6/8/2010 Going Home for “Our” Weekend

It was another long day in the store again. I have to wonder if its worth keeping it open all day until the kids get out of school and the real vacation season begins. Thankfully Linda and I had our books to keep us busy and to help pass the time.

I did run home for a short while in the afternoon to get us packed for the next two days in Wilmington. Wednesday and Thursday’s are our official days off and since we hadn’t been home since we got here we thought we better make the 90 mile trip north.

I thought we had planned to leave as soon as after four as we could but then Bob realized what time high tide was and that idea went out the window. Not that it matters really because Mom wasn’t holding dinner for us, we were going to get cheese steaks when we got up there anyway. When the blues are running, little else matters in these parts.

We did finally get on the road just after six-thirty. We saw this guy on his way back to his camper. It must be hard to ride a bike and carry a stringer of fish because he was walking the bike.

Mom called me to remind us that the place where we were getting cheese steaks closed at eight. Hmmm…we weren’t going to get there in time. No matter, we’ll stop some place else. We got as far as New Castle and stopped at the TGI Friday’s. We stepped inside the door and turned around and walked right back out. The rap music was so incredibly loud that Bob couldn’t even hear me when I said I didn’t want to stay. I had to motion for him to leave. I don’t know how anybody could hold a conversation over dinner with music that loud. So we ended up next door at Arby’s.

Mom and Dad were waiting for us when we arrived and we settled in quickly. It’s good to be home again.

6/6-6/7/2010 Friends Arrive!

Sunday brought us a beautiful day and I more or less took the day off since I’m able to get my hours in just with the store and the reservation cards on Saturday. Bob on the other hand put in a few (2) hours this morning doing a walk with a pail and grabber picking up whatever campers left behind.

Now this brings me to the discussion of what SLOBS we, as human beings, are. Do you know that someone had the audacity, the uncouthness, extremely boorish manners to clean fish in the shower! And to leave the remains! In their favor, the remains were in a bag, now wasn’t that just so nice of them! Bob had the unpleasant task in another site to find what he thought was a pile of left behind clothes. In fact it was a discarded shirt covering up a bag of rotting fish remains. Bob doesn’t have the strongest of stomachs, if you will, and had a really hard time dealing with this….but he did. These people, at least I would hope, wouldn’t do this at home, what makes them think its ok here? I don’t get it. I’m never going to get it.

Sunday afternoon Bob spent several hours fishing. The blue fish are in! There was a feeding frenzy in the inlet and everyone was pulling in big blues, one after another. Can you say happy camper?

I spent the afternoon getting caught up on some of the laundry.

Monday brought a full workday for me in the store. It was a very long day since the campground was all but empty. I “think” I’ll be glad when school gets out and people are here all the time. I’ll let you know in a couple of weeks.

Bob didn’t have a good day at all. He was cutting grass around the volley ball court and somehow, someway, a stone was thrown and it went right through a back window of an RV. The one next to us no less. He didn’t know it happened until the lady came out and told him. Bob assured the lady that he would find out how this would be handled by the state.

We were having a meeting of the camp hosts at ten so after the meeting he met with one of the fellows on staff and a Ranger was called to take a report. And that was it on the part of the state. Bob went to Lowe’s and bought a sheet of plywood and cut it to fit the back window so that flies and mosquitoes didn’t have an opening to get into. He also went inside the trailer and cleaned up the glass. Now maybe its just me, but wouldn’t you think the owners of the trailer would have stuffed a towel or SOMETHING in that hole so that flies wouldn’t get in? Wouldn’t ya think??? Wouldn’t it make sense to do that just for your own comfort rather than waiting for someone to drive 24 miles round trip, cut the plywood to fit, secure it and whatever else he had to do? Bob said the trailer was just filled with flies and they had the nerve to complain about them! Help yourselves people! Its not like Bob did this on purpose, geez, he went above and beyond as far as I’m concerned. He didn’t HAVE to buy that wood out of his own pocket, he didn’t have to put the wood on at all. Yes, he felt obligated to because he caused it and that’s just the kind of person Bob is. Some other camp host or grass cutter may have said, “Stuff a rag in it until you get home and can get it replaced.” What’s that saying….”It takes all kinds”

During the morning meeting I found out that we are able to take advantage of all the State Park Programs at no cost to us so I’m going to be taking you all on some adventures this summer.

