Beach Bon Voyage

Today we celebrated our last day on the beach.   One thing this trip has taught us both is that Tim and I are beach bums at heart and we’ll be back soon.   But for today we wanted to absorb as much beach time as we could.

We woke up early and found prime spots on the sand.   Tim has never been to Ocean City before and was unprepared for the sensory overload of the boardwalk and beach.  What a difference from our serene, solitary campsite at Portsmouth Island.  By 11:00 am, people were everywhere.  We’ve seen the very best of two very different sandy worlds!

We sunned, swam and people watched until about 2:30 when it was finally time to say goodbye.  We went to Thrashers Fries, got an enormous serving of traditional boardwalk fries and made our way back to Frank.  We’d planned to got to Fenwick Island and then drive to St. Michaels, but Tom Tom got confused.  Instead  we found ourselves bound for St. Michaels and we figured we’d better not backtrack.

St Michaels keeps coming up in little ways over the past weeks.  Phuong first mentioned the small town as a place she, Mike and the girls had visited.  Tim and I had never heard about this historical, picturesque harbor on Chesapeake Bay and it caught our interest.  A week later we were at Lake Gaston where my Aunt Gail has collected some great lighthouse pictures.  There was one that Tim and I both really liked.  I asked Aunt Gail where it was and she’d forgotten.  Later that week I was showing Aunt Gail and Uncle Bob Google Map’s street view.  I notice St Michaels on the map and clicked the location.  In the photos section, up popped that distinctive lighthouse.  Finally at Tim’s house in Blackstone, Sylvia was reading Southern Living.  She saw an article on Maryland crab houses, that listed 4 of their favorites.  Tiny St. Michaels has 2 of them.   Since all signs have pointed to this little town on the Bay, Tim and I decided to make the drive to check it out ourselves.

It is definitely a special place.  Thank you to everyone who pointed us here.  We arrived at 5 and drove to the lighthouse for some photos.  We then walked over to the Crab Claw, an enormous crab house on the marina that doesn’t serve anything fancy, but the steamed crabs, raw oysters, and crab cakes are absolutely delicious.  Tomorrow we’ll do some more exploring.  Something has guided us here and we need to figure out what!