Ocean City – Part 4

September 5, 2018 / Sue and Frank D'Elia / 1 Comment

So, when we last left you, Susie and I had a house built in Las Vegas, had been the first ones to sleep in the house, and had then rented it out on a yearly lease. We had a local property manager who collected the rent, took a percentage, and sent the balance to us monthly. The money we got, covered the majority of the expenses of the house, we got a pretty nice tax benefit from owning and renting the house, and we had an excuse to travel to Las Vegas, which we did several times. The only thing missing was that we never got to use the house.

Sometime in the Spring of 2004, Susie and I went for a weekend trip to Atlantic City. Since it’s only 12 miles away from Ocean City, on Sunday, after checking out of the hotel, we took a drive to Ocean City. I don’t remember if we hit the boardwalk or not, but we did drive around town, and when we drove by an Open House on Asbury Avenue, we decided to stop in and take a look. The town was empty, and the realtor had been alone for most of the day, so he was more than happy to spend some time talking to us after we viewed the house.

His name was Ray, and that day was the beginning of a relationship that changed our lives! We got down to the nitty gritty, started talking costs, hearing about how much property values in Ocean City had been increasing, talking about what we could rent out a house for during the summer season, and really had our eyes opened that day! In the car, on the way home, we talked a lot about our future and about our real estate portfolio. The more we thought about it, although we’d enjoyed Las Vegas a lot, we both knew that we’d miss the ocean if we retired to the South West, plus having a house 3 hours away by car rather than a 6 hour plane ride seemed to make a lot of sense! It appeared we’d made a decision!

img_0768-1 The next call was to our friend and realtor Sharon Malloy in Las Vegas. We laid out what we were thinking of doing, and she agreed it made sense. We loved what she told us about the Vegas real estate market, and were ecstatic when she told us what we could probably get for the Vegas house! We gave her the okay to put the house on the market, and to have the Property Manager let the tenant (who was now renting month to month since the 1 year lease had expired) know that we were putting the house on the market. Everything sounded like it was on track!

Well, not quite! First wrinkle in our plan was that for some reason, the Property Manager had sent the tenant a signed lease for a 6 month extension of her rental. Although she’d had the lease for several months, and had never signed it and returned it to the Property Manager, she was right that she had a signed 6 month extension. Okay, that pushed the potential return of the house to us back by a couple of months. We thought we could deal with that. Then, the second wrinkle hit…..as we were about to put the house on the market, the bottom fell out of the Las Vegas market!

90204822-C099-4C04-B9A9-926D82D5900C Remember the US Housing Bubble in the late part of the first decade of the 21st Century? Well, Las Vegas had it’s own housing bubble burst, but a bit earlier. Turns out that they had overbuilt the housing stock in response to a population increase that leveled off. Because many folks had bought multiple properties without enough capital to carry them if they didn’t have renters, they were in trouble, because the rental market was over saturated. In reaction to what was happening, housing prices were dropping as landlords attempted to unload their unrented houses, rather than lose them to the bank. It appeared we’d missed the house price peak. Trust me, this only increased how pissed off we were at the Property Manager for screwing up the lease extension with our tenant!

We were very lucky, because our real estate agent Sharon was well versed in what was happening in the market, and had great advice for us. She knew what was going on regarding sales in the development our house was located in, and came up with the perfect asking price and marketing plan for the house. Although there were a couple of weeks of nail biting on our part, in the end it worked out. Even though we’d missed the market peak because we couldn’t get rid of the tenant when we wanted, thanks to Sharon’s good guidance, we were able to sell our house for a very good price. We’d owned the house a bit more than a year and a half, and we’d sold it for about $140,000 more than we paid for it! A pretty good profit in our minds for a 19 month investment!

Doing some research, I discovered that there was a tax legal way to transfer the profit gained on an investment property to another investment property, and not pay any Capital Gains tax. Called a 1031 Like Kind Exchange, in essence it allowed us to “trade” one house for another, and if we met certain requirements, not to have a taxable event. We found a company in Nevada that acted as the intermediary for this, and they handled all the paperwork and banked the funds until we bought the next property. One of the requirements, however, was that we had 45 days to identify that next investment property and then had 180 days to complete the purchase.

The clock was ticking!

Next time…finding that property, which turned into a home!

FYI…..

Sharon Malloy…https://www.realtyonegroup.com/realestateagent/sharon-molloy-5870774

Ocean City – Part 3

September 2, 2018September 2, 2018 / Sue and Frank D'Elia / 4 Comments

I firmly believe that you can’t live in the past, but in a sense, it’s sad that so much from both my childhood and even our kids’ childhoods are gone now. The house I stayed in way back in the 50s, the beach stand on the 32nd Street beach, and even Campbell’s Seafood have given way to new construction and the 3200 block of Asbury Avenue looks totally different. In the same way, both “John’s House” and the beachfront house across the street from our last summer rental on Central Avenue have been razed for new construction. Change is inevitable, and so change did come to Ocean City, as it did to our family. The kids grew, vacations went in different directions, prices went up, and our expectations went down.

The summer of 1988 the D’Elia’s did Florida, including a week in Disney World. If you think bringing two babies to the beach had been something, you should have seen this Florida trip with two 18 month olds and a 6 year old! Boy did we have “stuff” loaded in that Ford van! Even though that was our big trip, there still was a couple of days stop in Ocean City, and that’s the way we continued our Ocean City connection for many summers. Wherever we went, whatever else we did, there was at least a weekend in Ocean City. In fact, for a number of years, Ocean City was a part of the D’Elia Family’s Memorial Day weekend! It was fireworks on the beach on Long Island on Friday night, then Saturday morning it was off to Ocean City, where we’d walk the boardwalk, play mini golf, visit the arcades, and eat Hose Pizza.

[Okay…time for a little side bar here. Our favorite boardwalk pizza in Ocean City was from Mack and Manco. It turns out that rather than using a ladle to put the sauce on the pizza, the sauce came out of a hose when they stepped on a peddle. When Billy was small, he started calling it Hose Pizza, which incidentally we still do! Back to our story]

That was the way we got our Ocean City fix, but then in the summer of 1996, things changed. We discovered camping! That summer, we rented a small pop-up camping trailer from Tent City in Hempstead, and also had them put a hitch on our Ford van. We made reservations to rent it for a week in July, and then set out to look for a campground on the shore. Back in the 50s, when I was a kid, a ride along Route 9 in Cape May County was a trip down a totally desolate stretch of road, bordered by forests. In the 90s, it was more populated, and the home to many campgrounds. After looking at a number of them, we picked out Pine Haven in Ocean View, NJ, just off Garden State Parkway Exit 17. It was close to Ocean City (just about 13 miles up Route 9), but our “rent” for the week was more like what we’d have paid for one night in an Ocean City motel!

Billy was 10, Krissi and Kenny were 6, and we got to spend several nights on the Ocean City Boardwalk and even had a day on the beach! There was a pool, a lake, mini golf, and even bingo at the campground, and a good time was had by all! We thought that this could work!

Attending a camping show the next winter, we came across the Tent City booth and told them we loved the last summer and were going to rent one again next summer, but for two weeks. One thing led to another, and the next thing we knew, we owned a pop-up camper! Two weeks the next summer at Pine Haven worked great, except for the 3 days in a row of rain we had. The camper turned smaller and smaller each day it rained, but we were doing Ocean City on the cheap, and that was great!

Crabbing and Fishing at Ludlums Landing!

The next year, when I took the pop-up in to be serviced, I made the mistake of dropping Susie at the showroom, while I went across the street and dropped off the trailer. By the time I got back, she’d found this incredible new and big camper on the display floor. Two king sized beds, an additional single bed, a large storage cabinet, sink and stove, place for the porta potty, and a table that sat 6. Yes, soon we were the owners of two pop-ups, but we quickly sold our original one at a price that the dealer said qualified Susie for a job selling atTent City!

And that’s how we did Ocean City for the next 3 or 4 summers. We’d stay at Pine Haven (the kids had made friends there that they saw every summer), travel down route 9 to spend time in Ocean City, and do the two weeks for less than what a couple of nights in Ocean City would cost us! That is, until a 12 year old Krissi told us she was tired of going to the bathroom with bugs, and the D’Elia’s camping days were over!

