Ft. Wayne - South Elgin, IL - Minneapolis

They are both officially taller than Grandma!

We left my mom's house in Ft. Wayne on Tuesday morning, headed towards the Chicago area.  We had a short, but good visit while there, but it was time to leave to continue on our journey.  We had decided that it would be fun to visit the University of Notre Dame, as Bish went there for an engineering camp when she was in high school, and I had last been there for a Purdue vs. ND football game my freshman year at Purdue.

Touchdown!

I think ND is probably one of the prettier college campuses I have ever visited!  I've maybe been to 100 colleges in my life, and this one was gorgeous!  The building were mostly very pretty, and blended together well with similar architectural characteristics and color of brick, but it was the turf/landscaping that really stood out to me as being pretty!  Being a plant geek, I notice the beauty of the landscape more so than the buildings.  It seemed as if most of the campus was irrigated, not necessarily well, but at least irrigated.  And it was cool to see that they had actually marked the sidewalks where the irrigation piping crossed under the sidewalks! (Irrigation geek thing)

It's amazing the crap you can find to take pictures with in a campus bookstore.

We kicked around campus for an hour or so and saw touchdown Jesus, as well as the golden dome.  It was interesting as they were building 3 new buildings adjacent to the football stadium as they "wanted to incorporate campus life more with the football/sports teams."  In some respects that is kind of a cool thing, but in other aspects I'm not sure I get it.  It was explained to us that the new buildings would provide facilities that students could use/hang out at/take advantage of that would allow campus life to center around the football stadium.

Golden Domers.

I have decided that the state of Indiana has the worst roads we have driven on thus far on the trip!  I'm not sure what Pence did while in office as the governor, but it seems as if he couldn't find enough money in the state budget to improve the roads.  There seemed to be more pot holes, bumps, rough roads, etc. throughout our time driving in the state.  At least more so than any other state we've driven in so far.

We all decided Danica won the prize for best drink order at 3 Floyds - Sprechers Cream Soda!

After ND, we headed over to Munster, IN and went to 3 Floyds Brewery.  Their beers were vary good, as well as their small plate foods!  It was a great recommendation by Taylor and Troy!  After stocking up on some good beer for the remainder of the trip, we headed out to my friend Troy from home's house to have dinner and spend the evening with their family and a few other friends from MHS that live in the area, Tracey and Cara.  Cara works at a (great I hear) coffee shop/restaurant/bakery called Blackberry Market  in Glen Ellyn, IL as the head baker.  She  brought along some baked goods to share with us after dinner, and all of them were AWESOME!!!  We sat around and had some good laughs sharing stories from our high school days.  It was great to see everyone that night.

Roadside America stop with Humpty Dumpty near Troy's house.

On Wednesday morning, we got up and headed towards Minneapolis.  It rained most of the way it seemed, but the rain was less intense that other rain storms we had driven through.  We pulled off the interstate just south of Madison, WI to buy some Spotted Cow from New Glaris Brewery, and also found a bag of cheese curds that were an excellent snack!

The MHS gang in the Chicago area.

We got into Minneapolis around 3 pm, and headed to the Flour Mill Museum in downtown.  It was interesting to learn about how big Minneapolis was at one point in the (baking/cooking) flour world.  We learned about the different types of wheat used to make different types of flour, as well as how the wheat was ground, and how parts of the wheat kernel were separated and made into flour.  And that whole wheat flour actually contains all of the wheat kernel including the bran part, not just the the endosperm.

Pic with Goldy Gopher!

After the mill museum, we headed over to the U of Minnesota campus to go to an art gallery and explore the campus.  We found the union and bookstore, and saw a bunch of future freshmen going through campus orientation while there.  The buildings/campus were pretty cool and modern looking.
After our tourist stuff, we met a few friends in the area at Maynard's on Lake Minnetonka for drinks/dinner.  It was a cool spot with a huge patio/deck out back, and tons of people were enjoying the warm summer evening outside!

Minnehaha Falls in Minneapolis

On Thursday morning, we went to see the Mall of America, and then Minnehaha Fall.  The girls really enjoyed the roller coasters and rides at the MoA!  And Minnehaha Falls was pretty cool too!  The falls were located in a park south of Minneapolis.  The park was very nice, but I wasn't impressed with the maintenance and upkeep of the area around the falls if it is such a tourist/locals attraction.  The plants needed trimmed, the steps needed cleaned, it was just a very poorly kept area for it being a destination in the area.

Isles Bun & Coffee cinnamon roll and pecan roll!!!  Add all the extra icing you want!

