I got to see a sea turtle in the wild, but not a live sea turtle.
As I returned to the parking lot, a man in uniform asked me if I knew where the dead sea turtle was. I figured he was some kind of animal control officer, or maybe even a biologist for the local authorities. I pointed it out to him, and he said somebody was on the way to get it. He then returned to his job of emptying the parking meters. I guess even in a small resort town like Ocean View, they still have some separation of duties.
Later that day Shannon's step-brother and his family went to the beach. They said that the turtle was still there, and that a team of biologists and other authorities were there running tests on the body before removing it. That was several hours after I had been out there.
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Shopping and the Boardwalk
Shannon and I hung out with the family for a while after I got back from the beach. The guys and I made a McDonald's run to grab breakfast. In the parking lot before we went in, Shannon's dad showed her step-brother some of the features of a GPS unit he evidently had handed down to him. I had read a lot about them, and thought they might be useful in backpacking, but that was the first time I had seen one in use. They're very slick. I must have one.
After we all stuffed ourselves on unborn chickens and long-dead pigs, Shannon and I decided to head down to see the shops and the boardwalk. Her dad chimed in that he'd like to go, so away the three of us went while Ben stayed behind with his gramma and his great aunt.
The shops were nothing we hadn't seen in any beach or resort town, until we paid attention to the folks behind the counters. The first shop featured a tall young woman who spoke with what I thought was Russian accent. Then, another young woman walked in speaking to her in what sounded like Russian. When we stopped on the boardwalk for a cold drink, Shannon's dad struck up a conversation with the man behind the counter. He was Lithuanian. Later, when we finally found a place open that served ice cream, we found that one of the women behind the counter was from Poland, and the other from Hungary. Quite a variety of Europeans work in Ocean View, Delaware. That's kind of fitting, considering Delaware was the first state in a country that prides itself on welcoming everybody with open arms.
We heard also from Shannon's dad that a lot of the local merchants hire foreign college students who come over here for the summer to raise money for back home. Some of them are treated well, but some are mistreated by landlords who overcharge them for rent, or by employers who do not treat them fairly. Hey, welcome to America, right? Sheesh.
Back to the ice cream. There are at least five places that serve ice cream and/or frozen custard, and most of them said they were closed on Tuesdays. Huh? One had a sign that said it was closed because it was the first day at a new school. Okay.
The weirdest one, though, was the candy shop that had fudge, saltwater taffy, and ice cream. It was hand-dipped, Edy's brand ice cream, on display just like in a Baskin-Robbins. You pick the flavor you want, and they scoop it out while you watch. They were open. When we walked to the area where you pick your flavor, one of the two women (this is important later) said, "We are closed for ice cream today."
What the heck is it about Tuesday that keeps these people from selling ice cream? They could sell us fudge, which contains ingredients not wholly unlike those found in ice cream, yet they couldn't sell us any ice cream. Besides us, there was one couple in that shop. The reason the woman behind the counter gave for not selling us the frozen treat we so desired? "I can't sell ice cream when I have only one person behind the counter. It would be too busy." Okay, we were looking at two women behind the counter. But, even giving her the benefit of the doubt, like maybe the other woman was just a friend hanging out with her, we didn't see that they were all that busy. Was the separation of duties here so stringent that those skilled in the making and selling of fudge and taffy couldn't scoop out some ice cream? It boggles the mind.
We found another candy shop, staffed by the Polish and Hungarian women mentioned above, and they gladly sold us scoops of delicious ice cream and a pound of various flavors of fudge. The lady in the other shop did sound American. Maybe she could learn something from these visitors.
The time almost out on our parking meter, I pumped in a couple more quarters so we could see a few more shops before returning to the house. Once there, we quickly packed up, said our goodbyes, and headed back to Queenstown, MD.
Ben loved sitting up front again with his grandpops, who amused him with a back-and-forth shouting game. I'm not sure who had more fun.
We had a great barbecue dinner from a local restaurant and watched a little TV. I sit now, with Frasier muted on TBS, finsihing up this entry for all the readers out there.