Our kids celebrating Christmas in July with their Pine Haven friends Kim and Tracy

Then for a couple of summers, we rented Denise’s house on 50th Street and Asbury. This was a great 3 bedroom 2 bath home that had more than enough room for us and everybody could invite friends to drop in, and they did! About the same time, Susie and I got the idea that we might like to retire to Las Vegas one day. We had family friends out there who were in the real estate business, and in 2003 we went out for a visit and decided to have a house built. We had no intention of using it, but thought if we could rent it and pay for the costs of the house, it would be a great way to get our foot in the Vegas Real Estate market!

I know, you are asking, “What does you building a house in Vegas have to do with Ocean City, NJ?”…just hold on, and you’ll see!

Our friend Sharon Malloy showed us many areas, and knew what to look for and keyed us in on what was right for us. Eventually we decided on the Maryland Heights development, in the South East part of Las Vegas. We picked out the lot, decided on which of the 4 models we wanted built on the lot, went to the design center and picked out finishes, appliances, cabinets, and the like, and that was that. In 3 months we were the owners of a beautiful new 1800 square foot 4 bedroom, 3 and a 1/2 bath home. We were close to Henderson and about 6 miles from the strip, and as the surrounding property was not yet developed, had a view of the Strip from the master bedroom. It was a beautiful house and thanks to a king-sized Aero Bed we’d shipped to Sharon, we were the first people to sleep in the house. We even had company, because oldest son Billy was doing a semester in Los Angeles, and he came for a couple of days too.

10423 Gwynns Falls Street, Las Vegas, Nevada

In very short order, the house was rented, for a price that allowed us to pay our mortgage and all costs associated with the house. It was a reason to make 3 or 4 trips to Vegas, gave us a nice tax deduction, and the house was increasing in value. What could be better? Well, perhaps had the house been less than a 6 hour plane ride away, and something we might be able to use, but that’s a story for part 4!

To be continued….

Ocean City, NJ….Part 2

August 30, 2018August 30, 2018 / Sue and Frank D'Elia / 2 Comments

Our little family on the 40th Street beach in Ocean City in 1983

It’s hard to believe, but it took Susie and me 20 years before we rediscovered Ocean City. It was during a trip to the Jersey Shore, the spring just after we got married. At the age of 30, I walked the boardwalk I’d first walked when I was 5, and discovered that so much was familiar. Some of the stores were different, but the rides, and the smells, and the sights, and the atmosphere was exactly what I’d remembered! It was an incredible reconnection with my past, and the best thing was that the girl who had just become my wife felt the connection too! Who says you can’t go home again?

John’s House

So, although the connection was there, the early years of a young couples lives are full. For us, these were the years we bought our first house, and started our family. The next time the D’Elia Family traveled to Ocean City was the summer of 1983, when son Billy was 7 months old. We rented an old house in the 3900 Block on the west side of Central Avenue, and it reminded me a lot of the house we’d stayed in when I was a kid. First, no air conditioning. Okay, we’re at the shore and we’re in our 30s…of course we can live without AC! The bathroom was painted purple and had a huge claw tub, but no shower. The

The purple bath

shower was located outside, at the bottom of the back stairs. Billy was, of course, in a crib, and Susie and I got to share a double bed! The rest of the house was furnished as if some old lady had just locked the door in 1957 and never came back…which was fine! The one thing that cinched it for me, was that just like the house we stayed in when I was a kid, our rental house had a big front porch, full of more overstuffed furniture and surrounded by almost floor to ceiling windows. There was no TV in the rental, so just like when I was a kid, our afternoon and evening entertainment was sitting on the porch watching the world go by! We didn’t have Campbell’s Seafood Take-out to watch, but the comings and goings of Central Avenue, and the neighbors across the street kept us plenty occupied

We rented from a young guy named John who stayed in a small first floor apartment, while we had the whole second floor. We always wondered if this was indeed an old family home, because the decorating style was definitely not in keeping with a young guy who drove a black Pontiac Trans Am! (think Smokey and the Bandit) One of the downsides of the place was that the outdoor shower, at the bottom of the stairs, was just outside John’s kitchen door. We never saw what the downstairs looked like, but John and his friends always seemed to be in the kitchen, making the taking of a shower a little strange, because it kind of felt like you were showering in their kitchen!

But we were in Ocean City, half a block from the beach, and we loved it! So did the rest of the family who came and visited us that first year! My Mom and Dad came down, and relived those 6 summers long ago that Ocean City was our summer home. Susie’s folks came too, as did her sister and husband and her brother and his girlfriend, and everyone enjoyed our summer rental…even if it was only for one week! Traveling with a little baby is never easy, and we had “stuff” loaded in and on the car for our week in Ocean City. By the time we were packed, our little Toyota Tercel was full…trunk, trunk top luggage carrier, back seat, and even a portable roof rack! Porta crib, high chair, stroller, and all the other necessities made packing and unpacking a big job….thank God we have kids when we are young! That first week as a family in Ocean City sold us, and with the exception of extending our rental to two weeks, for the next 3 summers we called “John’s House” our summer home!

Billy and Daddy on John’s Front Porch

Our “summers at the shore” were filled with days at the beach and in the water, meals cooked at home most nights, walks on the beach in the evening looking for shells and beach glass, and trips to the Ocean City Boardwalk. It had been 22 years since I’d been a little kid in Ocean City, but there were still so many things from my childhood that remained. Stores and rides that were still on the boardwalk. A trip on the merry-go-round on Gillian’s Fun Deck, or some salt water taffy from Schrivers. A pizza “cut” from Mack and Mancos which I think was my Dad’s favorite place for pizza on the boardwalk when I was a kid. Sounds of the Ocean City Pops coming from the Music Pier, and the movie theaters I remembered. The Surf, the Moorlyn, the Strand, and even the old Village Theater, that had started on the ocean side of the boardwalk, but when they moved the boardwalk towards the ocean, found itself on the shore side! Just like when I was a kid, Ocean City was still a dry town, and even in the early 80s had Blue Laws in effect, making a Sunday night walk on the boardwalk very different than it was any other night of the week. Amusements and theaters were closed, as were most stores. The few stores that were open had large areas closed off containing objects that you couldn’t buy on a Sunday. On a Sunday night, the Ocean City boardwalk was about walking and looking at the ocean…much the same as it had been when I was a kid.

Gillian’s Fun Deck…now the Water Park

Dinner from Campbells with Susie’s Mom and Dad and sister and husband

It wasn’t just the boardwalk that held memories of my childhood at the shore, downtown Ocean City still looked much as it had when I was a kid. Stores like Stainton’s on Asbury or the Chatterbox and Bookers restaurants on 9th Street. So many of the big old houses through town were now B and Bs, catering to a new generation of tourists. Every summer we had to have at least one meal from Campbell’s Seafood, my old neighbor on Asbury. When we’d go down to pick it up, I’d look across the street at the old house we use to stay in, and be that 5 year old again. The new Campbell’s was built on the parking lot and the parking lot was where the old building was, but the menu and food was much the same. We’d get the meals in the white boxes and be fascinated when they’d run them through the string tying machine, giving you a neat stack of boxes, all trussed up and ready to take home. Unfortunately, something else was the same and that was when we got home, there always seemed to be something wrong or missing from the order.

Wonder who took this picture?

Another thing that was the same as when I was a kid in the 50s was communication with home. Now, this may be hard to believe in the times we live in, when virtually everyone is walking around with a phone in their pocket, but the only way we had to check in with what was doing at home and to assure everyone that we were good, was via a pay phone. Looking back in my mind, I recall there being blocks of pay phones on the Oceanside of the boardwalk, and lots of folks using them. That’s what we’d do on nights we were at the boardwalk, calling either Susie’s or my folks to check in. On nights that we didn’t go to the boardwalk, we’d walk the two blocks to the corner of 40th Street and West where there was a pay phone outside of a restaurant. This was the way it was in the 50s, and still the way it was in the early 80s.

