More Ocean City, plus Some Sports Thoughts

Catching up after being on vacation for a week....

In my write-up yesterday about our trip to Ocean City, I neglected to mention what was perhaps the highlight of the trip.  After a hotly contested round of miniature golf on the Boardwalk, we approached the 19th hole wherein a hole-in-one would earn you a free round of golf.  If you've played mini-golf in your life, you know that these things are set up so as to be nearly impossible to make, and I, predictably, failed miserably in my attempt.  Marilyn, on the other hand, calmly set her ball down and rammed her putt up the three inch wide ramp and jammed it right into the hole.  Sirens went off and and a ticket for a free round spit out of the machine.   No putt in the Ryder Cup later this month will be as  dramatic. 

I also mentioned how well we ate down at the shore.  A couple of comments on that:

1. A boardwalk pizza joint called 3 Brothers from Italy do the impossible.  They produce a slice of pizza that looks good, smells good, and is absolutely tasteless.  Ended up throwing it away after about four bites.
2. I am at an age where I can no longer eat more than about a third of a funnel cake, which is probably a good thing.  In fact, watching the girl pour the batter into that vat of grease to make my funnel cake, I almost walked away.  Yuck!
3. On the bright side, we did find a terrific pizza joint on the boardwalk called Angelo's II.  See for yourself:

On to other subjects....

• The Steelers now stand at 1-1 after an impressive win over the Jets on Sunday.  The running game was unimpressive.  The passing of Ben Roethlisberger was superb.  After allowing the Jets a touchdown on their opening drive, the defense, playing without Troy Polamalu and James Harrison, completely shut down the Jets.  Ryan Clark was tremendous, and you wonder how the outcome might have been different in Denver last week if Clark were able to play.
• The Pirates.  Wow, don't those back-to-back shutouts of the Cardinals three weeks ago now seem like a million years ago?  At this point, I am going to save any in depth comments until after the season concludes, but suffice to say that I fear for a winning season, and six weeks ago I thought a plus .500 season was in the bag.
• The National Hockey League owners have locked out the players.  Yes, the owners that have been doling out nine-figure contracts, some of them covering ten or more years, are claiming that they are going broke unless they players give back.  Haven't we seen this movie before?

Ocean City Sojourn

Perhaps you noticed that The Grandstander has been inactive for the last several days.  That is due to the fact that Marilyn and I took leave of the Home Base last week to celebrate our birthdays in the resort town of Ocean City, New Jersey.  I first visited Ocean City in the Summer of 1971, and it was the site of many Sproule Family vacations into the early 1980's.  Marilyn and I made, as best as I can recollect, five trips to Ocean City early in our marriage, but we pretty much stopped going there when we began our annual trips to the Outer Banks of North Carolina.  Our last visit there came in 1996, so when we decided to take this birthday jaunt to Ocean City, we were also taking trip into the past.

I'm happy to report that Ocean City is largely unchanged.  The Boardwalk is still bright, noisy, and honky-tonkish:

I was bit dismayed to see some invasion of franchises on the Boardwalk - a Subway, a Dairy Queen, and, inexplicably, a Verizon Wireless store (never saw a soul in there) - but for the most part, it is still all t-shirt shops, carnival games, miniature golf, pizza, fudge, taffy, caramel corn, and funnel cake joints.  Real Americana!

Work has also been done to enlarge the beaches.  Don't ask me how they do that, but the beaches where we stayed were much deeper than I remember them being:

Our weather was absolutely terrific - high 70's/low 80's temps, no wind, no clouds.  We got to the beach every day, and were surprised at how crowded they were for weekdays in September after Labor Day.

We had some absolutely fabulous meals patronizing Spadafora's Clam Bar, the Tuckahoe Inn, the Happy Days Cafe, Luigi's Italian Restaurant, and, best of all, a place in Cape May called the Lobster House.  At the Lobster House, you place you order, wait for your number to be called, and then you eat your meal at outdoor tables along a wharf.  There are some great places to eat in Cape May, but if we ever go back there for an extended stay, I do believe that we will eat at the Lobster House every single day.

All in all, a great little getaway, and a nice exclamation point on what has been a nice summer for us.