vacation
so last thurs (july 28) my family left for a vacation, which we just got back from late sat nite (aug 6). our main destination was ocean city, md (the beach), with a brief stop in washington dc. now i will recount as much as i possibly can so i can look back on the vacation sometime in be like "o yea". if u dont wanna read it b/c of its extreme length, just know that i ate a lot of ice cream, became slightly less pale, grew another inch of hair, and gained 2 pounds (most likely from all the ice cream).
Thurs- traveled all day in car. Lunch at McDonald’s somewhere in WV. Arrived at aunt’s house in DC around 6. got carry-out Roy Rogers for dinner. Hung out for a little, then went back to “studio suite” for 5 ppl. Got the fold-out couch to sleep.
Fri- delicious continental breakfast. Then over to aunt’s to meet rest of family. Then drove downtown and took metro (lovely sit next to some Mexican-looking guy who reeked of booze). Got off at Arlington cemetery station to see cemetery, but the line was about 45 mins long, so went to downtown to check stuff out. Saw bunch of stuff, incl. WWII memorial, Wash. Monument, Capitol Hill, Smithsonian Air & Space museum (where we lunched), then the Smithsonian Am History museum (lovely section on America at War), then a few more sights, and finally made it back to the cemetery right at the end. We did not have enough time to see the JFK memorial, but were able to witness the changing of the guard at the tomb of the unknown soldier. That was pretty cool. And also saw a bunch of graves throughout the cemetery. Then went back to aunt’s, where we all had different meals. I went w/ mom to go pick up some of it, incl. a stop at their panera bread, which was pretty nice. So dinner was pretty good. But after dinner, there was an adventure. I went down to the basement to use the bathroom, and after I flushed it I was walking back upstairs and chatted for a sec w/ 1 of my bros, but during that exchange, I heard something from the basement. So, we went to investigate about where we heard it, and a couple seconds later we saw another patch of water come out thru some closet slits. So, I went up and got one of my uncles and he and another checked it out, and long story short, part of the toilet piping had come out, and excrement-liquid was flying out, and was all over parts of the basement. So that was a fun adventure.
Sat- left to travel the last bit. I went w/ 1 of my aunts to the airport to pick up my oldest bro (who flew in that morn). After getting him, we stopped at an inner-city McD’s (I felt awkward, I just kept thinking “Donnie, ur out of ur element!”) and then we traversed the last 3 hrs of our trip to ocean city. We lunched at a local pizza joint which was semi-in a mall, kinda. It was good eats tho, reminiscent of sbarro pizza (but it wasn’t). then we checked into our condos, got situated and everything and then all ate some popeye’s chicken in my grandma’s condo. Mmmm, that was good. But not quite as good as our trip to the candy kitchen, a little ice cream-type shop, but w/ candy (fudge, saltwater taffy, etc) also. I’d hafta say 1 of the most notable things about the candy kitchens was that, if u got a sundae, there was a toppings bar to the side, where u could add ur own and keep going back to add more, if u wanted. That was pretty sweet. And it was also fun cuz it was me, older & younger bros, 3 of my other cousins, and 1 of my aunts (who was not the parent of any of us), and we got pretty slaphappy on our sugar rushes. We were just all acting so crazy and hyper, it was hilarious.
Sun- got up and went to church. Came back and hung out, then finally went down to the beach for a few hours. The beach is good stuff, I strongly suggest going. Ummm, not really anything noteworthy other than that we played a football game on the beach, and that rocked. O yea, but that afternoon, it was funny b/c I was the only 1 of my brothers who did not take a nap. Idk, just kinda funny that all 3 of them napped, and about at the same time, usually no one naps, and if so, not more than 1, and in the extreme case of more than 1, def not at the same time. For dinner that evening we went to a nearby joint called the bull on the beach. Tough to describe the place, but it had a bunch of different stuff to eat. But it wasn’t as tacky as a Fridays or applebee’s. it was some goood food tho. That evening was much more uneventful than the previous nite, nothing really to mention.