Something else that our kids have a really hard time understanding is the fact that when we first started going back to Ocean City in the early 80s, there were no such thing as ATMs! Frankly, it’s even hard for me to remember what the world was like when you couldn’t access your bank accounts from almost every corner anyplace in the world, but that’s exactly what you dealt with when you went on vacation way back then! It really impacted us one summer vacation when oldest son Billy must have been 3. It was early in our Ocean City stay, and one morning we decided to go downtown and rent a surrey for a ride along the boardwalk. A surrey is basically a cross between a bike and a car, in fact it’s like having two bikes side by side…..four wheels, 2 sets of pedals, and instead of having two handlebars to steer with, there’s a steering wheel. So we rent a surrey, and since Billy is so small at that point, he gets to sit in a basket on the front of the vehicle. We have a nice hour or so ride, and as we get back to the rental place, I pull down the break lever on the steering column just as Billy turns and sticks his little hand in the wrong place! He screams, I scream, he starts gushing blood, and Susie grabs him up. We run down the street to the car, jump in, and speed off to Shore Memorial Hospital in Somers Point! Well, long story short, the X-rays showed a break and after an appointment with a local orthopedic doctor the next day, all was well…but for one thing. Billy couldn’t get the finger wet for the next couple of days!

So there we were, at the beach for 2 weeks with a three year old, planning that most of our days would be taken up by hours and hours on the beach, and suddenly we had to put that plan on hold. So what else could we do? Trips to the boardwalk, visits to Cape May, and just about everything else we could think of to occupy him cost more money than spending the whole day at the beach. Our cash that we had with us that was budgeted for our two week stay was going fast, and I really worried if we would be able to stay the whole time. Luckily I discovered a way that an American Express card and a personal check could buy you AmEx Travelers Checks, but I look back on that time and really wonder how we got along without our modern conveniences like ATMs and Cell Phones!

So we spent 4 great summers at “John’s House” as a family of three, but by the next summer, everything would change. You see, upon getting back from Ocean City in the summer of 1986, pregnant Susie’s scheduled appointment with the doctor revealed not one little baby growing inside her but two! With just a scant few months to wait, we needed to wrap our minds around the fact that our family of three was about to turn into a family of five! Our twins, Krissi and Kenny joined the family on November 20th and suddenly we were parents of 3 kids under the age of five! Of course, with changes in family size, other things have to change, and our plans for the D’Elia Family’s Summer of 1987’s Vacation did too!

One thing that didn’t change however, was our destination. Where better to introduce our new babies to the beach, than Ocean City, NJ? So, come June of their first year, Susie and I loaded up the van with a 4 year old and two 7 months olds, two cribs, two high chairs, two walkers, and about everything else we could think of, and headed to Ocean City. Two changes though, this year we decided that 3 weeks would be better for our expanded family and our destination was not “John’s House”.

Billy and Mom at 3917 Central Ave

For the summer of 1987 we upgraded our residence by moving from the west side of Central Avenue to the east side. That summer, we spent our time on the second floor of a beach front house just across the street from John’s house. We were now living side by side with the folks we’d been watching for the last 4 summers! 3 bedrooms meant that the twins had their own room as did Billy and two bathrooms plus a real indoor shower meant that life was much more comfortable for us. Just being able to take the path over the dunes to the beach also meant that it was a lot easier for us to bring all the junk that three little kids need from the house to the beach. It also meant that when we had to travel back to retrieve the one or two items that we always seemed to have forgotten, that wasn’t such a big deal anymore either. It was an idilic 3 weeks at the beach and all the kids loved it.

Krissi and Kenny on the OC Beach their first summer

As usual our days were spent at the beach and most meals were home cooked. There were occasional nights along the boardwalk pushing twins and sometimes carrying Billy. There was a lot of Dad standing outside stores on the boardwalk, because getting 3 little kids in a store was not easy. There also was the night we felt sorry for ourselves as we waited in line, trying to get into Mack and Manco’s pizza with the twins in a double stroller. Our attitude was changed greatly through when a woman came out pushing triplets in a Triple stroller!

The first taste all three of our kids had of beach life happened in Ocean City, NJ. It was a great introduction, and it was a continuation of my summers in Ocean City to the next generation. While Ocean City would be a part of these three kids’ lives every summer growing up, sadly, after the summer of 1987, our visits would change and it would be a number of years before we’d get back to this kind of an Ocean City visit, so the summer of 1987 is really the end of part two of our saga of the D’Elia Family and our love of Ocean City, NJ!

To Be Continued

Ocean City, NJ..Part 1

August 28, 2018August 28, 2018 / Sue and Frank D'Elia / 3 Comments

My Mom and Dad on the 32nd Street Beach in Ocean City in the 50s

Are you lucky enough to have a special place, a sanctuary, where you can go to recharge your batteries, or to hide from the world? A place that’s populated with family or friends that feel like family? A happy place that just getting to, no matter what your mood, makes you feel happy? Well, Susie and I do, and it’s Ocean City, New Jersey! Ocean City is located on a barrier island, accessible from the New Jersey mainland by 4 bridges. It is the largest and northern most city in Cape May County, deep in the heart of the southern Jersey Shore. But never confuse our Jersey Shore, for the Jersey Shore you see on television. What we love about the place is that in the summer it’s a thriving summer resort, when the population swells to 150,000, but in the winter time is a lovely little town with a resident population of just under 12,000. What we really love is the friends and the life we have there, and the feeling of happiness that washes over us every time we drive across the 9th Street Bridge! Ocean City is now our forever home, and here’s how we got here!

Our family’s association with Ocean City started the summer of 1955, when I was 5 years old. My Mom and Dad sang in the chorus of the Metropolitan Opera, and although the job of a singer in the Metropolitan Opera Chorus may seem glamorous, in the early 50s the Met’s season was less than 30 weeks long. That meant that my Mom and Dad only got paid for 30 weeks of work a year, and we survived the rest of the year courtesy of New York State Unemployment Insurance. Not exactly the kind of financial background that led to summers in the Hamptons, but when I was 5 years old, a financial background that allowed us to spend most of that summer and the next 5 at the shore!

Another married couple who sang at the Met were from Philadelphia, and as such knew the Jersey Shore very well. So well that their family had a home in Ocean City. Founded in the late 1800s by 4 Methodist ministers as a Christian seaside resort, Ocean City in the mid 50s was still a dry town and a place where businesses closed because of Sunday Blue Laws. They called it, America’s Greatest Family Resort and did all they could to prove that it was true. A great family friendly boardwalk, two and a half miles of white sandy beaches, and a small town attitude were what they were selling, and we were buying! Of course, based on my folk’s finances, we weren’t buying too much, but I sure enjoyed those summers!

3220 Asbury Avenue

Their friends Walter and Kathy’s family had an old summer cottage in the 3200 block of Asbury Avenue, and Dorothy, their next door neighbor, rented rooms. Well, we spent those wonderful summers in Ocean City in a rented room and as so many folks say when they look to save money on a resort room, all we did was sleep in it! Two different days of each week my Mom and Dad would need to head back to Queens to sign up for that week’s unemployment benefit. On Tuesday my Dad would take an early bus from the Public Service Bus Terminal on 9th Street, be at the Unemployment office for his 1 PM appointment, and then head back to Ocean City late in the day. Every Wednesday afternoon we’d drop my Mom off at the bus terminal and she’d do the same thing, but since her appointment time was first thing Thursday morning, she’d spend the night at our apartment in Jackson Heights, and then sign for her check the next morning and be back in Ocean City just after lunch. They did that every week we were in Ocean City and netted a combined amount that was under $80.

The Public Service Bus Station on 9th Street in Ocean City

Looking back on it now, I’m sure that as a family we were on the lowest rung financially of folks who were summering at the beach, but we were summering at the beach, and frankly, we may have been doing it on the cheap, but I never knew it! Our days were spent at the beach in the sun and the waves. An inflatable raft that was bought at Hoys was my prize possession, and it entertained me every day better than the most expensive video game! A sandwich wrapped in wax paper and as a real treat, a 2 cent pretzel from the beach stand at the 32nd Street Beach schmeered with mustard, and I was happy. My only concern was how long after eating did I have to stay out of my beloved Atlantic Ocean!