While the Slackettes were busy riding roller coasters at MoA, I ran to a local recommendation by my friend Tim in the area for cinnamon rolls!  If you are ever in the Minneapolis area, I highly recommend going to Isles Bun & Coffee in Uptown.  The pecan roll was good, but not as good as the cinnamon roll!

Back home again... in Indiana!

The Slackettes feelings on finding Natural Light beer at the Friend's house!!

We spent five days at my mom's house near Ft. Wayne.  We were just back over Thanksgiving also, so it was another familiar stop on our trip.  We got filled up with starches for our first few home cooked meals - chicken & noodles with mashed potatoes, and scalloped potatoes and corn casserole!  This type of food is good, and I know I grew up eating like that, but at this point in my life I/we do not eat this type of food often, so it makes you feel stuffed after eating dinner!  I don't think we saw a green vegetable while we were in Indiana!

Danica getting her dog fix with Owen and Millie at Jen's.

Friday morning started out with a huge thunderstorm and lot of rain.  It is nice to have a dark, cloudy, rainy morning as we don't get to experience those very often!  Due to the rainy weather, we decided to go see Wonder Woman in the afternoon.  It was a great movie we thought!

Andy "rotating the tires" aka Stan doing the work in his shop!

We went out to my sister's house on Friday evening so I could rotate the tires on the van after almost 4,000 miles.  I knew Stan would have a jack and socket wrench I could borrow, and he wouldn't try to sell us new tires like America's Tires would.  We borrowed a shovel, and dug up Zoysia's marker stone where she is buried in Jen's backyard.  Then the girls got to catch lightning bugs again!

What's left of Zoysia.

Darby with a lightning bug in her hand.

On Saturday we headed down to Indy to see some friends while in town.  I am fortunate to have a lot of good friends in the Indy area from my time living there as well as friends from Purdue/FH also.  On our drive down to Indy, we stopped off in Anderson so the girls could experience a Skyline Chili 4 Way!!!  It's not as good as the hot corned beef in Cleveland, but it is still pretty darned good!

Skyline Chili 4 Way!

Our friends, the Friends who inspired us to make this cross country trip live in Indy, and offered up their North side house to us for the night as they were out of town.  They stayed with us for a few nights during their cross country trek a few years back, and welcomed the opportunity to offer up the same hospitality.  Their house was near Keystone Crossing, and is a cool older house with a very unique layout/floor plan.  They were nice enough to buy us supplies such as chorizo and eggs, as well as beer for the short time were were there.  I thought Brent liked good beer, but then we found some Natty Light in the fridge.  My respect for them dropped significantly!  :-)

Leaving the Friend Residence on Sunday morning.

We went back up to mom's place on Sunday morning.  Along the way, I made a "short stop" on the interstate in the Gas City, IN area.  See pic below!  Darby commented afterwards, "Was that in teh budget mom?"

Popo finally caught up to me near James Dean's hometown!

My sister's family all came into mom's Sunday night for a cookout/dinner.  It is always fun to see her kids and catch up on what they have been up to since we do not get to see any of them very often.  They have all been out to AZ/Cali a time or two, but it is always fun to see them back in Indiana.   And it's good for the Slackettes to get to spend some time with their Indiana cousins too!

The definition of "salad" at my mom's house is very different than what that word seems to mean in most parts of the world.  In most places, "salad" usually means a dish with leafy green things and vegetables in it.  But at my mom's house, "salad" is synonymous with dessert, or at least something very sweet!  For dinner she had a "Watergate salad" (the only green thing on the table!) which was a mixture of pistachios, pistachio pudding, cool whip, and grapes or something.  In addition, there was "pretzel salad" which included crushed pretzels, red jello, and cool whip!  Adam and I referred to the coconut cake as "coconut salad" too!  Oh, and don't forget "Aunt Jeanie's potato salad" (more starches!) which is a very sweet type of potato salad my mom has made for years.

Strawberry "salad" at my mom's house!  J/k, it's actually pie!

On Monday we ran into my hometown of North Manchester to kick around for a bit.  We stopped by and said hi to my friend Kathy who I graduated from MHS with.  I always like to visit my hometown where I grew up when back in Indiana.  Part of the reason I would try to visit would be to get a breaded tenderloin sandwich at Mr. Dave's, but it recently closed, so that NM staple is no longer an option.  :-(   Instead we barely made it by Nick's Kitchen in nearby Huntington, as they have one of the original BPTs!  Since Mr. Dave's is now closed, we ran by nearby Huntington on our way back to my mom's.  We lucked out and got to Nicks's just before it closed at 2 pm.  We were able to order a few and eat them in a nearby park.