Mon- slept a bit later than usual, other boys went golfing. Finally made my way down to the beach about 1 and played some baseball w/ my 5-yr old cousin, it rocked. That evening we went to lombardi’s, an Italian restaurant, and got some fairly good pizzer. On the way back we stopped at candy kitchen for sundaes. It was not quite as good a time as the previous trip, but it was still fun. Then later in the nite a bunch of us had a rousing game of outburst (circa 1985ish). That game was old. If u don’t know it, the game is that it gives u a subject and ur team has to name 10 things associated w/ it in like a minute. But just to give u an idea of how old it was, 1 of the categories was famous dustin hoffman movies, and rain man was not listed. So, we know it was from before 1988. overall, tho, fun was had by all.
Tues- just hung out in the morning, not really much to tell. Pretty much all the women left early to go on a shopping excursion to some place like 45 mins away, and we were w/o them until 8-9 pm. So, a couple of my uncles and cousins took the opportunity to get away from the beach for a while, and got a play-all-day pass for miniature golf, and ended up playing 135 holes (or about 7 hrs worth). My oldest brother went ahead down to the beach in the afternoon and fell asleep in the sun for about 2 hrs and got sunburned pretty good. Me & my older brother took the opportunity to go see wedding crashers in a 2nd-rate theater. It was quite a trip, we got there 5-10 mins before the movie was supposed to start and the whole theater was dark already and they were running thru the commercials that u usually see right before the previews. Then they showed 2 or 3 previews (all crappy movies) and then all of a sudden the previews stopped and the thing that usually appears well before the movie starts, like random movie facts and celebrity quotes and that stuff (usually accompanied by some sort of music over the speakers), that stuff came on. Then they tried to fix the problem (but not really) and we kept going back and forth btwn previews and random movie facts. And it would usually go that they would get the audio for the preview, then after about a min they would get the visual up, finish the preview, the screen would go black for a second, and then the random movie stuff would come up. And this happened like 4 or 5 times. Some of the other ppl in the theater started to get pissed (1 guy shouted that he wanted a free pass and the pot that the projectionist was smoking), but eventually we got to the movie. It was pretty good, no doubt many a funny quip (“that blonde just eye-fucked the shit outta me”), but I was disenchanted w/ the semi-plot they tried to put into it, and quite frankly, the straying from what I thought was going to be the subject of the movie. Stupid, trite plot-line. Other than that tho, it was hilarious, which was good. U should still go see it, b/c there are still a ton of great moments. Dinner that nite, we ate at a place called dumser’s. tough to describe that place. There menu was pretty broad, but I think they are most known for their ice cream selection, which is excellent. I got a peanut butter supreme sundae, which was 3 dips of peanut butter fudge ice cream, lathered in peanut butter topping & hot fudge, drizzled w/ reese’s pieces, and topped w/ whipped cream and a cherry. It was way good. That nite, nothing really noteworthy, just hung out.
Weds- got up and did some shopping w/ my mom and older brother in the morning. got some sweet blue classic reeboks (they're tight), and also picked up a portable dvd player (for the trip home, and other such long car rides). hung out on the beach during the afternoon. hung out in the condo for a while, read lotr. went out to dinner at hoopers fish place, and tore apart their free bread policy. also accompanied my family was my 17-yr old cousin who did not want to go w/ the rest of the extended family to the boardwalk ("i dont wanna go shopping for 4 hrs"), fun stuff having him along. watched scrubs w/ him for a bit, then me, him, older & younger bros, and mom went to candy kitchen for ice cream. not much else after that
Thurs- got up early (730) for breakfast w/ grandma, an aunt and an uncle at layton's. not bad food, actually. but, it is breakfast, and is breakfast ever bad? just hung out for a while after that. went down to the beach in the afternoon again. the only notable thing is that we had some dude take pictures of all of us cousins, and all that jazz. the pics turned out alright. for one of them they had us form a pyramid, and guess who was the middle base. thats right, it was my hulking mass. funnily, tho, it was my oldest brother, on one of the ends, who appeared to be toppling over during that pic. those were funny to look at. for dinner we just ate some leftovers and other food that we wanted to get rid of. it was decent tho, i had some spaghetti & meatballs and tacos and other stuff. a lot of that evening was spent waiting for some of the ppl who went to the race track to get back from that. idk why i wasnt interested in going to the race track, but something made me wary of going, so i did not. but after a while my oldest bro got restless from just sitting around all evening, so me & him went to wander around the streets. when we were walking back towards our building, tho, 1 portion of our family (who also did not go to the race track) was coming back from soemwhere. so they drove by us, and then we met up w/ them in the parking lot, and we all walked over to candy kitchen together. i did not get any ice cream this time tho. after that, the rest of them went back to their room b/c some of the others had come back and we were gonna play a game, but b4 that me & my bro made a quick stop at the nearby 7/11, and he bought a large corona for himself and a cheap bottle of wine as a gift for 1 of my aunts b/c she had bought him something. the cashier gave me a weird look tho, i guess she was assuming he was buying me that bottle of wine (a reasonable assumption i guess; 2 guys, 1 bottle each). it was not for me tho. so then we headed up to our cousins' condo to play some outburst. also joining us were 2 of my other aunts, and my older & younger bros. it was a decent game.
