Today reminds both Susie and I why we like Florida in the winter!
The snow wasn’t a surprise…it had been predicted for several days. Our favorite local weather guy, Nor’easter Nick Pittman had been talking about, watching the various satellite tracks, and warning that it was coming since before the weekend. Yesterday when he finalized his predictions for today, he came in on the 8-12 inch snowfall totals, with the shore getting the worst of it! Nick was correct!
On the first “Work Day” of the new year, the rain change over to snow early, just before it started getting light. By 8 AM it was obvious that the snow was here, and between the snow, the cold temperatures (it’s 25 now feeling like 11 when yesterday at this time it was closer to 60), and the howling winds, it’s been a hell of a day!
Video taken by Susie just before 8AM from our front door
Just about 2:30 this afternoon, even though it was still snowing, Susie and I bundled up and headed out to see if we could do anything. While Susie worked on the front porch and staircase, I worked clearing our side of the driveway. After Susie realized she was getting no where fast on the porch, she came down and helped me. She dug out the mailbox and cleared a path to it for the mailman. Not sure the whole Rain, Snow, Dark of Night thing exists for them anymore, but just in case! We worked outside for about 45 minutes, and then said we’d had enough.
There was a picture of Susie here too, but she refuses to let me put it on this blog!
It’s still snowing and blowing as what daylight there was today starts fading. Not sure if anything we did will still be there when the snow stops, and they say it’s going to get very cold tonight. The 2022 Honda CRV is comfortable in the garage, where she will probably stay for several days. Susie had a Doctor’s appointment for her hip replacement surgery, which she rescheduled toThursday, and canceled the cleaning ladies till later in the week. Schools in Ocean City and Somers Point are closed due to he weather. Restaurants like Charlie’s and Sal’s in Somers Point, and Yianni’s in Ocean City are closed due to the weather. We’ve got lots of food in the house, and really have no reason to leave before that Doctor’s appointment Susie’s got at 5 PM on Thursday with Dr Zabinski! Besides, we can’t find the box with our gloves, scarfs, earmuffs and other warm winter things! Thank goodness we’ve got our new, super warm Charlie’s sweatshirts that we wore under our coats! Oh, and Susie just told me it’s going to be 48 and rainy on Wednesday and then possible snow again Thursday night into Friday!
Did I tell you we REALLY like Florida in the winter??
Breaker Boy and Beach Boy show the only way to enjoy the beach during the Dog Days of Summer! Photo courtesy of Doc Anderson
Wikipedia defines the Dog Days of Summer as, “the hot, sultry days of summer. They were historically the period following the heliacal rising of the star system Sirius (known colloquially as the “Dog Star”), which Hellenistic astrology connected with heat, drought, sudden thunderstorms, lethargy, fever, mad dogs, and bad luck. They are now taken to be the hottest, most uncomfortable part of summer in the Northern Hemisphere.” According to the Old Farmers Almanac, “The “Dog Days” of summer last from July 3 to August 11.” Welcome to the Dog Days of Summer, 2021! Yes, as I write this, we are smack dab in the middle of the Dog Days. I know here at the beach, we are well aware that we are in them, as the humidity and the temperatures sore to beyond uncomfortable heights.
According to the web site Mentalfloss, “Dew point readings between the freezing mark and about 55°F are pretty comfortable. A dew point between 55°F and 60°F is noticeably humid. It’s muggy when the dew point is above 60°F, and it’s uncomfortable outside when it ticks above 65°F. Any dew point readings above 70°F are oppressive and even dangerous, the kind of stickiness you experience in the tropics or during a brutal summer heat wave.” For the better part of the past 2 weeks, our daily dew point (which is a combination of the temperature and the humidity levels) has hovered in the mid 70s! As I write this, our mid day temperature is 83 degrees with a real feel of 89 degrees and the dew point is 73 degrees!
Even when you’re actually on our beach, unless there is a nice breeze from the ocean, believe me, you feel that kind of temperature and dew point. If the wind is coming from the land instead of off the ocean, you get a dry warm breeze, which is often accompanied by bugs! Even better!
As Facebook reminds me daily, back before we lived at the beach full-time, this was the exact time we’d set aside at the house for our vacation. It started as two weeks in July, then went to three, and the last year I worked at WABC, we took the entire month of July in Ocean City. Now, we were admittedly younger back then (anywhere between 5 and 16 years younger), and all we had was our vacation time down here, so the heat and/or humidity wasn’t as much of a yard stick that determined our beach time. Today, that situation is different!