I don’t know if I’ve already told you this or not (and I don’t feel like going back to read past posts) but I contacted a local parasailing outfit and told them I am a camp host at the Inlet and that I would love to turn our campers on to them but first I had to experience it myself. How’s that for a blatant plea for a free ride? Well, the manager of the place thought it was a great idea and told me to come on down. So we’re going parasailing and I’m taking a camera with me! Of course we’re going to wait another week or two until the water warms up a wee bit more. They advertise a “dry” sail but I’m not too sure about that. Granted that last time I went parasailing it could have been a dry sail but the operator did dip us down into the water….. just because he could.

On the way home I saw this camper and thought their play on words was pretty good. This is a Class B type Rv. It may look like your standard van on the outside but it is all RV on the inside.

On the back of the van they had a storage pod and it had this printed on it.

Monday evening I rolled on down to the Bethany Beach Training Camp FamCamp to meet my new friends Joy and DeWayne all the way from Texas. There are new to the full time RV’ing lifestyle. Well, kinda, sorta. They have been living in their 5th wheel for the past year but have been sitting in one place at her Dad’s house. Now the open road has called and traveling has begun. Their first trip, why to the first state of course.

After getting the how do you do’s out of the way we took a walk down to the Salt Pond so that they could see their private beach and pier, the general area and the walking track which DeWayne will make good use of. We ended up back at their place at the picnic table until it got just a little too cool. Inside was our next stop while we talked about their travels here, side trips they want to take while here, what’s in the area to do. I hope we’ll see lots of our new friends while they are here.

Before we went inside I did snap this. Just one, aren’t ya glad?

6/5/2010 11,683 Steps Later –or- BOOBS!

Whew, what a day! My trusty pedometer tells me that I walked ALOT today. ELEVEN THOUSAND SIX HUNDRED AND EIGHTY THREE STEPS! Wow, it seems even more when I type it in caps!

My day started at 7:30 when I started putting out the 24 reservation cards I had. By then some of the ones leaving today had already vacated the premises, talk about gettin’ an early start!

By 8:45 I was done putting the new cards out, pulling the cards of those leaving today and checking to make sure the proper number of tents were on each site and that each tent was on the site it paid for and not its neighbors. I have to say it is very hard to determine where a tent site starts and stops. I’ve heard when they remodel the Inlet Campground that that problem will be addressed.

I had one lady stop me today and ask me why didn’t anyone tell her the flies were going to be so bad. FLIES! Oh. My. Gosh! The flies are so bad here right now. I don’t ever recall this place being so lousy with them. I told her that when she made her reservation no one knew what the fly population was going to be. I pointed out that we are all lucky they aren’t the biting horsefly type. She found her silver lining to this cloud when I told her that and she agreed it could be worse.

I’ve been meaning to tell you about something that happened here in the beach area over Memorial Day weekend. It seems as though in Rehoboth where the beach meets Queen Street, three transgender women, men transitioning to women, were sunbathing TOPLESS. They already had their breast implant operations done but still sported their man parts. The lifeguards approached the men er, uh, ladies,,,the lifeguards approached them and told them they would have to cover up. These individuals were on a public beach with a very large holiday crowd and children were plentiful. Some very confused children now probably. Right away they claimed discrimination because after all they still had their man parts and legally were men. You know, in my eyes, you just can’t have it both ways. If you have the need to change your sex, fine, do it, but you can’t sit on both sides of the fence. Once the procedure is started and you’ve got your boobs, or should they be called MOOBS, (man-boobs) then from that point on live your life as a woman and keep the girls covered up! As it turns out no arrests were made and the men covered up.

It’s been a lot of years since I’ve worn a bikini…a lot of years. Once I packed on those few extra pounds where the normal person would say, “hey, it’s time to shop for a one piece, the bikini days are gone” I stopped. Never again did I slip into a bikini or even a more modest two piece. Common sense (and decency??) dictated that I leave those bikini tan lines to nothing more than a pleasant memory. Why, oh why, are there some women who are even close to my age (56) that still insist on wearing bikinis??? Ladies, I say to you, “Give it up girlfriend, it ain’t workin’ for ya no more!” Your size 36 Long boobs do not belong in a string bikini top! Hear me now! You are an embarrassment to womanhood! HOWEVER, on the other hand, those who CAN,,,,can being the operative word here, still wear the smallest of bikinis, I say, “Good for you girlfriend, enjoy these years for they are few, but enjoy your tiny bikini ON THE BEACH or AT THE POOL. Please do not come into stores in the surrounding area without some sort of cover-up. There’s a time and a place. Trust me, I don’t need proof positive that you are cold in the frozen food aisle of the Food Lion. COVER UP! Men all over these parts, young and old, are walking around with bruised ribs because you can’t keep your beach attire at the beach! They are tired of being elbowed by their wives and girlfriends ! Once again,,,COVER UP! Yes, you are at the beach, but Food Lion is NOT the beach!

