Vacation Days III - IV: The Eastern Snore

It finally happened. The Internet was taken from me! We left Rehobeth and the WiFi behind and headed towards the Eastern Shore. First, however, I begged to do a little shopping. No sales tax in Delaware combined with already-reduced products in outlets is too hard even for me to resist.

So, a few books and a pair of black pumps (check em out!)later, we visited my aunt who lives in Millsboro, DE. Her stepson and his five-year-old daughter were visiting. And this girl is NOT shy, she talks and tells stories and all sorts of things without any encouragement; Her dad says she'll run up to a bunch of kids and say "You're my new best friend," without even knowing their names. So, I'm sitting on the couch beside this little girl, trying to carry on a conversation, and I ask her if she likes Hannah Montana. She says "she's okay," like she isn't really interested. Then, she sings all of Miley Cyrus' (aka Hannah Montana) "See You Again." This kid is a mess, it's even harder to deal with discipline issues when the kid is smart like this girl.

Next stop: Eastern Shore down to Chincoteague Island. Chincoteague is a nice quiet little island that looks like this picture. All marches, it's a nice estuary-like ecosystem going on around the area. Its neighboring island, Assateague, is a federal park . . . no one lives there except for rangers and ponies. Yes, ponies. Perhaps you've heard of Misty of Chincoteague? Well, she was actually from Assateague, but either way the ponies are the major attraction in the park even though you rarely see them on the Virginia side of the park. We spent about 4 hours in the park after dinner and all we saw was a lighthouse, a wedding, and a lot of seagulls.

The next day we finally get to come home!

But first I must face my nemesis, my worst fear . . .

Yes, it's the fearful Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel! I hate bridges (See Vacation Day One: Gephyrophobia) and tunnels just make the claustrophobia worse. At 20 miles long, it's the largest bridge-tunnel complex in the world. So, I turned my iPod up and stuffed a pillow over my face the whole way through (which didn't really help because I could tell when it got darker which meant we were in the tunnels). And, in keeping with the whole family driving me crazy ordeal, they stopped at the gift shop/restaurant on the bridge and made me eat lunch, knowing how much I hate the place.

Finally, we got home.

Vacation over, back to work.

Next year, I'm going to the mountains . . . family be damned.

Vacation Day II: Buses Are Now Equipped With Ladders

So today unfortunately got off to an early start. We picked up my 92 year-old-grandfather and a few cousins and took the ferry from Lewes, Delaware to Cape May, New Jersey. Cape May is a pretty little town with a beach. However, instead of the huge multi-storied hotels I'm used to, Cape May boasts beautiful Victorian houses and fancy inns. We spent a good half-hour trying to locate a restaurant to eat lunch at that wouldn't cost us our souls.

We finally stumbled across Uncle Bill's. Uncle Bill's has quite the menu, including peach and pecan flavored pancakes as well as various sandwiches (I got the cheesesteak). After eating, we went back to the terminal and took the 80 minute ride back to Lewes.

While all of this was fun and scenic, my favorite part of the day was this wreck we saw -- I didn't think I was ever going to stop laughing. And then I would feel guilty for laughing because someone really could have gotten hurt -- but there were not any ambulances so I was not being morbidly cruel or anything. But in case you cannot see, that is a utility truck with a ladder on top of it that rear-ended a bus. The ladder broke the back windshield of the bus and stayed in there.