Day 14 - Ocean City at Last!

Hi There! We drove the last 150 miles to Ocean City today. I was surprised at how much of Maryland is agricultural. In fact, I'm hoping to finally get to stop at some farm stands tomorrow as we head to Baltimore. I saw mostly wheat and corn. They also have crazy beautiful masses of wild flowers in on the road side. I think they must have spread seed because it's not everywhere. It's hard to get photos of things like that, but I'll try again tomorrow. There should be less urgency tomorrow, as we've already reached the finish line.
The bridge over the Chesapeake Bay is enormous and has multiple spans.
We stopped in a little town called Salisbury and had some lunch at Jimmy's. Dwayne had one of the specials - hot roast beef sandwich.

I had a fried oyster sandwich and fries. This was yummy!

I had my oyster fritters on good old fashioned white bread.
As we rolled into Ocean City, we were searching for the sign and there is was! It is just as the bridge is coming down into the boardwalk area.
When we got settled in, Dwayne caught up with his dad and found out how rainy and cold it has been back home.
This is the view from our hotel. We're right on the boardwalk! We'll see how we like it tonight when we're trying to sleep. It seems fairly sound proofed right now. The ocean is pretty loud because it is so windy. According to a shop lady, it was in the 80's yesterday, but it was 63 today. Yesterday in DC it was 91! We got kind of shivery out on our walk.

There is Dwayne, pointing at the sign.

See the sign between our pointy little heads.
We discovered this monument to fallen fire fighters.
Lots of little shops and snack places.
I really like this add. We kept wondering what boardwalk fries were, and apparently they are like the fries I had at lunch - from raw unpeeled potatoes - only they come in giant buckets like movie popcorn.
The rides weren't going today. We saw lots of evidence of the businesses preparing for the big weekend. Right now there are warnings for severe thunder storms slightly north of us. Rain is expected for tomorrow. I think the merchants are hoping for a warm opening for their summer business this holiday weekend.
There are so many restaurants around here, and we had a hard time choosing, so we just walked a little ways and found Flavors of Italy. It wasn't quite Italian in the sense that it was run by Russians and Russian pop music was rocking the house, but it was pretty good. Dwayne had shrimp Alfredo.
I had crab cakes and mashed potatoes. The crab cakes were yummy and I really enjoyed them. I'm told I didn't have the best in town, but I'm happy. The big winner for me was the mashed potatoes. The potatoes were very flavorful and well seasoned with garlic and herbs and they were baked on a puff pastry. This is genius and I'm already dreaming up ways to repeat this at home. I think this will be especially good for some of my non-meat eating friends.
We enjoyed our after dinner walk a lot more because we were dressed for it. I had to get my toesies in the Atlantic.
Yay! We did it!
View of the boardwalk from the waterline.
These ducks got out of the wind and cold and settled in a hotel pool.
Look at all the snacks!
A fishing boat just off shore.
There was one of these just about every other block. We bought some salt water taffy for the folks back home.
These crazy girls were even more determined to visit the ocean than me. It was somewhere between 60 and 63 and blowing a gale. The few surfers were in wet suits.
Here's our hotel.
Our gifts from the sea. There were tons of shells out here, much more than on the beaches I've visited in California.

We're going to visit the harbor part of Ocean City tomorrow morning, then heading to Baltimore in the afternoon. Baltimore is currently under a severe thunderstorm warning, so we hope it will have blown over by the time we get there. Baltimore is loaded with good restaurants, including many Triple D sites. We will be staying in Baltimore Friday and Saturday and then we will be flying home early on Sunday. We've been having the time of our lives, but I think we're both looking forward to getting home to our little house.