(no subject)
May. 22nd, 2011 03:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickI went to Ocean City for a couple of days this past week. I'd never been before, so this was all new. I also don't like crowds of stupid people or expensive hotel space or waiting in line two hours to get food -- so I went before the "real" season in order to avoid all that crap.
We stayed at the Hilton, oceanfront on 30th. The room had a sitting room (entirely unused) and a kitchen (used for breakfast and lunch) and a bathroom (used daily) and a bedroom with ocean view, balcony, and two large beds. The hotel was very nice and on the posh side. It cost us $137 per night (not including taxes), which was a pretty good deal.
We ate at The Shark on the Harbor, which was about eighty bucks for two people. Appetizer/soup each and an entree apiece and I had a fruity girl drink. Neither of us had dessert. Very good food, cuisine-ish, in a louder-than-I-would-like environment. Waitstaff very attentive and helpful without being annoying.
We ate at Ristorante Antipasti, which is an italian place on the strip, 31st and Coastal, not far from the hotel. Because we are idiots and easily distracted by shiny! hotrod! cars! we walked all the way down to 8th before deciding we must have passed the place and turning back. Despite the fact that we got there way late, Antipasti was still open and served us. Bill was again eighty bucks for two. One appetizer, two entrees, and one dessert. No adult beverages. Food was excellent, well prepared, nicely presented, exceptionally yummy. Place was pretty quiet but that may have been because we were there so late. Two thumbs up.
We ate at Crab Bag which is a crab shack/bar affair. Expect red-n-white checked plastic tablecloth, brown paper over that, people dumping cooked crabs on the table, mallets, the lot. I do not eat crab, but Sam does, so we went to a crab shack. I had baby back ribs, which were reasonably tasty. Sam said that the crabs were pretty good. (He is not a particularly fast picker of crabs.)
The beach itself is fairly broad, pretty cambered where the water hits the sand. It's walk-on-able but not really comfortable for running. The soft, dry sand is completely impossible for running on as it gives way too easily. There are some shells but not huge numbers. If you're going for shelling, you will be disappointed. There were maybe twenty or thirty people on the beach (total) when we were there. It was wonderful.
The boardwalk is, yes, made of boards. They're laid at an angle and made a weird visual disturbance pattern for me if I looked down at them while walking. It's level and relatively unsplintery. Shoes are probably a good idea but flip-flops or sandals would be plenty. The beach side of the boardwalk is just a cement retaining wall. The non-beach side of the boardwalk is full of shoppes. Some of the shoppes sell stupid merchandise for tourists. (I do not have any desire to have writing across my fairly ample ass.) Some of the shoppes sell food items. Some of the shoppes are last-of-the-breed arcades. When we were there, some of the shoppes were not yet open because it was the off season.
In particular, the following shoppes are recommended: Thrasher's. They make french fries. The french fries are good, available in reasonable sizes from "yum" to "bucket that feeds six", and served with salt and cider vinegar. I had to wait in line behind three people to get fries. If the line were like twenty people, I'd have passed. Fisher's. They do caramel popcorn. Get the plain caramel, it's awesome. I bought a large bucket (ten or eleven bucks) and it was delightful. I did not buy any stupid tourist merchandise because I'm not really into that sort of thing. Sam bought candy (fudge and taffy) from Candy Kitchen. I was not overly impressed with the price/quality there, but whatever. Also, they totally did not have enough nuts in their walnut fudge.
I mentioned shiny! hotrod! cars! It turned out that Thur-Fri-Sat-Sun was the 21st annual Cruisin' Ocean City car show. Tuesday the town was pretty quiet. On Wednesday, there were an above-average number of nice rides on the strip, doing what seemed to be an excessive amount of driving around to minimal purpose. Like, there were enough hot cars to cause commentary. By Thursday, there were an awful lot of hot cars about and more 8-cylinder rumbling than you'd expect in a world of $4.00 / gallon gasoline. The road was crowded with air scoops coming out of hoods, tops dropped down, more chrome than you could shake a stick at, beautiful paint jobs, and wide, slick tires. It did not look like a normal town anymore so much as a scene from American Graffiti. The cars were an unexpected bonus, so yay!