Our new favorite place to get a BPT since Mr. Dave's is now closed.

As we were driving to Indiana a few days back, Danica reminded me that "we needed to stop and buy grass seed."  When I asked "what for?"  She responded with "To put on your dad's grave site!"  What a great kid!  The other primary reason I like to visit my hometown is to stop by my dad's grave site to say hello.  And it seems that every time I do, I remember, after getting there, that I wanted to put grass seed on his grave site!  I figure since he was in the turf business later in life, and I am a turfer, he deserves to have more grass and less weeds than most others.  So on this visit, we ran by what used to be the local Coast to Coast hardware store, and bought some grass seed to remember Max by!  We had borrowed a rake from my mom to scratch up the ground a bit, and then I taught the girls how to "Johnny Appleseed" it in sowing the seed!

Sowing some grass seed on Max's grave site...finally!!!

We spent our final night in Indiana back at my mom's.  We had leftover's (mainly "salad") and some pierogies we had bought back in Pittsburgh, for dinner.  It was a nice, quiet night, and we even got some rain just before dark.  I do enjoy a good rain/cloudy day every so often since we do not get them much in AZ.  We took off on Tuesday morning, headed for the Chicago area and our next adventure!

Slackettes in front of (formerly) Louie's Candy Kitchen in my hometown!

DE-MD-PA-OH-IN!

Darby attempted to leave her mark on the beach!

Last family beach pic.

We left the beach house on Wednesday morning with a few tears in the process.  Headed towards Indiana via Pittsburgh.  I know there are bad drivers everywhere, as I've experienced some of them on this trip, and on previous travels.  But the drivers in Maryland seem to have taken the cake as we drove through the area.  It seems that NO ONE in MD realizes there is a RIGHT LANE on any of the interstates/freeways!  They all camp out behind each other in the far left lane!  Not that I have any issues passing people on the right, but I seemed to do it much more driving through MD (and probably PA too) than normal.  I am not sure what the department of transportation has wasted so much money on signs that say "Slower drivers keep right."

Bent silverware from Flight 93 crash site.

On our way to Pgh, we stopped off and saw the Flight 93 National Memorial in BFE Pennsylvania.  It was "kind of" off the beaten path, which was a good thing the day it crashed I guess.  It is a very well done memorial, and has some very interesting information about the day, the sequence of events that day, and the people on the flight.  There are 40 groves of 40 trees to remember the 40 innocent lives taken on Flight 93 that day.  I was surprised to see that they had the names of the 4 terrorists sitting in first class that hijacked the plane.  It was only displayed on the graphic that showed the seat assignments, but was still surprising to me that they even listed them there.

The alter where beer is brewed.

We enjoyed our night in Pgh!  After checking into our hotel right on the Monongahela River (it was literally 20' outside the back door of the hotel!), we made our way to one of my favorite micro breweries I've visited in my travels, The Church Breworks in the Lawrenceville area of Pgh, just NE of downtown a bit.  It is an old Catholic church that was shut down, and turned into a micro brewery about 20 years ago.  They converted the old church pews into bench seating, and the altar is where the stainless steel vats are for brewing beer.  The sun shines through the old stained glass windows, and it is just a cool setting for a brewery.

The original Primanti Brothers in the Strip District.

After getting some local beer and some pierogis as appetizers, we went to the Pgh staple of Primanti Brothers for dinner!  The girls got to experience having cole slaw and fries on their sandwiches for the first time!  And I got to enjoy a high quality IC Light with my sandwich!  :-)

In the Monongahela Incline tram car.

After dinner we did the Monongahela Incline!  It is an old, wooden, creeky tram type thing, but instead of being supported on cables the way a mountain tram typically is, it is on tracks like a train, but then pulled via a cable.  It actually seems to operate in a similar manner as the cable cars in SF.  Bish liked the idea of riding on this, until she saw the gaps between the rails as we started to climb up the hill!  Then she turned her face away from looking up/down to the ground, and started to just focus on the view of the rivers below!!!

View of downtown Pittsburgh and river confluence.

We got up the next morning, and hit the local Giant Eagle grocery store to pick up some pierogies to go, some shaved Islay Brothers ham for my mom's husband (he grew up in Pgh), and some Birch Beer, which the girls have discovered they like more than root beer, and it can only be found in the Northeastern US.

Darby with hot pastrami, and Danica with hot corned beef.

