Vacation Day 5 - Legoland!

If you recall, three years ago during our first post-pandemic vacation, I messed up.  We did the Jersey Shore, and the last leg was supposed to be Legoland.  Well, between the weather--which included the remnants of a hurricane--along with some problems with a ticket deal I was trying to take advantage of and pandemic-era capacity restrictions, tickets sold out for both of the two days we could have gone.  I felt terrible about it.  We made the best of it and ended up at the New York State Fair instead, which barely compared but also was a good life experience to check off the list, but I always felt bad about Legoland.  I had hoped that our sports travels or another trip would take us back that way, but it never happened and I worried that since Jacob and Carter were so much older, it might be pointless to go since a lot of the rides were pretty kid-focused.  But then it came up again as we were discussing this trip, and this felt like the time to do it.  I once again held off on tickets for a bit as the weekend evolved because I was watching the weather, but it turned out to look pretty good once we were into the weekend, so it felt good to get them booked Saturday night...finally!

Because they were only open from 10-6, I wanted to get a good jump on the day.  As had been the theme of the vacation, this once again tried my patience.  We got up early-ish compared to other days, but nothing went fast and we barely made it down to breakfast by the 9:30 close (I only got one cinnamon roll because they took them away by the time I wanted another!).  Jacob didn't get enough to eat even with the better options that Holiday Inn Express has so we needed to make a stop on our way.  Well, as we were packing up the van, Carter couldn't find his magic trick he got in Rehoboth Beach.  We swore he left it in the van, but it was nowhere to be found (and neither was his golf ball, which we knew rolled way under his seat somehow).  He thought maybe he had brought it in, but we definitely didn't see it when we did our usual last scan of the room before checking out.  I went back to the desk and had to get a new key to go back in the room, and at first we still didn't see anything.  Finally I looked near his bed, and way under at the very head of the bed, there it was!  I have no idea how it got there--it was probably in the stuffed animal/blanket bag and flung out when he took out everything else--but at least we found it. And the golf ball was recovered from the depths of the floor while we were looking.

Then it was on to Starbucks, and I picked the one that was on the way, just off the highway, rather than the one that was in the general vicinity of the hotel but in the complete opposite direction of where we were going.  When we got there there were signs up about closing early Saturday for a boil-water notice in the city of Goshen, and apparently it lasted all weekend and into Monday as Starbucks was still closed.  Seriously?!  What were the odds?  For the record, I just looked it up and it lasted two days after that, too!  We headed across the parking lot to a CVS where he could get some yogurt and other things, but it was yet another delay.  In the end we didn't get to Legoland until 11, which made me crazier later once we got the lay of the land and realized how much we had to cover.

The entrance was very exciting with all the builds and photo ops before we were even through the gate, but I was annoyed because we were running so late, and then I was struggling to get the tickets up on my phone and organize my stuff, and it was already so hot which made me extra agitated.  Then everyone tried to get me to wear a birthday button at the gate, but the button was weird and I was sure it was going to ruin my shirt (even though I think the weird press-on back was meant to avoid a damaging pin, but it seemed it could pinch fabric even worse) and I just didn't need that aggravation at that point, merely trying to get in and get started.  And then as soon as we got in everyone wanted to go into the store.  I didn't want to spend all day in the stores, even though I knew Jacob had some very specific wants in mind.  The main store was pretty impressive, though.

Just a sample of the fun stuff outside the park

So much detail on the entrance!

The dinosaur was just inside, which I was trying to capture the best angle of while Carter went to the bathroom and the big boys beelined for the store in the background

I probably could have taken a thousand pictures of all of the builds.  Some of them were pretty incredible.  This one was very tall!

This faucet was cool, but look at those trees!

Had to take a selfie with the brick girl!

And had to get Carter with the sleeping old guy.

We picked a direction to go in, and eventually found a ride.  It's a lot like Music Express or the Himalaya rides at most parks but it was Lego!  The line didn't look bad so Carter and I got in, but for some reason it took FOREVER.  It don't know why loading took so long, or why all of the checks took forever, but it was at least twice as long as a typical park and that meant the line took way longer than expected.  I think each cycle probably took a solid 10 minutes.  Ridiculous.  Craig and Jacob went shopping while we were waiting and still made it back in plenty of time to see us ride.  This was our view from the ride.  Pretty cool regardless.

But the ride wasn't really worth it, and after we were done I was more panicked than ever about our timing if every ride was going to be that slow.  We made our way through Ninjago land...

 
...and down to the Castle section. 

