Ocean City Maryland Day Trip.

In the past few years we have always gone to Ocean City Maryland and have had a great time and have stayed there for at least a long weekend. After deciding to go to Disneyworld in October it was clear that we could not spend so much time or money on other types of holidays, so we arrived upon the compromise of a day trip to OCM. The drive on a good day is always around 4 hours...we have done it before in 3 1/2 hours but typically it takes 4 hours. So on the Sunday after our Camelbeach excursion we set out for OCM and whilst we wanted to leave at around 6am it was actually 45 minutes later when we left. We were making pretty good time when as scheduled we decided to stop half way down for a couple of reasons, firstly to get breakfast as it would be more expensive on the beachfront and secondly so save time as we could get directly onto the beach when we arrived. My brother in law came along also with myself Jill and Marc. We ordered our food and I enjoyed my fruit crepe very much...Jill and Marc and myself were all pretty much finished with our food and we were now waiting for Jack who was really going slow. Keep in mind that our trip was at least 4 hours (x2) and all of this assing around was cutting into our day. It was easily 20 minutes that we had to wait for Jack. When we did get going something I did was to affect the time also. Somehow I took the highway in a northerly direction and it was almost immediately that I realised this however the next exit was 7 miles away. It was a 15 mile round trip just to get back to where we had been and more time wasted!!!

When we did get down to the beach it was a little while till we got parking ten dollars for the whole day. So out onto the beach we went with deck chairs and umbrellas in tow. We spent a few nice hours there and the ocean waves were a lot of fun. After the couple of hours had passes we went to the bath-houses which OCM cahmber of commerce had told us was the place to get freshened up. For 5 dollar each we were given a community type shower and changing area which could only be described as putrid and disgusting with delapidated showers and facilities. At least Jack and Marc and myself had the place to ourselves at the time but Jill not only goT into a row with an nasty old lady attendant but when she did finally get to her ladies changing room there were 3 teenage couples boys and girls just hanging out and from how Jill described it the mens room was seemed so much better.
From there we went out onto the board walk and pier...it had been a reasonably hot day and my brother in law who has to take medication three times a day seemed to be out of it. It was kind of scary as we were responsible for his well being. He had just been with us in the arcade and had played a video game with a large screen and with the heat of the day and just having a feeling that he was not feeling quite right we were worried. It was now around 7pm and I had work the next day Jack was having a seizure event just bad enough to make us quite concerned and we had a 4 hour journey ahead of us. As it turned out we were thinking about staying until around 8pm but as events unfolded us leaving then was going to be the best we could have done. We set back home around 7.10pm and hoped to be home around 11pm or 12pm at worst. The first hour or so was used up in just trying to clear the beach areas where all the other cars and vans were also leaving and there was frequent stop starts as traffic was quite heavy. So in effect the first couple of hours were slow going and when we did get moving everybody was driving like crazy, on one occasion we were alongside a car that had to swerve and brake as the car in front braked suddenly.
When we got to the turn off for I-95 North we noticed a neon sign saying that the highway was going to be closed. We were screwed!. Not knowing where or how to get back on track. We spent some time following some other familiar cars on our journey back and as we followed them in the by now dark evening and it being around 9.30pm and knowing we were easily 3 hours away still from home, it became clear that they were also lost and similarly to us had no idea of how the get back on track. So I had to get on a road and just drive in our general direction north and west to get closer to home. Seemingly lost I had to finbally stop at a gas station and ask for directions. This place was in the middle of nowhere we knew about and as I walked in it was like something out of a scary movie as the characters could have been right out of a movie. As I got in the door to the checkout lady there was a guy in front of me who was asking for her to break a $100 dollar bill and she couldnt or wouldnt. I then asked her for directions and she was unsure so after not getting any good answer...the kind that you feel confident about I walked outside and asked this guy was there having a smoke he was kind of surprised about how far lost I had gotten. After I told him where I had come from and where I wanted to get to and informed him about the highway closure he tolsd me to go back from where I came and take a combination of two roads to get me back onto I-95 North at a higher point in the highway. Well we must have gotten lost about three times and were delirious with tiredness and just wanting to be home already when we seemed to have found I-95 North again, only to find another big traffic jam which was not mioving at all. I took a gamble to take another exit and we ended up in what must have been southeast Philadelphia and eventually an area called Chester which from our times in Philadelphia was a welcome and familiar place name. Our luck had been so bad that we seemed to then catch some good luck and we came back out onto a part of the route home that we knew. We were still some way from home but at least we knew where we were and after another few hours we arrived home so very tired but very happy to be home at around 1.30am in the morning it had been 6 1/2 hours since we left and due to traffic and highway closures it was an extremely long day trip and I was very tired for the rest of the work week. Oh what a day!...trip.