En route to my mom's place near Ft. Wayne, IN, we took a slight detour to the south side of the Cleveland area.  I was in the area a few years back for work, and had gotten together with a friend in the irrigation industry for lunch.  We had lunch at a local Jewish Deli called Corky & Lenny's on the SE side of town.  Danny and I each split one hot corned beef, and one hot pastrami sandwich, and had the fresh kosher dill pickles as a side to boot.  It was the most amazing sandwich I think I have every had in my life!  So when I determined we would be driving close enough to detour and hit this place for lunch, I started planning around that occurrence!

Heaven on earth in the kosher deli!

Bish did a few eye rolls and "whatevers" in my direction when I said I wanted to go out of our way to eat lunch at Corky & Lenny's.  We ordered one hot corned beef, one hot pastrami, a side of onion rings, and of course had to have some of their fresh kosher dill pickles too!  All the food was awesome, and as Darby walked out of the place, she made the statement "I have never had a favorite food, but I think that corned beef sandwich is now my most favorite food I've ever eaten!"  Since everything else was so darned good, we decided to get a strudel and an eclair to take with us to mom's for dinner that night too!  If you are ever in the Cleveland area, I would highly recommend trying this place out!

Tower of Bugs.  Notice the head and body sticking out of the green one!

On our way from Cleveland to Ft. Wayne, we stopped off in Defiance, OH to see the tower of VW bugs!!!

Once we get to Indiana, we will spend about 5 days there to see my mom, Jen and her family, as well as a few friends here and there.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times

Isn't that an opening line from a book?  I don't recall which one, but seem to remember that being the case.

I have to begin this portion of our trip blog with this cute pic of Bish as a little girl that is part of a bigger pic of the family.

The Slackettes on a ride at Funland.

As mentioned with the previous post, we have had some great times at the beach!  Bish especially has gotten to experience beach life her whole life, and has a lot of great memories to take away from her time in Rehoboth Beach.  Along the way, she has told me (probably numerous times in many instances since I have a tendency to forget stuff) a lot of stories about her times here growing up.  The Henlopen Acres Beach Club, The McCulloughs, The Pink Palace (a house down the street on Tidewater Road), going out to dinner once a month with her Nana, going to the auction house with her Nana, etc., etc., etc.  It is always fun to hear them again when she tells the girls, especially when I have forgotten them.

The beach house, and Bish dealing with it and some of our visits are not the worst of times by any means, but the Slack family has had some great times, and some not so great experiences when it comes to the house on Rolling Road.  Most very comical when you look back on them.

Bish or I have typically taken a picture of the girls walking down the boardwalk during each visit.

The proverbial pic of the girls and I walking down the boardwalk holding hands.

Below are stories I recall from/about The Beach.  They are in no particular order other than maybe chronologically.  Some could be considered positive, and some negative, but all (are intended to) have some degree of humor to them.





Nicobolis, Soft Shell Crabs, & Old Bay Potato Chips
A long time local business is called Nicola Pizza.  It is one of two local pizza options (the other is Grotto Pizza).  You are either a Nicola person or a Grotto person, but not both.  Bish's family has always been part of the Nicola side of the pizza selections.  Papa Nicola supposedly created his own calzone type food item on the menu, and it was named a Nicoboli!  So getting at least one Nicoboli during our visits is a must.  And I have been known to bring along an extra suitcase to buy half baked versions to take home with us too!  I don't know what it is about these things, but they are way better than any calzone I have ever had!

A ground beef Nicoboli from Nicola Pizza

Right behind Nicobolis, my next favorite thing to eat at the beach is soft shell crab sandwiches!  I usually buy them at Dinah Lingo's Market on 1st Ave, but this time I got them somewhere else.  Per Mary's recommendation, I needed to get them "cleaned."  I guess to clean them, you cut off their face as well as cut their lungs out, although I'm not sure why this needs to be done?  I guess I've been eating their faces and lungs for years without realizing I shouldn't be.

Bish loves to get the Old Bay seasoned potato chips made by a local company called Kerrs.  They make a lot of things around here with Old Bay as the flavor of choice!  We recently found out there is a bagel place out on Highway 1 that makes Old Bay flavored bagels that we may have to try on our way out of town!  They probably even have Old Bay ice cream around here somewhere.