We all decided to ride the Dragon coaster because it wasn't much bigger than something like Slinky Dog Dash at Disney.  The wait was shockingly short, and it was a pretty fun ride!  Not long, but exciting!

Click to zoom in and get a closer view of the coaster.  There's a dragon head on the front of the train.

Carter and I decided to ride this one other very unique ride in this area since the line didn't look bad.  It wasn't quite as slow as the other one, but I was willing to deal since it was something I had never done before but had wanted to try.  There were a few towers, and each tower had four sets of double seats with a rope.  You literally pulled yourself up to the top of the tower with the rope and then let yourself drop back down.  It was pretty cool, but hard work!  We both had a little rope burn by the time our couple minutes were done!

The park theming really was impressive.  Everywhere you looked was Lego-ed, with buildings having cool details that looked just like Lego pieces (see the flags and torches on the castle above, for example), along with big and little builds along all the paths, like this sleeping guard with his turkey leg.

And the flowers and trees made me so happy to see life-sized!

We moved on to the City section of the park where Carter could do the fun "Driving School" ride.  He's almost too old (13 and under, though not sure he would fit within a couple years), and it was so cute--a bunch of roads complete with stop lights and pedestrians all along the edges.  It was like slow go-karts.

He got a bit hung up here, but I liked the guy in the foreground.

Next we went to the movie theater where they had 4-D movies playing a few times an hour.  It was cute, much like the Muppets one at Disney with the 3-D glasses and special effects.  I liked the fake concession counter inside--check out the popcorn!

The movie itself was fun.  Ours was a City-themed one with a criminal chase by police.  There were blasts of air, splashes of water, and things that nipped at your ankles, all with 3-D effects from the screen.  I wish we would have had time to watch another one!  I took this picture outside the theater, and with the items in the foreground it turned out even better than I expected, like something out of Hollywood!

We wandered past the big new kid waterpark section, which is like the kid structure at most waterparks that has the big dumping bucket on top and lots of climbing and slides.  You apparently needed a reservation for it but Carter didn't want to do it and we didn't have time for it anyway.  But it looked fun!

We went into the Pirates section to check that out, which was the last themed world we hadn't seen.  By that point we were looking for food as well, but pretty much struck out everywhere.  We did see this fun build, though!

There was nothing in that section for Jacob, so we headed back to the pizza place in the City section.  But that was jammed and was more sit-down, so we went back up to the Castle section where they had gluten-free burgers.  But they were SO expensive, and ordering got a bit weird because it was all online and said to check with them for allergies first, which ultimately seemed unnecessary.  Then the online ordering system got hung up on my credit card so we finally had to order in-person.  Plus it was hot, which made it even harder to focus.  It cost about $90 for our full, rather unimpressive lunch, which was annoying to no end.  Oh, and did I mention the boil-water notice applied to Legoland, too, which meant we HAD to buy drinks instead of relying on drinking fountains?

By this point I was not having much fun at all.  It was all cool to see but it seemed like a giant cash grab and it became apparent why they push two-day ticket packages with the crazy overpriced hotel package (like $800 for one night!), because their ops are so bad that you can't physically get through all the rides and experiences in one day simply because everything is so slow.  Most lines, even for the simplest of kiddie rides, were in the 50 minute or higher range, and it wasn't even that busy because a lot of kids were in school.  It was nuts.  

As an interesting side note, a huge portion of the people there that day were orthodox Jews.  There's a huge community not far from there, so I guess I wasn't surprised, but I couldn't get over how many there were.  I could tell mostly because the women and girls were dressed in sleeves and long dresses (and often high socks) despite the heat.  The men usually wore pants, and some had a yarmulke and the rope belts (tzitzit), and a few had the sideburn curls, but the women and girls were very easy to spot because of the weather.  I'm aware of their customs because of an orthodox Jewish social media "celebrity" whose videos keep getting served up to me.  She's very sweet and the people we saw looked very much like her and her daughters.  But I felt pretty bad for them, honestly, because the little boys seemed to be able to wear whatever they wanted and the men could wear short sleeves, but all the females had to suffer with full coverage--pretty much no exposed skin aside from their hands, neck, and face.  The married women even have to cover their natural hair, either with a wrap or wig.  The thing is, I respect their religion and I think it can be really beautiful, especially during the holidays, and I admire their dedication to their faith.  But I've questioned some of the bizarre rules they have to follow (Google mikvehs and orthodox food rules, for starters), and seeing the modesty rules play out in this way made me a little angry at the misogyny, if I'm being honest. 