Before I get off my soapbox I have one more issue to rant about. Breast implants. If you had one, fine, I would hope that you got implants that were at least proportional to your frame. I saw a petite young woman here in the campground that was probably a 32 A before the implants and those girls are now a 32 TRIPLE G! GI-NORMOUS! Actually, ridiculous looking and that even came from the young 30-something men who were standing nearby and I overheard them talking. What was even more ridiculous was that she didn’t buy a larger bathing suit. Of course the bottoms were still the same size but the top should certainly have been upgraded! There was no material left for a bow where the top got tied in the back, the tie part barely reached. BandAids would have covered more!

Ok, I’m done.

6/4/2010 A Day Late & Dollar Short

Actually, that should read….10 Minutes Late and Minus a Camera.

Last night I was sitting two sites up talking with this couple, sitting at their picnic table, really enjoying myself. So much so that I didn’t pay any attention to the campers rushing past us with cameras in hand. Nor did I pay attention to the calls of “Hurry up, you’re going to miss it! Exclamations of WOW and OH MY GOD went in one ear and out the other. We were so engrossed in our conversation about Philadelphia sports teams that we were totally oblivious to what was going on around us. And then…..I looked to my right. The sky looked like it was on fire. It actually glowed. I stood up and my tablemates did the same but they still hadn’t seen it yet. I walked off their site to the roadway and looked back at them still standing by the picnic table and said, “I can’t believe we’re missing this!” I ran to the next street over to get an even better look and could have kicked myself for not having my camera with me. This sunset, this magnificent sunset, was nothing like I had ever seen before. In fact, I talked to one couple who also work in the campground and in the 5 years they’ve been here they said they had never seen anything like it either. I ran home to get the camera and by the time I got back to a vantage point to take a picture, it was all but gone. I was just sick.

The sun was just one big orange ball. Hopefully, maybe, just maybe, this will happen again before summer is over and I’ll have my camera in hand.

A week or so ago I wrote about a Staples commercial on television that just grates on my nerves. Maybe you know it, one guy keeps yelling, WOW, THAT’S A LOW PRICE! It makes my skin crawl every time it comes on. The remote is usually firmly grasped by Bob so I don’t get the option of changing channels. Instead I spend the 90 seconds wishing ill will against this jerk of a commercial actor. I know, its not his fault and I can only hope that he realizes just how annoying he is….all the way to the bank. Well, I got a reply from Staples which totally surprised me. Here’s what Kim the Customer Service Supervisor wrote:

Thank you for taking the time to contact us regarding our commercial.

Staples is a highly customer-service oriented company and we take all our customers comments very seriously. We did not intend to offend anyone with this commercial and apologize for the inconvenience that this experience may have caused.

I have forwarded your comments to the Staples advertising team. Your feedback is very important to us. Please be assured that we will take customers comments into consideration when working on future campaigns.

Thank you for this opportunity to respond to your inquiry. I hope you will continue to look to Staples with confidence and satisfaction for all of your office supply needs. If you would like to contact one of our representatives, please reply to this email or call us at 800-333-3330.

Kim

Staples Customer Service Supervisor

It’s nice to know that somebody read my complaint but I saw the stupid commercial yesterday so they haven’t rushed out and stricken it from the airwaves. Not that I expected them to of course. But I can hope can’t I?

Tomorrow I do the reservation cards solo for the first time. I won’t have any problem doing it, I just hope it isn’t raining. Hmmmm…I better go find out the weather forecast.

6/3/2010 A Photo Contest Entry

I was reading my friend LaVon’s blog and saw that she entered this photo enhancement contest and I thought I would too.

This is Abby.

I’m supposed to take this picture and “enhance” it. I did. I cropped, I tinted, I did all kinds of stuff. Here’s my entry. Did I do ok?

We are exhausted after our day on the beach yesterday. Bob spent most of the day looking at the tops of his feet. Poor guy, he is so burned.

We did manage a trip to the store to pick up a few odds and ends and other than that we didn’t do a darn thing.

I have a deadline to meet with the above picture of Abby so I have to close this. Just as well, nothing to say anyway.

6/2/2010 Flyin’ Fish

We were up early today as this was our first “official” day off and we didn’t want to waste a minute of it.

After our morning rituals, checking email, first coffee, first Pepsi, brushing teeth etc. we got ready for our plans for the day.

I packed us a picnic lunch and Bob filled the cooler with Pepsi’s and his adult beverage of choice. We gathered other things we needed for the day and off we went, out of the house by 9:45. First stop, Old Inlet Bait and Tackle, we needed ice, lip balm and bait. We are headed to the beach!

