"Oil Hidden Under Sand"

"Oil Hidden Under Sand"

Reports from Pensacola Beach

I am so sickened by what's happening to the panhandle beaches. I am so sickened by the lack of media covering this. I am so sickened by the pathetic failings we're witnessing from BP and our feckless government's "unresponse." I am so sickened by the lack of workers cleaning this mess on the beaches. I am so sickened that 67 days in the oil is still gushing out with no end in sight.

I am so glad this fellow is posting Youtube videos to keep us apprised of what's going on. If you read the local paper you would think there wasn't any oil spill. I plan to post Gregg's Youtube videos whenever I can.

June 26, 2020 - "Pensacola Oil Tar Everywhere"



June 26, 2010 - "Pensacola Beach Toxic Tidal Pool"



June 26, 2010 - "Pensacola Beach Daily Report"

Girl at the Beach

I'm so happy my daughter enjoyed herself at the beach. The rest of her summer is pretty much going to suck...

Ocean Isle Beach II

I wish I could say we had a wonderful night's sleep, but I can't. My husband and I aren't used to such expensive high-top mattresses that slope down the sides. The girl loved hers. I bet she did as she had the entire bed to herself. My husband said he felt like he was going to roll off the edge and get wedged between the wall and mattress so he slept "oddly." A quick trip to the jacuzzi worked out his back and he didn't complain any more, although it did become a running joke that we needed a step ladder to climb into bed.

The boy called in the morning and said he still hadn't heard from the Duke about the air conditioning. The nineties were finally starting to get to him, along with his long work hours and his friends schedules not lining up with his. Was that snippiness I detected coming through the phone? I held back saying, "You should hace come with us!" I made my husband call the Duke who informed him he had in fact fixed the air conditioner but forgot to tell the boy to switch on the thermostat. As soon as he got home from work the boy called to say it was working. Yay! I was finally able to relax...



It was much more challenging walking along the beach every morning, on a slant through broken shells, than it is by the Roanoke River greenway. Yet, I prefer sloshing through the surf...





I didn't see any ducks like I do along the Roanoke River but there were quite a few birds wading in the surf...



I even watched this one dive in and capture a fish...





Who knew flowers could grow in the sand?



Love also grows in the sand...We saw two weddings on one day.





One day we headed into Myrtle Beach. My daughter suggested we bring back a hermit crab as a souvenir for my son. When I asked him if he wanted one he said, "Yeah, just what I need, something else to take care of! If you wanna bring me back something how about some fireworks?" My husband was all for that so off we went across the border.

We decided to go to Broadway on the Beach to do some shopping (disappointed in that) and have dinner there as well. We attempted the Hard Rock Cafe, but it was an hour long wait and after looking over the menu we figured it would suck like Planet Hollywood did last time. Luckily the girl didn't care whether we stayed or not, "There's no way I'm waiting over an hour in this heat for macaroni and cheese. This place looks like a tourist trap. I expected more."



All the other restaurants had massive waits too except for a few located when you first walk in. The problem was they wouldn't let my daughter in because she was under 21. It was only 6:00pm and those places were empty. I really wanted to go to the Irish joint that advertised shepherd's pie too. We finally stumbled on one as we were leaving, and I can't remember the name of it, but it was pretty much a bar that had some really good happy hour appetizers. They didn't have a problem with her being under 21. In fact there were quite a few kids in there as well. When I remarked to her as I took this picture, "Ah, your first bar," she replied, "Uh no, I sat at the bar at 419 West when Becca's dad played there." "Ok then, your first sleazy bar."



As soon as we were done eating we wanted to leave Myrtle Beach and get back to our beach -- our nice, quiet, peaceful, and thankfully boring beach. It was night already and the pier was lit up...



I loved looking at the pier because depending when and where you gazed at it from, it always took on a different look...













Goodbye Ocean Isle Beach...thank you for providing me with the solitude I needed. I pray the oil doesn't wash up on your shores and destroy you and your wildlife as it has so many other beautiful places...