After lunch, we did manage to walk right on the Factory ride, which was a ride much like Rise of the Resistance, Ratatouille, or Runaway Railway, with the magnetic floor setup where the cars just glide smoothly across the trackless floor.  This took the theme of being at the Lego factory seeing things created, then it shrinks you down to become a minifigure, then you're whisked into a bedroom, much like a Toy Story feel.  It was super cute.  This was in the line and it cracked me up that it looked like Indiana Jones.

As I said, almost every building was done so well.  I love this dragon chef with his fork!

One thing that I was super excited to see was Miniland, where they have massive, amazing builds.  We saw one in Atlanta when we were there 12 years ago, and it was my favorite part of the Legoland Discovery Center we went to.  This one was unreal.  Jacob was a little disappointed that the people in it were not minifigures, but rather people built with Lego bricks, and I suspect (based on Atlanta's having minifigs) that they would not hold up as well outside.  I'm guessing their faces and any paint on the clothes would peel or wear off quicker, and maybe that plastic is less robust than typical bricks too.  But this one had one amazing display after another.  They pretty much did all of New York City, for starters.

Botanical garden

Up close detail on what's supposed to be Yankee Stadium

Just a tiny part of the skyline along with Times Square

9/11 memorial - I think there may be the capability for real water in the fountains, but it was off

Their version of Citi Field, where the Mets play

Coney Island--the swings spun and you could animate the hot dog eaters in the lower right

They had all sorts of different cities and landscapes beyond New York.  They had the historical part of Philadelphia, a lot of Washington DC, part of Chicago, a southern paddleboat, and a whole western set that included the desert, some roadside tourist trap oddities, mountain skiers, Mt. Rushmore, a ton of Las Vegas, and parts of San Francisco and Los Angeles.  It was absolutely crazy.  Here are my two favorites from Las Vegas:

Bellagio complete with fountains!

Luxor!

Miniland was super cool but we were still struggling with getting on rides.  All the lines were so long.  We headed down to the Pirate land to try to ride the one big ride the boys were waiting for, and were so disappointed to see it was temporarily closed.  It was an interactive pirate battle, and since the boats were still moving through as they worked on it, Carter was having fun trying to shoot them with the water guns that spectators can shoot at the riders.

We were just sort of hanging close for a bit just in case it opened, and sure enough, finally a stroke of good luck--it did!  We ended up on the first boat through!  Good news, bad news, though, because it meant that we had no one to shoot at on the boat in front of us, and people didn't see it had reopened so there weren't many spectators to shoot us either.  Essentially each boat has four guns on each side and you weave through a lagoon shooting at targets (not sure if we were just terrible, or they're broken, or they never did do anything), other boats, and spectators, while everyone is shooting back at you.  Eventually the people behind us started to get us, so we got a bit wet.  

   

Shooting the octopus

Because the line was still reasonable and everyone had fun (and felt a bit cheated with the lack of shooters), we got back in line.  This time we ended up getting hammered by spectators, and then just as we got to the end, the ride had a temporary delay of about five minutes, during which we were getting absolutely hammered by the other boats ahead of us.  We got rather wet that time, but thankfully it was a hot day and we dried quickly enough.  I was relieved when we finally started moving again.  Sadly, the other water ride next door, one with a few spinning arms just above water where spectators could hit plungers to set off water bombs, was now down, so Carter and I couldn't ride it.

We decided to head back toward the Ninjago ride, but on the way Jacob was determined to win a giant stuffed dog at this basketball game (because, you know, I won't get him a real one).

We'd seen a decent number of people carrying them, and they suckered us into a 2-for-1 deal when he missed his first three shots, but alas, the ball was so darn bouncy.  No dice.

The Ninjago ride was another Disney-ish knockoff, this time like Toy Story Mania where you sat four across, wore 3-D glasses, and had to chop at the air to release discs (or something) to knock out the enemy ninjas.  Somehow Carter had it down and beat us all pretty badly.  I wasn't half bad in second place, but he absolutely rocked it.  I grabbed this pic of Jacob as we were walking through the line.

Craig and Jacob decided to stay behind and ride again at that point--I think Craig was a little dehydrated and didn't want to walk more.  Carter and I headed back to the front of the park to check out a few more things.  On the way I took this panoramic of the bottom section of the park - City and Pirate lands.  It was quite an impressive view from there.

I loved this little rainbow zebra in the grass.  They actually sold one like this in the store.