This is the first time we’ve been to the beach in three and a half years. Well, to the beach like this, like in the old days before full-timing.

By 10:10 we were settled in and there were very few sharing the beach with us at this hour. Here’s our view to the right.

What we see, lookin’ left.

It was the perfect day. Mid 80’s, low humidity and a slight breeze which was welcomed.

It didn’t take long for Bob to get into his “happy place”.

It didn’t take long for him to pull the first one in either. Granted, it was a sand shark but no matter what it was it would be thrown back. Bob fishes for the sport of it here at the beach. When he goes to New York salmon fishing…..well, he keeps those!

Now it had to be put back in the ocean.

Hence the title of this post.

It got a little warmer and the shirt came off.

It didn’t take long and another sand shark was caught. Can you tell Bob hasn't been out barefoot before today?

Again, flyin’ fish.

I was taking this picture of the water coming up on the beach and was caught by surprise when where I was standing was suddenly covered with water. The wave came in farther than they had been and I thought I was safe. Oh wow, is that water cold!

Of course it wasn’t nearly as cold as it was that day back in February of ‘03 when I did the Polar Bear Plunge. Compared to THAT this water was bath water!

Going after the next one.

Now I have to admit, I did something really mean today. I called my friend LaVon and said, “Listen to this LaVon” and I held the phone out towards the waves pounding the surf. I then asked her if she heard it and she replied yes but couldn’t place it. I told her I was on the beach and that was the waves rolling in and hitting the beach. She replied, “You know what Snookie? You know what??? You have a real mean streak!” Then she went on about being landlocked in Oklahoma or something like that. I felt bad for doing that to her…NOT! That was so much fun I called Kathy. our Arizona friend from Nebraska. and did the same thing.

By noon more people came to this fisherman’s beach to spend the day.

In the meantime, Bob caught yet another sand shark and again it went flyin’ back into the ocean.

I was wondering why everyone was throwing them back in,,,literally throwing them and then I watched and figured out the the waves recede so quickly that it is in the best interest of the fish to get them into deeper water than make them work so hard wiggling across the sand to get back into the water. The next wave may not come in far enough to float them back out.

See this fellow here? He was with his a family just a little bit down the beach from us and his pole was stuck in a sand spike waiting for the hit. Well, it got hit alright, it pulled the pole right out of the spike and was being pulled into the ocean. He saw it happening and like a flash was in the water retrieving his pole. Whatever he had on the other end was determined to GO! He had a pretty good fight getting his catch in.

I walked over to see what had caused all this commotion.

Turns out it was a skate. Nobody like to catch a skate. See that tail, it has barbs down either side of it and it uses that tail for defense! Over the years Bob and I have seen people really hurt by that tail.

Bob’s gotten use to the water temperature by now and is going out a little bit to cast even farther into deeper water. We know the blues are in as we saw a school of them feeding farther out.

Ahhhh….signs of summer. Seeing these planes carry banners behind them, flying up the coast is a sure sign of summer.

Here’s a banner telling everyone that a new store is open in the Tanger Outlets. Other ones will advertise a restaurant or a nightclub.

Bob demonstrates the fisherman stance. You can see this all up and down the fisherman’s beach.

Take notice the shirt is back on and that he is covering his feet now. This is our first time on the beach and we’ve been out here longer than we should have been.

We can’t stay out here much longer, we are starting to burn.

Waves.

I was sitting in my chair reading and I heard this whomp whomp whomp and knew to look to the sky.

Chinooks! You can never mistake that sound.

There was a 20-something woman next to us on the beach and surprisingly enough she was there to fish. That just seemed so unusual to me as I have never seen that in all the years Bob and I have spent on the fisherman’s beach. I had the occasion to talk with her when I saw what she brought in on her line. She said she didn’t want to wait for the boys to go fishing with on the next holiday since her days off were Wednesday and Thursday and they had off the weekends. She said she would rather come down from Dover by herself than not at all. She caught several sand sharks and two horseshoe crabs.

Shortly afterwards Bob caught a….you guessed it, another sand shark.

Once again…flyin’ fish.

I’m so glad this first day out Bob had a good day fishing, even it was just sand sharks.

At two o’clock we finally called it a day. We were starting have a great resemblance to lobsters.

Back at the house, after showers, we realized just how ineffective number 8, yes #8, sunscreen is on your first day at the beach. The tops of Bob’s feet are really burned. He hasn’t even worn sandals yet this year and hasn’t gone outside without socks so you can imagine. A good comparison would be Bob’s feet and a fire extinguisher….that RED!

