Slow Ride, the Target's notes.

"Sometimes, you have to ride the wave you're given."  -Hansen Surf
Slow ride day, Rodeways on 30. 8/8/2018

   August in our little beach town. Heat, humidity, and pop up rain is the order of each day. We were on a Wednesday this week. We play the weather accordingly. Upon arriving at Rodeways (aka the Econolodge) in the OC the sun was out, however there had been just enough rain to wet-crust the top of the sand. Dry beneath...stir it around and all traces of the cool rain disappeared. A whole lot of nothing worth riding laid out in front of us. This was Watt's challenge, not ours. LWatt and I needed only to find our place and get our chairs set up among the unusually busy crowd along the shoreline. Suddenly, Watt caught a nice little frontside. As this occured a robust lady appeared and stopped directly between the camera and the ocean, thus no picture was possible. As we all know if there was no pic it never really happened, did it? So Watt was shut out in the early going, but continued to battle for a ride. Low key days on the ocean require a level of patience and Watt's was rewarded as a couple of sets appeared on the horizon. Slow rides on tap with limited staying power due to small, knee-high surf and high tide. A few more scores came through as the evening progressed...made the shut-out a distant memory. Nice finish to the session.

   Pulling away from our break and making a left on Ocean Highway, we headed down town to Old Ocean City turning bayside on 1st Street. Six years since our last foray into De Lazy Lizard and it had been somewhat highly rated so we wondered if a repeat was possible. We walked in without being carded as we had been on our last visit (if my memory serves) and we head to the Boat House Bar.

De Lizard is really set up as two halves with one catering to family with a recreation area and the other a more adult vibe. There was no live music tonight and the piped in music only started halfway into the night. There was a nice arrangement of flatscreens to view from our seats at the bar. In fact it was White Marlin Open week, and one was tuned to the ongoing live action so we got a great view without all the hassle of being there. It was a good thing we had the distraction as the bartenders were both jaw-jacking, driving slow when it came to providing us service. Customer service is half of a barkeep's job but these two were clearly missing the boat (pun intended). Done with the slow rides, thirst eventually got the better of Wattman as he was forced to yell to get their attention. With their diversion broken, I got my Summer Shanty and Watt ordered a local brew while LWatt had a crush. As we were kind of outside... again with the plastic cups, and yes I know its safer (and cheaper) for the bar this way. Still a downer. When we were ready to order we once again had to flag down the barkeep. At least they were consistent at poor service. We finally put in for the Bacon Cheddar Burger and the Baja Style Blackened Fish Tacos.

I believed the tacos were just Ok mostly because mine was only warm in temperature. I blamed this on how long we had to wait for the food to arrive. But, both Wattman and LWatt thought they were good and had a nice size fish portion. By and by the burger was just a burger to me, however Watt seemed to believe it was one of the better ones he had eaten. Or maybe it was just his hunger talking. We ended the whole affair soon after paying the bill. I thought later we over tipped given the level of service but the Crew is never cheap. As always we dropped the full Monty.  A rerun would certainly be possible. The set up was one of the best in town. But, without any live music and below average service at the bar the rating of this Patrol was much lower than our previous round. Better luck on the next set.

THE RATINGS-

Baja Blackened Fish Tacos: B

Bacon Cheddar Burger: B+

Beer(in plastic, again) : C+ 

Atmosphere: B

Value: C+

Overall Score = 2.75