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Sustained above 40mph, gusts over 60mph, Fay made sure we had plenty to keep an eye on...both rising tides and surf.
Raking Maryland's coast, 7/10/2020. |
Motivational speaker Brian Tracy had said, "the comfort zone is the great enemy of courage and confidence." I believe that, but when there is no comfort zone anxiety sets in. No safety net. Nothing to fall back on. It is especially true in this day and age. The delusion of comfort is hard fought for. Personally, I'll take just about any zone. Last week LWatt and I had family in town. Humidity was the word of the day...just about every day. Hard to find a zone when the comfort melts away. With humidity comes an active storm front, and our fourth named storm of this year's hurricane season,
Tropical Storm Fay. Carving up the coast from the Carolina's, Fay dropped nearly a half a foot of rain on the area last Friday. Many were forced to deal with flooding including Target who was not comfortable at all spending most of his weekend on clean-up detail. The headaches of housing restoration took him out of his zone. Thus T-Man, being unable to hook up with us this week, left LWatt and I to go solo. The 47th Street break was pretty cut up; mostly chopped leftovers from Fay. Maybe a waist high here and there, but the sand bar and draining tide took away the power.
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| Slow mushie- last ride of the the evening. 47th Street, 7/16/2020. |
Mostly lefts, not jumping on 'em quick meant losing out. Furthermore, those that I caught didn't last. Fast death, meant any zone was pretty near elusive. I made the mistake of thinking about "just one more," and that dampened my last ride. We take what we can get on our once a week soiree. Last ride done, we packed up and headed on out.
With a humid dusk settling around us, we cruised down to the
Quality Inn on 17th Street. Well, at least to me it's always been on 17th... technically 16th, but it takes up the entire block...and their newest restaurant
Coastal Salt, is literally on 16th and the Boards. A walk-up for anyone walking the
boardwalk, Coastal Salt was a bit crowded this evening. However, to their credit they were observing the distancing protocol of the day. We ended up on a corner of the bar by ourselves, kept separated from our bartender by a service counter. Ordering our drinks was a relatively uneventful task and from start to finish, occurred in a decent amount of time. LWatt's Grapefruit Crush was tasty, and I was served a Dogfish Head in a can since they had no beer on tap. Yet the glass was frosty cold, so that was noteworthy. We placed orders for the Seafood Nachos, tortilla chips with shrimp, crab, melted cheese, cilantro, guacamole, pico, and sliced jalapenos, as well as Coastal Crack Wings, chicken wings dredged in a mix of Old Bay, BBQ rub, and Buffalo sauce.
Forty-five minutes later we were still waiting for our food. The few flat-screens (all on the perimeter, none at the bar) did little to keep our attention. The music was barely audible. When the chow finally came out we were not surprised. The ample shrimp and crab were tender and had a very good taste, however the chips came out in pieces and the cheese was only warm. The wings also had good flavor, but were small and cold. There were plenty of carrot and celery sticks though. My second beer came out without a second glass. We had to push our bartender to check on the food, while the rest of the wait staff hustled in and out from the back kitchen picking up orders (a result of the lean workforce). Perhaps had she done so earlier instead of trading shots with other patrons, our food and our experience would have rated much higher. Instead, without improvement, cheap lighting and cold food has lead to an unlikely chance that our Quest will ever return...with or without the T-Man.
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THE RATINGS-
Beer: C-
Seafood Nachos: B-
Coastal Crack Wings: C-
Atmosphere: C-
Value: C-
Overall Score = 1.95 |
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