Luckily, we are just 500 feet from the boardwalk and just beyond it, the beach, so on the way down, after coming out of the beautiful air conditioning, the trip is easy. We traditionally love to get down there early (between 9 and 10 AM), when it’s both cooler and less congested. We unload our beach cart, set up our chairs, and settle in for 2-4 hours of beach time. Honestly, the length of our stay is determined by the weather conditions, if there are bugs or not, and how many jackasses decide to invade our space with their tents, canopies, etcetera. The issues come about however in the Dog Days when it’s time to leave. If we could only twitch our nose like Jeannie did on I Dream of Jeannie, life would be grand, but by the time we pack up, walk back to the boardwalk through the no longer cool sand, and then make our way back to the house, we are drained! A dew point like today really makes it hard to enjoy any part of the beach frankly, and so on many days like this, we choose not to go. We often say that we live here so our beach time is infinite, and although I know that’s not true, we just don’t feel like killing ourselves just to say, “we’ve been to the beach!”
The draining heat and humidity that the Dog Days bring us, change the experience for us. I still need a new knee, Susie needs a new hip, my asthma doesn’t like humidity, and spending EVERYDAY at the beach just isn’t that important to us. I know this may sound like blasphemy from someone who lives at the beach, but sorry, that’s just how we feel. We continue to love being in Ocean City, seeing the water every time we go on or off the island, and love our time at the beach…under our terms! Feeling like you’re in a blast furnace is just not what we’d call, “under our terms.”
On another note, the Dog Days are also known for lethargy and bad luck, and I’m going to add another symptom…writer’s block! The last time I posted a blog was July 3rd, when I talked about the wonderful Father’s Day Weekend we’d had with all our kids and Grandkids. Since then, although I have sat down in front of my MacBook Air multiple times, and even started a few essays, nothing has jelled for me. Yes indeed, lethargy has been rampant in my brain!! But here I am, breaking the curse of Dog Day Lethargy by writing an essay about the Dog Days of Summer! Kind of poetic justice you might say!
Stay cool my friends, and like I do, thank God every day that we enjoy the legacy of Willis Carrier, the man credited with designing the first modern air conditioning system in 1902…probably during the Dog Days of Summer!!
Late on the night of November 3, 1982, our oldest child, William Ryan D’Elia, came into our lives. About 7 months later, he had his first vacation in Ocean City, New Jersey, and his first exposure to the beaches and boardwalk I had known as a kid. 4 years later, he was joined by his sister and brother, and Krissi and Kenny’s Ocean City life started too! For the rest of their childhood years, part of every summer was spent in Ocean City. In a way, Bill, Krissi, and Kenny grew up here, as this was the beach and boardwalk they knew as kids, and still love today.
On Sunday, June 13th, Susie and I drove from Ocean City to the Philadelphia Airport (a trip that would have been immeasurably easier had the Yankees not been playing the Phillies at Citizen Bank Park near the airport) to meet a flight from Raleigh/Durham North Carolina. There were 3 special passengers on that flight…our son Bill and his two oldest kids, 7 year old Layla and 5 year old Henry, who were here to spend a week with Grandma and Grandpa, and get to know the town that their Dad knew as a kid! After getting Daddy to the correct terminal for his return flight to Mommy and youngest sister, 2 year old Annabelle in North Carolina, Layla, Henry, Grandma, and Grandpa headed to their week of fun under the sun!
Our son had brought up the idea of this trip to us several months before, and we had busily been making plans. I think it was a toss up who was more excited: Layla and Henry or Grandpa and Grandma! We’d made plans, and Susie had lists of things we could do, but in the end, the beach, boardwalk, front porch of the house, and just enjoying our time with the kids was the best thing we did!
Of course, there had to be trips to the beach, with romps in the ocean, building sandcastles, burying each other, digging holes, finding shells, and kite flying. Turns out that Grandma and Layla did a better job getting the kite in the air than Grandpa and Henry, but in the end, the wind pulled the kite handle out of Layla’s hand, and even though the kids (and Grandma) chased it, the wind dumped it in the ocean. A nice man retrieved it, but it was a total loss. Wind: one – Layla: zero!
There was a trip to Hoys on Asbury Avenue where the kids got the required Ocean City sweatshirts, hats to keep the sun off their heads, and water shoes. For Susie and I, suddenly we were back in the 1980s and trying to keep our kids focussed on what they were looking for, and not the toys that were in the next aisle!
Ice Cream was always a part of our beach vacations back in the day, and the same can be said for Layla and Henry’s time with us. Not one, but two ,times did we head over to Custard Hut, where the hardest part was deciding what they were going to get, and keeping as much ice cream as possible off Henry! I know Grandma and Grandpa loved it, and I’m pretty sure the two little D’Elias did too!
