100 Nights of Light

If it's time to switch directly from heat to A/C, you must be in Delaware and it must be Memorial Day Weekend.

Sort of hard to believe that it's that time of year again.  It's been a strange and chilly spring - not the usual way we ease in to Summer.  

Like many people, I will have a nice, long 4 day weekend and I'm heading to the beach.  

I might get a start on painting my beach house shed to match the house (we didn't do that last year after we had the house painted) and, if the weather permits, I am looking forward to my first outdoor shower of the season.

OCMD has a cool new event for this summer called "100 Nights of Lights".  It starts this weekend and runs through Labor Day every night from 9-11 PM.  The display features colored searchlights on the beach that move to music.  Here's a rendering below showing what it's supposed to look like.  When I see it, I'll take a pic of what it actually looks like.

100 Nights of Lights on the OCMD Boardwalk starts this weekend

Also happening this weekend is the Poseidon Festival in Bethany Beach DE.  I may have to head there on Saturday night (5/27) to check out the Trinidad & Tobago Baltimore Steel Orchestra at 7:30 PM.  I love steel drums and I think that would be a great way to kick off Summer 2017.  

The rest of my weekend is going to be filled with walking, shopping, relaxing, and eating.  Can't wait!

I hope everyone has a safe and happy Memorial Day weekend!  

Talkin' Bout Trucks

This coming weekend (5/18 - 5/21) is the one weekend that I don't want to be anywhere near my beach house.  It is time for Cruisin' Ocean City!

This year promises to be better than ever.  Celebrity guests such as Erik Estrada and Kevin Mack from Counting Cars will be in town, the Fred Flintstone Show Car will be here, and there is a Pin-Up Contest at 28th St. Pit and Pub - all good things (if you're into those sort of things).

What I can't stand about this weekend are the big trucks (and I mean really big trucks), loud cars, and the stupid spectators and pedestrians who don't use crosswalks or watch where they are going.  

My house is a few blocks from Coastal Highway and I can hear engines rumbling, tires screeching, and people hootin' and hollerin' from my house.

I may "cruise" in to town on Thursday night to mow my lawn and pay homage to the ocean, but I'll be "crusin" right back out on Friday morning before the hardcore hillbillies arrive in town.  Cruisin' weekend is no place for me or any one of my three foreign vehicles.

Have fun, y'all!  I'll see you next weekend!!

Sun + Sand + Alcohol = Cops + Courts

At any grocery or hardware store in Ocean City, MD, you can find the free weekly papers that offer deals and coupons to local restaurants and amusements.  They also have some local news regarding town meetings, tax increases, and the comings and goings of local officials.  

I pick these up every week because I like to see the local restaurant deals and I really enjoy reading the Cops and Courts secion in the OC Dispatch.  For those of you who aren't familiar with this humorous police blotter, here are a few recent headlines:

ASSAULT OVER NEW YEARS EVE FOOD

BIRD MAN ARRESTED IN OCEAN CITY

BROOM HANDLE THREAT

BURGLARY SUSPECT STASHES WEAPONS IN HAIR

CABLE BOX SWIPED TO WATCH WRESTLING

FIGHTING IN CHURCH LEADS TO ARRESTS

OCPD Keeping our boards safe from cable box thieves

The stories that accompany these headlines provide a great amount of detail that allow the reader to get a full description of the events.  Most of these, of course, involve various levels of drug or alcohol intoxication.

It's usually nothing major - no murders or rapes.  Occasionally, you get a nasty assault charge.  But, mostly, these stories are laughable.

In spite of these crazy arrests, I still feel safe on the streets of OC.  There are so many people around, you can't really get away with doing anything too bad for too long this time of year.  I truly am more bothered by the people who light up cigarettes on the boardwalk!