Fri- slept a bit later and hung out all morning. ate more leftovers for lunch. went down to the beach briefly during the afternoon. came back and packed some stuff up since we were leaving the next day. then went out w/ the whole family to phillips, a seafood place. got some jumbo fried shrimp, they were alright. then came back and helped pack stuff up for a while; convinced my mom to go on 1 more candy kitchen trip. then went over and hung out w/ some of my family for an hour or 2 (some final hang outage, if u will). then got some shut-eye.
Sat- got up early, finished packing things up. left the ocean behind me at 832 am. drove pretty much all day. stopped at a surprisingly crowded wendys at like 1, then at a sparsely crowded (and very new) mcdonalds for dinner. got back home a little after 930 pm. yea, spent over half a day in a car, fun stuff! thanks to johannah for giving me a call in the afternoon tho, it was much appreciated! then got home and unpacked.
so that was my interesting vacation, told in great detail at points. i will miss the beach and the ocean and its overall awesomeness. but speaking of awesomeness, less than 2 weeks til i'm back in lex! hope everyone has a great week, and an awesome final few weeks of summer!
Thurs- traveled all day in car. Lunch at McDonald’s somewhere in WV. Arrived at aunt’s house in DC around 6. got carry-out Roy Rogers for dinner. Hung out for a little, then went back to “studio suite” for 5 ppl. Got the fold-out couch to sleep.
Fri- delicious continental breakfast. Then over to aunt’s to meet rest of family. Then drove downtown and took metro (lovely sit next to some Mexican-looking guy who reeked of booze). Got off at Arlington cemetery station to see cemetery, but the line was about 45 mins long, so went to downtown to check stuff out. Saw bunch of stuff, incl. WWII memorial, Wash. Monument, Capitol Hill, Smithsonian Air & Space museum (where we lunched), then the Smithsonian Am History museum (lovely section on America at War), then a few more sights, and finally made it back to the cemetery right at the end. We did not have enough time to see the JFK memorial, but were able to witness the changing of the guard at the tomb of the unknown soldier. That was pretty cool. And also saw a bunch of graves throughout the cemetery. Then went back to aunt’s, where we all had different meals. I went w/ mom to go pick up some of it, incl. a stop at their panera bread, which was pretty nice. So dinner was pretty good. But after dinner, there was an adventure. I went down to the basement to use the bathroom, and after I flushed it I was walking back upstairs and chatted for a sec w/ 1 of my bros, but during that exchange, I heard something from the basement. So, we went to investigate about where we heard it, and a couple seconds later we saw another patch of water come out thru some closet slits. So, I went up and got one of my uncles and he and another checked it out, and long story short, part of the toilet piping had come out, and excrement-liquid was flying out, and was all over parts of the basement. So that was a fun adventure.