Myself,,,yeah, you can definitely tell where the bathing suit straps were and I’m now sporting that ever popular summer look known as raccoon eyes. My face is red but the area around my eyes is white from the sunglasses. HOWEVER,,,,the farmer tan is gone!

Oh the trials and tribulations of a summer at the beach. If this is the worst of our problems, we’ll take it!

5/31-6/1/2010 I Can’t Think Of a Title!

Monday brought a mass exodus out of the campground. The holiday weekend was over, the workplace was calling, the school desks were calling and the stay at home mom’s had a boatload of sandy laundry to do.

I worked in the Camp Store today and had a heck of a start. Lynn, who works the check-in booth went over to pick up the money pouches for today and when I opened mine to count and put into the register I found, in the way of change….QUARTERS! That’s it, quarters. With thing priced $1.98 or $3.99 or $.69….what was I supposed to with quarters? I got on the phone right away to let the main office know of what had happened and to request that someone bring me change as soon as possible. I was assured that someone would bring dimes, nickels and pennies just as soon as they could. Alrighty then!

My lack of change did not stop the customers coming in though. Luckily, most sales were for coffee and ice which are $1.50 and $2.00. I did run into one or two that should have had a penny change but before I could even say anything I was told to keep the change.

A half hour later I called again, they should have had change to me by now. I talked to the same young lady and she told me the phones were busy and they couldn’t leave. WHAT? I’m running a store here and you are worried about ringing phones? Trust me, they’ll call back. The “big boss” came in then and asked how things were going. I told him the problem I was having and he said yes, he knew and that the change should be here soon. I told him I had just called and was told they couldn’t leave the phones. He assured me change was coming. I just shook my head. I just had a hard time accepting that they expected me to run a store with no change.

About fifteen minutes later the change showed up. Dimes and nickels. NO pennies. The fellow did give me a bunch of pennies out of his car but that just didn’t work, I had a drawer to prove out at the end of the day.

The latter part of the day, after noon, it really slowed down but my co-worker Tom who was my ice man for the day helped me pass the time with interesting conversation and lots of laughs.

Bob and I like being here, we like what we are supposed to do and the bennies are excellent. However, we are baffled at the way things work around here. Bob and I need keys to different doors if we are to do our jobs. We are always using someone else’s because we can’t seem to get a set of keys. I have been assured by someone in the main office that she has keys for us. Unfortunately, she doesn’t bring them. We’re getting discouraged. It really isn’t a big deal but we are tired of having to depend on others. In Bob’s case, he would like to get an earlier start. The other guys like to start later in the morning but Bob wants to start at as soon as the quiet hours are over so he can do his job and get done for the day. After all, the fish are calling. Oh well, we’ll see what happens.

On Tuesday I was back in the store again, this time working with Linda as her ice (wo)man. The store was for all intent and purposes,,,,DEAD. We sold a few bags of ice, a loaf of bread, 3 quarts of milk and not much else. Oh candy and ice cream, they are big sellers.

I like working with Linda. We get along very well, we are the same age and just relate to each. I look forward to my days with her.

We had a later afternoon thunderstorm and when it was past and our dinner was done I walked over to the jetty just to enjoy the outdoors. The air smelled so clean after the storm and water was smooth as silk. There were many out walking around the enjoying the early evening. You have to know what this is leading up to. You just have to.

SUNSET PICTURES! Not many, just a few, not enough to make your eyes bleed.

Now that wasn’t so bad was it?

Before I close this I want to tell you about two blogs that I’m following. One is The DALE'S TRAILS. This blog is being written by our friends Tommy and Tracy Dale. Left their home in mid March and are on their way to Alaska. They just crossed the border into Canada so it should be no problem at all catching up on this one. They have to rely on WIFI so she isn’t posting everyday. They got their motor home last year, took a few short trips in it and now this. I’m really enjoying their trip because they are bringing back so many memories of our trip last year. The blog is well written with lots of pics, I think you’ll enjoy going on the months long vacation with them. I talk with Tracy on the phone and I keep hearing, “There’s no way we can go back to our everyday life”. New full-timers joining the ranks maybe?

The other blog is THE BREEZE. DeWayne and Joy H. are just starting out on their full-timing adventure after a year’s delay due to medical problems. But they are on the road now, for four whole days as I type this and they are headed to none other than Delaware! Not too long ago they found this blog and we started emailing, answering what questions we could for them and we struck up a friendship. They’ll be staying just four miles down the road from us at the Bethany Beach Training Camp as DeWayne worked for the military and has use of the facilities as one of his bennies. Gotta love those benefits! So we’ll be meeting these new full timers in just a few days.

Check out their blogs, I think you’ll find some interesting reading.