Carter wanted a picture with the Fortnite llama.

He and I decided to ride the carousel, which was really cool because all of the elements were Lego builds.  Carter of course wanted to ride in the spinning one!
 

I chose this cool motorcycle, but look at the cute Duplo ones behind it!

Time was getting short by this point, and the skies were getting a little sketchy.  We tried to ride on the skyride that went from the top to bottom, but it was down when we got there.  We decided to walk down through Miniland again and look for things we missed the first time.  When we got down to the bottom we thought about hopping in that other water ride line, but I was finally dry and wasn't sure I wanted to get wet again just before leaving.  We tried to hit the "up" version of the skyride this time, but it closed a full 10 minutes early.  It could have been because of the approaching rain storm, but compared to most parks that allow you to ride as long as you were in line by closing time, that was yet one more thing that annoyed me.  In the end there were probably a few more rides I would have liked to do, but at least we got most of the big ones that we could all do together.  So, after getting shut out, we walked all the way back up to meet up with Craig and Jacob.  I did notice this cool build overlooking the lower section on our way.

We did have to hit up the stores again for final souvenir decisions.  We were tempted by a cool $100 Legoland-exclusive set of some Legoland amusement park rides, as well as a smaller set that recreated the pirate battle ride, but Carter settled for a cool double-decker Lego Store (not exclusive but also not available online from what we could tell) for a third of that price.  Jacob was super disappointed by the lackluster pick-a-brick wall options.  He was expecting the ultimate version of the Lego Store pick-your-own-bricks wall, and the only one they had wasn't great.  He ended up picking a few small things in the big store instead.  

While we were inside, it started downpouring pretty hard.  We waited for a bit until it wasn't super awful before heading to the van, but we still got pretty wet on the long walk.  Oh, well.  With that, the fun part of our vacation was officially done.  Now it was time for the long drive home.

We battled the rain for a while.  As we drove through downstate and the Catskill foothills, the sun kept battling the rain.  In this picture it was pouring, but the sun was blinding and reflecting off the wet roads.
  

And where there's rain and sun, there's usually a rainbow.  For a while it was faint out my window, but later on it was vivid and bright out the back window.

After a patience-testing few days of vacation, I guess that was my sign of a job well done...or something like that.  

The drive home proved to be a bit challenging.  We had a bathroom and gas stop pretty early, and then spent the next couple hours en route to Binghamton finding food that would work for Jacob when we got there.  But it was getting late and I was worried about any options being open by that time.  I eventually settled on getting take-out Outback for Jacob (yay for a $5 reward knocking the cost down) and then we all went across the street and got Burger King.  I drove the rest of the way after that, taking my preferred route home up Route 17 to 390 (which worked because it was closest to the area we had to go to to get to the restaurants).  I still maintain that is a much more pleasant route than the endless stretches of Thruway with no exits.  I was still pretty over it by the end, particularly when we got detoured less than 15 minutes from home.  All of a sudden 390 was closed by the airport for some road work, and there wasn't an easy posted route back on so I did my best finding my way in the right direction until I could get back on the highway.  It was so annoying, but I suppose pretty appropriate for a trip that tested my patience until the last moment!  I think we got back home right around midnight, or just a bit after, but luckily the boys slept for the last hour or two.  It made for a very tiring next day back at work, though!

So, all in all, it wasn't the best trip, but it also wasn't the worst.  We wanted to make some family memories, and we did.  We got a change of scenery and one last round of adventure for summer.  We finally made right one of the errors of our vacation three years ago and experienced a new shore town.  I think we learned some valuable lessons for future travels, as well.  But it wasn't exactly relaxing or peaceful.  And if you ask Jacob, it definitely wasn't Disney.  He was already planning our next trip every time we had a moment of annoyance on this trip.  But after all of the issues we've had this summer, it was actually, oddly, just the mental break I think I needed to start putting all of that behind me.  Well...almost.  There was still one other thing that was hanging over my head, and in it laid the potential for one more big adventure before school started.  But only if the news was good.  And so begins our next story, the official last one of summer... 

Vacation Day 4 - A Busy "Free" Day

Sunday was sort of our wild card day.  We didn't have any firm plans but figured we had enough to fill it.  We tried to get up early-ish because we were headed back to the boardwalk and didn't want to have to battle for parking like we did previously.  Our plan was to get Jacob a good gluten-free breakfast and then get one last walk around.  

