Return to the OC

It had been three years since I'd been to Ocean City, the beach where I spent every summer of my life. My family had me prepared for the worst: high rises, neon signs, endless development... a veritable Atlantic City.

The city always had a certain charm, a large part of it feeling very undeveloped and quaint. You could still feel the first half of this century in its downtown hotels, storefronts, and shanties, even the video arcades headlined by P.T. Barnum style marquees. Despite containing the latest in video entertainment technology, you could still play a game of skeeball where the score was kept by numbers printed on mechanically-flipped cards.

Thankfully, my parents' opinion had been somewhat skewed by the rapid development around their condo on 64th street. The buildings to their left and right, as well as three small beachfront cottages (over which we still had an ocean view from our back porch until this year) had been demolished and rebuilt as high rises since I'd visited. Most of the other development was either localized to a few city block-sized gaudy expanses, or to the addition of high impact colored outdoor video signage to nearly every restaurant.

I hopped on an old one speed bike that my folks acquired for free two decades ago and tried to see how far I could go. Heading South from 64th street, the rain and wind held off as I darted through the alleyways, until I reached the Northern tip of the boardwalk at 27th street. At that point, it did not feel as though I was meant to go any further. The wind pelted me with rain needles, a few of them blinding me as they crashed into my pupils. After fighting for a few minutes, I realized I had traveled ten blocks, and I'd regret not reaching the Inlet... the liquid border between Maryland and Virginia that was carved out of the coast by a hurricane over a hundred years ago and sat ten blocks South of first street.

The most surprising part of my journey on the boardwalk was the amount of other bikes around me. Four person human powered vehicles, beach cruisers, recumbent trikes, and the occasional mountain bike were also braving the onslaught. I flew past the lot, and the trolley, darting around tourists and through families, patiently racing toward my destination. Before I knew it, I had passed the Lankford, where I spent summers until I was eight, without remembering to look up.

The downtown boardwalk and pier area had hardly changed, and it was comforting to know that the real estate boom hadn't affected the character (or lack thereof) of the city much. I could still relive my childhood summers after all. With the wind at my back, I flew faster Northward on the return journey, blazing the almost forty blocks to the end of the boardwalk in record time.

The day and a half I spent in Ocean City was punctuated by Thrasher's french fries, Dumser's Dairyland handmade ice cream, arcade games, surf shops, and a dip in the ocean that was disturbingly... disturbingly warm (74 degrees!)... but more on the temperature later.