By the time night came, I was exhausted from a day in the waves, and I’m sure more FCA5D283-AE28-4639-B1E2-FE76B994E017 interested in sleeping than eating, so simple fare for our evening meal was fine with me. It could be pizza or a hot dog during an occasional outing on the boardwalk, or a quick meal cooked in our communal kitchen. What I do remember was nights sitting on the big front porch of the house watching the world go by on Asbury Avenue. Dorothy’s house was just across Asbury from Campbell’s Seafood take-out, an Ocean City landmark for many years, and I’d amuse myself watching the customers head in and out of the parking lot. This really became a sport on Fridays, as this was back in the days of meatless Fridays for Catholics and Campbell’s business would double! Even the adults watched those nights!

Occasionally there were special nights when dinner was a night out at Watson’s on 9th Street, or Chris’ Seafood Restaurant and Fish Market on the bay at the foot of the 9th Street Bridge, or perhaps Sim’s on the boardwalk. Honestly, I do not remember much about the food at Watson’s, but I do remember that anytime you went there for dinner, you had a long wait, and I’ll always be able to picture in my mind people sitting in white Adirondack chairs waiting to be called for dinner. I remember Sim’s as the typical seafood restaurant of the 50s, where I only ate fried flounder! The one I do remember is Chris’, not so much for the seafood which was caught on their own boats and sent all over the country, but for what happened after dinner. Everyone who ate there got a ticket for a free sightseeing ride on on of their boats, and the one you always wanted to be on was the Flying Saucer! A 75 foot wooden converted PT boat from World War II, the Flying Saucer would take up to 125 passengers on a ride out of the inlet and then for a wild wave jumping trip into the ocean. Now that was the way to end a meal!!

After six glorious summers spent in Ocean City, my folks started working at the Cincinnati Summer Opera, and our summers went in another direction. After that, there were occasional trips to Ocean City, but just for a day or two. We never again spent the summer at the beach.

To be continued….don’t you hate when they do that!

The World is a Little Darker Today

June 26, 2018June 26, 2018 / Sue and Frank D'Elia / 2 Comments

34AEB718-F59A-4480-AE4B-C2F1DEA0D56A As we get older, we lose many things that hold importance to us. It may be a favorite restaurant, a store we loved, a house we lived in, or even a car. In the same way, as we get older, we lose people that have places of importance in our lives. I’ve lost my Mom and Dad, my Father-in-Law, Aunts and Uncles, Friends, and people I’ve worked with. Today, another person joins those ranks, as last night in Florida, Dan Ingram died at the age of 83. If that name means nothing to you, then you didn’t grow up in and around NYC, or you’re not one of my radio friends. You see, Dan was the afternoon DJ on America’s Most Listened to Radio Station, Musicradio 77 WABC, and is counted by most as one of a handful of the best DJs in America during the era of Top 40 Radio.

I was fortunate that my first 6 years at WABC were the last 6 years of Musicradio. Most afternoons of those 6 years, I could be found on the board in WABC’s Studio 8A, working on Dan’s Show. Those 6 years were the best of the 40 I spent at WABC, in no small part because of my experiences during those afternoons I spent with Dan. The lessons I learned, the laughs we had, and being accepted as a part of Dan’s life, are memories I will treasure forever!

Four years ago, when I started my Radio Stories blog, one of the first stories I wrote was about Dan. Copied below is that edition of, It’s Better Than Working For A Living:

“Radio Stories….Dan Ingram – August 18, 2014

I have been very fortunate in the 42 years that I have been an Engineer in New York Radio to work with some of the very best people in the business. In fact, if I started a list of the DJs, talk hosts, and programmers I’ve been lucky enough to work with, and for, it would be a “Who’s Who” list of the best in New York Radio over the past 40 years. While I’m telling stories here, I thought it would be appropriate to talk about some of these great pros. So here goes…… Might as well start with someone who most folks would have at the top of their Top 10 lists of all time great DJs, and that would be Dan Ingram.

Like most kids who grew up in the New York area, I had listened to Dan a lot since he started at WABC in July of 1961. The first time I met Dan as a WABC employee, was probably the second week I worked at WABC, in August of 1976. Like most new hires in the Engineering Department back then, I started on the overnight. It was slower and easier to get your feet wet in the middle of the night, and since you were still working on the air at WABC and WPLJ and doing news production, you got exposed to everything that a Group 2 NABET engineer would do on the 8th floor. Working on the overnight was also a way to size up the new hires, and to make sure they were solid enough to work the rest of the day parts. After a couple of days on the overnight, I started slowly moving around the day parts until about 7 or 8 days into my time at WABC, I found myself working with my training engineer on Dan’s show. On the day I started at WABC (Sunday, August 8, 1976), they started destructing Studio 8A, the main air studio to build a new studio, and we were working out of Studio 8B which Dan and others called “the trailer”. That’s because it was the same length as 8A, but was only about one quarter of the width. So anyway, I had just finished up working an hour or so with Ron Lundy with good results, so it’s decided I’m going to stay on the board. In the last record of the hour, Ron packs up his gear and Dan comes in, and just before he sits, he extends his right hand across the over bridge and says, “Hi, I’m Dan Ingram” to which I reply, “I know”. Snappy come back, huh?

One of my Dan Ingram stories happened 4 years before that fateful day, when I first met him in 1976. In the spring of 1972, I got hired in my first NY Radio job as an audio engineer at WHN radio, and after initial training, most days I worked the afternoon shift, which started at 4 PM. As I wasn’t that far out of college yet, a lot of days I would spend the morning and early afternoons out at WCWP, the CW Post radio station. A little before 2, I’d hop into the car and drive into Queens to take the subway to WHN at 400 Park Avenue. Well of course, even though I worked at WHN, my car radio was set to WABC and I’d get to listen to 30 or 40 minutes of Dan’s show before I got to the subway in Forest Hills. As always, Dan had some funny comment about the titles of the songs he played, often times a change of meaning from what the song writer had in mind. So I’d listen to Dan on the way to work, and then later that same day, I’d be on the air with Jack Spector at WHN. During the first 6 months or so I worked at WHN, we played a kind of middle of the road soft WNEW type format, and some of the new records we played were the exact same records that were being played on WABC. Many times Jack Spector would schedule a record that I’d just heard Dan talk up on my way into the city. Unconsciously, I’d hit Jack with the comment that Dan had made in his intro, and on many occasions what I’d just said would come out of Jack’s mouth as he introed the song! I realized that I was the unintentional vehicle through which Jack Spector was stealing from Dan Ingram, which caused me to stop listening to Dan on my way to work! Luckily, less than 6 months after I started at WHN, we flipped to a country format, so that issue no longer existed, and I was back to listening to Dan on my way to work! As far as I know, no one but me ever realized what was happening….

On July 3rd, 1981 Dan Ingram celebrated his 20th Anniversary on WABC, and I, along with George Musgrave, were the two guys scheduled to engineer the show, and I even got a shout out when he was on the air with Cuzin Brucie! WABC News Man Rick James had done a lot of prep on things that had happened in the world during the 20 years, plus we had audio clips of highlights of his past 20 years at WABC, lots of phone guests scheduled, and a big selection of the music that Dan had played during the 20 years. We had a great time that afternoon, enhanced I’m sure because that July 3rd was a Friday, and a company holiday because July 4th fell on a Saturday that year, and WABC was empty! (Yes….remember back to the days that even big stars like Dan Ingram worked 6 day weeks and holidays?). The show was a wonderful look back at Dan’s career at WABC and how he got there, but it was also a great look back at the history of one of the world’s greatest radio stations, Musicradio 77 WABC! There was the British Invasion, the W A Beatle C period, the great DJs like Cuzin Brucie and Scott Muni, transit strikes, snow storms, black outs, old jingles and the music. We had a great afternoon, and really, a party on the air. and in 8A, as the only people on the floor, were the operations folks that day. Little did we know that by the next July, WABC Musicradio would be replaced by WABC Talkradio, and our time working with the likes of Dan Ingram would be over!