Of course, there are things that are almost mandated by law that have to be included in an Ocean City vacation, and we followed all those rules too! From playing Mini-Golf (Henry has a decidedly “Happy Gillmore” like swing), to visiting the Discovery Seashell Museum (it was much better when our kids were young and run by people who loved the ocean as more of a passion than business), to doing as their Dad and Aunt and Uncle did as kids, and enjoying the big playground on 34th Street, to watching them make Salt Water Taffy at Shriver’s on the boardwalk, and then filling a bag with your choices!
A family rule is that no D’Elia can visit Ocean City, New Jersey without having at least one meal of “Hose Pizza”, and as good Grandparents, we followed that rule! The pizza place (it’s real name is Manco and Manco) has been part of the Ocean City Boardwalk since the 50s, and was one of the pizza places my Dad liked when we first came to Ocean City way back when I was five years old. The name “Hose Pizza” was given to it by our son Bill when he was 2 or 3, because unlike most pizza places, here they apply the tomato sauce via a hose, and once he saw that, when asked what he wanted to eat on the boardwalk, young Billy always said he wanted to go to “Hose Pizza”. The one we went to is the newest on 9th Street that used to be the old Strand Movie theater. Great to see that old building still being a part of Ocean City’s Boardwalk life, and great that Henry and Layla love “Hose Pizza” too, keeping a 4 generation relationship alive!
Ocean City’s Boardwalk features two big Amusement Piers, and what kind of Grandparents would we be if we didn’t spend at least one evening at the rides!! Layla and Henry enjoyed lots of rides at Gillian’s Wonderland, but agreed that they are pretty much done with the “baby rides”, and that next time they come, they’ll concentrate on only Big Kid Rides! They really liked the Bounce ride, the Superman ride, the Fun House, and the Glass Maze, where Henry refused to walk with his hands in front of him, and kept bumping his head on the mirrors! When I got them on the Merry-Go-Round, I told them to find Grandma and I, and wave at us every time they went around. About the 4th or 5th time around, Layla gave me a look, and I said to Susie, “Layla just gave me a Krissi look!”, you know, the one that says, “Shut up Dad and stop calling out my name!!!” Message received! Who says history doesn’t repeat!
A tradition we honored each trip to Ocean City when our kids were young, was getting an Ocean City T-shirt. It was a very involved process, that could take days to complete. First, they had to agree on which T-shirt shop we should go to. Then there was the process of picking out the design they wanted on the shirt. Last, they’d decide on the color T-shirt they wanted. These decisions often lasted the length of the trip, with the purchase finally happening on our last night on the boardwalk. We were able to speed the process up with Layla and Henry, and do it all in one day…our last day, on the boardwalk. We ended up at the same shop we usually shopped at with our kids, Layla and Henry knew that the design had to say Ocean City, NJ someplace (rule worked out when their Dad was 2 or 3), and they made sure it did. Design picked out, the two of them then had to decide what color T-shirt they wanted. With that taken care of, then it was time for the lady to put the design and the T-shirt into the heat machine, and make their shirts. I think Layla and Henry enjoyed following in their Dad’s footsteps, and Grandma and I did too!
That was some of the big stuff we did, but as I said up front, just enjoying our time with the kids doing simple stuff was just as wonderful! The first night they were here, I read them a story before going to bed. It was a story I’d written when their Dad and Aunt and Uncle were kids, and our three kids were the prime characters in the stories. They were called “Three Kids” stories, and I wrote a total of three of them. The morning after reading it, Layla came to me and asked if we could write a story about their time in Ocean City. She decided that we should call it “Two Kids at the Beach or Layla and Henry Visit Their Grandparents”. After we’d come home from somewhere, Layla would dictate what we should write while I typed on the computer. Multiple times during the day, Layla would come to me and say, “Let’s work on our story Grandpa,” and off we’d go for 10 or 15 minutes, and do just that. By the time Thursday was done, we had 7 pages, including some pictures. Grandma, the best editor around, corrected what we’d written, I printed it, and then Grandma laminated it so Layla can have it for a long time. I’m gonna miss those, “Let’s work on our story Grandpa” words from my smart, precocious Granddaughter!