Parking was a non-event (note to self, get there before 10am), and the breakfast joint was just a block over from the main drag, and just a bit off the beach.  We walked through that quaint Penny Lane alley to get there.  It turned out to be rather overpriced, but the food was good and it felt important to get Jacob a good meal since he'd struggled with food for a lot of the trip.  He had an amazing French toast with strawberries, Carter had giant chocolate chip pancakes, I had breakfast tacos, and Craig had oatmeal and toast.  Aside from it feeling too expensive for breakfast food ($6 juice and a $7 fruit cup?!), it was a nice meal.

We walked around a bit afterward, first stopping down along the beach where I ran out for a couple boardwalk photos and one more shell check.  

I didn't find much--I was mostly curious to see if the tides exposed anything or the water level was different--but I did see this section of sand that looked extra interesting for some reason...sparkly, perhaps?  I didn't realize how interesting until I looked at the picture later, since it had been rather bright when I took it.  If you zoom in there are tiny translucent rocks, maybe even glass.  It's really amazing.

We stopped back in the toy shop we quickly visited a couple days earlier, and Craig got an old school candy bar he saw, and Carter got a new magic trick (a coin slider). 

We walked back to the van and I stopped in one little shop that seemed to have some fun blown glass items.  There was one thing I was eyeing up, but I just couldn't spend the money!  I took one more shot of the iconic water tower, and off we went.

Our next stop was the Nike store (again), mostly because Jacob apparently didn't have enough underwear to get through the rest of the trip.  I don't know why he has so little, although I guess with sports he changes it more often than most people.  He gets his laundry done every 3-4 days on average so I guess he forgot being gone for five days might be an issue.  Our next stop was mini golf.  There was a fun looking one along our route and we figured it would be a good way to end the Delaware leg of the trip.  It was located at a place called the Sea Shell Shop (say that three times fast) and the golf part was appropriately called "Shell We Golf".
 

They had a lot of fun theming!

They had some fun facts along the course, and it had some interesting holes like the volcano above.  It was a challenging round, though.  We all seemed to have hot and cold spells.  Carter and I both had a couple holes in one but also stunk big time on a number of holes.  Jacob won, but Craig and I weren't far behind.  We had a lot of fun, though.  On this course the 18th hole is a normal one, but the 19th is the one that takes your ball.  Here Jacob was trying to figure out if it was a sure thing or if it was possible for it to roll back.

The boys got fun pirate-themed balls as their souvenir, and then we headed into the shop.  The Sea Shell Shop was a pretty amazing place.  They had so much stuff!  There was a lot of gifty stuff, a ton of beachy decor, lots of trinkets and souvenirs, a bunch of toys, hermit crabs, and yes, shells.  There were so many fun things.  If I wasn't against adding more stuffed animals to the mix, Carter would own a stuffed seagull on a stiff leash (almost like the old invisible dog ones) holding a french fry in its mouth.  Jacob inexplicably wanted a beach themed lamp like they have at Old Key West, but alas, it was far too expensive.  But much to my delight, they had one of the glass things I was eyeing up along the boardwalk for half the price!  It's maybe 3-4 inches tall, with a blue jellyfish inside.  And the jellyfish glows in the dark!  I just thought it was pretty and very "me", and it goes nicely with my blue glass.  And for $6.99?  Yes, please!

We did a quick Wawa gas stop (at which I grabbed two more pretzels--they are so good and cheap!) and then we went to Sports on the Beach, the sports facility we had stopped at previously.  This time the boys went out to the baseball fields to hit some blitz balls.  It was a pretty hot day so I hung out in the dugout.  It's a really nice facility, so huge, and I can only imagine what it's like hosting giant tournaments.

Jacob batting

Carter batting

Playing catch

Since they had WiFi I talked to my mom a bit on FaceTime while they were playing, since I hadn't really caught them up on Jacob's crazy health stuff or the details of the trip itself, outside of a couple vague mentions on Facebook.  They were headed out, though, so it was a pretty short chat.  We moved over to the basketball courts after that so Jacob could get some shots up.    

He struggled a bit that day--maybe it was the hoops, maybe the heat, maybe just all of the health issues creeping up on him.  He's been working hard to get back to playing shape.  It's been a process, but he's getting there.

I had to grab this picture on the way back out.  There were SO many turkey vultures sitting around the park.  Usually it's geese, and they had those too, but there were turkey vultures everywhere in this one spot.  They were on top of the batting cages and all along the water.  They also flew around, which was a little freaky.