Ocean Isle Beach I

If there's a more boring and annoying road than heading south to the beaches from Roanoke on 220 I haven't encountered it yet. If you get stuck behind a moron on one of the many two lane stretches you're pretty much screwed. Such was the case on that one stretch you have to cross heading into Greensboro. It seemed to take forever so when we saw an Italian restaurant we stopped hoping the traffic would free up some. What a great treat Elizabeth's or Francesco's, depending upon whether one read the sign in the parking lot or the one on the canopy, turned out to be. We had a brick oven pizza which was the closest thing to New York Pizza than I've ever had, anywhere. It was a great deal too, $7.99 for a large and I mean a regular large 16" pie. Highly recommend it and wish they delivered to Roanoke!

The rest of the trip seemed to take forever and I could only imagine how much worse it could have been if I had listened to Mapquest's 31 step directions. I promptly threw those out when I couldn't even find half the roads mentioned on my North Carolina map. By the time we got to Ocean Isle Beach we felt like we were driving for days, much worse than when we drive to NYC. I felt doubly bad for my husband the driver who had already put in four hours earlier trying to fix the air conditioner.

If you ever want to get away to a beach where there is nothing to do but relax, then Ocean Isle is the place for you. It's close enough to Myrtle, about a half hour away, if you want the "excitement" but seeing as it was "senior week" there we decided unless we got really bored we would stay on the Isle. Of course at one point we would have to cross the border to South Carolina because 4th of July is coming up, but shhhhhh don't tell anyone.

We stayed at the Ocean Isle Inn, a small place located directly on the beach. Like I said before the only way to go is to get an oceanfront balcony...pay the extra $20. The sound view is nice...



but the windows don't open and there's no balcony. The front desk people are very nice there and the woman told me we had the best room in the house. All the rooms are the same so I guess "best" meant we had the farthest room on the top floor at the very corner away from everything. That was fine until maybe the fifteenth time we had to endure the trek from the car to the elevator to the room to the beach to the ice machine to anywhere. We began referring to it as "The Green Mile." The only thing missing was the prisoner's arms clawing at us as we passed each door. Truthfully I actually preferred being so far away because one of my pet peeves is being too close to the elevator and hearing the doors open all night, or the ice machine and hearing it bang all night. No worries there.

The hotel has an outdoor and indoor pool with a jacuzzi. There's no food or bar on site, a negative, that is easily overcome if you come supplied with a case of wine and because there are refrigerators and microwaves in each room. They do offer a limited continental breakfast, and I will never eat another cheap bagel or waffle again. Just having that option saves a lot of money though, as does the microwave and fridge. If there was an entrepreneur who wanted to make money I would suggest they get a hot dog/knish cart for the beach. They would make a gold mine. We found a really nice supermarket, Lowes, that had some great foods we brought back to the room for lunches. Who wants to hang out at the beach in the morning then get dressed and go out somewhere for lunch? It took us two days to realize that it would be better to just go up to the room, order in from Dominos or eat leftovers, then head back down to bake some more.

When we got settled in we called the boy and he said the Duke had been by and would be back the next day. He said it was really hot but he'd be okay since he was working again. He had hoped to go out with his friends that night but they got called into their jobs so he was going to be alone. Did I detect a little longing for us? He said, no, he was fine and not to worry. He would call us the next day. I felt a little better talking to him but still uptight that the air conditioning hadn't been fixed. I asked the boy what he had for dinner, "Ramen." I hoped that wouldn't be the week's menu.

Once my husband poured me a glass of wine and we sat on the balcony listening to the sound of the surf and gulls my anxiety began to shed a bit.



The ocean is just such a magical place to me. I had grown up around beaches in New York so have always had a special love for beaches and sunsets, especially Brooklyn ones, which are the most spectacular you could ever see. This isn't one of them...





Before we got too comfortable we headed out to an Italian restaurant that we really liked last time, Cinelli's. As soon as we entered I suspected it had changed ownership. The ambiance was gone, it was now beach-like, Ragu-sauced psuedo-Italian "cuisine." The food was poor and the service worse. I hate when I order appetizers before even ordering dinner, hoping the waitress will be smart enough to bring that out first, yet she brings the meal right afterwards when we just had a bite of the appetizer and then asks if we're finished. It's not like the place was even crowded and they had to shuffle us out. That should have been a clue too. I had ordered a split of champagne and the waitress actually asked me if I wanted to keep the bottle. For what? To hit you on the side of the head with? Honey, I've drank Dom and Cristal and didn't keep those bottles so why would I want to keep some crappy brut split? The scary part was the waitress was serious! I asked the girl when the place was sold and she told me it was three years ago. We had been there four years ago. Pegged that one. She also said the original owner was now running a different restaurant, not Italian, which we decided we would give a shot the next day.

