Beach Weekend

Tom took me to the beach this weekend. He is so good to me!  He had never been to the Delaware beaches.  I was looking forward to sharing my love for the beach with him since it's such a big part of me.  To say I love the beach is an understatement.  It calms my soul, it makes me feel alive and happy in ways I can't express in words.

Saturday morning it was raining so we were wondering if we should go. Tom either has some 'magic' or really good mo-jo because it seems like whenever we have plans for a road trip we have good weather.  It was still raining until we got within a few miles of the beach. Then miraculously it stopped raining. Yay!!!!

We got to the beach and hardly anyone was there. It was really windy, but no need for an umbrella. It stayed cloudy all day and the water was too cold for us to get into though there were many brave souls in the water.

It ended up being a wonderful day at the beach!  It was so relaxing and nice. We did have a little rain scare and we put our stuff in the car, but it stopped raining after a few minutes so we went back out. The little bit of rain drove at least fifty percent of the people off the beach.  I should have taken a picture.  I have never seen so few people there.  It had been so hot the last couple of weeks so it was really weird to have somewhat cool weather.

We went on a long walk and found a large group of people having a party.  They were playing some kind of drums and standing in the water. It was very curious. Before we got close enough I thought they were pylons in the water.  I know that area pretty well so I thought it was something new. :)  We watched the birds and found a few shells. It was just a great day at the beach!

That evening we had dinner at a diner in Salisbury Maryland. It was a very local experience to say the least.  Really yummy fish!  I have lived in the DC area for so long I have forgotten about small town living- the different types of people and how different our lives are. Tom and I got a lot of looks. :).

At 8:30 pm I was totally ready to go to sleep--how sad is that! I am getting old!

Weather!

For those of you who don't live in the DC area, it's been Bloody Hot here lately!  The news said we hit 25 days above 90 degrees this summer.  It's not ending there.  It's supposed to get to 100 tomorrow.  That may not sound too bad to you Westerners, but with the humidity it can be very uncomfortable!

A few weeks ago we had a really intense storm because the weather--really hot temperatures and oppressive (that's what the weatherman called it) humidity.  I heard the weatherman make a brief comment about the a storm coming in, but didn't really think anything about it as they never seem to really know what's going to happen.  The storm woke me up briefly in the night.  I remember thinking that 'oh that must be the storm they were talking about.'  Then I went back to sleep.  Later, when I told people I had slept through it they were shocked as it was extremely loud.  My mom suggested that I have been accustomed to the very loud birds here so nothing would have kept me up. :)

The next morning I woke up and noticed lots of leaves on the ground, but didn't think much about it.  I went to a gas station and tried to pump gas and nothing happened.  I took a look and realized their power was out.  I got to the grocery store and luckily it was open with power.  I went and got gas and headed home.  I turned on the TV and was shocked by the images.  There were trees uprooted, trees on houses and vehicles.  Billboards blown over, millions of people without power.  I was just stunned.  People were without power for over a week.  The majority of people were without power in my office until Wednesday (the power went out on a Friday.) 

I felt so grateful I had my power.  It really makes you think how you would react to a certain situation.  It was so unplanned.  They didn't even really make a big deal about it on the news.  Usually if we have a hurricane or something we know about it for days and people get ready for it.  Someone in my gym said they have animals on a farm that they need water for--their pump is electric.  They didn't have warning they would need to fill up tanks. 

The hotel next to my office was $135.00 a night and that was with an FDIC discount.  Imagine what a hotel would have been without that.  That would have been very expensive.  It makes me think of all of those victims of natural disasters.  Not only do they not have power, everything else is gone too.  Scary stuff!

I went out to lunch with friends and we had to figure out what restaurants were still open because of the power outages.  I know many businesses lost a lot of revenue because of the storm--and merchandise.