We’re gonna miss those times we sat on the front porch and watched the world of Pennlyn Place go by. Like the morning Layla and I watched our 99 year old neighbor Doie ride her scooter down our driveway and up to the boardwalk for the daily Ocean City Flag Raising. That led to a discussion of Doie being a Marine in World War II and what being 99 means. Or watching Christina our mail lady arrive and have Layla say, “I’ll go down and get the mail Grandma and Grandpa.” Or Henry running down the stairs to put the garbage cans away after the Garbage Men emptied them and saying, “I got them Grandpa.” Or Layla waving to Emma across the street and watching her new Jeep come and go, and then talking to Emma’s Mom and Dad (sorry Bittenbenders if it seemed like Layla was stalking Emma a bit…). Or watching our neighbor’s dogs Beach Boy and Breaker Boy getting walked, and wondering when Doc was coming home. I had fun on Flag Day telling them what we were celebrating, and watching the kids decide they wanted to get a flag and flag pole for their Daddy for a Father’s Day present. They both became very comfortable in our house and we loved that.
There was meal time fun with Grandpa making eggs or Grandma fixing their waffles or cereal for breakfast, making sandwiches for lunch, cooking mac and cheese and hot dogs, or heating up pizza. There was the night we ordered Chinese Food and Layla and Henry eating everything, and then having Layla tell us, “It’s almost as good as North Carolina Chinese!” Or the day we discovered, as we sat down to eat, that yes, Henry does like McDonald’s cheese burgers, but NOT with ketchup and pickles! Or Henry and Grandma putting a puzzle together and Grandma working with both of them to make Father’s Day cards for their Daddy.
There was the day we switched cars around, and rather than go out in the Honda CR-V, we all piled into Grandpa’s old 2000 red Mustang convertible with the top down to go to the Acme Grocery and drive around Ocean City. The kids loved watching the top go up and down, which they did multiple times, but to quote what Layla wrote in her story, “Too hot, too much sun, too much wind and no room for feet in the back seat!”
So those are just some of the highlights of a wonderful week with Layla and Henry! I’ve heard it said that Grandchildren are the reward for not killing your own kids before they became adults. If that’s the case, we were richly rewarded last week. To spend the better part of 5 days with our two oldest, to learn from them, to see how they’ve grown, to get hugs and kisses, and called Grandma and Grandpa was a delicious treat for the two of us. To be able to watch them experiencing Ocean City, and to remember back to yesteryear when their Dad was their age, and doing the same things for the first time, was just a wonderful time capsule for us. It was a great week, and I just hope that it was as wonderful a week for Layla and Henry as it was for Susie and me! Thanks Lori and Billy for lending us your two oldest for a week!
A great week, only needs a great weekend to cap it off, and that’s exactly what we had next! Look for our next blog, Lake House Fun, coming soon to an internet near you!!
16 Years ago today, on January 28th, 2005, Susie and I closed on our house at 854 Pennlyn Place, just 500 feet down the street from the beach, in Ocean City, NJ! We’d first seen the house on December 28, 2004, made an offer, and one month later, we were sitting in a title company office on West Avenue in Ocean City signing our life away!
A couple of years ago, I wrote a series of 11 blogs about our relationship with Ocean City. It started with the first time I came here with my folks in 1955, continued to the years our family was young and we spent time in Ocean City, told the whole story of how purchasing a house in Las Vegas led to our dream of owning in Ocean City coming true, talked about what we call our “Ocean City Family”, of all the fun we’ve had over the years with Pennlyn neighbors, and ended with the sale of our Mineola house, and Susie and I becoming full time Ocean City residents. If you missed those blogs, here’s a link to the beginning of the series…. https://rnewadventures.com/2018/08/28/ocean-city-nj-part-1/
It’s really incredible when your dreams come true, and ours definitely have! Hard to believe it’s been 16 years on one hand, and on the other, hard to believe it’s only been 16! For the first 12 years, owning this house was about going to our happy place, and for the last 4, it’s been about home, and frankly, we couldn’t be happier!
Have you ever hosted a garage sale? In the almost 41 years that Susie and I have been married, she has hosted a couple of Garage Sales at our house. She did them in combination with her Mom and her Sister, and largely without my help. Why you may ask without my help? Because I am not a big fan of Garage Sales. In fact, I think my feeling about them mostly falls on the hate side. The idea of people picking through your stuff, trying to tell you that your $2 price really should be 50 cents, and doing their best to beat you down, and get the things for pennies on the dollar, really doesn’t seem like fun to me. And let’s not even begin to talk about the folks that try and show up before you’re ready to open and then become belligerent when you say no! Nope, not for me! I’m sorry but the amount of money you gain in holding one of these sales, just doesn’t seem to me to be worth the work and the aggravation!
