Views from Ocean City

As you may recall, Brian and I spent the better part of last week in Ocean City, New Jersey.  Brian’s uncle and aunt were kind enough to open their vacation home to us and we spent 2 days there by ourselves and 2 days with his uncle, aunt and college age cousins.  It was a wonderful, wonderful time.

The house we stayed in was amazing.  Someday I’d like to own a vacation home-somewhere that feels like home, but isn’t full of all of my junk.  The property was prime: surrounded on 3 sides by marshland and beautiful views.  There was no internet.  If I’d known this beforehand, I might have freaked out a bit about being disconnected.  While I’m sure that there were places in Ocean City where we could have logged on, we didn’t look for any.  And it was so freeing.  We spent time with each other instead of screens (although there was cable television, which we do not have at home, and that was nice!).  And you know what?  I didn’t really miss anything online in all those days of offline enjoyment.

Despite promises of thunderstorms that “may be intense at times” from the Weather Channel every single day, the weather was hot and sunny. Normally I can’t stand heat but if you’re going to be at the beach, hot is the only way to have it. We enjoyed the beach on multiple occasions, wandered the boardwalk daily,  ate junk food regularly and drank in the scenery.

And we rode bikes.  I don’t know if we looked bored or if Brian’s aunt wanted us out of the house, but on Friday evening she suggested we go for a bike ride.  I’d been avoiding the bikes our entire trip; I hadn’t been on one for close to 15 years and wasn’t sure I’d be able to stay upright.  But, stay upright I did.  We had a lovely ride around the neighborhood, watched the birds and caught a gorgeous sunset.  It was the perfect way to spend our final evening in Ocean City.