I spent last weekend out of town at the least glamorous beach on earth. No palm trees or glistening white sand for me. I barely left the tri-state area. I went on holiday to Ocean City, Maryland. And it was glorious.
If you’ve never been to Ocean City, you really aren’t missing all that much. I know I lobbied to spend a summer there, but honestly, the place is pretty trashy. Rough crowded beaches, liquor stores and ads plastered almost everywhere the eye can see. The people aren’t much better- it’s impossible to be a woman over 12 and walk down Ocean Highway without being honked and hollered at upwards of a dozen times. The nicest thing I can say about Ocean City as a place is that it has more incarnations of mini-golf than you could possibly ever imagine.
Still, I’ve spent at least one weekend there every summer for the past 5 years. I make the four-hour drive from DC with a car full of my closest friends from high school. Just us, Mike’s grandparent’s tiny beach condo and a truly excessive amount of alcohol. We call this Beach Week, although we never stay more than a few nights, and it’s our friendship’s greatest tradition.
The initial group has grown and shrunk as relationships and friendships come and go. We still have our original core, but the party has ballooned up around us. This year we crammed 14 people into a three-bedroom condo. Now it may seem unlikely to you that anyone could like each other enough to sleep 6 to a room, but I assure you, somehow we do.
As we struggle through unemployment, crappy jobs, and generally early–twenties suckiness, Beach Week has kept us together and kept us going. All year long we tell stories of Beach Week lore: the year Carolyn and I tried to swim in a hurricane, the time the cops caught us skinny-dipping (okay, that happened twice), the time Mattie almost got in a fight defending our honor. Not all of the stories involve us getting in trouble or almost killed, I promise.
So, is this travel? We’re not exploring new locations, or actively seeking learning or adventure. There are approximately zero museum visits; cultural experiences or sunrise hikes undertaken during this weekend. I’m a total fan of all that high brow stuff- don’t get me wrong, but I think there is a subtler experience and value that comes from revisiting the same old place, with the same old people, time and again.
In fact, I would say that because things are the same, it is easier to see the subtle changes. Travel serves a lot of functions in our lives. Discovering new places teaches us about ourselves sure, but sometimes it’s seeing your reflection against the same comforting backdrop that lets you realize your own evolution.
Five years we’ve been doing this. That’s like a lifetime when you’re my age. Over that span of time I’ve gotten boyfriends, lost boyfriends, graduated from college, moved to London and back (twice) and yet, somehow I’ve never missed a year. It keeps me grounded and it reminds me what’s at my core.
Unfortunately, this year was probably the last beach week, at least for a while, at least for me. After several years at home, most of us are rallying to move up and onwards with our lives. People are off to grad school, off to California, off to conquer the world. Can’t even fathom where I’ll be a year from now.
Progress is exciting, but it’s bittersweet as well. My friends are very important to me. They know who I am, where I’ve come from, and the support me where I’m going. They are reading this right now, right alongside you. As I go out into the world, independent lady that I am, I carry them and this history with me.
And I always carry pictures. On cold backpacker nights, I can look back on the sunny days of Beach Week, and remind myself who I am.
I, too, have traveled around the world and yet still find myself returning to OCMD for a weekend trip with friends.
Love museums, hiking, dining, etc etc, but you’re so right. Sometimes you just need to sit around on a beach and just take a vacation from just traveling (which I’ve said over and over -probably to deaf ears, is not always a vacation) with the people who know you best.
Yeah sometimes you just wanna drink a beer and have fun! I still look forward to my trip each year.
Our group of friends have been going to Ocean City every year for the last six or seven years, ever since we all moved from our various schools to Maryland for work. It’s not much on paper but Ocean City is a fun town that lacks the presumptuousness of some other “beach” cities. There’s nothing like sitting out in the water at Seacrets all afternoon and then jumping around on those metal platform floors at night!
I think it’s a fairly popular tradition in the DC area. We LOVE those metal platforms!
This post almost made me cry!! I am so sad that I couldn’t make beach week this year! Gaahhh. I love the post, i think it really does capture the essence of the friendship. Well done and miss you LOADS!
<3 back atcha chica
I’ve been going to OC for years with family, and you captured the scene pretty well. I don’t consider it a “vacation” usually, but it’s definitely travel. We stay up in the 120s streets, so it’s quieter and close to tax-free Delaware. I love to get down to Assateague though – that’s one of my all-time favorite things about the beach weekend 😉
I haven’t been to Assateague in years but it is very beautiful!
Great post. Sometimes travel involves far off locations and other times it’s a simple getaway with friends. You’ve shown there’s merit for each.
Thanks! I like to appreciate all forms of travel.
Your friends rock, and I’m totally dying for a beach getaway like this too now.
I think you’d get along with them quite well Candice
I love how you’re able to take something that seems so un-travel blog worthy, and turn it into a thoughtful and enlightening post. Great stuff, Steph.
Thank you Matt!
It certainly looks like you have a lot of fun at beach week! Swimming in a hurricane – what’s wrong with you?? 😉 I think that yes, this is travel! While some people make a yearly or biyearly journey to Bangkok or the Grand Canyon, you and yours go to Ocean City. And why not? This will always be a part of you and place you can call home or base your travels from.
Past Me appears to have had a death wish…
I love this post simply because I lived in Ocean City for* a month this summer in a camper and didn’t get to enjoy any of the fun things you did! So thank you for letting me live through you vicariously. Glad the Eastern Shore did ya good.
*I worked on Chincoteague Island so my days were full of commuting and watching dvds on the couch. Went out once to a crab house with friends. Pathetic, I know.
What a shame, Chincoteague is quite pretty though!