We went a bit further along our route heading toward Dover and went to the other Kickin' Chicken location on the way to get a later lunch.  This time Craig and Carter both had the fried chicken sandwich like I had the previous day, I had a chicken cheesesteak, and Jacob had his same four pieces of fried chicken again--which he said was seasoned a lot better this time.  We all enjoyed our meals once again.  Then it was off for the long drive north.  The downside to Delaware was that it was a lot more out of the way from our final destination in downstate New York than the Jersey Shore would have been.  That meant we had a long haul up through Delaware, across into New Jersey, and finally over into the Catskill region of downstate New York.  We struggled to find a good gluten-free option the entire time and finally ended up at a Jersey Mike's in Paramus, NJ, on the world's most annoying divided highway that involves annoying turnaround ramps to get to the other side.  I remember it from when we went to the IKEA nearby on the way back from our last Jersey Shore trip.  We got in there less than an hour before closing and I felt a little bad because they were clearly trying to clean up the store until we got there.  Other people came in after so I felt less bad, but we were the only eat-in folks.  After that, we had a bit more driving before another later hotel arrival, but at least this one was a nice, reliable Holiday Inn Express!  This room reminded us a lot of the weird high-ceiling one we had in Ithaca a few years ago.  This one didn't have the high windows, but the ceiling was oddly tall!  Bonus points that it was the last room on the first floor by the door where our van was parked.  Apparently we had a harder time settling down that night because the boys were up late, watching some Mysteries of the Museum show until like 11:30, whereas I could hardly keep my eyes open by 11.  Last hotel sleep of the trip, with big fun (or so we thought) the next day!

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!

Vacation Day 2 - Patience is Virtue

We slept in a bit on Friday, as long as we could to still make the hotel breakfast.  It wasn't that great, though, especially for Jacob, so we planned to stop at Starbucks as usual.  Before we left, Jacob, Craig, and eventually Carter took advantage of the basketball court at the hotel. 

View from our room

Craig's POV

We packed up and stopped at Starbucks, mostly for egg bites for Jacob.  Carter got a racoon cake pop!

We stopped at a Wawa to get gas, and of course a pretzel was high on my list.  They're so good!  After a longer wait than would have been ideal, we finally, officially got on the road around 11:30.  Unfortunately, everything just seemed to be a slow go.  We kept hitting traffic and it started to get really frustrating because we were already running later than planned.  Along the way we struggled to find a good gluten-free lunch spot, but finally found one outside Philly in Conshohocken.  It was a cute little cafe nestled in a business district.  Jacob got a grilled cheese (he liked it but found it greasy--clearly he's not used to real cheese!), Carter had a pizza, I had a tasty chicken sandwich, and Craig had a salad.  Everything was good and it was nice to get a break from all of our usual chains, even if it once again took longer than planned.  

We moved on south toward Delaware, still dealing with lots of traffic.  We did cross this amazing bridge.

We saw Wilmington from afar and later passed Dover Air Force Base, which had some interesting sights--lots of housing and some big planes.  Finally, at long last, made it to the hotel.  It was over a half hour away from the beach, but it was decent and it's mere existence got us there, right?  We stopped in long enough to drop everything off and then had to grab some dinner before heading to the beach.  We once again struggled to find a place.  We decided on Chipotle on the main strip before you hit the beach area, but it was the absolute grossest Chipotle we'd ever seen.  I'm sure they were getting through the dinner rush and were likely understaffed, but it was awful.  Every table was dirty, every garbage can was overflowing, the juices were almost empty, and there was still a long line.  We pretty quickly decided that wasn't a great option and walked across the parking lot to Mission BBQ.  It's a chain that we actually have here in Rochester but have never been to.  Turns out it's not a bad option for Jacob.  I honestly wasn't that hungry and just didn't want BBQ so I had a side of mac and cheese and ate a bunch of Jacob's fries, which were really good.  The boys both got giant racks of ribs! 

I guess everything was really good, and it's good to know there's another place here that works for us!  As if it didn't take us long enough to get to the beach, we delayed it even further because Jacob really wanted to go to the Nike outlet.  In all we ended up there three times over the weekend for various reasons, but I did get a super nice pair of sneakers for walking for cheaper than the Brooks I was trying to convince myself to buy.  I haven't bought new sneakers for an athletic purpose in a really long time and it was badly needed, so I was glad to find something.