Sat- left to travel the last bit. I went w/ 1 of my aunts to the airport to pick up my oldest bro (who flew in that morn). After getting him, we stopped at an inner-city McD’s (I felt awkward, I just kept thinking “Donnie, ur out of ur element!”) and then we traversed the last 3 hrs of our trip to ocean city. We lunched at a local pizza joint which was semi-in a mall, kinda. It was good eats tho, reminiscent of sbarro pizza (but it wasn’t). then we checked into our condos, got situated and everything and then all ate some popeye’s chicken in my grandma’s condo. Mmmm, that was good. But not quite as good as our trip to the candy kitchen, a little ice cream-type shop, but w/ candy (fudge, saltwater taffy, etc) also. I’d hafta say 1 of the most notable things about the candy kitchens was that, if u got a sundae, there was a toppings bar to the side, where u could add ur own and keep going back to add more, if u wanted. That was pretty sweet. And it was also fun cuz it was me, older & younger bros, 3 of my other cousins, and 1 of my aunts (who was not the parent of any of us), and we got pretty slaphappy on our sugar rushes. We were just all acting so crazy and hyper, it was hilarious.
Sun- got up and went to church. Came back and hung out, then finally went down to the beach for a few hours. The beach is good stuff, I strongly suggest going. Ummm, not really anything noteworthy other than that we played a football game on the beach, and that rocked. O yea, but that afternoon, it was funny b/c I was the only 1 of my brothers who did not take a nap. Idk, just kinda funny that all 3 of them napped, and about at the same time, usually no one naps, and if so, not more than 1, and in the extreme case of more than 1, def not at the same time. For dinner that evening we went to a nearby joint called the bull on the beach. Tough to describe the place, but it had a bunch of different stuff to eat. But it wasn’t as tacky as a Fridays or applebee’s. it was some goood food tho. That evening was much more uneventful than the previous nite, nothing really to mention.
Mon- slept a bit later than usual, other boys went golfing. Finally made my way down to the beach about 1 and played some baseball w/ my 5-yr old cousin, it rocked. That evening we went to lombardi’s, an Italian restaurant, and got some fairly good pizzer. On the way back we stopped at candy kitchen for sundaes. It was not quite as good a time as the previous trip, but it was still fun. Then later in the nite a bunch of us had a rousing game of outburst (circa 1985ish). That game was old. If u don’t know it, the game is that it gives u a subject and ur team has to name 10 things associated w/ it in like a minute. But just to give u an idea of how old it was, 1 of the categories was famous dustin hoffman movies, and rain man was not listed. So, we know it was from before 1988. overall, tho, fun was had by all.
Tues- just hung out in the morning, not really much to tell. Pretty much all the women left early to go on a shopping excursion to some place like 45 mins away, and we were w/o them until 8-9 pm. So, a couple of my uncles and cousins took the opportunity to get away from the beach for a while, and got a play-all-day pass for miniature golf, and ended up playing 135 holes (or about 7 hrs worth). My oldest brother went ahead down to the beach in the afternoon and fell asleep in the sun for about 2 hrs and got sunburned pretty good. Me & my older brother took the opportunity to go see wedding crashers in a 2nd-rate theater. It was quite a trip, we got there 5-10 mins before the movie was supposed to start and the whole theater was dark already and they were running thru the commercials that u usually see right before the previews. Then they showed 2 or 3 previews (all crappy movies) and then all of a sudden the previews stopped and the thing that usually appears well before the movie starts, like random movie facts and celebrity quotes and that stuff (usually accompanied by some sort of music over the speakers), that stuff came on. Then they tried to fix the problem (but not really) and we kept going back and forth btwn previews and random movie facts. And it would usually go that they would get the audio for the preview, then after about a min they would get the visual up, finish the preview, the screen would go black for a second, and then the random movie stuff would come up. And this happened like 4 or 5 times. Some of the other ppl in the theater started to get pissed (1 guy shouted that he wanted a free pass and the pot that the projectionist was smoking), but eventually we got to the movie. It was pretty good, no doubt many a funny quip (“that blonde just eye-fucked the shit outta me”), but I was disenchanted w/ the semi-plot they tried to put into it, and quite frankly, the straying from what I thought was going to be the subject of the movie. Stupid, trite plot-line. Other than that tho, it was hilarious, which was good. U should still go see it, b/c there are still a ton of great moments. Dinner that nite, we ate at a place called dumser’s. tough to describe that place. There menu was pretty broad, but I think they are most known for their ice cream selection, which is excellent. I got a peanut butter supreme sundae, which was 3 dips of peanut butter fudge ice cream, lathered in peanut butter topping & hot fudge, drizzled w/ reese’s pieces, and topped w/ whipped cream and a cherry. It was way good. That nite, nothing really noteworthy, just hung out.
