I love the Jersey Shore ¹. I especially love the Ocean City Boardwalk. It’s a stroll along the dunes, with the natural beauty of the ocean on one side and a tacky assault on the senses ² on the other. It’s peaceful and busy, lovely and gaudy, and it smells like no other place on earth.

The boardwalk is such a Place in our family that we decided to take a day of our vacation to hop in the car after Bump’s post-lunch nap and drive the hour and a half to get to Ocean City. We arrived around 3 o’clock and strolled north, please to find so many of the seasonal shops open for business. We then turned and headed south for a bit. We had no particular plan, just some general ideas. It was just enough to be there.

We did do a couple of our normal stops, one of them is depicted in the image below. Johnson’s popcorn is a institution, and their caramel corn is the best I’ve ever had. They’ve been open since 1940, and it looks like they haven’t updated their branding since then. Why mess with Jersey shore perfection?