A few weeks ago, Philly friend asked if I wanted to go to Ocean City Maryland with him and his parents over Labor Day weekend. Since every time he asks me something like this I beg off, I felt bad and said that yes, I would go. I requested the Tuesday after Labor Day off, because I figured traffic would be lighter and all that jazz.
As the week approached I asked for directions but couldn't get anything concrete. Seems they've been going there for so long they had no idea what the physical address of the condo was. I did a search on Google for it and got an address of 11000 Ocean Parkway. Except that there is no 110 Street in Ocean City, but hey that seemed like a minor issue. The day before I left, Philly friend's Dad called and told me how they drove there. I had my yh provided directions link and I was pretty confident in those. When it came down to it, either way would be fine.
At first they were going to leave at 5AM Saturday, and i was going to leave a little later, so they could settle in before I got there. They left late, at 9AM, and I left at 10. My plan was to drive to the Allentown Service plaza on the NE Ext of the PA turnpike, pick up an EZ Pass, so I could navigate thru the express lanes in Delaware. This plan was foiled because the vending machine as out of order. No problem, I had cash with me. The driving was okay until I got to Wilmington DE. I was following US 13 south as I had planned, and then suddenly I came to a T intersection for DE 9. Where, did 13 go? I turned right, and knew i was in for a heap of trouble as I was now heading north. i drove down 9 for more blocks than I should have before getting turned around, and coming out on what I thought was 9 south again. It was not. then i saw a sign for Rosa Parks BLVD. hmmmmm, lost in Wilmington. I did get onto another DE state road, heading west, and then suddenly there was a sign for US 13 south. And just like that I was back on the way.
I got to the section o the drive that had confused me the most. DE 1 is a toll road but is not like toll roads in PA, ie toll gantries at every exit. The directions I had, mentioned taking the bypass around Dover to avoid the traffic, and that the toll was a dollar. Silly me stayed on DE 1 from Smyrna til it joined up with 113. That cost me 4 dollars in tolls, which was not so bad. From 113, I was pretty confident on where to go, and soon I was turning on to Route 90 in MD. And then i was on Rt 528, which is the main drag. This was a little better, as I was heading north and that put the condo on the right no need to U-turn. This had worried me a bit because in PA, U-turns like that are illegal, yet as I soon learned this is how they do it in MD. Or at least in OC.
I missed the condo on my first pass. I was driving along and I was at 115th street and knew i was too far north. I had the GPS with me with the coordinates and it was pointing south. Oops. So I turned around at the next shopping area, then went pass the condo and instead of doing the U-turn turned into a parking lot for a motel and went back up the highway, this time getting to the condo correctly.
As you can imagine, parking is at a premium, and I was not allowed to park in the condo's lot, unless I paid $55 per day. So the plan was to park across the street at the Gold Coast mall, where according to my hosts was where they had friends and family park for the past 7 years. So that is what I did after we took my luggage upstairs. Even doing this was risky according to my friend as they were very militant about towing. Which seemed odd as about a 1/3rd of the spaces were empty.
Saturday night, I looked at the ocean from the deck. I was tired and wanted to sleep. Sunday morning I got up early and watched the sunrise over the ocean. It was foggy, which was ideal, at least for me. People were walking dogs, fishing and starting to get their spot on the beach. Mid morning we went to the deck and sat in the sun. I read Woodpecker in Stilllife by Robbins. My friend had started to read it but couldn't get into it. I boggle at this. I got sunburnt, because I had left my sunscreen in the car. But I was only burned on my right calf, from the edge of my shorts to the edge of my socks. i was wearing m,y sneakers because I had forgotten my sandles at my apartment.
Later we went to my car to get my toiletries. Before this, though we went to the Gold Coast Mall and I bought a pair of flip flops. The gal at the checkout, with a Lithuanian accent (I think) tried to charge me $2 more than what they were listed.
Rested a bit, then took the big step of going on to the actual beach. Then ventured to the water's edge and then into the ocean! I can't swim, so I didn't go in too far. One second I'm in at my ankles, the next, up to my calves. So very strong the undertow, and the sand under foot, it just kind disappears. Even when the waves are receeding they looked as if they were still coming in. And then I lost my left flip flop. Silly newbie had not taken them off before walking in. I did get the right one off before it too was lost. And then a guy taps me on the shoulder and hands me the flip flop. i spent ten minutes in the water, and then back to the deck for me.
We spent the rest of the weekend on the deck, I finished the book. Robbins has a formula it seems, love conquers all. I had wanted to go to the boardwalk, but things out of my control put that out of reach.
Monday we were up at 3:30AM, breakfast at Denny's and I was on the road heading north by 5. This was way too early for the obvious reason, and because at that time frame, one hits the south of Wilmington and south of Philly commuter traffic, on I95. Once i got north of that, and then onto I476 I was much more relaxed until I noticed my gas gauge was near the redline.
I made it to Lansdale, Kulpsville actually and got gas. gas here is 3.55-3.65. gas in OC was 3.39. Stopped at the Allentown plaza to pee. Got home in 4:07 minutes, trip down took 4:15. Went to sleep til 2PM.
Uploaded videos and photos. Some of the vids were uploaded yesterday. Wireless was $13 for 3 days. It sucked. i couldn't connect to it at all with Windows XP. And in Linux even when I selected the correct SSID, it was wonky. On Sunday i think I connected to the condo's free wifi. oh well.