Country Road vs. Highway, Genny Creme Ale, & Scrapple!
On my very first trip to the beach with Bish, we rode up with her mom.  It was my first time meeting Mrs. O'Donnell, and was a fun trip overall.  On the ride up, Bish was asking her questions about going to the beach when she was younger, and she talked about hitting the farmer's stands for fresh fruit/vegetables along the side of the road along the way.  As we drove down one of the local highways - it was numbered/on a map/and paint down the middle, she mentioned taking the "country roads" up to the beach, and that we were on these "country roads" as we drove.  My comment to Mrs. O'Donnell was "A country road is usually crowned with deep side ditches on both sides, and if there is paint down the middle, it's a highway to me!"  Bish has chuckled at this story for years!

Mrs. O'Donnell was still trying to size me up/figure out what kind of bumpkin Bish had brought home, when we first arrived at the house on Rolling Road.  It was midday probably, and we come into the house, unload the car, and are putting things we brought with us away.  I get into the refrigerator for some reason , and see bottles of Genesse Cream Ale, and promptly cracked one open for a refreshing drink!  Although I didn't see their faces, I'm sure Bish and her mom were both quite shocked that I was drinking an alcoholic malted beverage so early in the day.  I immediately spit out my first drink of Genny Cream Ale into the sink, and said "That's beer!"  For some reason, I was expecting Cream Soda, not Cream Ale!  I think Bish was very relieved at my mistake as her mom wouldn't think I was a raging alcoholic!

During this first trip, we also went out for breakfast one morning with her mom.  I do not recall where we went, but it was a local breakfast joint.  As I was perusing the menu, I noticed a common word kept coming up on many of the breakfast choices, Scrapple.  I had no idea what this was, so I eventually asked.  It is a local breakfast side, and "meat like" product.  I had to try it, since I had never heard of it and it was a local favorite.  It is much like Goetta, for those from the Ohio area.  If you do not have an adventuresome food pallette, then I would suggest you stop reading, and never try one of these strange meat like options.  I learned over the years that there exist a variety of local market meat like products that are basically the cast offs of animals that cannot be sold for other uses as food.  What they seem to do is combine these extra parts/pieces, cook them down, and combine them into a brick that can be cut and cooked.  For those that have traveled to Ireland/UK area, it is similar to blood sausage.

The Incredible Mr. Limpet's Glasses & the O'Donnell Family Reunion Shirt
Bish and I went to the beach years ago with my friend Jeff from California.  Jeff had heard Bish talk of her fondness for the beach, and had heard me discuss joining Bish a time or two also.  He likes to surf, so joined us one year for a fall trip to the beach.  In addition to Jeff coming, Bish's friend Linsley came from Baltimore, and our friends Bill & Aimee came down from New Jersey where they were living at the time.

I don't recall the story, but someone found an old t-shirt from an O'Donnell family reunion somewhere in the house.  For some reason, Bill decided to model this medium sized t-shirt for all of us.  Let's just say, medium was not Bill's normal shirt size!  Below is a pic of Bill in the family reunion t-shirt, with Aimee standing beside him.

Bill modeling his O'Donnell Family Reunion t-shirt

On this same trip, after having a few beers, Bish, myself, Jeff, and Linsley all decided it would be fun to go swimming in the ocean after dark!  Why in the hell anyone would attempt to do that I have no idea, but we decided to give it a go.  I really can't swim, and also can't see without my glasses on, so I commonly will get into the water, pool or ocean, with my glasses on so I can see.  On this occasion, I waded out into the surf like always, and eventually got deep enough where the water was above my waist.  The next thing I know, I got nailed with a big wave, and shazam, my glasses got knocked off my face!  After a few minutes of a few of us attempting to feel them on the bottom in the sand with our feet, we gave up, and left them to Mr Limpet (look it up - a movie from the early 70s with Don Knott as the voice of a person turned into a cartoon fish!).

Bish visiting Mr. Curry.

Crabby Bish
As I mentioned previously, this house has meant a lot to Bish over the years.  As a result, she occasionally will get wrapped around an axle about things that she may encounter while at the beach.  Years ago when we were in town with my friend Jeff, she got all crabbed up at me for some reason.  I'm sure I did or said something stupid as I have a tendency to do things like that.  Whatever I did to set her off, she ended up getting out of the car on Rehoboth Ave. and started walking.  Jeff and Ita were in the car with us, so I pulled over into a parking spot and left the car with them and made the attempt to make amends with her.  Jeff was absolutely amazed that I was able to overcome whatever it was I had done to make her mad!  I probably was too at the time!  He figured he and I would be going home early based on how mad she was with me.

