Kaimusailing

I was allowed to finish the registration of the 2006 Honda CRV online and not have to drive 40 miles to the Maryland MVA in Salisbury. The car was ready to go on it’s first trip, a 4 hour drive up to the New Jersey Shore.
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I used Google Maps which somehow sent me up RT13 North, which I expected, but it was a horrible route. It was a lot of traffic lights and stop and go. I have traveled many times between Wilmington, Delaware and Annapolis, MD, using Delaware roads and it is a pleasant drive. Not this route. I need to do more research for the return trip.
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I had a quart of Macadamia Honey from my younger brother in Hawaii, and although I don’t use a lot of honey, I tasted it and it is very special. We decanted it into 4 oz. Mason jars. I hope there is enough to go around, everybody wants some.
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I met my little 3 month old grandson, Isaac, Ike, and he is already showing a bit of personality. I had bought some “I Like Ike” buttons, recreations of the campaign slogan of the 50’s. Ike the baby had one pinned on his onesie, very amusing.
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My brief stay on the Jersey Shore was interesting. I stayed at the Belmar Inn, which is like the old Tanarama I stayed at near Kittyhawk many years ago. It is a quaint 1800’s building with a large veranda right on the street and a short walk to the beach. It looked like it once had a restaurant, but now the dining room is just a large room with an old tin ceiling, a couple of ornate ceiling fans, ornate cove molding, and a bandstand in one corner. I could see a venue here right at the beach, live music, maybe a wine bar or a bistro, maybe it once was like that many years ago.
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My shower was one of those plastic insert showers, just bang it into place, plumb it, but underneath it felt like there was no solid flooring under it, above it the ceiling tiles were stained, like the shower upstairs was leaking, maybe we would all end up in the basement when the showers collapsed.
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Someone wanted to tear down the old hotel and put up a 24 room condo building, but the local residents voted that down. In spite of the 150 code violations, the hotel was renovated at the huge cost of 300k. They should have spent more, a lot more.
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There are 75 years between me and my grandson. Hard to believe. My daughter came with him to the hotel and we sat on the veranda. An old lady was nearby with some of her family and it sounded like she was dying and they were there as a result. This hotel is very interesting.
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The beach at Deal, NJ, is, to me, a monstrosity. The only shore birds there are rapacious seagulls, flying rats. Fighting over meal remnants. The beach has a crowd of umbrellas and chairs and tanned people, some with gold jewelry, buzz haircuts, skin tight tee shirts, others with designer bathing suits and such. A contrast with one of my favorite beaches, the ones around Janes Island in Crisfield. I understand the beach culture very well. The effort to bring chairs and umbrellas and all the other stuff should put people off of doing it, but they get ingrained into a sort of ritual. The sun has something to do with it. If you have surf breaking nearby, it can beckon you to the beach. A full moon…
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The houses nearby the beach are huge McMansions with large tracts of land, landscaped with trees, etc. Shark River is nearby, where I almost lost my boat 20 years ago. Here I am again. I suppose the beach is the way it is because it is adjacent to large populations, towns that have melded together, the area is not homogeneous, you can tell when you leave one area and go into another, but it is basically all the same, they all have only this one beach, endless. Endless nothing, no storks, ibis, heron, or rare ducks. Maybe in the back bay. I’d like that better.
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My son-in-law’s parents were the most gracious giving people I have ever met. We had wine at dinner and I immediately said, this is good. It was good. The conversation was good, mostly because they let me talk in paragraphs. I thought this wine should be in our wine tasting down in Crisfield. I was careful driving back to the hotel.
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Careful as I was, the GPS was slow in giving directions, so it would say like, slight right to stay on RT35, and I would slight right, but onto a different road. I don’t know how to get around here, the GPS is letting me down. Yeah, it was the GPS that had me go through every traffic light in Dover. They blame it on the pilot, so I was extra careful in navigating my way back to the hotel. Hard to find parking. You have to park on the street next to people’s houses. I expect they are used to it, but I was looking for the spare car key I was using, so I was clunking doors, searching around with a light, no key, where was it? I just closed it all up and headed into the hotel.
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The next morning I found the key was in the rear door with its tag. Must be a safe neighborhood. I couldn’t remember the name of the wine, also, but how to find it out, hmm. I proceeded from the hotel to the cute house in Deal. They have lived there for about 55 years. Hard to get my head around that one.
