Before this weekend, I’d only been to Atlantic City once, many moons ago in college when on a rainy Saturday evening a few friends and I decided to grab a roll of quarters and try our luck at the slots. Obviously we became millionaires and I’m writing this blog about being a travelin’ cheapskate as an “inside joke” while I eat caviar covered in gold leaf and cackle with my rich pals.

I kid, I kid. What obviously happened is that I lost $20 in quarters and only saw Atlantic City from behind a drizzly car window on my way to and from the noisy, flashing, neon cave that is a random casino floor. All that to say, I really didn’t know what would greet us when we arrived for a day-trip this past weekend; I’d heard so many down-on-its-luck stories that I expected there to be like tumbleweeds rolling down a shuttered boardwalk and feral cats having gang fights on the beach.

Not so! AC was perfectly lovely so I’m not sure what all the yammering is about. (Well, but for the out-of-whack taxes and poverty plaguing the back streets.) The boardwalk was lively and festive, blinking with everything from high-end shops and tropical bars to the old school-style rides and amusements that delighted our parents and grandparents and probably outed an eyeball and severed a digit or two along the way. The beach was wide and clean and free. (Take your beach tags and shove ‘em, OC.). The well-situated restrooms were not any more or less horrific than their counterparts that dot the Jersey shore.

We spent the morning and early afternoon relaxing on the beach and reading—and by that I mean secretly listening into every conversation that was going on around us, the best of which involved someone telling her boyfriend that he better “stop acting like that before my whole house gets robbed again.” Huh.

When we’d had enough of that we wandered the boardwalk in search of refreshment and came upon The Playground, the recently opened refurbishment of the Pier Shops at Caesars. The Playground is, more or less, a ritzy mall enclosed on a pier, which now features something called “T-Street,” a row of small, fancy-schmancy restaurants that feature live music, pricey, hand-crafted cocktails, and food done by Jose Garces. At the end of T-Street you make your way out onto the Riviera Beer Garden, which had top-notch water views from three angles. Pretty sweet. 

After staring at the water for another hour or so, I let the Evil AC Demons get the best of me and insisted that G give me a dollar for the slots so that I could win back all that money I’d lost in college in one feel swoop. And then, one dollar poorer, we ventured off the boardwalk and to Arctic Avenue (why is THIS not on your Monopoly board, I ask?) and the White House Sub Shop, which has been around since 1946 and makes what is allegedly the best meatball sub in the world. And let me tell you, it was puh-retty darn good. (Buyer beware: In normal human terms a “half a sub” means you’ll probably get something around 6 inches. In White House terms, a “half a sub” means something closer to 12 inches. Do not fear. It will be so delicious that I know you can take it on.)

Happily fattened, we hopped in the car for a quick hour and ten minute ride home to Philly. 

So we will certainly return for a visit, AC. And I hope that others will, too and maybe, just maybe, you can pick yourself up, dust your self off, and be back on your way to becoming America’s Favorite Playground again. 

Every summer when I was growing up, we went to Ocean City Maryland for a week’s vacation. Some—well most, I’d venture—might say that we went to the beach. In Philly though? No dice. In Philly one does not go to the beach; one goes “down the shore.”

I first heard the phrase when I was here in college and I was all, “Wait, what shore? We aren’t living on a shore and thus there is no shore for us to go down, or up for that matter.” What can I say; I was a too-literal journalism student. Over the years I continued to fight the phrase on one ground or another, but none of my reasoning stuck. And then one day earlier this summer, the inevitable happened.

“Hey,” I said to George. “We ought to go down the shore in July some time.” Gasp. And then I referred to water as “wooder.” Just kidding. I still have some principles, people. 

The Jersey Shore was kind of a non-entity in Lancaster County, as most folks just sort of naturally migrated to the Delaware or Maryland beaches, the fancier among them heading as far south as the Outer Banks. 

So while it didn’t surprised me that, in a similar fashion, Philadelphians generally venture to South Jersey, what did surprise me was sort of the neighborhood-here-to-neighborhood-there correlation. Live in Bridesburg? Brigantine’s your spot. If you’re from the Northeast, head straight to Wildwood, do not pass go, do not collect $200. Travel out to Delco and follow the masses, lemming like, to Sea Isle City. 

For the past few years we’ve been Stone Harbor people, which I gather is the beach—I will never totally cave—of choice for those from Philadelphia’s Northerwesterly wards. But this weekend, we will throw in our lot with those who travel to Atlantic City.

I gotta be honest. I’m not really sure who goes to AC these days. Developers looking for a too-good-to-be-true tax abatements? Old folks on tour buses with rolls of nickels burning holes in their pockets? Tom Jones fans? (What? Doesn’t it seem like Tom Jones is ALWAYS playing AC? It does. Admit it.)  Whatever I find, you can bet your bottom dollar (Get it? AC? Bet?) that I’ll report back.

All this to say, I think after nearly 15 years in the city, I can almost officially call myself a Philadelphian, and thus, one who, dare I say it, enjoys a journey down the shore. 

Last week, George had to physically pry a book from my hands and hide it from me. Hemingway’s Hurricane: The Great Florida Keys Storm of 1935 had me firmly in its depressing grasp. A way-off-base Weather Bureau, a bunch of government hacks making bad calls left and right, and hundreds of down-on-their luck veterans repairing roads by day and sleeping in shacks by night created—quite literally—the perfect storm when a Category 5 hurricane (the worst of the 20th century) rolled into the middle Keys leaving death and devastation in its wake. It was not, as they say, light reading.