When we sold our house of 30+ years in Mineola in 2017, and consolidated two houses we’d had since 2005, many people would have had a garage sale to rid themselves of excess items they no longer needed, but we didn’t. First dibs went to our kids. All three of them took items that were in our house and that they’d grown up with. Next we donated lots of items to the Vietnam Veterans Association, and other worthwhile charities in the area. Furniture that nobody wanted (too many of the Baby Boomer Generation are downsizing) went to needy families that could really use it. For the couple of high ticket items we wanted to get rid of, we turned to eBay, getting them sold the clean and simple way! But what, you may ask, does the preceding two paragraphs have to do with the title of this blog…The Free Table? Read on, and you will see!
Now that we call Ocean City our full time and only home, we love the fact that we have downsized our number of “things”. Frankly, the lifestyle we now want to live, in the house we now live in, just doesn’t lend itself to the way of the hoarder. Things like my complete set of High School Yearbooks or Susie’s extensive Cookbook Collection, just don’t have a place at the shore house. But, as the days, weeks, months, and years go by, we still manage to accumulate “things” that eventually just don’t have a place in our lives. Now the question is, what to do with these “things”?
Rather than throw out things that you no longer have a need for, but that somebody else may be able to use, Susie has taken an idea from our neighbors up Pennlyn Place, Jane and John Griffith. A couple of times a year, usually on a busy beach Saturday or Sunday, Susie places a table by the curb with a big sign on it that says
HELP YOURSELF
FREE
EXCEPT TABLE
Yesterday was her second Free Table of the Summer of 2020, and it was very successful! In fact, it was more like a community Free Table, as our next door neighbor Doc contributed two wicker stools to the effort, and our new across the street neighbor Heather contributed a toaster to Susie’s Free Table! For her part, Susie’s items included excess ball caps, an old game system Kenny and Chris had left here, little knick knicks we’d picked up, a hand food processor, beach towel clips, old night lights, a hair dryer, some DVDs, a pair of new windshield wipers from a car we no longer own, a couple of bags, a grill pan, and a few other items. By the time Susie folded up the table, and put it back in the garage yesterday afternoon, all that was left was Doc’s two stools!
Susie was happy, folks who picked things up were happy (like our other neighbor Patti who took Heather’s excess toaster), and Susie got rid of a tub of “things” Win – Win all around…except for Doc with his stools! Oh, and we really owe a debt of gratitude to this lady who helped herself to a lot of “things” and who was caught on film by Heather!
I wish we knew her address…we’d just deliver the items to her in the future!
We’re a little past our first week in Florida, and thought it was time to update you on our journey. There will be a lot of pictures this time around, because strangely, we remembered to take them…no guarantees going forward! So, here we go!
We arrived in Indian Rocks Beach late in the afternoon of Saturday ,February 1st. We have a new condo this year, that we’d only seen via the internet, so turning the key and walking in, there was a little mystery. Would it be as nice as what we saw on the internet, or would those pictures have been old, old, old! Well, our fears were unfounded, it’s very nice, but also HUGE! Three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a huge kitchen, huge living/dining area, and huge balcony. Not the decor that we’d choose for a beach house (more dark Mediterranean than beachy), but probably bigger than our Ocean City house! Take a look and see for yourselves!
Of course, the sunsets in Indian Rocks Beach, on the Gulf Coast of Florida are legendary, and our first night on the beach was exactly what you’d expect!
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Last week was a bit chilly and windy, so a beach day was in shorts and t-shirts, which was more than I’m sure we would have been doing on our home beach in Ocean City! The pool was warm, and sheltered from the wind, and we got to sit by the side and take a dip, so again, a win!
Did we eat out yet? Yes, we crossed the street and went to Keegan’s, one of our favs from last year. We also had breakfast at JD’s, and on Tuesday, instead of the Back Bar at Charlies with Sue, we walked down a couple of blocks, and enjoyed our night at Guppy’s!
Towards the end of the week, my cousin Jeanne and her husband Walt joined us from the East Coast of Florida. They spent 4 nights with us, and joined us as we tried some new places to dine!
One afternoon, we traveled down to Madiera Beach (a place Susie used to go with her Grandma a long time ago) and had lunch at the Mad Beach Brewing Company. Lunch was good, the surroundings were great, but the waitress was a pip, and soured it a bit for us!
On Saturday, we traveled up the coast to Clearwater Beach, for a wonderful lunch at the Columbia Restaurant! A great place, with incredible food and drinks, and this day, Taylor a wonderful waitress just enhanced the experience! Such good things like a 1905 Martini (their original location in Tampa opened in 1905), a 1905 Salad made table side, an incredible Cuban Sandwich, Sangria (made table side), and desserts to die for! We will be back!!