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I asked about the name of the wine and my host went off and came back with a bottle. It is from Jessup Cellars, called Grazielle, or something like that. It’s no longer available, $115 a bottle. Yes, it is good. I think we will stick with Saddlebred.
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I took my daughter to the train to go to Manhattan for dinner and I began my trip back to Crisfield. Surely we can do better on the way back than the awful way up. No, it was much worse. I am starting at around 4PM, so it is rush hour, and so it would be. 5 and a half hours. I won’t mention the wrestling with the GPS, which put me in a ‘hood in South Philly. Some people are directed to drive off piers and boat ramps, I was lucky.
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Heavy traffic, but bottlenecks, construction, places that confused the GPS, and I needed to stop off the road to wrestle with it. Just glad to get away from all that. I rolled into Crisfield at around 9 and change, PM, I needed bread and eggs, would the store be open after 9?
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Got my eggs, etc., picked up a package at Cornelia Marie’s, dent removal kit for her old car. Caveat Emptor.
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The next day I refilled the empty propane tank that was sitting at the old Red Shell Shanty along with the pizza oven. We are going to fire it up!
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The pizza event would be Sunday late afternoon. The weather was perfect. The old pizza oven fired up in a test, thumbs up. I prepped things in the old Red Shell Shanty, which was now the Boater’s Lounge. This ain’t no bistro, this is pizza night.
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Move along, yes, I must move along. Cornelia Marie and Wilbur were coming with pizza dough and some toppings. I prepped the Galbani whole milk mozzarella, some mild Italian sausage, and black forest ham from the deli, they were placed on a pizza tray and there was another over top, preventing the flies from invading. I remember these flies from years ago.
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The Red Shell Shanty was a nice little bistro a short walk from my dock. People liked it, I got to know them and the staff. It was a shock when the marina decided to close it down and turn it into a tv and internet lounge. The TV doesn’t even carry cable or satellite dish, just Roku.
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We moved one of the picnic tables to be in shade, I made a pizza out of the top of my head, ham and fresh basil from Cornelia Marie’s productive plants, baby spinach from Food Lion, secret spices and techniques, I forgot how long to cook it, I knew it wasn’t long.
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It was like 2 or 3 minutes, then turn the pizza 180 degrees. Next, after another 2 or 3 minutes, take it out when it looks right. The aroma of the sizzling ham and the basil, and the spinach hit me with a little help from Cornelia Marie’s special garlic infused oil, I let it sit for a bit. We’ll slice it up.
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If you try to cut it up right away, it will resist, it is still half melted, a flat blob wanting to be a pizza, don’t mess with it right away, sit back and let it coalesce into solid. Cuddily and Teri arrived and then Kristi, another artist, arrived. It was almost like the old Bad Crowd. Just a few missing. We were also having a wine tasting, comparing Saddlebred pinot noir with Black Box and Barefoot On Tap. There was also a bottle of Silk and Spice Red Blend. These are all cheap wines with the Silk and Spice being the most expensive, maybe 10-15 dollars a bottle.
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We of course do not normally drink one wine, then another, we stick with our favorite, which is now the Saddlebred. As it turned out, our wine tasting resulted in the Saddlebred being the best, followed by the Silk and Spice. The Black Box and Barefoot on Tap were very similar and not too far behind the bottled wines. Barefoot is the most economical but we can only get it in Pocomoke.
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The marina security came by with a questioning look and I reassured that they would be able to lock up the Shanty at 10PM as usual. A couple stopped in, thought the Shanty was open, and declined to join us for free pizza and wine. We will see them again in the future.
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I made a pie with sausage and Cornelia Marie made a bunch of pies as only she can. Artiste. As the sun set we put things away and went our ways. I had a pizza tray with the equivalent of one pizza, but it was a selection from the bunch of pies.
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Back on board SUNSPLASH I called Hawaii and was surprised when my brother said they hadn’t had any tropical storm conditions, even though I had seen the Hilo radar on wunderground.com Sunday morning and the eye of Hurricane Hone was just below Ka’u on Hawaii’s southern shore. Rain bands were streaming in from the East. Later in the conversation my sister-in-law said my brother had slept through the peak of the storm. In fact they had had a lot of very heavy rain and high winds. The winds in Ka’u were around 80 mph. There are two more storms coming up behind Hone and maybe more after that. The tradition of no hurricanes or tropical storms in Hawaii might be over. The rarity now looks commonplace.
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The image is of pizza #1, a ham and spinach pie with feta cheese added along with the mozzarella.