Weds- got up and did some shopping w/ my mom and older brother in the morning. got some sweet blue classic reeboks (they're tight), and also picked up a portable dvd player (for the trip home, and other such long car rides). hung out on the beach during the afternoon. hung out in the condo for a while, read lotr. went out to dinner at hoopers fish place, and tore apart their free bread policy. also accompanied my family was my 17-yr old cousin who did not want to go w/ the rest of the extended family to the boardwalk ("i dont wanna go shopping for 4 hrs"), fun stuff having him along. watched scrubs w/ him for a bit, then me, him, older & younger bros, and mom went to candy kitchen for ice cream. not much else after that
Thurs- got up early (730) for breakfast w/ grandma, an aunt and an uncle at layton's. not bad food, actually. but, it is breakfast, and is breakfast ever bad? just hung out for a while after that. went down to the beach in the afternoon again. the only notable thing is that we had some dude take pictures of all of us cousins, and all that jazz. the pics turned out alright. for one of them they had us form a pyramid, and guess who was the middle base. thats right, it was my hulking mass. funnily, tho, it was my oldest brother, on one of the ends, who appeared to be toppling over during that pic. those were funny to look at. for dinner we just ate some leftovers and other food that we wanted to get rid of. it was decent tho, i had some spaghetti & meatballs and tacos and other stuff. a lot of that evening was spent waiting for some of the ppl who went to the race track to get back from that. idk why i wasnt interested in going to the race track, but something made me wary of going, so i did not. but after a while my oldest bro got restless from just sitting around all evening, so me & him went to wander around the streets. when we were walking back towards our building, tho, 1 portion of our family (who also did not go to the race track) was coming back from soemwhere. so they drove by us, and then we met up w/ them in the parking lot, and we all walked over to candy kitchen together. i did not get any ice cream this time tho. after that, the rest of them went back to their room b/c some of the others had come back and we were gonna play a game, but b4 that me & my bro made a quick stop at the nearby 7/11, and he bought a large corona for himself and a cheap bottle of wine as a gift for 1 of my aunts b/c she had bought him something. the cashier gave me a weird look tho, i guess she was assuming he was buying me that bottle of wine (a reasonable assumption i guess; 2 guys, 1 bottle each). it was not for me tho. so then we headed up to our cousins' condo to play some outburst. also joining us were 2 of my other aunts, and my older & younger bros. it was a decent game.
Fri- slept a bit later and hung out all morning. ate more leftovers for lunch. went down to the beach briefly during the afternoon. came back and packed some stuff up since we were leaving the next day. then went out w/ the whole family to phillips, a seafood place. got some jumbo fried shrimp, they were alright. then came back and helped pack stuff up for a while; convinced my mom to go on 1 more candy kitchen trip. then went over and hung out w/ some of my family for an hour or 2 (some final hang outage, if u will). then got some shut-eye.
Sat- got up early, finished packing things up. left the ocean behind me at 832 am. drove pretty much all day. stopped at a surprisingly crowded wendys at like 1, then at a sparsely crowded (and very new) mcdonalds for dinner. got back home a little after 930 pm. yea, spent over half a day in a car, fun stuff! thanks to johannah for giving me a call in the afternoon tho, it was much appreciated! then got home and unpacked.
so that was my interesting vacation, told in great detail at points. i will miss the beach and the ocean and its overall awesomeness. but speaking of awesomeness, less than 2 weeks til i'm back in lex! hope everyone has a great week, and an awesome final few weeks of summer!