Vacation Day 3 - The Beach! (Eventually, Anyway)

Saturday morning we tried the hotel breakfast (as usual) but (as usual) found it a bit lacking.  There is something about the eggs that most of these places use that Jacob just doesn't like (powdered?), which is a bummer because that's usually one of the few things he can eat.  So, off we went in search of something better closer to the beach.  But first we made another stop at one of the outlet malls along the strip, this time for Adidas.  We found Jacob a new lunch bag, so that was helpful at least.  

We went to a little cafe right near where the final stretch toward the beach area starts, where Jacob was able to get a gluten-free waffle and a muffin.  He really liked his waffle and it's always nice to get him something new and different!  The plan after that was to go to the beach for a few hours, snack from the boardwalk, and then get dinner from a place nearby that had gluten-free fried chicken.  Well...that didn't work out as planned because the parking down by the beach was INSANE.  We drove around for probably 45 minutes with zero luck.  There aren't really a lot of big public lots in Rehoboth Beach.  Most of the parking is metered on the street (though there is a good amount of that, but clearly not enough) or you have to get some sort of other parking permit from a special office that I think is a longer term one.  We checked seemingly every street and drove around the main area so many times.  One time we thought we had one, but the guy next to us went through a red light just as it began to turn green in order to get ahead of us and snag the spot.  It was brutal.  I was SO annoyed by that point and almost convinced we'd never make it to the beach.  It was already getting toward mid-afternoon by this point and we were so frustrated.  We made the decision to go back to the commercial strip, make another stop at Nike for Jacob, since he'd thought through what he had seen the previous day, then go to the chicken place for a late lunch.  Then we'd try to go back to the beach in the late afternoon when hopefully people were starting to leave.

The chicken place ended up being really good.  It was--once again--a bit of a wait, but it was worth it.  It's sort of funny, though, because Jacob had no idea how to eat bone-in chicken because gluten-free fried chicken is so rare.  He usually complains when I have anything bone-in at home aside from a rotisserie chicken, but he loves real fried chicken.  He just chomped on pieces randomly and hit bone a few times before he started to get the hang of it.  Craig had a grilled chicken sandwich, I had a fried chicken sandwich (it was supposed to be spicy but wasn't, but it was still good), and Carter had tenders.  The fries were basic crinkles but were SO good--perfectly done and salted.  It was so good we decided we'd probably go to the other location on our way out of town the next day, too!

Back to the beach we went, and this time we probably only drove for about 20 minutes before finding a lot we hadn't seen before, tucked behind a hotel.  There were spots with "reserved" signs but they were only for weekdays, so that might have thrown people off.  We snagged probably one of the only spots there...thank goodness.  But what a pain!  It was still about a 15-minute walk to the beach, but off we went with all of our stuff.  The bathroom situation before getting to the sand wasn't great--the women's room line was eternal and there were cheaters (who kept trying to use the exit door for the same group of stalls), so that was yet another exercise in patience.  We finally hit the sand around 4:45, which wasn't ideal but it also wasn't as hot or busy by then, so it worked out. 

The beach was really nice.  Very soft sand and not many shells or rocks on the main beach at all.  The water was a different story, but it was still light years better than what we're used to on the Great Lakes beaches.  It wasn't too bad to walk on most of the time, but the waves came in so strongly that it displaced a lot of sand every time, and inevitably it would either expose some shells or knock some into your ankles.  I was excited for a beach to find some treasures (unlike Punta Cana), but it was definitely an interesting experience.

The boys went to check out the water first while I stayed with our stuff.  Normally I take a blissed and happy selfie.  This one was a bit more reserved.  I was relieved we were there but still pretty annoyed.

The water was chilly, but when it was my turn to go down, I tried to hop right in.  It made me cringe for a few seconds, but I managed.  The boys questioned it since I hate when the pool is cold, but the beach is so different and so rare that I had to try to embrace it while we were there.  And once you were wet, it wasn't as bad unless you took a break, at which point it got cold again.  As I said, there were a lot of shells and rocks near the shoreline depending on how the water came in, but the waves were so relentless that you could barely grab anything that became visible before the next wave came through and overtook everything.  That didn't stop Carter and me from trying to grab whatever we could, and we ended up with a pretty significant group of oyster shells along with a few other cool ones.  The waves were pretty big, though, so it was tough to do much.  You could feel the undertow when the waves came in so it definitely wasn't anything I wanted to mess around with too much.  I pretty much only went in a little past my waist, though I got splashed higher.

You can see in this video how constant they were.  They were also bigger than they looked.  You can sort of see how the rocks and shells moved in with the waves.

As usual we did a lot of building, but first Carter got his legs buried.

It was rapidly becoming the golden hour, and I couldn't resist taking this shot with the long shadow.

This video attempted to capture the cool ripples in the sand and water as the waves moved back out.  I don't know if it was the angle of the sun or something about the beach, because it didn't happen every wave, but it looked really cool in person. 

 

It was a really nice day, though, and I was so happy we finally got our beach time, even if it was short lived.  

I panicked a little bit at one point because the lifeguards started whistling everyone out of the water.  I realized pretty quickly that it was 5:30 and apparently that's the end of their shift.  I wasn't exactly sure what that meant, but it seemed to mean everyone "pretends" to get out and then continues on their merry way once they're gone.  

We took a few final pictures of the excavation and attempt at a castle...

So deep!

Hard to see, but there's a couple castle towers (only one that fully stayed up), a wall, and some roads and trenches (and maybe a moat that was never filled?)

Had to get one selfie for the road to add to our collection!

We wrapped up on the beach and headed up to the boardwalk.  I wanted to take a quick look at the amusement park before we headed out.  I didn't expect to ride anything based on what I had researched, but I just wanted to see it. 

The inside was kind of crazy chaos--lots of games and some kiddie rides right as you walked in.

I thought this was such a "summer" shot.

Of course Jacob wanted to take on the basketball game, and he did hit enough to get a mini basketball that will likely end up as one of our pool balls.

We started to head back to the van, and I got one more shot of the dunes.

And I thought this hazy sunset shot with the Rehoboth Beach water tower was a lovely way to end it.

We stopped at an Auntie Anne's along the walk because we had promised Carter a pretzel and he hadn't gotten one yet.  I had been hoping for a Rita's ice with custard, but alas, timing never quite worked out.  We headed off to Chick-fil-A for dinner.  We just took it to go, because it was getting later and we had a long drive ahead back to the hotel.  Jacob also wanted to stop at this sports facility about halfway back along our route because he needed to get some shots up.  He is all-in on basketball now so shooting was a priority for him the entire trip.  We stopped there for maybe 20 minutes while he shot in the dark before heading back to the hotel for the night.  I spent the rest of the night booking the rest of our trip, since I hadn't really done that yet--I had to get tickets for Monday's activity and book our Sunday night hotel.  With that done, I was able to sleep in peace and rest up for another busy day Sunday!