I went to the beach over Labor Day weekend with my 12 year old son, Max. We usually sneak away together once a summer. The wife has to work and the 18 year old has football, so Max and I either go away to Ocean City, Maryland or Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. We even did it in the winter one time. We went to Rehoboth this time. It's about 90 miles from where we live in South Jersey.
Traffic was pretty bad but not crazy and we got into town and went to one of those Iron Hill Brewery's because it was too early to check into the hotel. The service was amazingly bad, which seems to be par for the course these days except if: A) the waitress is over 40 with some wrinkles and a smoker's voice B) The waiter is an older man. Other than that, they are in no hurry to bring me my beer or even take the order for food. I always tell Max, as soon as she/he gets back to the table, we are gonna order everything all at once, drinks, appetizers and entree. Sometimes , if the service is real bad, I tell the server that "I'm gonna drink this beer real fast, so feel free to bring me another one in a few minutes." I learned that one from my buddy , Rick. He'd say, "By the time you get back to the bar, I'll be finished with this, so just bring me another one right away." Those older lady servers are the best. They tell you their life stories and they are always interesting. Most likely they got screwed over by some man. Hard luck stories but always a cheerful disposition. The beers were very good , 9/10 and the food was a 5/10.
The hotel was a good, one, Fairfield Suites. The front desk lady was so nice that I had to tell her that I appreciated her being so pleasant. I hope she doesn't read this, but we got into the elevator and I asked Max, "Is that a man?" and Max said, "No, she's just a really ugly woman." But she was damn nice, bless her heart. I feel bad writing that, but it's funny. We have a rule in our family that as long as it's funny, you can't get offended.
We left there and went to the boardwalk but Max doesn't eat any junk food or snacks, just meals, so it pretty much sucked. He didn't want caramel popcorn , or ice cream or Thrasher's Fries. I didn't want to eat alone, because it would make me look pretty bad when he was being all dedicated and shit. So we went into some t-shirt shops and in between, I kept asking Max if he wanted some Funnel Cake and he was all like, "No, I'm good." So we went to Wawa and he got a beef bowl and 3 Molk's and a beef bowl for the morning. I grabbed 2 pretzels and actually felt guilty for doing it.
The next morning, I did a podcast with Marty Gallagher and Max looked at his phone and then we went downstairs to the hotel gym. They had dumbells that went up to 50 pounds and we did db curls and pushups and then hammer curls and pushups. I told Max that he had to earn his time at the beach by training first, and he agreed. We were all pumped up and feeling good. It takes us about 3 minutes to get ready to go to the beach. More when women are around and 18 year old's. Max figured out how to pay for parking and we went on the beach. Pretty dead, not many people, which was fine with us. Max stayed in the water the whole time. I went in some but the waves were almost zero, so I didn't last long. Max got bit by some sea urchin right before we left. It was a bad rash and swelling fast. I acted all calm but I was thinking, WTF? It looked like one of those worm tracks in a worm farm but it was all red and then he started to break out in his chest. I got the first aid out of the truck and put some ointment on it and it started to go down. I could've put the wrong ointment on him and screwed it all up, but it got better. He looked it up on his phone. Sea anemone, he said it was.
That night, we met a buddy of mine, Larry and his family, at a barbeque place in Bethany Beach, Bethany Blues, two towns over. Larry and them are some great people. We used to work at Penn together. He lifts and he's from Maryland, so I like him. I had the crab cakes which were a disappointment , but as my 18 year old said, "Dad, it's Delaware, not Maryland. What did you expect?" True. We headed back to the room after another stop at Wawa for beef bowls for breakfast and a few more Molk's. The Phillies were playing and also college football was on so we switched back and forth.
The next morning, we went into the hotel weight room again. This time it was support rows, pushups and flies. We went to Dewey Beach, the next town over to swim, hoping the waves were better down there, but they weren't. Max didn't get bit by anything this time, so I consider the outing a success. Lunch was beef taco's (excellent) and Lagunitas beers. 9/10 on both counts. Forgot the name of the place. We then drove down to Ocean City, Maryland, about a 30 minute drive, to walk the long boardwalk that's there. We learned real quick that Ocean City has gone to shit. It's dirty and everyone looks like shit and Max and I lasted about 10 minutes before we left. It's like someone ruined on pupose, it's so bad and it got bad fast.
Dinner was Buffalo Wild Wings (burger and a patty melt) and DogFish Head 60 Minute Draft and a Coors Light. There food is always good, beer too. 8/10. Always good except that one time in Gastonia, North Carolina when it was pretty bad.
Phillies and College Football finished out the night. We awoke early the next day to head home. Of course, we had to stop at Wawa on our way of town. Beef bowl for Max and not even a pretzel for me.