Finally it was on to the boardwalk just as it was getting dark.  We found a spot to park away from the busiest area but very close to the boardwalk, and started our stoll to get the lay of the land.  This boardwalk was not what I was expecting.  The main area was actually pretty small, and most of it was full of hotels.  Much like the Jersey Shore, they are pretty typical motels--some look nicer but most are probably of the two star variety, except that they have been dolled up a bit (nice outside, balconies, fancy lighting) and are so incredibly expensive because of their location.  We laughed that you can get a Disney hotel for far cheaper than a lot of those.  There were a few shops and food places along the boardwalk, but very little entertainment.  There was a small amusement park just past where we ended up walking to that night, and two arcade locations, but not much else that was particularly kid-friendly.  There was, however, a long stretch of road perpendicular to the boardwalk that had the rest of the shops (some very high end) and food places.  It went down pretty far so there was a lot there, but I was annoyed that it wasn't near the water the whole time like Ocean City, and the lack of family activities really had me bummed.  Most of those things seemed to be on the major commercial strip heading into town, rather than near the beach.  It was so weird.
 

One of the many pretty but overpriced hotels near the boardwalk

Jacob was eager to run in the sand, even though it was dark.

There was a concert in the big gazebo at the end of the road near the boardwalk.  The mood was nice and chill there, I'll say that.

We walked up the road a good way and mostly window shopped.  We did go in a giant candy store.  They had some fun statues out front.

There were a few cute side streets branching off from the main drag, and this one, Penny Lane, was so picturesque.  We did stop in a toy store in this area.

Here's a closer look at the concert gazebo from the back.  A Beach Boys cover band was playing, and I'm guessing they were the source of the old school vehicle in the foreground.

This was maybe my favorite iconic view--a fry joint, a taffy/caramel corn place, and a Kohr Bros. custard stand, which is an Ocean City classic as well.  We did get caramel corn and taffy from that Dolles place.

We decided to wrap it up for the night and headed back to the van.  It was a long 30+ minute drive back to the hotel, which was not ideal in the dark.  But we made it and gladly crashed after a very long day.  I was relieved we finally made it to the boardwalk, but man, that day took some patience.  It just seemed like everything took far longer than expected, and with a very short trip as it was, it had me a bit on edge because I wanted to get the full experience while we were there.  The next day wasn't much better on that front, unfortunately, but we did have a couple wins.

Vacation Day 1 - Not the Start We Wanted

When I left off my last post, we had decided on Wednesday to leave for a trip on Thursday.  We had a rough plan in mind--we knew the beginning and the end, but the middle was the messy part.  We had been trying to go to the Jersey Shore, but Ocean City hotels were so expensive.  Even Atlantic City was iffy, and I think we just didn't have enough time or energy to research other possible areas that might have worked.  Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, came up up in the conversation, as well.  That was where Craig and Jacob went with Craig's family when Jacob was three.  I didn't go mostly due to work and general mommy exhaustion at the time.  Our nephew was supposed to play in a baseball tournament that ended up getting canceled, and they just decided to make a week of it in the house they'd rented.  They stopped in Gettysburg along the way, and that's when Jacob flopped off the bed late at night and gashed his face on the nightstand.  The rest of the trip continued on to Rehoboth Beach but Jacob couldn't go in the ocean or a pool.  I'd heard bits and pieces from that trip and they seemed to like it, so it was something to consider.  I didn't love the distance as it wasn't particularly convenient to one of the other planned parts of the trip, and it wasn't much cheaper, but while I was working Wednesday the boys found a decent option.  I didn't have much time to look deeply into it while I was experiencing virtual reality for the first time (SO cool) or listening to a prominent donor speak (insightful) or having a fun working lunch at my work retreat day, so I took a quick look and made sure the basics were OK, and let Craig book it.  Of course, after a long day that meant a lot of planning and packing to do.  Oh, and did I mention that night was a middle school new parent meeting for Carter AND I was dealing with a lot of head/neck tension, as seems to be a weird post-COVID symptom for me.  I had it for weeks last year, but this year it's more sporadic.  It was driving me nuts that day, though.  Could be stress?  So after all of that, I rushed through as much packing as I could muster that night.

I knew I needed to be productive in the morning but I ended up waking up so tired that I laid in bed for longer than I wanted to.  We were planning on leaving shortly after lunch and I had a lot to cram in.  I finished packing clothes, then did toiletries as we finished getting ready, and then started in on all of the other stuff--beach things, travel snacks, etc.  I also tried to get in some work because I was on a tight timeline for a few things, and now here I was taking off three work days on a few hours' notice.  So I worked through some emails, wrote a letter and sent it off for approval, and finally called it good in between my and the boys' lunches and last-minute packing.  