20 years later, on July 3rd, 2001, on the 40th Anniversary of his debut on WABC, Dan was a guest on WABC’s John Gambling Show, which I was also the engineer for. I talked to Dan on the phone that day just before he went on the air, and it was fun to let him know about that little bit of trivia that I’d engineered both his 20th anniversary AND his 40th anniversary on WABC!

Of course, what everybody remembers about Dan was the Ingram wit. Even if you didn’t get to listen to his whole show, catching the show open and the show close became the first instance of appointment radio for many in the New York Metropolitan area! He was a fast thinker and a funny thinker, and much of what came out of his mouth was not planned, and certainly not scripted. Take his closes for instance. During the 6 years I worked with him, often times I’d be on the board as his close approached. A lot of days he’d be looking for a topic to have fun with over this closing music, and I was lucky enough to have a suggestion that he liked, and was the beneficiary of several Ingram closes. Like in 1977, when I was still a VR and got a letter in mid December that I was to be laid off on Christmas Eve…that became an Ingram close. Or the day after Thanksgiving one year, when driving into the ABC Building, I hit a pot hole on the LIE and lost a wheel cover…that became an Ingram close. Or on September 29th, 1980, when I told him that a year ago we’d both been at my wedding….Susie and my first anniversary became an Ingram close that day!

Funny things just came out of Dan’s mouth and they did it with very little effort, and once they were out, they were forgotten…like his intro from Neil Diamond’s Holly Holy, which I remember him subtitling on the radio, as “The story of a religious carburetor”. Anytime I hear that record I remember that phrase, and so in 1980 I’m sitting on the board in 8A, and Dan puts Holly Holy on the overbridge as the next record to play, and I say, “Oh, the story of a religious carburetor”. Dan says to me, “Hey, I like that. Can I use it on the air?” To which I replied, “Why not…I stole it from you a long time ago!” Dan didn’t have a set of cue cards, or a reference library that he’d go back to, or a Rolodex loaded with his best lines. He was funny, and once he said something that many of us will always remember, it was out of his head! I will remember this line for the rest of my life, but on that day in 1980 when I said it back to him, he had no clue that it had originated with him!

The last time I saw Dan was on a dinner cruise WABC sponsored to mark the 25th Anniversary of switching from music to talk in 2007. It had been a long time since we sat across the board from each other in Studio 8A at the ABC Building and I went up to him and said, “Mr. Ingram, I don’t know if you remember me. I’m Frank D’Elia and I used to be your Engineer at WABC.” Not only did he remember, me but said something that I will always treasure. “Frank”, he said, “you were one of the smartest engineers I ever worked with. I had no idea why you were doing the job, but I know that every time you walked through the door into 8A, I was happy you were.” Yea, nice to know that the best DJ most of us will ever get to hear, thought I was one of the best engineers he’d ever worked with. I’ll take that!

Listen to a couple of classic Dan Ingram show closes that I was involved in:

Dan Ingram was the voice of WABC on TV

Listen to Dan’s 20th Anniversary Show http://youtu.be/Y4xSoJYufDI”

After this was posted 4 years ago, my friend Dan Taylor from WCBS-FM made sure that Dan saw the blog. I got a lovely email back from Dan, telling me he loved the post, and still had fond memories of our time together at WABC. Thanks Dan, for facilitating one more Dan Ingram thrill!

If you’ll indulge me a little more, I’d like to share a couple of other stories.

FFB33E5D-02D5-4B34-8CA6-8E58C6FA156D One afternoon, working the 4-Midnight shift, I was assigned to 8A from 4:15 to the end of Dan’s Show. Being blessed with the ability to sense the vibes of a room when I walked in, I knew something was not right. After I relieved the other Engineer, I asked Dan what was up. “The damn transmitter keeps dumping”, he replied. I knew that having the WABC Transmitter repeatedly dump during the Dan Ingram Show was definitely not something that ABC wanted, and I understood Dan’s pissed off attitude. We played a couple of songs, and the transmitter continued to dump and come back. As we approached a spot break I asked him, “do you want to not play the commercials?” Figuring that if the transmitter dumped during a spot, we’d owe that client a make good. Dan’s reply…”Fuck Em…Play the spots. Nobody gives a damn, till you start costing them money”. I can not tell you how many times in my 40 years at WABC I repeated that sage advice to younger members of the staff, courtesy of Dan Ingram!

During the time I worked with Dan, I was pleased to have him share several personal moments with us. Dan was at our wedding when Susie and I got married, and at several parties we had at our home. At one of our parties, he came with his then current wife, who was somewhat younger than Dan. Another guest at that party, was my friend Louie Perianno, who I worked with at WHN, who was a HUGE Dan Ingram fan! He made me promise to introduce him to Dan, and I assured him I would. One problem when you are a radio person and go to a party with other radio folks, is your significant other ends up having nobody to talk to. Lou’s wife Susie was in that situation, and hooked up with another woman about her age, who said that her husband worked with me at WABC, and found herself in a similar situation. After talking for sometime, the woman’s husband returned and his wife introduced him to Susie, and the three of them continued their conversation. When Louie returned, it was Susie Perianno and not me, who introduced Louie to his idol, Dan Ingram! Dan was a regular guy, who liked to have a good time!

Like the Christmas Eve a couple of years ago, when George Michael died, I am torn today between being sad, and being happy for the memories I have of working with someone who was acknowledged as one of the best DJs of all time, and who thought I was pretty special too! I’ve often said that everybody in radio has an ego, and to be Dan Ingram, you had to have a huge one. But his was not a destructive ego, it was an ego that embraced those of us who worked with him, and who were accepted into his group of favorite folks to work with. The six years I was lucky enough to work at Musicradio 77 WABC were the best of my 40 at WABC, and I will never forget them.

As I said on Facebook someplace today, the great thing about memories is that nobody in them gets old. For me, I will always remember my friend Dan Ingram, during the late 70s and early 80s at WABC…The Most Listened to Station in the Nation!! Thank you Dan for all you did for radio, for all the folks you influenced to have a career in the business, and for being my friend! I will always love you! God Speed my friend! Heaven’s radio station, just got a whole lot better today!!

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Happy National Mustang Day!

April 17, 2018 / Sue and Frank D'Elia / 3 Comments

CB643FED-999A-438A-B648-FB6027E46E0D Today is Tuesday, April 17th, and to a certain segment of the population, today is also known as Mustang Day, 2018. That’s because, 54 years ago today, on April 17, 1964, the Ford Mustang was introduced at the 1964/65 New York World’s Fair! As an impressionable teenager and car nut 54 years ago, I remember the day clearly. The Mustang was all over TV that night, there were newspaper announcements, and the Mustang was even featured on the cover of both Time AND Newsweek magazines that week!! Ford knew what they were doing, using the NY World’s Fair as a backdrop to the introduction, and if you’d like to read my memories of seeing and even riding in a Mustang at the fair, check out my NY World’s Fair blog at this link.

https://rnewadventures.com/2017/04/09/196465-new-york-worlds-fair/

But today is a day to rejoice in the Mustang, and what it means in our life, so let me give you a look into my personal relationship with a certain Mustang convertible.

In the fall of 1999, I decided to replace the Mustang I owned, a 1988 red convertible with a new 2000 model. I decided to do this because we had rented a 1999 convertible during a trip to Las Vegas that Spring, and we were really impressed by it. After researching the options, packages and colors that were going to be available for the 2000 Mustangs, I knew exactly what I was going to order. It was going to be red, and it was going to be a convertible. We favored a dark convertible top, versus a light one, so it would have a black top and a charcoal interior. It also would have an automatic transmission, and a few other accessories.

Factored into the decision making process, was, at the time, I had three teenage children at home, so my brand new 2000 Mustang was going to have a V-6, just in case any of my teenagers would ever be fortunate enough to get the keys from me, and having a V-6 would considerably lower their “temptation “ when they were driving it (not to mention the insurance costs).

One afternoon, after I returned from work, Susie and I went to Mineola Ford, and ordered the car. After hearing northing for several months, I received a call from them, saying my Mustang had been delivered. After speaking to the salesman for a few minutes, I realized something was wrong…..they had ordered the wrong color car! Instead of it being Laser Red, it was black. When I told them that I didn’t want the black car, the dealer was very surprised, but they told me they would get me the car that I had ordered.