Anyway, videos are at http://www.youtube.com/user/devtrash and the photos are at
http://www.stevenpatz.net/~spatz/gallery/oc/index.html
They may be a little wide, I ran llgal without any command line, and I am too tired to re-do that again. I have a few more photos to resize and upload, but there ya go.
As the week approached I asked for directions but couldn't get anything concrete. Seems they've been going there for so long they had no idea what the physical address of the condo was. I did a search on Google for it and got an address of 11000 Ocean Parkway. Except that there is no 110 Street in Ocean City, but hey that seemed like a minor issue. The day before I left, Philly friend's Dad called and told me how they drove there. I had my yh provided directions link and I was pretty confident in those. When it came down to it, either way would be fine.
At first they were going to leave at 5AM Saturday, and i was going to leave a little later, so they could settle in before I got there. They left late, at 9AM, and I left at 10. My plan was to drive to the Allentown Service plaza on the NE Ext of the PA turnpike, pick up an EZ Pass, so I could navigate thru the express lanes in Delaware. This plan was foiled because the vending machine as out of order. No problem, I had cash with me. The driving was okay until I got to Wilmington DE. I was following US 13 south as I had planned, and then suddenly I came to a T intersection for DE 9. Where, did 13 go? I turned right, and knew i was in for a heap of trouble as I was now heading north. i drove down 9 for more blocks than I should have before getting turned around, and coming out on what I thought was 9 south again. It was not. then i saw a sign for Rosa Parks BLVD. hmmmmm, lost in Wilmington. I did get onto another DE state road, heading west, and then suddenly there was a sign for US 13 south. And just like that I was back on the way.
I got to the section o the drive that had confused me the most. DE 1 is a toll road but is not like toll roads in PA, ie toll gantries at every exit. The directions I had, mentioned taking the bypass around Dover to avoid the traffic, and that the toll was a dollar. Silly me stayed on DE 1 from Smyrna til it joined up with 113. That cost me 4 dollars in tolls, which was not so bad. From 113, I was pretty confident on where to go, and soon I was turning on to Route 90 in MD. And then i was on Rt 528, which is the main drag. This was a little better, as I was heading north and that put the condo on the right no need to U-turn. This had worried me a bit because in PA, U-turns like that are illegal, yet as I soon learned this is how they do it in MD. Or at least in OC.
I missed the condo on my first pass. I was driving along and I was at 115th street and knew i was too far north. I had the GPS with me with the coordinates and it was pointing south. Oops. So I turned around at the next shopping area, then went pass the condo and instead of doing the U-turn turned into a parking lot for a motel and went back up the highway, this time getting to the condo correctly.
As you can imagine, parking is at a premium, and I was not allowed to park in the condo's lot, unless I paid $55 per day. So the plan was to park across the street at the Gold Coast mall, where according to my hosts was where they had friends and family park for the past 7 years. So that is what I did after we took my luggage upstairs. Even doing this was risky according to my friend as they were very militant about towing. Which seemed odd as about a 1/3rd of the spaces were empty.
Saturday night, I looked at the ocean from the deck. I was tired and wanted to sleep. Sunday morning I got up early and watched the sunrise over the ocean. It was foggy, which was ideal, at least for me. People were walking dogs, fishing and starting to get their spot on the beach. Mid morning we went to the deck and sat in the sun. I read Woodpecker in Stilllife by Robbins. My friend had started to read it but couldn't get into it. I boggle at this. I got sunburnt, because I had left my sunscreen in the car. But I was only burned on my right calf, from the edge of my shorts to the edge of my socks. i was wearing m,y sneakers because I had forgotten my sandles at my apartment.
Later we went to my car to get my toiletries. Before this, though we went to the Gold Coast Mall and I bought a pair of flip flops. The gal at the checkout, with a Lithuanian accent (I think) tried to charge me $2 more than what they were listed.
Rested a bit, then took the big step of going on to the actual beach. Then ventured to the water's edge and then into the ocean! I can't swim, so I didn't go in too far. One second I'm in at my ankles, the next, up to my calves. So very strong the undertow, and the sand under foot, it just kind disappears. Even when the waves are receeding they looked as if they were still coming in. And then I lost my left flip flop. Silly newbie had not taken them off before walking in. I did get the right one off before it too was lost. And then a guy taps me on the shoulder and hands me the flip flop. i spent ten minutes in the water, and then back to the deck for me.
We spent the rest of the weekend on the deck, I finished the book. Robbins has a formula it seems, love conquers all. I had wanted to go to the boardwalk, but things out of my control put that out of reach.
Monday we were up at 3:30AM, breakfast at Denny's and I was on the road heading north by 5. This was way too early for the obvious reason, and because at that time frame, one hits the south of Wilmington and south of Philly commuter traffic, on I95. Once i got north of that, and then onto I476 I was much more relaxed until I noticed my gas gauge was near the redline.
I made it to Lansdale, Kulpsville actually and got gas. gas here is 3.55-3.65. gas in OC was 3.39. Stopped at the Allentown plaza to pee. Got home in 4:07 minutes, trip down took 4:15. Went to sleep til 2PM.
Uploaded videos and photos. Some of the vids were uploaded yesterday. Wireless was $13 for 3 days. It sucked. i couldn't connect to it at all with Windows XP. And in Linux even when I selected the correct SSID, it was wonky. On Sunday i think I connected to the condo's free wifi. oh well.
Anyway, videos are at http://www.youtube.com/user/devtrash and the photos are at
http://www.stevenpatz.net/~spatz/gallery/oc/index.html
They may be a little wide, I ran llgal without any command line, and I am too tired to re-do that again. I have a few more photos to resize and upload, but there ya go.
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