Until then, the waves were calling and all I wanted was to decompress so we headed back to the balcony.

Before the Vacation

This would be our first real vacation without the boy. New York doesn't count since he hasn't come with us the last couple of times. "I hate New York...It's too hot...I feel like I'm living in the dark ages in that house...There's nothing to do there!" Way back in March when I was planning our trip to Ocean Isle Beach the boy begged me not to make him come. "I hate the beach...I hate the sun...There's nothing to do there!" I informed him that the only way he would be allowed to stay home was if he got a job. As you all know, he met my challenge. The last time he was left alone he had proclaimed it was "the best week ever!" Of course then he wasn't working. Neither were any of his friends.

The first wrench that was thrown into his plans happened the night before we were to leave. The central air conditioning pooped out. After I got home from buying last minute important things like clean white socks for my husband I noticed the house was hot even though air was blowing from the ceiling vents. I then realized the outside blower was not on. Oh shit, this couldn't be good. I immediately went into panic mode. It was already in the 90's and scheduled to be that hot all week. I couldn't have the boy and dog without air. Naturally it was after ten so there weren't any service people answering our calls. Luckily my husband had someone he knew, the Duke, who had fixed it last year so he told me not to worry he would call him early in the morning. I worried all night, and sweated profusely as well.

First thing in the morning my husband called the Duke only to have his call go directly to voice mail. Since my husband is a mechanic he thought it sounded like the motor burnt out and set out to try and replace it himself. He knows nothing about air conditioning units but I still put my trust in him. He knew I would not leave without having this problem resolved so I'm sure he saw no other alternative. I kept bitching about the timing of the problem until I realized it happened at a good time. What if we had left the day before as originally planned, until I put the kibosh on that because the boy was graduating on Saturday and I wanted to spend Sunday with him. What if it happened when we weren't home? The boy wouldn't have even realized the outside unit wasn't functioning and maybe a fire could have occurred. The outside unit was red hot when my husband checked on it. So after I thought about it, although inconvenient, I realized it was a blessing it happened when it did.

As the clock ticked away with no callback, I GTS'ed (googled that shit as my kids would say) so my husband found a place to get a motor and brought the other one with him. Google Maps was inaccurate, surprise surprise, so it took him another half hour to find out exactly where it was located. Luckily they had the motor in stock. Unluckily, the screws were too long so my husband had to saw them down to make it fit. Putting it all back together was more difficult for him than the intricate engines he normally does because he had no freaking idea what the hell he was doing. Amazingly he got it all together with the help of saws, steel wool, determination and my prayers. He fired it up and it promptly kicked off the circuit breaker. Failure. Oh shit, now what?

Just then his phone rang and it was the Duke! He was apprised of the situation, but since he had a regular day job and lived in Windy Gap now and didn't have any of his tools with him he couldn't come over that day but promised he would coordinate with the boy to come over and fix it. Luckily the boy didn't have to go until 5 the next day and the Duke got off at 3 so there was a small window of opportunity. He assured us it wasn't going to be a problem as did the boy. "Just go, don't worry, I can handle this." I felt terrible, not only because it was so freaking hot but now the boy had yet another responsibility to add to his already long list. "It's not too late you can still come with us," I begged him. "No, I have to go to work and would rather stay in the sweltering house than lie on a hot beach anyway." "Give the boy a break. He can handle this," my husband said.

This was not the way I had pictured the start of a much needed relaxing vacation. With her surgery looming ever closer the girl needed to get away. I could not disappoint her. I prayed for help and put my faith there would be a silver lining, so with much trepidation and anxiety, we headed south.

Oceanfront Balcony

No, I haven't disappeared permanently, just been taking in the views from my oceanfront balcony on Ocean Isle Beach...

Front...



Right...



Left...



If you stay at the beach, any beach, oceanfront balconies are the only way to go...