Some places aren’t supposed to be nerdy.
It was the last day of the last summer of something, whether it was the last summer of pretending to be invincible or pretending to be young or maybe pretending to still believe in the fantasy being able to have care free fun, drink copious amounts of alcohol and hope to meet some cute lady and have it turn into something serious.
We saw the beach bar / club on the shore and from the distance it looked like a beach resort in the tropics. The dream of having the tropics accessible from the cities had its appeal but now Ocean City was just easy. Easy to put a trip together, easy to go to the same places and easy to forget that it was just Ocean City and not Montego Bay. The Jolly Roger and the Jamaican flags made the illusion just that much more ridiculous.
The endless mini-golf places with either dinosaurs or pirates and the seafood joints and the ice-cream parlors kept the city firmly in the 1950’s or 1960’s with a “Leave it to Beaver” sensibility.
I participated in the requisite activities. Just a lot of drinking, walking up and down the boardwalk, and going to the Sandbar. The Sandbar is the best karaoke joint in Ocean City. It regularly has a crowd that is just delightful but Friday was just off the top with a few bachelorette parties including one where the participants dressed up all like Guy Fieri. I had copious amounts of daiquiris, both alcoholic and non-alcoholic at a rooftop bar.
I want to forget my pretensions, my previous travel to ostensibly “better” beach towns, forget my age and worries. I want to sink into the sand, feel the breeze, feel like it’s springtime and the whole summer lays ahead of me, endless like the boardwalk looks.