Sunday night, we tried another new place..PJ’s Oyster Bar, just down the road in “downtown IRB”. A nutty setting, a great waitress, and wonderful food!! It checked off all the boxes!!!
When we got home, there was a great light show out on the balcony, as the Full Moon rose to the east! A great Sunset, followed by a great Moon Rise!
Today Jeanne and Walt headed home (we will be back with them in about a month at their home in Barefoot Bay, Florida), and once we made some beds and such, we headed to the beach and pool! 80 degrees on February 10th, is nothing to dismiss as unimportant! We spent a wonderful couple of hours on the beach, and then took a dip in the pool! Also met and talked to some folks from Ohio. Life DOESN’T suck!
Then tonite, we returned to where it all started! Three years ago, we stayed at the Indian Rocks Beach Holiday Inn. After getting settled, we ventured down to the “Hotel Bar”, Jimmy Guana’s, where we met our new friend Lindsey Sterry. We had such a great time with Lindsey, in Jimmy Guanna’s and in Indian Rocks Beach, we turned our 2 day stay into 4, and started our love affair with a little Florida Gulf Coast town! It was good to go home tonight with Tony, one of our favorite local performers on the bandstand, but we did miss Lindsey!
So that’s a wrap up on week one in the Sunshine State. We’re here in IRB till the end of February and in Florida till almost the end of March! Stay tuned…lots more of Sue and Frank’s Really Excellent Florida Adventure 2020 to come! We’ll save a seat for you in the back of the CRV!
Well, after a glorious five plus weeks away, we are back in the frozen north.Although we had a great time down south, for the first couple of weeks, winter followed us!Visiting Billy and Lori and our Grandkids in Raleigh, North Carolina, Susie and I woke one morning to a temperature of 17 degrees!!A couple of days later in Charleston, South Carolina, we woke one morning to find the temperature at 37 degrees!Even later that week, during our stay in Savannah, Georgia, the morning temperature was 47 degrees!Then came Florida!
We had 3 weeks in a condo right on the Gulf of Mexico in Indian Rocks Beach, a wonderful place we stumbled on last year, that’s located just south of Clearwater.We looked out the sliding doors of the living room, and there was the Gulf and a beautiful beach!Unfortunately, for almost the entire first week, we sat on the couch in the living room, looking out at the beach, with the heat on and blankets across our laps!Oh boy…looks like we made the wrong choice coming the last Saturday in January!
As I said, we literally stumbled on to Indian Rocks Beach last year during our swing through Florida, and the plan was hatched to return in the winter of 2019.Unlike a lot of the towns up and down the Gulf Coast of Florida, IRB is made up mostly of homes and small condo buildings, feeling a lot more like a Florida beach town of old, rather than a modern interpretation.Eventually, Mother Nature shined on us, and we had many lovely days with warm temperatures, and really got to enjoy the beach and pool!
For me, one of the real changes of staying on a Gulf Coast beach, was the fact that what looks like the “Ocean” was to the West, rather than the East!Growing up on Long Island, and now living at the beach in Ocean City, the “Ocean” has always been generally to the east of us.Now, here we are, still on the east coast, but on the Gulf Coast of Florida, and the “ocean” is to the west!
One thing that I can not deny though, is that staying on the Gulf Coast, facing to the West, made for some great sunsets!Be them via our iPhones or our Nikon digital SLR camera, the pictures are memorable!
Take a look at some of our favorites!
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We loved our time in Indian Rocks Beach…so much that we’ll be back next February for the whole month!Let’s hope Mother Nature is nice to us!
Wikipedia defines Snowbirds as, “”a North American term for a person who migrates from the higher latitudes and colder climates of the northern United States and Canada in the southward direction in winter to warmer locales such as Florida, California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, or elsewhere along the Sun Belt of the southern United States, Mexico, and areas of the Caribbean. Many “snowbirds” are from either the Northeast, Midwest, Mid-Atlantic, or Canada.”
So, basically it’s somebody who runs away from winter and desires to have an early preview of Spring or Summer. Is that us????
Well, right after I retired in 2016, we headed to Florida to partake in some Spring Training Baseball, and to use my Disney Retiree benefits at Walt Disney World.Were we Snowbirds???Unknown.
Then in 2017 we were part of the Kenny and Chris journey to the West Coast.We started in Atlantic City, had a stop off in Walt Disney World, and continued to New Orleans and Boser City, Louisiana. Were we Snowbirds???Not quite.
Then last year, in February of 2018, we traveled down the Gulf Coast of Florida, journeyed down to Key West, spent time with my cousins in Barefoot Bay, and then spent 5 days in Walt Disney World.Snowbirds??Who knows.
