Gorilla goes to the beach.

Took my yearly trip to the beach at Ocean City.
I could tell ya I do like others when they go to the beach and go on 40 mile road rides, but I'd end up riding with ya sooner or later and you'd know I was lying my ass off.

My rides consisted of getting up at 7am, waking the daughters up, driving to the boardwalk (we stayed at 95th st), and riding our bikes on it for and hour. I think the real reason I could con my 12 year old into it, was the promise of choclate milk and a doughnut at the Dunkn doughnuts on the boadwalk.

The daughters also introduced me to the new sport of sea gull herding. Well, not so much herding as trying to run them over. Because of an incident that happened before I got up there involving sea gulls and french fries, I'm still not 100% on the details. My daughters were holding a major grudge on the birds. They acted upon this grudge by trying to run the birds over with their bikes.

The birds may not show much fear of people on the boardwalks, but my girls taught them to fear children on bikes in the parking lot.

These early morning rides gave me a WHOLE lot to bitch about, about the stupidity of vacationers on bikes. Lets just say, I'm glad they don't ride my trails at home.

I also saw my first official "poser".
There was a thread started on MTBR about posers. My personal thought on it is that no one will go to a trail head just to show off that they have the money to buy better equipment than someone else. I think its a term that people use to describe someone they're jealous of. Just cause they have better equipment.

I was proven wrong.

I saw a guy on the BW with a MTB (not a road bike), in full jersey,biker shorts, and shoes. WHY do you need jersey and shorts on a 2 1/4 mile trip on the BW unless your tryng to impress the vacationers.

I also got a couple of rides in during the afternoon but nothing big. A few miles each riding around the backs of the hotels checking stuff out.

The trips to the beach are getting more and more about ways to entertain the kids.
I swear the older they get the more money it costs me.
We ate at one of the all you can eat buffets Tuesday night.
I paid $18.00 for a twelve year old to fill up on mac&cheese and mashed potatoes.
They know nothing about eating to get your moneys worth. So I had to try to make up for her lack of eating. And walked around for the next 2 hours trying to digest crab legs I didn't evan really want.

Wed. as luck would have it, it rained after we got back from seagull herding.
So spending the afternoon on the beach (which is free)was out.

We decided to do like EVERYBODY else and go to the movies.
I've been wanting to see Land of the Dead, instead I got to watch,Herbie-Fully Loaded.
Actually I decided to make up to my wife for alot of the stuff she did for me while I was on crutches. She saw, War of the Worlds, while I went in with the children.
I think we're evan now with the whole knee rehab thing.

Thursday it was sunny, so we got to go to the beach. I'm not a lay-on-the-beach type of person. As a matter of fact, I hate it. If the waves aren't large enough to throw me around I get bored fast.
Well this is vacation from normal life, but the knee is still healing. There is nothing more dangerous to the knee now than playing in the ocean letting the waves knock ya around. I thought I would play it by ear. I walked out to about knee level and knew I wouldn't be playing in the water. A soft unevan surface and waves trying to push the leg one way than the other was not going to work.

I ended up helping the kid look for sea shells and standing around (I wasn't gonna sit, too much sand, ick!). For the first time in my life, I got sunburn on my feet.
Oh yeah, life don't get any better than this.(Insert sarsasm).

Friday.
-Seagull herding.

Shit, the suns out. I do not feel going back to the beach.
I've got to find something else to do with the kids.
All the normal options are expensive and won't keep them entertained for more than 2 hours. Finally we decide to go to a waterpark in Rehobeth.

This was a good idea.

It was a little costly at $26.00 a head for everybody (and everybody who entered the park had to pay, you couldn't just go in to watch) but we could fill up the whole day.

It ended up being the best day. I could actually do the slides, so that was good.
I thought the day was going to be ruined around 3:00. A thunderstorm rolled through and everyone had to leave the park. 90% of the people got in their cars and left. Not us. The storm passed in about 20 minutes and we got to go back in. There were NO lines now.

It was great.

Saturday
My butt was ready to go home.
Got up at 6:30 and started packing.
Woke the family up at 8:30 , finished last minutes packing a left.

God its good to be back in So.Md.