I'm baaaack!

Actually, I got back late Tuesday night, but I didn't download any pics from my camera until tonight. Our trip to Maryland was amazing! I'll post the pics I have of each day here, but our friends have a million more pics to give us. Here goes Day 1 - 3 recap.

We flew into Baltimore on Wednesday July 1. Our friends were already in Ocean City, so one of them had to make the 2 hour trip to the airport to pick us up. Yes, Jason & I are THAT cool. We get our butts off the airplane, haul butt to pick up our suitcases and then plant our butts firmly into a truck for 2 more hours. Let me tell you, our butts were working hard. We made the 2 hour trip to Ocean City with just one absolutely necessary stop to Burger King for food. BK is not really my food of choice, but we were starving and desperate. It hit the spot.

We finally arrive in Ocean City, put our suitcases down in our suite, then head out to the boardwalk for more food. We decide to eat at a cute little seaside pizza place that had a great view on the deck. This is what the ocean looked like at sunset:

The ocean was blue and the sand was white and clean. They actually have a vacuum cleaner that sucks all the junk off the sand every night and they even import some sand in to keep it looking nice. Completely unlike anything in the gulf. After dinner, we went walking on the boardwalk and stopped to look at the Ocean City 9/11 memorial.

This was dedicated to not only the New York and Ocean City firefighters, but all the firefighters in the world. They also had a piece of the World Trade Center on display:


The boardwalk was really neat. It's just like the old-fashioned ones you see in movies.....highly commercialized and lots to see. They had a carnival at one end, touristy shops in between and plenty of places to nosh at scattered throughout.

After walking around for a few hours, we were beat and hit the sack. The next day we had some breakfast and then rented a surrey. Here's myself, Tori, Julia & Deb pedalling down the boardwalk.

Since I am combustible in sunlight due to the lightness of my skin, I got a strange sunburn on my legs from the surrey. It didn't show up until later, but it was enough to keep me from wearing shortish shorts throughout most of the trip. We pedaled for our hour, touring the entire 1 mile or so of boardwalk and then headed out to the beach. We layed out there for several hours (myself under an umbrella because of the aforementioned fire hazard) and just relaxed. I did manage to get in the water so that I could say I've been in the Atlantic ocean once. It was freaking cold! The gulf may be dirty, but at least it's warm. The Atlantic was torture and I wouldn't get in past waist deep. The funny thing about the Atlantic was that you could only go a little ways before the ocean floor dropped off. So there were tons of people all lined up at the same place trying to jump waves. In contrast, when you're in the gulf, you see people at all depths because it's not as deep and you don't have to worry as much about sharks. I think I'll keep my dirty old gulf water, thank you.

We finally dragged ourselves inside to shower and get ready to eat again. We headed back out to figure out what to eat when little 7-year-old Angela spotted something she had to touch:

Yes, that's an iguana on a bench. On a boardwalk. At the beach. See the guy behind her? He said he sits out there everyday and has now been "keeping track" of where people are from. What was even more strange was the missing tip jar. We ate at a yummy seafood place where I had crabcakes with green beans and rice. Since Jason & I rarely pass up a photo opportunity, we had to take a picture with this HUGE anchor. It's hard to tell in the picture because of the angle, but it's way taller than Jason.

We then walked around some more, watched the kids ride some carnival rides, eat yummy ice cream and then sat out on our balcony and killed a bottle of wine. The next day was lazy and we took our time packing up. We loaded up the truck, then walked the boardwalk some more and shopped around. Finally, we decided to make the 3 hour trip back to Frederick, MD and call it a night.

More to come......