On our current trip, in addition to no telephone or internet, we also discovered that there was no hot water.  Bish had turned on the water heater breaker after we arrived, but when I went to take a shower the next morning, there was still no hot water.  She went to investigate, and determined that the breaker was on, but that "someone" had closed a ball valve on the exit pipe for the water heater.  Needless to say, with this minor issue piled onto the no telephone/no internet issue, this minor breech in "Beach House open up protocol" got her mad too.  Eventually she realized it wasn't a big deal.  :-)

We stopped once at a Harris Crab House on Kent Island just after crossing the Chesapeake Bay Bridge.

"Break Glass Here!"
A few years back, we showed up at the beach house around 7 pm or so on an August night.  We drop Bish off near the front of the house, and drive around to the back to park and wait for her to unlock the back door from inside.  We wait, and wait, and wait, and eventually she comes walking around the side of the house.  The key we have did not work on the front door!  I don't recall if they changed the locks and we just didn't get a copy of the new key, or whether the lock was so corroded, or our key was not cut right, that it didn't work in the lock.  Bish started to make calls to her siblings to see in anyone else was up near the beach that could come unlock the door for us.  The closest person was 2-3 hours away at best.  So we made an executive decision and just decided to break a window to get in!  Fortunately we were in town for 10-12 days, so I learned the art of glazing for the first time in my life!  We were able to get a piece of glass cut, and I bought the supplies I needed to insert the glass back into the window and seal it in there!  It was a frustrating experience at the time as we were all ready to just get into the house and crash after traveling all day, but it was pretty damned funny in hindsight!

A pic of the window we had to break to get inside the house!

No Phone.  No Internet.  No Problem, First Name "Mister" & What's the Point in even having a TV?
We show up last week for our final family vacation to the beach after driving across the country for nine days.  We are not a big cell phone data usage family as we have access to wifi at home a majority of the time.  On our trip, we used a lot more cell data while driving to do research, check the weather, etc. than we normally do.  So we were relying on being able to use the internet at the beach house to help keep our cell bill from going up while traveling.  After getting unloaded, we attempt to get onto the internet for whatever reason (probably to update this worthless blog!).  Guess what?  No friggen internet!  Well, maybe we just need to reset the DSL modem since it's probably been awhile since that occurred.  We attempt that option a few times and still no luck.  We eventually give up, and figure we'll call customer service in the morning.  Bish attempts to figure it out the next day, and discovers that the house has been without telephone or internet for 6-7 months now!  Bish pays the bills from AZ, and gets some utility bills via email, and some still come to family members back East via USPS.  The Verizon bill was on auto-pay as she missed a payment or two the previous summer due to not getting copies of the bill soon enough to get them paid on time.  You would think that either someone would notice that the bills stopped arriving, or that the phone and internet were not working when they used the beach house in the last 7 months!!!

Eating crepes at Cafe Papillon.

The situation actually ended up being a boon for us on this trip, as well as for her siblings who use the house in the future!  The house has always had the lowest level of cable TV service possible!  I'm sure they were attempting to save the money to pay for garbage pickup!  :-)  The TV stations available were a mix of Home Shopping Network and QVC, C-SPAN, and snowy versions of the local network stations!  Let's just say, we have never spent too much time watching TV at the beach based on the lack of options.

To try and resolve the lack of internet available, we decided to go to the local Comcast office and inquire about adding a Cable modem to the existing TV service account.  After sitting in Saturday afternoon traffic on Highway 1, and waiting in line with the local white trash (for an overweight 50+ year old female, being able to wear a bikini should be a privilege, not a right) at the Comcast office, we finally get our chance with the counter guy.  We explain the reason we are there, and he looks up the account with the now defunct telephone number!  When he asks "What name is the account under?"  Bish responds with the standard "Mary O'Donnell" answer that has covered that question for her and her siblings for the last 50+ years!  The guy hesitates and says, "No, that's not it."  Bish then guesses "Lane O'Donnell?"  Again, "No" is the answer.  He finally says "I've never seen this first name before... It is under "Mister" O'Donnell!  Bish then explains that her dad has been dead for over 15 years to the guy.  He asks for a copy of the death certificate, because we carry that around with us everywhere(!!), and not surprisingly finds out we do not have that handy!  He eventually tells us that the simplest thing to do is to go back to the house (again, Highway 1 traffic on a summer Saturday afternoon!) and get the two cable boxes and bring them back.  If we do this, he can cancel the account, and then open a new account for the same address under our name.