Ocean City, as it turns out, is very close to Assateague Island. Assateague (as anyone who was once a horse-crazy girl can tell you) has ponies. Obviously, we had to go. It's about an eight mile drive from Ocean City to the Maryland part of Assateague. The entire island is flat, maybe six feet above sea level at the most, and covered in sand, sorry-looking loblolly pine trees, sorry-looking holly trees, and sorry-looking wax myrtle trees. Also there are some cactus, some marsh grasses, etc. And, y'know, ponies. The ponies eat the marsh grasses, mostly. The island is pretty thickly covered with fresh pony footprints and pony poop. If you do not see actual ponies, you will for damn sure see signs that they've been around. Best place for looking for ponies when I was there was where the marsh grass was. The ponies waded to get to the marsh grass -- it didn't need to be dry land.
When you pay to enter the place, you get several handouts telling you NOT TO TOUCH, TEASE, FEED, or INTERACT with the (vicious, biting, dangerous) ponies. There are fines for interacting with the ponies. The handouts have pictures of pony bites on various unlucky souls. We never got close enough to the ponies for this to be a problem.
There is a visitor's center on the mainland. It has some good exhibits and a 20-minute movie about the ponies. (Most interesting fact: They dart the mares yearly with contraceptives to keep the population in line.) There are between 80 and 100 ponies on the Maryland part of the island. Each pony is numbered and/or named. The park service has pictures of all of them so that they know which ones are which.
The visitor's center exhibits include a petting zoo of the various underwater critters that live in the ocean. Horseshoe crabs (swim faster than you probably think) and regular crabs and whelks and clams and stuff were in there. In different, non-petting tanks, they also had assorted fishes. The fish and invertebrates were pretty neat.
So, that was my trip to Ocean City and nearby points of interest.
We stayed at the Hilton, oceanfront on 30th. The room had a sitting room (entirely unused) and a kitchen (used for breakfast and lunch) and a bathroom (used daily) and a bedroom with ocean view, balcony, and two large beds. The hotel was very nice and on the posh side. It cost us $137 per night (not including taxes), which was a pretty good deal.
We ate at The Shark on the Harbor, which was about eighty bucks for two people. Appetizer/soup each and an entree apiece and I had a fruity girl drink. Neither of us had dessert. Very good food, cuisine-ish, in a louder-than-I-would-like environment. Waitstaff very attentive and helpful without being annoying.
We ate at Ristorante Antipasti, which is an italian place on the strip, 31st and Coastal, not far from the hotel. Because we are idiots and easily distracted by shiny! hotrod! cars! we walked all the way down to 8th before deciding we must have passed the place and turning back. Despite the fact that we got there way late, Antipasti was still open and served us. Bill was again eighty bucks for two. One appetizer, two entrees, and one dessert. No adult beverages. Food was excellent, well prepared, nicely presented, exceptionally yummy. Place was pretty quiet but that may have been because we were there so late. Two thumbs up.
We ate at Crab Bag which is a crab shack/bar affair. Expect red-n-white checked plastic tablecloth, brown paper over that, people dumping cooked crabs on the table, mallets, the lot. I do not eat crab, but Sam does, so we went to a crab shack. I had baby back ribs, which were reasonably tasty. Sam said that the crabs were pretty good. (He is not a particularly fast picker of crabs.)
The beach itself is fairly broad, pretty cambered where the water hits the sand. It's walk-on-able but not really comfortable for running. The soft, dry sand is completely impossible for running on as it gives way too easily. There are some shells but not huge numbers. If you're going for shelling, you will be disappointed. There were maybe twenty or thirty people on the beach (total) when we were there. It was wonderful.
The boardwalk is, yes, made of boards. They're laid at an angle and made a weird visual disturbance pattern for me if I looked down at them while walking. It's level and relatively unsplintery. Shoes are probably a good idea but flip-flops or sandals would be plenty. The beach side of the boardwalk is just a cement retaining wall. The non-beach side of the boardwalk is full of shoppes. Some of the shoppes sell stupid merchandise for tourists. (I do not have any desire to have writing across my fairly ample ass.) Some of the shoppes sell food items. Some of the shoppes are last-of-the-breed arcades. When we were there, some of the shoppes were not yet open because it was the off season.
