Escaping to? Berlin

 Hi folks,

The thing about a beach vacation is that, if you just go to the beach every day, there's not much to tell. 

Fortunately today our weather maven, K, thought it was not a good beach day (she wasn't wrong), so we spent the afternoon in Berlin, MD.  Did you know it was named the best small town in America?  Neither did I.

Though one wonders how such things are determined, I know it is a contender if the main criteria is the number of shops selling...okay, "stuff no one really needs."  The one place was full of pottery, another was a wine shop with other things (like duffle bags?), the one place had cool men's clothes, with a motorcycle in the middle of it, and...well, I lost track.  Ad infinitum to spend time wondering and saying "really?!?!?!" 

I took one picture that doesn't do the place justice, but it'll have to do as this blog's thumbnail, etc. 

There were multiple bakeries and we chose what we decided was the wrong one -- none of us was thrilled by what we ordered ):  but, then, again, we were having fresh baked goods on a Tuesday afternoon. 

Back to the cottage in a major rain storm (we've gotten a couple inches in the last 24 hours) to watch England NOT win their match with Ghana.  We hear a witch doctor in Ghana hexed Harry Kane.  But just for this game! 🤣

K found the dinner spot, which was less than a mile away and Italian.  She had the lasagna --

EH had the gnocchi with vodka sauce.

And I had the margherita pizza.  (they had an open oven where we could watch the guy singe his facial hair putting the pizzas in)

And they had the tiramisu. 

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In case you are keeping track (and I know some of you are), yesterday morning we did go to the beach.  It was lovely, though there had been predictions of high winds.  It got close to that as we left around 1:30, but up till then it was in the high 70s and a mix of cloud and sun.  The water is 72 degrees, which isn't as warm as you'd think it was.

We had dinner at another local place, the Shrimp Boat, who runs a fresh shrimp stand on the road with the eatery on the side. 

It was the second consecutive night of "local atmosphere", eating off picnic tables, this time with packagin paper as a table cloth, and the interesting flatware in a paper sleeve approach.  And a roll of paper towels for napkins.  

But the food, though not inexpensive, was good.  

K got the wait staff recommended stuffed flounder

(though I wonder if that is really imperial sauce on it)

And EH had the crabcake dinner. (I had the cc sammy)

This was followed by a round of miniature golf -- a longstanding family beach vacay tradition -- which included several holes in one.  Including one we counted as a hole-in-one as EH, using the patented Happy Gilmore swing, bounced one off the course and into a waste basket sitting next to the next tee. 🤣🤣🤣

And back to our favorite cottage (a quick Booking.com check had it full next week here and the next week you could get one unit, that's all that was left, for $2,700 for the week...a bargain at twice the price! 🤣) to sit through a horrendous thunderstorm.  ):  

There was a discussion at dinner about coming back.  I said no (see the last blog), they said "it's not that bad."  I repeated the "they'll need Temperance Brennan (star of the book we are listening to on the ride) to determine what happened to me that I'm dead on the sofa" because it is too low and has a "lower back support" that only means you sit in a curled position.  They talked about maybe coming back and staying. 🙄. The beach is nice enough, and the town, but we won't be staying in the cottage that amenities forgot. 

Till my next inspiration (and the next two days at the beach may not provide it)...