We go get the old cable boxes, and open a new account under Bish's name with more modern technology!  As we are driving back to the house, Bish's phone rings - It's Lupsy (most recent person we dealt with at Comcast office) calling to tell us that she forgot to actually give us the cable modem, and that we'll have to make another trip back out there on Highway 1!  :-)  The beach house has now made it to the year 2010 with technology as they now have 40 or so TV channels instead of 10, an internet connection faster than 9600 baud, and the ability to rewind live TV!!  We will take whatever we can get while we are here!  :-)  Woohoo!!!  And now that we have all of this modern technology, we will go back to the house and connect it to the two 20-30 year old SMALL TVs in the house!  Now at least when we sit and squint at the guide screen on the TV, we will at least be able to squint at a greater selection of channels we can't read the info on!

The Slackettes at a young age on a ride at Funland!

Air Conditioning... or Lack Thereof x 2
When it is hot and muggy, I love my AC access!  So when I am in town, I have a tendency to request the AC to be a bit lower than Bish would normally like it (probably at least 5 degrees less!).  On this trip, as well as a previous trip, we determined within a day or two of arriving that the AC isn't working as expected.  In both instances we were able to call the local AC company that has worked on their AC for years to come out and fix the issue.

I have been reminded numerous times the last few trips of just how humid it is outside.  You know it's humid outside when you get up in the morning and the windows have enough condensation on them on the outside that you cannot see outside the windows!  The cool temps inside are a contributing factor to that equation, but it still amazes me just how damned humid it has to be for my glasses to fog up when walking from the AC into the outside air!

The girls and I enjoying a Nicoboli!

Twin Beds
The sleeping arrangements of the beach house consist of 11 twin beds, and 3 of the best damned napping couches I have ever encountered!!!!  I honestly do not know why, but I don't believe a queen or king bed have ever occupied a room in the beach house!  I suppose her Nana and mom didn't want to create any situations where a Catholic would have to ask for forgiveness with all of the teenage kids running around this place years ago.

Upstairs bedroom with 4 twin beds and the best couch ever on the right!

A number of years back, Bish made the week, and probably month, for a local mattress sales lady.  The family was in the process of upgrading what they could of the house, so they decided to spend the money on buying new twin mattresses.  We walked into a local mattress showroom, and Bish told the sales lady she needed to buy "11 twin mattresses!"  I think the lady choked on her coffee and had to ask just 'how many' she wanted again!  A few days later a mattress delivery truck backed into the driveway and they took all of the old ones, probably 40+ years old, out, and put all the new ones in!  Unfortunately they still have the old plastic headboards scattered around the house as one sibling just can't part with those "high quality" pieces of junk quite yet!  :-)


The Garbage
As long as I've been coming to the beach, the O'Donnell family has been too cheap to pay for garbage pickup service.  They pay for (crappy) cable TV all year.  They pay for city water and sewer all year despite no one being at the house for a majority of the year.  They pay for no phone and no internet for 7 months without anyone realizing it.  They pay for the yard to be mowed regularly so none of them have to hassle with it when they are there on vacation.  But for some reason, they have never paid for trash pickup service since I have been around.  Instead, you make a few "sneaky" trips to the local park to throw your overstuffed trash bag into the park trash can, or tote it all the way back to the Dc area to throw in your own trash!  I'm guessing the monetary fine for doing such a thing is probably more than the annual cost of $250 to have the city pick up the trash during the times when someone is actually using the house.  Thank God I won't have to risk getting caught using a public trash can as my dumpster any longer!

The garbage can in the park that receives the most O'Donnell family trash in town.

Pickles
We were here the summer that Danica was 4 (2010?).  One of the most memorable occurrences of our visits to RB happened one of our last nights in town while we were at Funland with the girls, and Bish's sister Mary and her husband Mike (Peter may have been there also?).  A few of us had been playing the "squirt the water and make the horse go" game on the corner of Funland.  Right next to it was one of those games where you throw a ball or two and if they go into the holes with color around them, you win a stuffed animal.  Out of probably 200 holes for the ball to go through, maybe 25-30 have colors around them.  And of those 25-30, most are colored to win the smaller stuffed animals, and only 1-2 holes are colored to win the GIANT stuffed animals.  Danica decides she wants to play this game.  I'm thinking, "what a waste of money this will be!"  So I give the guy $2 or whatever the cost to toss two balls is, and Danica throws the first ball and it plinks around and falls into a non painted hole - shocker!  She then tosses the second ball, and it bounces around a few times and PLOP, right into the BIG prize colored hole!!!!!!  She was so excited to win the huge alligator!!!!

