Beach week! For some of us (Elizabeth), that means a full week off to eat crepes and lay on the sand. For some of us (me), that means a week of working remotely from a different state. I’m not complaining… too much. It was a busy week, an eventful week, and most of all, a fun week. Let’s get to recapping it!
I nearly died dropping Scipio off at K-9 Boarding School on Friday, as result of a backup on Hefner Parkway. Then a big dog walked in the room just as they were asking why he was there, and Scipio managed to show them without words why he was there. I hope he’s doing okay in his first kennel experience. Elizabeth and I celebrated our freedom from him with a great dinner Friday night:
Saturday morning, we were up before 4:00 a.m. (bleh) to make our 6:05 flight. Guided by a full moon and aided by Elizabeth finding an incredible parking spot, we made speedy and efficient time through airport security.
Flying wasn’t too bad, despite the early time. It was one of those days where the airport security line moves so fast you feel like a pro. The actual flight time wasn’t too bad either, with a stop in St. Louis which is pretty directly along the route to DCA. There was enough time in St. Louis to stop at Great American Bagel Bakery and get some unbuttered (ugh) bagels, and enough time to watch half of the finale of The Good Place. The flights themselves were fine too, although my KN95 mask was a bit pinchy. Southwest had live Olympics coverage on their wifi, which made the time go fast.
Pam was waiting for us outside DCA, with a very, very packed car and Snowball and Molly in tow. I should have probably guessed we’d have to drop them off before we headed to Rehoboth, but you it was her birthday, so she could do what she wanted. In fact, what she definitely wanted was a birthday lunch at Harris Crab Shack, even though Elizabeth already had a dinner reservation in Rehoboth for her. I kinda felt like we wouldn’t be able to have two meals like that in a row, but planning is not for Beach Week. Traffic snarled quite a bit in the miles leading up to the Bay Bridge, which is a tale as old as time. Waze tried to lead some back road routes to gain some time and was generally not all that successful, although we did end up accidentally right behind Chris and Chanelle, just off their honeymoon.
Finally we got to the Bay Bridge, where Pam said you’re supposed to leave all your worries behind. So I did!
We got to Harris Crab Shack well into mid-afternoon. Elizabeth and Pam had had the foresight to move our dinner reservation back several hours by using a birthday sob story, but I still figured this was our only meal of the day. We met Winston coming down from Delaware’s campus, and Terri and Garrett came in behind. All in all, there were a lot of crabs. And there was a lot of corn. And I got Old Bay chicken tenders because I am a coward.
We were probably there for several hours. By the time we got back out to our cars, the sun was beginning its long descent into the summer horizon. Elizabeth got back behind the wheel and we started the ride across the Delmarva toward Elizabeth’s second home.
We cruised on through Delaware until we hit that sweet, sweet Route 1 traffic. Elizabeth knows her way to Patrician Towers, so by then my navigation was done and I was free to see just how little of Rehoboth Beach Elizabeth knows outside of 2 blocks from the condo (hint: very little!).
The entire convoy cruised into Patrician Towers just in time for the dinner reservation (actually, a little late, but Elizabeth patched things over once again). We had just enough time to get stuff upstairs and throw on a fresh pair of clothes before it was time to go to one of Rehoboth’s fanciest restaurants, Eden. At the restaurant, we were joined by Debbie and Victor as well as Lyndsey, meaning that the entire core of the weeklong crew was all together for the first time. As I’d expected, people weren’t too hungry coming off of a crab pig-out just a couple of hours before. This was where I made possibly my most inspired suggestion of the week – a charcuterie for the table to share. Everyone knows I love my cheese, but I guess Terri had never heard of a charcuterie. It was the best thing in her eyes since sliced, uh, cheese. No, that is not my crab and lobster tower. Yes, that is my blackberry gin drink thing. I don’t remember exactly what it was, sue me.
Pam was very touched by her birthday cards and gifts. Elizabeth and I got her trekking poles for our national park trip, and I appear to have done a good job in filling out her birthday card. Way to go, Nolan! Dessert was the first “Rehoboth bucket list” item checked off – Elizabeth led us all to Kohr Brothers for some of their classic custard in a cone dipped in sprinkles. I got the orange vanilla, as god intended, and it was as good as I remembered. By this point, though, the before 4:00 a.m. wakeup was catching up to us and I decided it was time to head to bed. I was unprepared for the fact that we would have to move a bunch of boxes around the condo to be able to open up bed space, but once I did, Elizabeth and I claimed a room and collapsed on the bottom bunk.