Stay tuned, because I think we might be in for a boat ride to Baltimore Harbor (site of the battle that inspired Francis Scott Key to write the national anthem), and the National Aquarium in Baltimore. After visiting it and the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California, which is supposed to be one of the best, and the Dallas Aquarium, Shannon and I collectively agree that the National Aquarium is the one to beat. We may also see some of the best lighthouses on the Chesapeake Bay, including Thomas Point (but don't expect me to happen to be there for the conditions in those pictures).
Shannon and I hung out with the family for a while after I got back from the beach. The guys and I made a McDonald's run to grab breakfast. In the parking lot before we went in, Shannon's dad showed her step-brother some of the features of a GPS unit he evidently had handed down to him. I had read a lot about them, and thought they might be useful in backpacking, but that was the first time I had seen one in use. They're very slick. I must have one.
After we all stuffed ourselves on unborn chickens and long-dead pigs, Shannon and I decided to head down to see the shops and the boardwalk. Her dad chimed in that he'd like to go, so away the three of us went while Ben stayed behind with his gramma and his great aunt.
The shops were nothing we hadn't seen in any beach or resort town, until we paid attention to the folks behind the counters. The first shop featured a tall young woman who spoke with what I thought was Russian accent. Then, another young woman walked in speaking to her in what sounded like Russian. When we stopped on the boardwalk for a cold drink, Shannon's dad struck up a conversation with the man behind the counter. He was Lithuanian. Later, when we finally found a place open that served ice cream, we found that one of the women behind the counter was from Poland, and the other from Hungary. Quite a variety of Europeans work in Ocean View, Delaware. That's kind of fitting, considering Delaware was the first state in a country that prides itself on welcoming everybody with open arms.
We heard also from Shannon's dad that a lot of the local merchants hire foreign college students who come over here for the summer to raise money for back home. Some of them are treated well, but some are mistreated by landlords who overcharge them for rent, or by employers who do not treat them fairly. Hey, welcome to America, right? Sheesh.
Back to the ice cream. There are at least five places that serve ice cream and/or frozen custard, and most of them said they were closed on Tuesdays. Huh? One had a sign that said it was closed because it was the first day at a new school. Okay.
The weirdest one, though, was the candy shop that had fudge, saltwater taffy, and ice cream. It was hand-dipped, Edy's brand ice cream, on display just like in a Baskin-Robbins. You pick the flavor you want, and they scoop it out while you watch. They were open. When we walked to the area where you pick your flavor, one of the two women (this is important later) said, "We are closed for ice cream today."
What the heck is it about Tuesday that keeps these people from selling ice cream? They could sell us fudge, which contains ingredients not wholly unlike those found in ice cream, yet they couldn't sell us any ice cream. Besides us, there was one couple in that shop. The reason the woman behind the counter gave for not selling us the frozen treat we so desired? "I can't sell ice cream when I have only one person behind the counter. It would be too busy." Okay, we were looking at two women behind the counter. But, even giving her the benefit of the doubt, like maybe the other woman was just a friend hanging out with her, we didn't see that they were all that busy. Was the separation of duties here so stringent that those skilled in the making and selling of fudge and taffy couldn't scoop out some ice cream? It boggles the mind.
We found another candy shop, staffed by the Polish and Hungarian women mentioned above, and they gladly sold us scoops of delicious ice cream and a pound of various flavors of fudge. The lady in the other shop did sound American. Maybe she could learn something from these visitors.
The time almost out on our parking meter, I pumped in a couple more quarters so we could see a few more shops before returning to the house. Once there, we quickly packed up, said our goodbyes, and headed back to Queenstown, MD.
Ben loved sitting up front again with his grandpops, who amused him with a back-and-forth shouting game. I'm not sure who had more fun.
We had a great barbecue dinner from a local restaurant and watched a little TV. I sit now, with Frasier muted on TBS, finsihing up this entry for all the readers out there.
Stay tuned, because I think we might be in for a boat ride to Baltimore Harbor (site of the battle that inspired Francis Scott Key to write the national anthem), and the National Aquarium in Baltimore. After visiting it and the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California, which is supposed to be one of the best, and the Dallas Aquarium, Shannon and I collectively agree that the National Aquarium is the one to beat. We may also see some of the best lighthouses on the Chesapeake Bay, including Thomas Point (but don't expect me to happen to be there for the conditions in those pictures).
1 comment:
Excellent post Mark! Sounds like everyone had fun there (except for the no ice-cream thing) *L*
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