In particular, the following shoppes are recommended: Thrasher's. They make french fries. The french fries are good, available in reasonable sizes from "yum" to "bucket that feeds six", and served with salt and cider vinegar. I had to wait in line behind three people to get fries. If the line were like twenty people, I'd have passed. Fisher's. They do caramel popcorn. Get the plain caramel, it's awesome. I bought a large bucket (ten or eleven bucks) and it was delightful. I did not buy any stupid tourist merchandise because I'm not really into that sort of thing. Sam bought candy (fudge and taffy) from Candy Kitchen. I was not overly impressed with the price/quality there, but whatever. Also, they totally did not have enough nuts in their walnut fudge.
I mentioned shiny! hotrod! cars! It turned out that Thur-Fri-Sat-Sun was the 21st annual Cruisin' Ocean City car show. Tuesday the town was pretty quiet. On Wednesday, there were an above-average number of nice rides on the strip, doing what seemed to be an excessive amount of driving around to minimal purpose. Like, there were enough hot cars to cause commentary. By Thursday, there were an awful lot of hot cars about and more 8-cylinder rumbling than you'd expect in a world of $4.00 / gallon gasoline. The road was crowded with air scoops coming out of hoods, tops dropped down, more chrome than you could shake a stick at, beautiful paint jobs, and wide, slick tires. It did not look like a normal town anymore so much as a scene from American Graffiti. The cars were an unexpected bonus, so yay!
Ocean City, as it turns out, is very close to Assateague Island. Assateague (as anyone who was once a horse-crazy girl can tell you) has ponies. Obviously, we had to go. It's about an eight mile drive from Ocean City to the Maryland part of Assateague. The entire island is flat, maybe six feet above sea level at the most, and covered in sand, sorry-looking loblolly pine trees, sorry-looking holly trees, and sorry-looking wax myrtle trees. Also there are some cactus, some marsh grasses, etc. And, y'know, ponies. The ponies eat the marsh grasses, mostly. The island is pretty thickly covered with fresh pony footprints and pony poop. If you do not see actual ponies, you will for damn sure see signs that they've been around. Best place for looking for ponies when I was there was where the marsh grass was. The ponies waded to get to the marsh grass -- it didn't need to be dry land.
When you pay to enter the place, you get several handouts telling you NOT TO TOUCH, TEASE, FEED, or INTERACT with the (vicious, biting, dangerous) ponies. There are fines for interacting with the ponies. The handouts have pictures of pony bites on various unlucky souls. We never got close enough to the ponies for this to be a problem.
There is a visitor's center on the mainland. It has some good exhibits and a 20-minute movie about the ponies. (Most interesting fact: They dart the mares yearly with contraceptives to keep the population in line.) There are between 80 and 100 ponies on the Maryland part of the island. Each pony is numbered and/or named. The park service has pictures of all of them so that they know which ones are which.
The visitor's center exhibits include a petting zoo of the various underwater critters that live in the ocean. Horseshoe crabs (swim faster than you probably think) and regular crabs and whelks and clams and stuff were in there. In different, non-petting tanks, they also had assorted fishes. The fish and invertebrates were pretty neat.
So, that was my trip to Ocean City and nearby points of interest.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-05-22 09:23 pm (UTC)I have first-hand knowledge of the morons that jump out of their stupid-ass mini-vans, dragging their small children with them, to go PET the ponies. The ponies were quite happily traveling from campsite to campsite to see what sorts of treats they could find. The five carloads of people we saw going up to the ponies took place nearish one of the campsite entrances.
It's one thing if you're all getting your camp on and a wild pony walks up all "HEY! GIVES ME YOUR FOOOOOD!" If you walk up to said wild pony saying "I WANTS TO PETS YOU!!!" I will wish really really hard for the pony to bite you and then laugh when it does.
People are stupid.
But, otherwise, we were in Ocean City at the end of August. It wasn't too bad. (My mom rented a house. http://www.cbvacations.com/VacationRentals/PropertyDetails.aspx?ID=THREESA&type=0) I would do it again if I had the money. I'm glad you had a decent time.