After waiting several more weeks, and getting no clear answers, I came to realize that the dealer was just trying to buy time. They were hoping that they could wait me out, and that I would change my mind and take the black car. I’d had enough at that point and told them I wanted to forget the order and get my deposit back. They told me I needed to come to the dealership so they could credit my Visa card with the deposit, which I found out was just another ploy. When I got there I discovered that they had put the “mistake” Mustang in the center of the showroom! It was sitting front and center, all shiny and new with the top down, and they were surprised when they couldn’t get me to look at “my car”. Disgusted with the whole process, I just got my deposit back and left.

On January 5th, 2000, Susie and I went together to Park Inn Ford to order my 2000 Mustang. I had just turned 50 on January 2nd, so this was to be my “mid-life crisis” car, a red Mustang convertible! My experience at this Ford dealer was much better than at the first dealership. The owner himself explained to me about their Mustang allotment, and kept me in the loop from the day the order was accepted by Ford, to the day it was scheduled to be built, right up to the day he called to let me know my car was at the dealership. I picked my Mustang up on March 31st, 2000, which was just in time for some spring top down driving.

Over the years this Mustang has taken us to lots of places. From the beach at Ocean City, to the North Shore of Long Island, to the Long Island Rail Road station in Mineola. For many years it was my daily driver, and the car that Susie and I would choose to take whenever we were going some place without the kids. Speaking of the kids, the kids drove the car too, and for her senior year, it took Krissi to Mineola High School. She hasn’t lead a charmed garage life, has even had a couple of minor fender benders (one done by Krissi, and one by me), and has had her share of bumps and scrapes. Over the years, we’ve thought about replacing her with a newer model, but as she got driven less and less, we just never did it.

435F5A0F-8EC5-4193-8590-CC81C8D3AC22 Now, some 18 years after that proud afternoon I first drove her out of the Ford Dealer, my Mid Life Crisis car, has become my Retirement car. As such, she now lives a much easier life. She moved to the beach in Ocean City before the rest of us did, and she now spends her life downstairs in the garage, but she still gets used all year long…just not in the snow. In fact, as she does many times, this morning, she took me over to Somers Point and Hot Bagels. As of that trip, she’s got a total of 84,441 miles on her. She obviously gets a lot more use in the summer, when we practically leave the top down all the time. She is our vehicle of choice for rides around town, going to the store, or on our Sunday exploring rides. This summer will be the 19th Summer she’s been a member of our family, and I expect she will be with us for many more.

The perfect car for a trip to Custard Hut in Somers Point on a sunny Summer day!

Irish for a Year

March 23, 2018 / Sue and Frank D'Elia / 2 Comments

I always got a kick out of those TV commercials for Ancestry’s DNA tests. I’d comment to Susie, “how can folks know so little about where their families came from?” I can understand for those who were adopted, or who grew up without one of their parents in the picture, but was always shocked by how little some folks knew or how wrong what they thought they knew was…like the guy who thought he was German, but turned out to be Scottish.

I mean, I had a very clear idea what my background was. My Mom was born in Aberdeen, Scotland, as were her Mom and Dad. My Dad was born in New York City with a 1st generation Italian/American mother, and a father who had come over from the Naples region of Italy as a young man. It was very clear in my mind that I was 50% Italian and 50% Scottish, end discussion.

Then for Christmas of 2016, Krissi, Kenny, Mike and Chris gave Susie and I Ancestry DNA kits. While like me, Susie was pretty sure of her ancestry, we loved the gift, and were excited to do the test, and see if there were any hidden secrets in our DNA. Early in January, we spit into the tubes, packed them up in their mailing cases, and sent them off. Very soon we got an email that they had received the kits, and that we could expect our results in 4 to 6 weeks. About 2 weeks later, we received another email stating that due to the high volume of kits received by them post holiday, figure more like 6 to 8 weeks until results would be available. Okay, so we’d wait.

March 27th, 2017 I got an email that my results were ready. I signed into the Ancestry site, and hit the DNA tab. This is what I found…

Okay, so Italy/Greece 27%, that tracks, but 25% Ireland? WTF??? Where did that come from?? IRELAND??? Well, I guess what I thought I knew, was not exactly the truth. Oh My God, I was one of those people in the TV Commercials!

I shared the information with my first cousin Jeanne. Jeanne is my Mom’s younger brother Bill’s daughter, who along with her husband Walt, is very involved in Genealogy. Walt can trace family back to the early colonial days of America, and they’ve done extensive searches through historical archives and cemeteries. In fact, a couple of years ago, they traveled to Scotland, and spent several weeks tracking our shared family. Frankly, she was stumped. She’d never found any evidence of an Irish connection on the Scottish side of the family. Could it be from the Italian side of my heritage? I pretty much figured that’s where a lot of the other listed ethnicities came from, but Irish?

Oh well, as the song goes, Don’t Worry, Be Happy!

So, Irish, huh? I have to be honest with you, although I have celebrated a time or two, and even did several parade remotes during my 40 years at ABC, I have never been a huge fan of St. Patrick’s Day. Always just seemed to me to be a day for drunks of all kinds and shapes to bother the rest of us. I remember driving to the ABC Building on 6th Avenue on a Saturday St. Patty’s Day a long time ago, and seeing drunks puking at the curb in front of every Irish Bar. I remember the already drunk celebrators on the 7:23 AM Long Island Rail Road train to Penn Station on weekday St. Patty’s Days, and I remember the folks who never seemed to leave Penn Station, who just hung around and drank all day. Oh, and I definitely remember the loud, obnoxious drunks of all ages, who would accompany me home on the 3:27 PM out of Penn every St. Patty’s Day! Then there was the year that St. Patty’s Day was on a Friday, and Susie and I were driving through the city, heading to Ocean City. She never really believed my stories of what happened in Manhattan every St. Patty’s Day, till we were driving down a block of 35th Street that contains several Irish bars, and in front of one, there was a very nicely dressed young lady, puking into the gutter while her two friends held her hair out of the way! No, not a huge fan of the way some folks celebrate the holiday, but to be honest, most weren’t even Irish!

But then there were years that we had a great time…like the year we were down in Walt Disney World with our friends Pat and Steve Grosskopf, and we celebrated St. Patrick’s Day by drinking our way around the world at EPCOT. Or the many years, our St. Patty’s Day celebration was corned beef and swiss cheese sandwiches with cole slaw (the cabbage), in our own home. Much nicer IMHO.

But this year was going to be different. This year I WAS IRISH! I had almost a year to contemplate this situation and to come to terms with my new knowledge. Would I have to learn to like Guinness? Would I be switching from vodka and rum to Irish Whiskey? Would I have a green outfit, that I wore just one day a year? All interesting questions as March 17th, 2018 approached. Frankly, after 67 years of figuring that my closest connection to the Irish, was that I was half Scottish and both the Irish and the Scottish liked bag pipes and wore kilts, what was my first St. Patty’s Day going to be as an Irishman??

Well, I’ll never know. For some reason, on the morning of March 17th, 2018, I clicked on the Ancestry Dot Com app on my iPad, and then clicked on the DNA tab, and the following came up.

What the hell? Suddenly, after almost a year of being Irish, now it was totally wiped out?? Huh???

This is what Ancestry’s out was:

“Latest Update as of March, 2018. Your DNA never changes, but the science we use to analyze it does. We’re always collecting more data, and science is constantly improving, so your estimate may change over time.”

So that was that. My almost year of being Irish was over in the blink of an eye. No green beer or green bagels (thank God), no need to wear the blinking green tie I’d bought.

No drunken escapes as we chased a good time from bar to bar. We had a wonderful Corned Beef and Cabbage dinner, while Susie and I continued to drink Tito’s vodka and not Jameson.

All I can say is that the new DNA ethnicity report still contained my 1% European Jew, meaning I still have a legitimate right, to demand my Matzo fix every Passover!

That’s a Wrap!

