Life is a Beach

As you may know, we live in Chesapeake Beach, Maryland. People ask (yes, seriously, they do) "Do you really live at the beach?" It may surprise you to find out (or not, if you you are super smart) that just a short mile done the road from our house is the Chesapeake Bay. Where there is bay, there is beach. Now granted, we live in a neighborhood complete with cul-de-sacs and small children, but I don't think that takes away from the "at the beach" location.

But, since I'm airing out all our little secrets, there isn't a "Chesapeake Beach" with sand you can lounge on. Our town claims what they call "Brownie's Beach" which is hardly a beach at all. I think there are 10 parking spots total and enough sand for about 5 families to share. The kicker is, they charge you to go on it! There is also the better known North Beach, which is the neighboring town to Chesapeake Beach. This squat of sand can fit about 15 families, but at least there is plenty of parking. And since we're not residents of North Beach and live a whooping 2 miles away from it (if that), it'll cost us to sit on that too. Oh how I miss you, Delaware beaches!

So, needless to say, despite living in "Chesapeake Beach," we had yet to go to the beach at all since moving here. Until this weekend, that is. With a big heat wave finally breaking and the temperature hovering around the low 80s, it seemed like perfect beach weather around our parts. And given the information above, we decided to try a new beach all together. Based on positive things we had heard from other people that had visited, we drove south about 30 minutes to Flag Pond's Nature Park. We we're pleasantly surprised! Way more than 15 families could fit on this sand!

Still, it cost us $4. I felt a little better giving the money to a nature park. I hope they do good things with it. I may even invest in the $15 season pass. It's also a 1/2 mile walk from the parking to the beach, but a built in workout didn't bother us too much. Plus, we figure that serves as a deterrent to the truly lazy and the less people around me, the better, in my opinion! There was plenty of sand to spread out amongst the modest sized crowd and although there will always be someone who lets their child collect shells one foot in front of your beach chair despite the thousands and thousands of shells on the rest of the beach AWAY from the people, it was rather pleasant. Check out the scenery:

By 2:30, most people started clearing out. I loved sitting by the water, soaking up some sun, and basking in all the silence. I wasn't daring enough to go in the water after hearing enough children scream "I stepped on a horseshoe crab!" since those suckers freak me out. Joe and I had a great time!

And since we were down south, we finished off our great day with an old favorite...Golden Chicken! You just must try their chicken fingers and honey mustard sauce!