Come And Dance on Our Floor...

Saturday, July 29

We got up at 6 AM (which my body still thinks is 3 AM) and drove from Suffern to Ocean City.  This was not the Nine Hour Hell Ride Mark and I remembered from a few years back when we traveled the Parkway to Cape May.   The most remarkable things about the Parkway from an Oregonian stand-point is that A) it's a toll road (thank goodness for EZ-Pass), B) there are service islands (essentially mini-malls) located on the median between the north- and south-bound lanes (instead of two bathrooms on either side), and C) no semi-trucks are allowed (so no being stuck at 60 mph behind two eighteen-wheelers in tandem)

We pulled into Ocean City around 9:30, and made it to the boardwalk--"It's like Disneyland!" Mark exclaimed as we gazed upon the wooden walkway with its painted zones for pedestrians, bikes, and surreys.  Carnival rides, putt-putt golf, T-shirt stores, mirror mazes, folded ice-cream, roller-coasters, theatres, Ferris wheels, and iron lampposts with speakers and security cameras marched away in perspective to the vanishing point.

I was glad I wore jeans; the sky was grey and an intermittent rain fell. The blowing wind prompted me to go back to the car for a sweater.  What I noticed were the usual tourists, a lot of joggers, and a lot of families with toddlers.

Mark, The Child, Melora and I snagged a delicious breakfast in a pancake house / gift shop.  We met up with Melissa, Kristina and Mary.  Maria, Mike, and Devon showed up, and later Shannon and Brenden.

As the day progressed the joggers dropped off, the tourists increased, and the toddlers hit the 11:30 pre-lunch non-nap.

We discovered that our end of Ocean City had flooded in the intense rain of the previous evning.  Parts of West Street, a thoroughfare, were flooded, as were various numbered streets.  Luckily, there was only about an inch of standing water in the carport when we pulled up--which receded by 5PM.

The house is a cute-ish, three-story, 1930's-ish, Art Deco-lite, split-level townhouse.  Three stories (living room, bed rooms, bed rooms) on one side, and two stories (kitchen-dining, bedroom) on the other, connected by a steep stairwell in the middle.  The interior goes back and forth between 1980's ranch (kitchen), white and coral coastal-kitch (dining and some bedrooms), Art Deco stain-glass (mostly the front door), and cheesy "Three's Company" Set (the living room and some bedrooms).   Children's bedrooms at the very top have bunk-beds and are kind of "Finding Nemo."

I'm pretty sure everyone with mobile devices had connected to the local WiFi within the first half hour.