But, this year, we had a plan.We started with our children and grandchildren in Raleigh, North Carolina, they journeyed south through Charleston, South Carolina, and Savannah, Georgia, before we entered the Sunshine State, and what we hoped was a preview of Spring/Summer of 2019.Unfortunately, Mother Nature was not on our side, and although we were heading south, we woke up to temps in the teens, 30s, and then the 40s.It was not till we were in Florida that the thermometer hit the 50s, but it still wasn’t WARM!
Our plan this year was 3 weeks in Indian Rocks Beach, Florida, which we’d fallen in love with last year.We rented a condo right on the Gulf of Mexico, and were expecting gorgeous weather and warm temps.Unfortunately, Mother Nature was laughing her ass off at us! The first week we were here, it was cold and the foggy!Come on now….we’re in Florida!!!WTF!!!!But not to be dismayed, we did other stuff.We went to Walmart, Publix, and got the stuff we needed for the condo.We visited Total Wines and More, so at least we could drown our sorrows!
Then the sun came out and life was good!!Temps in the 70s, sunny blue skies, and wonderful views of the Gulf of Mexico!!
So, as I write this, we have been in our condo for a week and a half, about halfway through our stay.Susie’s cousin Debbie and her friend Janice have already visited us, and we had a great afternoon by the pool, and then a wonderful night at Crabby Bills!
Tomorrow, we’re expecting our cousins Jeanne and Walt.We’ve got lots of plans for things to do with them, and we are looking forward to hours of talking and just having fun together!
We went in the pool last night after dinner.
Next week, our daughter Krissi and her fiancé Mike will join us.Again, lots of fun things planned, as well as enjoying the beach, sun, and warm temperatures!
So, are we Snowbirds??Well, we’ve already rented a place a couple of blocks down the beach for ALL of February next year.I’d say, yes, we are Snowbirds!!What do you think???
In case you’ve been wondering where we are, for the last week, we have been in Indian Rocks Beach on the Gulf Coast of the Sunshine State, in a condo on the beach we’ve rented for 3 weeks.I know that many of you folks in the north are suffering through some incredible cold, but those of us who ran away from the cold north to Sunny Florida have been suffering too!I know it’s 19 in Ocean City as I write this and 70 here in Florida, but it’s been a hard week…trust me!
So we arrived last Saturday afternoon at our condo, and even though the temps were not where we’d have liked them to be, it was sunny, and we liked what we saw.
This is the complex at 1904 Gulf Blvd and we are in the front building on the left as you look at this picture from the street.Here are some condo pics.
So, what exactly have we been doing here?Too cold for the beach or pool, although there were some hearty souls trying to enjoy both this week wherever the sun was shining.The sun was nice, the blue skies were nice, the view was nice, the temps in the 50s (as a high) and the 20 mph winds were anything but.No, we stayed inside, and when we were out, we were in the car with the windows up and sometimes with the seat heaters on!So, where did those car rides take us?
Well, one day they took us to Costco and we bought a couple of things, and we coupled that with a stop at a Total Wines and More!Another day, the ride took us in search of martini glasses (none in the condo), and we finally found them in a local Bed Bath and Beyond.We combined those 3 stops most effectively for one of our evening cocktail hours!
Some of the rides have taken us nowhere…just exploring!
Another day the ride took us to a local movie theater, where we saw Mary Poppins Returns.Seems like a lot of theaters here also make you pick your seat when you buy your tickets, and when we bought the tickets on line a couple of hours before we went to the movies, every seat in the place was open!Easy to choose.
When we got to the theater, we discovered these very comfy chairs…in fact, they were motorized recliners that you activated by touching a button.A little odd, and we wondered if we’d (all right…Susie wondered if I’d) stay awake during the movie.Actually we found them very comfortable, and a nice way to watch a movie.Oh by the way, we loved the movie and how it struck it’s own ground, but really paid homage to the original!Good job.
So, what else have we been doing??Well, we’ve seen some wonderful sunsets over the Gulf of Mexico from our balcony windows.See what you think…
Oh, and we’ve gone out and eaten several times too.We had a great dinner at Keegan’s Seafood Grill, just a couple of blocks down Gulf Blvd last weekend.We also had a great breakfast at JD’s Restaurant, along with two Bloody Marys!