March 12, 2018 / Sue and Frank D'Elia / Leave a comment

So that’s it. Our visit to the Summer of 2018, from the Winter of 2018 is over, and we are back in Ocean City, waiting for the Summer of 2018 to get up north. If you’ve been along with us for the ride, I think you already know that it was a great trip, but on Sunday, as we were traveling up I-95, Susie and I already started our discussion about the trip. What was the best thing we did, the best meal we had, something that we learned we didn’t know, where would we like to go again, etc. We always do this after a trip, as a sort of wrap-up review, so that we can apply any lessons we’ve learned to our next trip. So, for your edification, and for our records, here’s a look back at our 3 plus weeks on the road to Florida.

First, the nuts and bolts of the trip. I re-set one of the Sonata’s trip odometers as we went 202300EF-53A2-4509-B4A2-1CD2DE5B8AAF across the 9th Street Bridge on the morning of Friday, February 9th. When we once again drove across the 9th Street bridge, the evening of Sunday, March 4th, that odometer read 3,241.6 miles. We were on the road 24 days, stayed in 9 hotels (plus 4 nights at my cousin’s house in Barefoot Bay, Florida), with our longest stop being our 5 days at Disney’s Boardwalk. This trip there were many more multiple days in the same hotel. We didn’t eat as many “free” breakfasts in hotels this trip as we have in the past, but we ate some very good meals out, and only made a couple of questionable choices.

This is the 4th longish road trip we’ve made in the Sonata, and once again, she proved to be a great traveling companion. While gas prices seem to be up a little more than they were when we made a trip to Florida last year, with this kind of mileage, that hasn’t been an issue! 30+ mpg is not unusual, and most times that’s going 70+ on the interstates. This picture was taken Sunday after we arrived in Ocean City.

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Now that we’ve gotten the numbers out of the way, lets talk about the more subjective parts of our trip…the things we liked and those that we didn’t.

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Best Hotel – This was an easy choice for us…Disney’s Boardwalk, where we had our own cottage and access to the Innkeepers Club! We’d also have to call this the winner of the Best Hotel View, as we looked out on our English Garden, and the Quiet Pool beyond our gate. We also have to list as the Best Surprise of our vacation. The room was great, the entire stay was perfect!

Worst Hotel – The Quality Inn in Darien Georgia. The funny thing is that on our second night out, we also stayed here, but it was on our return trip that we really found it to be a dump! We’d stayed in this same hotel a couple of years ago, but at that time it was a Comfort Inn.

Best Attraction – We both came up with the airboat ride we took with Jeanne and Walt, when we visited them in Barefoot Bay. It was a small airboat, we each had wireless headphones, and our guide was full of wonderful information…and he was from New Jersey!

Worst Attraction – Hands down, Weeki Wachee. Nothing like we remembered it from a long time ago. To us, a waste of an afternoon.

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Funniest Place – Have you ever been to someplace, that you would only stop at, because you were taken there? That’s how Susie and I got to Yee Haw Junction (formerly called Jackass Crossing) and had a nice lunch in the Desert Inn Bar and Restaurant…a place we would have driven right by had Jeanne not been driving!

Best Meal – There was absolutely no doubt in Susie’s mind, and almost as soon as it was put down in front of her, she said that the Ahi Tuna she had a One Duval in the Pier House Hotel in Key West was the BEST MEAL she’d EVER had! As runner up, we’d have to list the great Italian meal we had on Carnavale at Villa Galace, in Indian Rocks Beach.

Worst Meal – We got to Florida City, late on a Friday. The hotels were full, the town was crowded, and we settled for Taco Bell.

Best Waiter/Waitress – We have a tie in this category, between the waiter we had at Villa Galace in Indian Rocks (who was also their sous chef, and perfectly described every dish on the menu) and Linda, our waitress at One Duval, who made us feel like we were the only people dining there that night! A great server can make a good meal into a great meal, and that’s exactly what these two people did!

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Worst Waiter – Another tie here, and we have to say that in all the meals we ate out, these were the only two restaurant people we saw who weren’t hustling, and doing their best to serve their customers. The first was our waiter on our second visit to the Islamorada Fish Company in the Keys, who had no idea how to multi-task, and who therefore, took forever to get anything to you. The second was a waiter we had when we stopped for lunch one day at Duffy’s in Fort Lauderdale, who mumbled, wouldn’t look at us, told us his name 3 times, and again took forever to do anything.

Best Bar – Although we stopped at several that we liked a lot, we have to give the title to the Tiki Bar at the Double Tree Resort in Hollywood Beach, due to the beautiful setting. Located between the gorgeous pool and the Intracoastal Waterway, we spent two nice evenings here.

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Best Bartender – We have to give this title to our friend Lindsey, from Jimmy Guanas at the Holiday Inn in Indian Rocks Beach. She made great drinks, we loved the conversations we had, and her bubbly personality. She made our stay! We hope to see her in the future.

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Best Drinks – How can we call Lindsey the Best Bartender we had, without also mentioning that Jimmy Guanas was the site of the best drinks we had on the trip. They have an extensive drink menu, and we loved everything we asked Lindsey to make us. While we are on the subject, we also have to give Jimmy Guanas the nod for Best Bar Food that we had on the trip.

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Most Relaxing Day – We have several ties for this category. We loved the pool days at Disney’s Boardwalk Inn Quiet Pool, but also the relaxing days we spent with our cousins Jeanne and Walt in Barefoot Bay. We also had the Best Breakfast of the trip courtesy of Jeanne, who made Biscuits with Sausage Gravy! We cleaned our plates!!! And…she gave us her recipe!!!

The Most Tiring Day – That would have to be the day we walked all over Disney’s Magic Kingdom, putting our Fitbits into shock as we gathered over 12,000 steps!

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Our Worst Travel Day – No, it wasn’t our first two, nor our last two, when we covered 400 miles a day on I-95, it was the day we drove from Indian Rocks Beach on the West Coast, to Florida City on the East Coast. We detoured to Sanibel Island, where there was incredible traffic, and then crossed the state on the Tamiami Trail, which hasn’t changed much in probably 40 years. Compounded by extensive construction between the Tamiami Trail and Florida City, which we ended up doing in the dark. Now you know why we had dinner at Taco Bell!!

Worst Weather Day – We were blessed with incredible weather but for one day. Our one full day in Key West, started with questionable weather and lots of drizzle. When we thought the weather had passed through, we took the Conch Train tour of the town, and it poured, causing Susie to attempt to stay somewhat dry, by holding a small umbrella in front of her. It didn’t work. However, that evening we enjoyed a beautiful sunset during dinner as we ate outside at One Duval, so all ended well.

Biggest Surprise – As we pulled up to Valet Parking at the Doubletree in Hollywood Beach, somebody pulling in behind us noticed the Sonata’s license plate and started talking to us. Turns out he lives just up the road from us in Ventnor! We thought that was going to be our best “small world” moment on the trip, till our second day at the Quiet Pool at the Boardwalk Inn. Susie was talking about the recent nor’easter storm, and two ladies sitting next to us overheard us and started asking questions. Turns out that they were Roz and Nancy, who own Sun Rose books on Asbury Avenue, in Ocean City. Talk about a small world!!

Best Find – Hands down, the town of Indian Rocks Beach! Located on a barrier island off the Gulf Coast, south of Clearwater, Indian Rocks still has a small beach community feel, with just a two lane road and lots of atmosphere! We loved it so much that we rearranged our schedule to stay longer, and we are looking into returning for an extended period next winter.

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Mistakes we Made – Looking back, we think the biggest mistake we made was trying to relive our memories. Into this camp we’d have to place our visit to Weeki Wachie, Susie trying to find where her Grandparents used to live in Pinellas Park, and me trying to find places in First Lauderdale that I remembered from visits with my best friend David. Memories are just that, which we both found when we tried to compare the Magic Kingdom we both remember from the early 70s, with today’s reality. Things change….

Best Decisions – #1..we went on this trip! To leave the winter of 2018, for a preview of the summer of 2018 was a great decision. To spend 3 weeks eating outside, to be wearing shorts and capris, and to have our toes exposed to the sun was nothing short of wonderful! This is retirement, and if we can, it is something we will try to do every winter, because winter sucks! #2 on our list was making a couple of changes to our itinerary, allowing us to stay longer in a place we loved (Indian Rocks Beach) and return home a couple of days earlier. #3 would have to be everything else we did…from meal choices, to most of our hotels, to places we went and things we did, we had a great time. Frankly, I think we’d both be fine with repeating the entire thing over again, because there were only a few negatives, and even those weren’t earth shattering. In short, we think WE DID GOOD!