I’d slammed halfway through the book in a couple of hours, pausing not infrequently to lament the inevitable doom of the poor vets or to scream about bureaucracy gone wrong. I was spiraling, and quick, and asked George to save me, hence the slight tussle over the book. Having the volume hidden didn’t stop me. I Googled old news articles and disturbing photos and found an assortment of other recent books on the topic. “Oh boy,” said George. “Here comes one of your obsessions.”

My obsessions come in Macro and Micro versions. The Macros are the fixations that hang over my life in a fairly omnipresent way. My interest in them may wax or wane to some degree on any given day, but it’s always there. George finds my Micro interests more amusing. Like the hurricane (literally, I suppose) they kind of crop up overnight, hang around wreaking havoc for some period of days, before disappearing just as swiftly as they’d come. 

Obviously, we started keeping lists:

Macro: Cuba, Richard Nixon, Fleetwood Mac, The Lost Generation, Mysteries, Gene Kelly, National Parks, Dogs, Real Estate, Processed Foods, The Monkees, Mary Tyler Moore

Micro: Astrophysics, circuses, The Dust Bowl, The Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 (new addition!), antique furniture, Facebook-related lawsuits, Shakespeare, The American West, Phil Specter, Muppets, Christian Bands from the ‘90s, Spanish Moss, Greenwich Village, The Beats, sewing, Russian, HawthoRN, harissa, Edie Sedgwick, etc., etc., etc. 

George thinks I’m somewhat unique in the … how should I say this … intensity of my obsessions, but I’m convinced there are fellow travelers out there. Come on, come on! Who are you and what are you into! Spill it in the comments!

See? You were alllll nervous when I told you about my personal book-buying ban, and yet here I am again, ready to tell you about a fun one I tackled this summer. You gotta learn to trust me! Sheesh.

Anyway, if you’ll recall, I recently forced George to trek 40 hours to and from the Florida Keys. In a car. With a dog. Who stinks. All that to say, it might surprise you to know that I did not, in fact, talk non-stop in order to pass the time. Audiobooks to the rescue!  

Admission; I’m not a super huge audiobook fan in general. I tend lose focus quickly, and before you know it Jane Eyre has gone from wretched schoolgirl to slightly-less-wretched Mrs. Rochester, and I’m all “Wait, what happened? Why is he blind?” But on long car rides? Audiobooks are my jam.

This go ‘round we chose Bill Bryson reading In a Sunburned Country, his travel-memoir-meets-history about Australia. We’d listened to Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods on our journey to Shenandoah last fall, and whoa Nelly, what a treat. Reading Bryson is great; he’s dry, he’s whip-smart, he doesn’t shy away from a drool joke. But listening to Bryson? Total brilliance. Hearing him read his words in the oh-so-droll way he intends them to sound is epically hysterical.

In a Sunburned Country chronicles Bryson’s trek across that rugged, unforgiving land, and he examines everything from Parliament to boogie boarding along the way. He’s careful to weave interesting and pertinent historical tidbits into his personal (and hilarious) travel memoir and I came away learning more about Australia than I ever thought I’d know and laughing harder than I ever thought an audiobook would prompt.

Bryson is most intrigued by Australia’s sheer volume of deadly creatures and terrain and the sort of laissez-faire attitude the country’s residence display in the face of this hardship. To wit:

Bryson takes readers on a journey in cities, to the coast, through the bush, and ultimately into the outback in order to explain Australia's totally weird past, examine its one-of-a-kind geography, and explore what makes the locals so laid-back and so welcoming of visitors. 

I have to say, Australia's never been at the top of my travel bucket list, but with Bryson as my guide, it's moved a heck of a lot closer. 

If you haven't read him, this is a fun place to start, but if you really want the Bryson experience, listen up!

I’m sooooo over books. Don’t believe me? I’ve made a promise to myself that I’m not buying any books at all this year. Nada. Zilch.

I mean, they’re the worst.

PSYCH! I love books! Paperbacks, digital, audio; whatever. I want to read them, I want to learn from them, I want to rub my face in them. Wait, what? Weird.

But yeah, I did make myself a promise to not buy a single tome in 2015, a decision that stems from two key elements of my personality: I’m cheap and I hate clutter. (Did you…I’m sorry, did you not realize that after 9,000 blog posts to that end?)

While I try to read at least 50 books a year (It’s like my very own Book It throwback challenge! Perhaps when I hit the big 5-0 this year I should treat myself to a Personal Pan Pizza. So. Much. Dough.), most of them are not volumes I‘m going to read a second time. They’re largely books about, like, murderous milliners and/or members of the Nixon administration. (What can I say, I have great taste.) But anyway, I do 99% of my reading for pleasure, and thus the books I dig into are not ones that need to stay on my shelf in perpetuity.

In short, buying books is not a wise use of my limited funds—or a good use of space in my 900-square-foot house, which is already full of hundreds of the previously acquired little guys. So, no mo’.

Today, I get most of my books from the library, aka the greatest place on earth. (True Story: I once heard someone say: “I wish there was a Netflix for books,” and her companion responded, “Um, it’s called the library?” #fact.) Those I don’t pick up from the stacks I typically bum off of friends or colleagues, and now and then a Mama or a George buys me a special book of my very own (for which I obviously make a space exception). I have yet to stumble upon a title I’ve wanted to read this year that I haven’t been able to acquire in one of these ways.

And so, onward. I’m 6 months into my, little personal challenge, and while I’ve had moments of weakness I haven’t caved yet. I still heart books, I’m still reading as much as I always have, and I can still support authors by going to readings, by blogging about what book I’m currently into, and by recommending faves to friends. The bonus is I don’t need to drop $10 - $30 bucks every time I want to pick up my next volume.

Speaking of, I’ve got a pre-pub of the upcoming Sarah Vowell staring at me from the coffee table and, well, it’s not gonna read itself now is it? Bbye!