In the middle of all of that, Jacob casually mentioned that the symptoms he had that brought on a pediatrician visit and urinalysis for a UTI the previous weekend were still there, and now he had testicle pain.  Like...what now?  It didn't seem terrible (it wasn't a sharp, constant pain, at least) but in my brain I was wondering if it was possible the UTI just wasn't strong enough previously and now would be.  And then Craig found an article about epididymitis, which is an infection of the tube semen travels through, and that actually sounded really plausible.  Since we were headed out of town I wondered if his doctor would just assume it was some sort of infection and just send along antibiotics sight unseen, so I called and left a message for the nurse.  When she called back we were about 15 minutes from home and she said she wouldn't wait to get him looked at.  Well, great.  

We decided to stop at an urgent care 30 minutes from home rather than turn back.  We figured if they could diagnose something, we could continue on and make it to the Lehigh Valley Ironpigs vs. Rochester Red Wings game we were aiming for in Allentown that night.  We might be late but it was still doable.  Well, the UTI test was still negative but the pain was concerning to them so they were still a bit worried it could be testicular torsion, which is usually a genetic thing that allows them to twist freely inside the body and can cause issues.  I didn't think it was that since we don't have a family history and he wasn't in excruciating pain, but they strongly suggested we go to the ER since it's a really time-sensitive thing that can cause testicular death, so to speak.  I resigned myself to the fact that the baseball game was probably not happening, and we headed off to the ER.  I got to be the parent this time, which was actually a first among all the times Jacob has gone.  Jacob says I ask better questions, so guess who's the default parent for his stuff now a lot of the time?  All of the horrors of the ER Craig and Jacob had shared previously turned out to be true--crowded halls of overflow patients, a motley crew of waiting room patients--it was uncomfortable, to say the least.  Oh, and there were a bunch of cops there when we arrived and I think it was because three idiot teenagers stole a car and ended up hitting and killing an elderly driver.  I don't know for sure they were there for that, but I feel like there would have been more chaos if the living criminals would have been brought in together while we were there.  

Luckily, because Jacob's case was time-sensitive, they put us in a room away from all of that chaos.  We hoped that meant it would be quick, but alas...if that was quick, I'd hate to be anyone else.  We probably ended up being there for about four hours.  Craig and Carter just killed time nearby, first at the UR bookstore, and later getting dinner (Carter ate his first full-size Chipotle burrito!) and Insomnia Cookies.  

We just waited a lot--through another urine test, through vitals, a couple provider visits, getting a roommate on the other side of the curtain who had stomach pains previously diagnosed as reflux, a long wait for an ultrasound, and another long wait to be transported back to the room and released.  We eventually started looking at my old blog posts of our various trips to Pittsburgh to compare seating locations and recall certain memories, which was sort of fun until we got transported back to our room.  Ultimately the ultrasound showed nothing of concern, so that was good.  It seems like epididymitis was the suspicion.  It seems it could have come through his previous week's mystery virus and just happened to settle there.  The bacterial cultures didn't show anything, so that seems likely.  Hopefully the symptoms will be gone within a couple weeks, so yet another viral waiting game begins.  This exhausting, brutal summer continues.  It seems now we can't go out of town without some sort of weird, last-minute medical emergency, three times over now.  What the heck?!

As a side note, the whole thing felt so surreal.  I mean, for one, I had already just sat with Jacob for an ultrasound the previous Tuesday, that one on his heart.  And then four days later he's getting another one, and on his scrotum, no less?  I mean...seriously.  What alternate universe am I living in, and how do I escape?  It just seems like one thing after another, after another, and I think I need brake.  And let me tell you, it is super awkward to be the mom of a kid with issues in that area.  I had to leave the room multiple times for questioning and exams, and then sit behind the curtain for the ultrasound itself.  It's not an area teenagers usually talk about with doctors or their mom present, and the whole thing just felt so awkward.  I have to say, Jacob handled it like a champ.  I hate that he's getting an early lesson in letting go of all shame (not sure I had that until childbirth), but he did well.

Once we were released, we grabbed a quick dinner of our own on our way out of town, about 50 minutes after the baseball game we wanted to go to (four hours away) had started (sob),  We headed toward Allentown to at least break up the trip and use our hotel room.  We didn't get there until after 1am, so that was rough, but Craig was a trooper and handled it like a champ.  I don't even think we stopped, actually, so that was quite a haul.  We were in bed by 2am, thankful to be on our way but a little bummed that we had already missed event #1 on this crazy trip.