On the safer streets of North OC this past weekend, I discovered a new favorite pizza place.  Squarz Pizza Pub at 12825 Coastal Highway (in the Montego Bay Shopping Center) is really good!  I tried the Chesapeke 4 Slice with crabmeat, shrimp, scampi sauce and other delicious stuff.  I guess you would call it a personal-sized pizza, but it was big enough for me to take half home to eat for lunch the following day.  The place is really nice inside - service was friendly and they have a good sized bar too.  I will definitely be back soon!

Squarz Pizza Chesapeke 4 Slice

Also new in North OC - Fractured Prune Donut Shop on 144th St!  Yup.  Next to Ponzetti's Pizza.  Now, you can grab those hot little disks of sin on your way out of town every Sunday morning.  

If you're taking your Mom to the beach this weekend, ther Crab Soup Cook-Off in Downtown OC Boardwalk) was canceled until the Fall due to predicted bad weather.  

If you want to do something in memory of a Mother who is no longer with us, there is a 3 mile fun run/walk at Northside Park at 125th St. in OCMD on Sunday 5/14.  Register at Abbey Burger Bistro between 7:30 and 8:15 AM.  

In Dewey Beach, Mom would probably love the Dewey Beach Arts Festival on Saturday 5/13 from 9:30 AM - 4:00 PM. You'll find it on Dagsworthy Ave (bayside) and there will be food trucks!

Also happening this weekend - Funland in Rehoboth Beach opens!  The weather might not be ready for summer, but Rehoboth is.  


In honor of Mothers Day, here's a cool photo that the DE Art Museum posted today on Facebook.  It is the family of American illustrator/author Howard Pyle on Rehoboth Beach in the summer of 1894.  Love those baby beanies!  

The Pyle Family:  Anne Pyle (Mrs. Howard Pyle) with her children, Howard Jr.,
Theodore, Phoebe, and Nellie, in Rehoboth Beach in the summer of 1894.

Wishing everyone a safe, happy, and warm Mothers Day!!

Good Vibrations & Bad Reputations

I've never been a huge fan of Joan Jett's music, but I do have a vivid memory of singing "Bad Reputation" with my friends at a parking lot carnival when I was 13 years old.  I was probably holding a cigarette and wearing my t-shirt with the "Foxy Lady" decal because...you know...I didn't give a damn about my bad reputation!

Stay Classy, Joan!

It's a good thing I changed my attitude a few months later.  Otherwise, I might never have been in the position to head to my beach house this weekend and go see Joan Jett at the inlet parking lot in OCMD.  How cool is that?  Joan Jett playing guitar right over the spot where I park my car to go buy french fries!  I had to get tickets.  Got some good seats, too.  I'm looking forward to rockin' out with the other badass moms this Saturday night.  Want tickets too?  Sorry Bitches!  It's a sold out show.

OCMD Springfest is this weekend (5/4/17 - 5/7/17).  There are still tix left for The Fabulous Hubcaps on Thursday night, but Josh Turner is sold out for Friday.

As we make our way closer to Memorial Day and the start of the summer season, there are a few new things going on at the DE/MD beach resorts that I'm looking forward to checking out.  The one thing I'm definitely going to check out is the new restaurant they are building in DE Seashore State Park at the Indian River Inlet - on the beach!!   The Big Chill Beach Club is scheduled to open in May.  It will be a bar/restaurant and wedding venue (up to 160 people sit-down, 200 cocktail).  The views from the top deck of this place are going to be amazing.  I don't even care what the food tastes like - this is going to be cool.

Aerial view - This place is going to be freakin' awesome

Another new restaurant is opening in Fenwick Island where Claddagh on the Shore used to be.  The owners of Liquid Assets in OCMD are opening Our Harvest  some time this month.  I checked out their menu online and it looks promising - definitely different than the ribs/chicken/crab places that seem to be popping up on every corner south of Fenwick 
Island.

I'm looking forward to a chilly and relaxing weekend and hoping for no rain, good parking, happy tourists, and light traffic.  

It's May!!  Wooo hooo!!