She decided to name the alligator Pickles, as that was the name she wanted to call our dog Maori, but that name lost the overall vote.  Unfortunately we were not able to take Pickles with us on our way home as we did not have enough luggage space in which to put him on the plane.  So we left Pickles at the beach house, and figured we'd bring him home to AZ on our next trip to the beach.  So two years go by and we show back up at the beach.  As soon as we arrived, Danica's top priority was to find Pickles.  We start looking all around the house, and we can't find him anywhere!  What does a 6 year old kid do when they can't find their favorite giant stuffed animal?  Of course, they begin to cry!  We start to call a number of Bish's siblings asking if maybe someone took him home, or (God forbid!) they threw Pickles away.  Eventually someone was able to tell us that they had last seen Pickles in one of the upstairs bedroom closets.  Sure enough, Pickles was buried in the bottom of a closet underneath some other stuff.  Pickles found his way home with us to AZ, and now resides in Danica's bedroom!

6 year old Danica - happy to be reunited with Pickles!

Family Calls About The Beach
Or as I like to call them, Drinking Sunday Afternoons!  Over the last 5+ years or so, Bish and her siblings have had regular conference calls once a month on a Sunday afternoon typically.  They need to meet regularly to discuss expenses, projects, lack of internet, the neighbors drainage, etc.  Well, it seems the longer these calls have occurred, and the specific topics that will be discussed on a given call, the more a need for Bish to have a cocktail (or 10!) occurs also!  Bish usually tells me sometime during the week that she "has a family call" this Sunday.  So I am made aware of the fact that she will be tied up around 4-6 pm our time on Sunday afternoon.  As usual, I typically forget about her family call... until I see her grab a beer/pour a glass of wine/ask me to make a Bloody Mary or Margarita for her!  One of her siblings was out to visit a few years back, and just happened to be in town on a Sunday where a family call was to occur.  During our time out with the girls, we made sure to buy all the supplies we needed for some exceptional Bloody Mary's for the two of them during the call!  I think we had the pickled onions, blue cheese filled olives, celery, good Bloody Mary mix, and of course lots of good vodka!  I figure Bish's liver will thank her once she is done with these monthly family calls to discuss the beach!

Because you always have to stop and get your picture taken at this place on the boardwalk!

Final pic with this pose.  Darby was too slow, and is too tall to bend over to get her head on one of the lower holes!

The Gift that Keeps on Giving
Since her parents passed in the early 2000s, all of the kids took ownership of the beach house.  In most respects this wasn't a bad thing.  But to get 10 people to agree on anything, let alone when they all have emotional ties to the cause, is a difficult task at best.  Two siblings chose to sell their ownership interest a few years back, and Bish decided recently that it is time for her to exit her ownership of The Beach as well.  She got to this point for two primary reasons.  It has become a money pit (remember the 80's movie with Shelly Long?) based on the age of the home, and the fact that only the basic maintenance has been done to it for years.  As a result, the amount of money that it costs our family each year is no longer worth the value we get out of it.  If we were closer and could use it more often, it would be a different story.  The siblings discussed spending some money on the place to upgrade the kitchen and bathrooms to make the house rentable so they could rent it out part of the year and at least cover their costs, but after 2+ years of dragging their feet on this topic, it probably isn't going to happen in my lifetime.

Secondly, Bish (to her credit!) has decided that the stress and unhappiness she experiences 98% (51 of 52 weeks of the year) of the time she is not at the beach (see the Family Calls section above), along with the tension dealing with the beach that is created amongst her siblings, is something she is no longer interested in experiencing.  She recently turned 50, and would rather have good relationships with all of her siblings for the remainder of her and their lives, rather than relationships that ebb and flow based on everyone's feelings about the beach house.  Life is too short to allow something like an old house 2500 miles away from where you live to create bad feelings between family members.


Our Final Trip

The girls on a Lifeguard Chair.

I'm not a fan, but Bish and the girls love to rent a surrey bike and ride on the boardwalk.

I know Bish leaving Rolling Road for the last time will be very hard on her, as well as hard on the girls, but I also know she and they have a lifetime of great memories from this place that they can hold onto forever.  We will find another spot that we can vacation at frequently to fill the opening left behind for our family.  I am pretty confident Bish will never again step foot in the beach house, and she may never come back to Rehoboth Beach as visiting here will never be the same for her ever again.  I feel sad for her sake for these likely facts.

All 3 Slackettes driving bumper cars at Funland.

Our time at Rolling Road has been great, and we will cherish the memories created there for the rest of of our lives.