Great Big Sea and a greater bigger sea

I picked up food at Fresh City on my home Friday, then we waited for my sister Sharon to arrive. She was planning on heading to Boston the next day, and wasn’t sure if she could come, but I thought she’d like the show, and we’d chosen this night for one of our free pairs of lawn tix. We headed over separately (she was spending the night at Mom’s) and headed in. Jill had a fajita burrito and I had a turkey club, both good, plus I had a fruit smoothie (with a little rum).

There had been some heavy storms earlier in the day, but it seemed like clear sailing, so we were getting ready for the music, but dark clouds started rolling in. We had the luck of bringing a small tarp since we couldn’t find the blanket, so we sat on some of it and pulled the rest over us as drops started to fall. As Carbon Leaf started playing, then it got heavy for a while, tapered off, then got heavy again. Thankfully it stopped shortly before they did, so we could recover and head down to our front row seats. Sharon stayed a while longer before leaving, but she had a long drive ahead of her.

Great Big Sea was fabulous, playing mostly older material and at one point getting off on a Christmas riff, playing nearly complete versions of “Happy Xmas” and “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”. Jill was very happy to hear “Ordinary Day” at the end of the set, and I loved getting “The River Driver” at the start of the second encore. After the show we thought we were leaving, but it started raining again and there was thunder and lightening, so we stayed put under cover until it passed.

Saturday morning we got up early, as Jill had called for a beach trip. I was playing with the dog and managed to hit my head on a glass frame, causing a nice little gusher of blood. Jill cleaned and bandaged me – though I looked like I’d come out of the Appalachian Emergency Room (from Saturday Night Live). We did still leave somewhat early, and made good on our goal to get to the Bay Bridge by 10AM. That was when we saw one of the most shocking things ever. A couple cars in front of us in the right lane were stopped, and when we were close enough to stop ourselves, the driver of the lead car got out. It looked like he was going to run around to the passenger side, but instead went straight over the side of the bridge. It was nothing like the movies, he was gone in an instant. Traffic was already starting to back up and some people were already pulling over to see what they could do, while Jill (who was driving) was not happy about stopping there (she has some anxiety about bridges), so we kept going. I called WTOP to report it, and someone else must have called sooner, as a police car and an ambulance were racing the other way seconds later. When we got back home we looked and found this (third item down) – so sad.

The rest of our drive had no drama, we mostly listened to music. Once we got to Rehoboth Beach, we checked in to our hotel, then went to the beach for a couple hours under mostly cloudy conditions. Jill didn’t get to go in the ocean too far, as the effects of Hurricane Bill had huge waves crashing on shore (and rip currents). We grabbed a quick hot dog before we left, then returned to the hotel where our room was now ready. After we cleaned up, we headed over to the Dogfish Head restaurant, where the first thing we did was raise a toast to lost souls. We split a Caesar salad and A Simply Inquiry pizza, I tried their Dogfish Jin as part of a Fifty-Fifty and a glass of the Palo Santo Marron, while Jill had the 60 Minute IPA and a Cosmo using their Blue Hen Vodka infused with watermelon. We walked around and shopped a bit after that, then relaxed for a while at the hotel.

We had late dinner reservations at the Cultured Pearl, the first time we’d returned to the site of our first formal date. It’s an elegant Sushi/Japanese place right near the hotel, which was good planning as it was raining heavily by that time. We started with a selection from the “edamame bar”, a selection of flavored edamame (the outside is, then you get it on your fingers when you open the pods). We tried the Karai (sauteed in chili oil, garlic, butter and fleur de sel) – it was just the right amount of spice and salt. We also had Zipang, a sparkling sake that hit the right notes between a sparkling wine and sake.

Next we had some sushi, Jill had the Crunchy Roll (eel and avocado with tempura bits, spicy sesame, eel sauce and sancho) while I had the Firecracker (tempura, tuna, salmon, jalapeño, lump crab, Sriracha and spicy mayo). The combination of the Sriracha, jalapeño and wasabi was incredibly hot and delicious, I think it’s my favorite sushi dish ever.

We weren’t done as Jill had ordered the Korean BBQ (marinated flatiron steak, char grilled, topped with shiso shallot butter and sliced atop asian fried rice and spicy kim chee, accented with chopped peanut, green onion and cilantro). I had wisely abstained from getting anything else (our late lunch had been filling), and Jill only ate about a third, I ate another third, but it was very good. That was it for us, it was still drizzling and we were wiped out.

We both slept in, barely made the hotel breakfast. I had ham, pineapple, a hard boiled egg, a slice of quiche and some banana bread, Jill had cereal and an English muffin. We hit the road, stopped at Sonic for some diet limeades and Ma & Pa’s Market for some produce. We hit a little traffic, then switched drivers so I could drive over the bridge (I admit it was a little nerve wracking) then onto DC to pick up some tix, then home.

I had a bunch of papers to read and some surfing to do in the afternoon, and Jill had some errands to run. I marinated some chicken in a store bought marinade, then tried a watermelon salad based on one we’d had at Wolf Trap. Unfortunately the balsamic vinegar glaze caramelized, and it was a bit odd tasting candy with a balsamic vinegar flavor. I really like the combination of watermelon and feta, I’ll have to try another dressing soon.