Senior Trip, day 2

The second day was bright and beautiful and extremely windy. I woke up and went for a bike ride. I headed north and went about 8 miles to Bethany Beach. A few years ago I was here and went up that way with a student, not realizing that we had the wind at our back the entire time. We laughed a lot once we turned around and realized, but it was really hard and long. So this time, I was prepared. It was still long and hard, but being prepared made it a lot easier to bear. 

After my bike ride, we were all going to go for watersports, paddle boards, kayaks, etc. One of the kids wasn’t feeling well, so I decided to stay at the hotel just in case they needed something. This entailed sitting on the beach, so it doesn’t mean that I was suffering or anything. It was the kind of windy that sandblasts you, so I rented an umbrella to screen the wind, not the sun. It worked well enough for me to sit and read for an hour and a half. 

Once the others came back (they had a pretty windy experience as well), we had lunch and then some free time. Some people went down toward the boardwalk area to sit on the beach there, while others sat on a nice grassy area and sunned. I joined in that group. It was very pleasant. I went for a walk to see what the houses on the side streets looked like. Most of them were extremely nondescript, (yes, I’m aware that particular phase is pretty much meaningless), though one looked like a medieval castle, complete with turrets. I also saw what has to be the most useless road sign ever.

Probably would have been more useful at the beginning of the street

Eventually everyone wandered in and we showered and then many of us ice skated until dinner. We then loaded on the bus and went to the boardwalk. Ocean City has a nice boardwalk; it’s very long and well stocked with tacky shops and places to get fried food (fried anything really), ribald t-shirts, candy and ice cream.

I opted for the last 2, and the ice cream (vanilla/chocolate swirl with rainbow sprinkles. This led to an extended conversation as to the supposed difference between sprinkles and jimmies. Is it chocolate sprinkles and rainbow jimmies, or vice versa? Or both sprinkles or jimmies. This is not the same as whether you say envelope or ahn-velope, this is a much more pronounced (so to speak) difference.

We left without settling the dispute, but not before I got chocolate ice cream (or is it custard? Argh!) on my pants.  Duly christened, we returned to the hotel, where the kids did a bonding activity and then we eventually settled into bed.