I awoke the next morning to a blood-red sunrise literally coming through the curtain-less window. I wasn’t able to sleep through that much longer, so I settled in to wait for Elizabeth to wake up. I had a hunch I knew what she would want when she was awake, and yep, it was crepes. This was my only true full day off while at the beach, so I wanted to make the most of it. Thus, I was annoyed by the half-hour line to get crepes, although my strawberry-nutella-whipped cream and banana-nutella-whipped cream crepes helped a bit.
Nobody was awake yet, so Elizabeth decided to take me for a walk along the beach to see the old World War II observation forts that dot the beach, well off to the north. I really wanted to get the “Beach Week” experience, and Elizabeth has talked about walking to those forts many times, so I was game to do so. It turned out to be a 2-mile slog through the sand wherein I almost stepped on a jellyfish. Most of the time, Elizabeth was on the phone coordinating the bike ride Debbie and Victor wanted to take people on. Then we got to the towers and they were kind of underwhelming.
Still, it was an accomplishment as an item to scratch off the Nolan Rehoboth Beach Bucketlist. Inspired to get back and bike, we turned around… into the wind.
Elizabeth and I had clarified that lunch would be at a brewery in Lewes, 4 miles away, but I still felt like the safe option was to rent the bikes until the end of the day, so that’s what I did. This turned out to be a very good decision! Our bike group, 8 of us strong, didn’t get going until close to noon. When we did, the Hardings proceeded to take us on a tour of northeast Delaware; the last thing in their minds was poor Nolan’s bike rentals being due at 5:30. Instead of riding northwest to Lewes, we rode north past the president’s house:
Elizabeth didn’t really know how to change gears on her bike, and Terri was giving her slightly confusing information how to do it. I had to help her out with the important things of shifting gears and when to do it (we all have our own skills. Elizabeth had to show me how to break a crab the day before). Our next stop was… at the same towers we had just walked on the beach to.
It was cool, though. The bike path cut through some wetlands with lots of birds before winding up at a beach near the little point of Delaware. We stopped for a quick water break and breather there before heading onward toward Lewes. By now, I think most of the young adults were on the ragged edge of mutiny, but Victor peddled onward, going from memory and blissfully unaware of how hungry and/or tired everyone was. Finally, Chris commented that we could cut off a couple of miles by just jumping from a path to a street right next to it. With a deep sigh of relief and growing sunburn on my shoulders, we pulled into the Big Oyster Brewery.
Once again, I made myself the real star of the meal by confidently ordering a beer flight. Elizabeth’s aunts didn’t know basically anything they wanted from a craft brewery, and followed her lead to the utmost in requesting my help. Big Oyster seemed to specialize in IPAs and sours, so I made sure to include those in my and everyone else’s flights. Reactions were mixed: I thought that Big Oyster had some big-time beers, particularly their Solar Power blonde and their “soft serve” sours. Elizabeth liked the ice-cream-flavored sours as well, as well as their IPAs – a truly baffling trend to me.
Yes, I realize that that is not the most color diversity. Sue me. On top of the beer, I got some delicious buffalo mac and cheese at Chanelle’s suggestion:
And now, my 5:30 bike rental time long a dream of the past, we finally set out on a rather more direct route for home. There was a bike path between Lewes and Rehoboth that even with Elizabeth’s tired legs would have taken under an hour, with the bonus of some nice forest and cornfield scenery. Debbie and Victor brought us to one more stop along the way, at an outdoor brewpub. By then, it was late into the afternoon, and Garrett, Elizabeth and I just wanted to be back. We didn’t stay for long, and finally got back to Patrician Towers with the sun sinking in the background. I was feeling good, but a general sense of being pooped prevailed from others who didn’t have any work in the coming week. Not naming names though! We ordered Nic-o-boli’s to go and ate them on the penthouse condo’s incredible new couch, that has space for like 12 people to sit. We sat there for the rest of the night, watching the Olympics and chatting as the sky darkened up. Finally, I faced the inevitable: with work tomorrow, it was time to go to bed.