Then last night, we returned to the place we fell in love with last year, Jimmy Guana’s in the Indian Rocks Holiday Inn.That’s where we stayed last year, and Jimmy’s had been our go-to place, probably because the first night we went there, we sat at one of it’s many bars, and met our friend Lindsey Sterry, who was bartending.Have you ever met anyone, and minutes after your relationship starts, you feel like they’ve been your friend for years?Well, that’s the way we were with Lindsey.Would love to be able to say that we had a wonderful time last night with Lindsey, but the last night she worked was the night before we got into town.Unfortunately, Lindsey is at home recovering from the first of two surgeries she’s got to have for Stage 4 Sinus Cancer.She’s already survived brain cancer, and now this!She’s a sweet, wonderful girl, and it really makes you wonder why something like this happens to people like this, and not the many true SOBs in this world!The poor girl’s got a long road ahead of her, but she’s a fighter, with many folks who love her pulling for her…including the two of us!If you want to read the whole story, follow this link!https://www.gofundme.com/hope-for-lindsey-part-2
We had a fun night, with some great food, good drinks, and entertainment.Our waiter Mark was a good guy, and we will see him again before we leave…just not Lindsey…unfortunately.
The bar we first met Lindsey at!
Then today, we got to the beach!!Sunny skies, temperatures in the 70s, the Florida we’d been looking for!!
Oh by the way, this is our condo’s balcony.
So the temps are up, and we are going to enjoy every minute of the Florida weather, and our preview of the Spring of 2019, till the end of February when we return to the winter of 2019!Stay tuned!!!
FYI…we’ve become “those people” who lunch at Costco (come on..two huge hot dogs with sauerkraut and all the toppings, plus 2 sodas for $3.20 including tax…why not?) and who run off to Florida in the winter!
Susie retired in 2013, and in just a couple of weeks, it will be three years since I left WABC on January 29, 2016.In February of 2016, we headed down to Florida for a few days at Disney World, and to catch a couple of the Mets Spring training games.It was a real treat to experience a bit of a preview of the Summer of 2016, and I guess we got bitten by the bug!In February of 2017, Susie and I participated in thesouthern swing of the “Kenny and Chris Relocating to LA Tour”, and spent some time in Disney World with the boys, and then New Orleans with the boys and Krissi and Mike, before they headed off to California and we headed back to winter.Last year we toured a large part of Florida, heading down in February and starting at Indian Rocks Beach on the Gulf Coast, traveling down the Gulf Coast, then across the state, down the Keys to Key West, up to Hollywood, then to my cousins in Barefoot Bay, and we ended up with 5 nights at the Boardwalk Hotel in Disney World!All told, a little over 3 weeks away from the winter!
So, this year, we are being pigs!We leave this Saturday with our first stop being Raleigh, North Carolina, the home of our oldest and his wife, and our 2 grandchildren!It will be Christmas #3 for Susie and I, this time complete with Christmas Eve traditions of Shrimp Sauce over Linguine, and Lobsters stuffed with Baked Clam Stuffing!After a couple of days there, we start slowly making our way to the Sunshine State, with stops in Charleston, South Carolina, Savannah, Georgia, and Darien, Georgia and our favorite shrimp place, B&J’s Steak and Seafood!
Last year we fell in love with Indian Rocks Beach, Florida and we’ve decided to return to the scene of the crime.We’ve rented a condo right on the Gulf Coast for 3 weeks, and we look forward to a lot of warmth, sun, surf, pool, and fun!During the course of our time there, our cousins Jeanne and Walt will come to visit, as will Krissi and Mike for a long weekend!We only hope our favorite Florida bartender Lindsey, who we met at our hotel bar last year, is back on her feet and we can spend some quality time with her!
After that, it’s off to the East Coast and a 3 day stay at the lovely Doubletree Resort we really didn’t take advantage of during our stay there last year in Hollywood, Florida.More pool, sun, warmth, and Tiki Bar time we hope!Then we are off for 5 nights with our cousins Jeanne and Walt at their place a little further up the coast in Barefoot Bay, Florida!
Although a stay at Disney World has been a part of our last 3 escapes from winter, we decided to pass on it this year.Even with my DisneyRetiree benefits and discounts, it’s still an expensive stay, and that 3 week condo rental is costing us enough.Plus, we were so disillusioned by all the crowds there last year, and the attractions that broke down, that we think we’ll take a year off, and decide again next year.
So that’s it.If you did the math, you’ll have come up with five plus weeks away this year.We hope to be in warm weather for the better part of 5 weeks, only dipping out of shirts and flip flop weather on the way down and back up.I told you we were being real pigs, but there is nothing like that Summer Preview you get from spending some time in warmer climates, when it’s snowing at home!
We had 3 weeks in a condo right on the Gulf of Mexico in Indian Rocks Beach, a wonderful place we stumbled on last year, that’s located just south of Clearwater.
So, this year, we are being pigs!
R New Adventures 