There you have it…a look back at our wonderful visit to Florida, during the winter of 2018!

Sunday, March 4th, 2018

March 5, 2018March 5, 2018 / Sue and Frank D'Elia / 1 Comment

As I warned you might happen the other day, you didn’t get a post yesterday, so here it is!

We woke to a pretty, if chillier day than we were used to, at the Hampton Inn in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina. The temperature was in the 30s when we got out of bed, so we knew that the socks and sneakers were destined to make a return. Our toes were not happy campers! It was the last day of our trip (Day 24), and now that a great trip was almost over, we were looking to get home!

Speaking of the trip being over, we’ve come to the conclusion, that when a trip is over, a trip is over, and nothing you do can change that fact. Something clicks off in your head, and your desire to do any more sightseeing, or make unnecessary stops, is just gone. To be honest, in our original plans, we had two more hotels reserved, and stops at several Atlantic Ocean Island points, but on reflection, we just wanted to get home, so we changed those plans and were looking forward to being home tonight, rather than mid-week.

As we talked about in Saturday’s blog, one stop that we did plan to make, was in response to a text we got on Saturday from Paula and Jerry Mikowicz, Krissi’s boyfriend Mike’s folks. They live in Columbia, Maryland, and wondered if we might like to make a stop off to have lunch with them on our way up I-95. They were supposed to be in New York this weekend, visiting with Mike and Krissi, but the nor’easter on Friday canceled those plans. We had a very nice lunch at Clyde’s on the Lake in Columbia, and enjoyed the conversation we had with Paula and Jerry.

(Lunch Picture – As you can guess, there should be a picture of the 4 of us having a very nice lunch in Clydes, but as we often seem to do, we forgot to take a picture of the food, of each other, or to have the waitress take a picture of the four of us. We are bad at remembering that)

We traveled a total of 391 miles yesterday, staying on I-95 until we crossed the Delaware Memorial Bridge and joined the New Jersey Turnpike. Traffic wasn’t bad, except for a construction delay approaching Washington, DC. We lost about a 1/2 hour there, causing us to meet up with Paula and Jerry just in time for our 1:30 reservation. Speaking about the delay, why is it that so many morons on the road just increase the traffic delay, because they don’t read or follow signs? A big digital sign, more than a mile before we lost the right lane said, “RIGHT LANE CLOSED AHEAD”, but still there were people in that lane right up until the last minute, making the rest of us stop, so that they had someplace to drive! Don’t get me started!!!

Again yesterday, we saw a number of utility trucks heading north on I-95. Saw in the news this morning that there are still a lot of areas without power, so know our friends from the south will be a welcome sight in many neighborhoods!

Once we’re on the New Jersey Turnpike, it’s an easy trip up to Exit 3, where we join Route 168 for a few miles (and a cheap WAWA Gas Station) to get to the Atlantic City Expressway. In less than an hour from there, we transition to the Garden State Parkway, and made the short ride down to Exit 30, and home. A brief stop at the Acme on 8th Street to get some half and half for the morning, and we were backing into our driveway.

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We unloaded the trunk into the garage, had a nice relay going up the stairs with our stuff (really could have used Disney’s Boardwalk Resort’s Bell Staff), and we were home!! In case you’re wondering, no Chinese take-out after our lunch in Maryland, but it was good to be home, changed into comfy clothes (or PJs), and started hitting some DVRed shows we’d missed (NCIS and NCIS New Orleans). As great a trip as it was, we are happy to be home!

Susie and I were talking over some highlights of the trip yesterday in the car, and we will probably have a recap post for you this week, but know that we loved just about everywhere we went, everyone we met, and everything we experienced. It was indeed a great trip!

See you soon….

Guilty Pleasures

March 4, 2018 / Sue and Frank D'Elia / 1 Comment

We got up and left the hotel in Darien, Georgia at 9:05 this morning, without partaking in the free breakfast. We did that because this is a scheduled day of “Guilty Pleasures”…food wise that is!

Our plan was to drive for about 3 hours, and get to Florence, South Carolina a little after 12 noon. A perfect time to partake in Guilty Pleasure #1…lunch at Arbys!

Unfortunately, the nearest Arby’s to us in Ocean City, is down in Cape May Courthouse on Route 9, and it’s someplace we’ve never eaten. Easier to partake when we are on the road, and find one right off an exit of I-95. We’ve decided that if we leave the cheese off the roast beef sandwich, it’s a lot easier to eat! Lets just say, we enjoyed it!

A lot of I-95 was two lanes today, which although more scenic, is kind of a pain if you run into slow drivers who roadblock the left lane, or trucks passing slower trucks.

We did a total of 426 miles today, one of our two long days of driving till we are home in Ocean City. Since I slept 8 1/2 hours last night (according to my FitBit), I had no problem driving a good hour and a half out of the hotel this morning. Susie and I have always shared driving, switching pretty much every hour to hour and a half, and it works great for us. We think that, combined with all the weekends we did the Mineola to Ocean City and back trip, make driving in the car relatively easy for us. We did however lose at least a half hour because of horrible traffic. We stopped and then crawled for miles because they are re-building the bridge over the Great Pee Dee River. It seems to me, that when we went to Florida last year, the same thing happened on the southbound side. Oh well, the Great Pee Dee River didn’t look like some place you’d like to walk across!

825C067C-31B5-4A3B-B13D-A58187C4D138 We’ve seen in the news, and via friends on Facebook, that the recent Nor’easter (and no…it doesn’t have a name! The Weather Channel is not who names storms! Stupid hype!) did some major damage in many areas, and that many are still without power, and will be for days. We were, therefore not surprised when we passed close to 3 dozen utility trucks heading north. We saw trucks from 3 or 4 companies, some in caravans, some all alone, but all heading north on I-95.

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We saw something else today, we haven’t seen in about 3 weeks….the Sonata’s temperature display reading in the 50s! Yikes!! Goodbye 70s and 80s, and good-bye to our shorts and capris! We did however compromise…Winter Pants with Summer Shoes!

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So, now that we are safely in the Hampton Inn in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina, it’s time for guilty pleasure #2 of the day, and it’s right across the parking lot!

Sorry, we don’t eat here often, in fact, the last time was 3+ weeks ago, when we were in Roanoke Rapids, and had our first dinner of our trip, in this exact Cracker Barrel. Call it book ends, if you will, but it’s one of our Guilty Pleasures, that we try to do a couple of times, when we are on the road. Tonight’s special was Chicken and Rice, which we had. Add a couple of iced teas, some vegetables (Susie had corn and fried okra and I had their delicious green beans and fried okra) and their biscuits, and it’s dinner for under $30! Who knows when we will be dining with them again????

While we were eating, Susie saw a number of utility trucks go by the restaurant. Here are just a few that are our neighbors tonight!

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This is the last night of our trip, and therefore our last night in a hotel, as tomorrow night we will be sleeping in our own bed at 854 Pennlyn Place. No Innkeepers Club (I believe that’s Susie), no bartenders (that would be me), and no fancy meal (Chinese Take Out??). Google maps says we’ve got about 380 miles to home tomorrow, but we have a detour to make. We will be stopping in Columbia, Maryland, and have lunch with Krissi’s boyfriend Mike’s parents, Paula and Jerry. We haven’t seen them since we were guests at their house for Hanukkah, and we’re looking forward to seeing them, but looking forward to getting home too! It’s been a great trip, but hell, now that it’s cold, we’d rather be in Ocean City… sitting by the fireplace, catching up on some TV shows. (We rarely turn on TV while on vacation!) Of course, we will have to unpack, do laundry, and go food shopping, but no rush…hell, we are retired!

You may not hear from us tomorrow, but rest assured, we will get back to you and wrap up what has been for us, a wonderful trip to Summer!

Have a good night!

R New Adventures

Come with us as we journey through our next chapter