Atlantic City

We are back from our short, but needed, vacation to Atlantic City. All in all it was a fun trip, the weather could have been a bit more cooperative, but it really didn't matter too much to us in the end.

We had two good beach days, the day we arrived and the day we left. The water was freezing, like in the low 60's cold, but we chalked that up to Ernesto plowing through the previous week. Nat did get in to ride the waves but the undertow was really bad so I didn't even bother, to get in not to ride the waves?! Instead, I stood at the waters edge and watched my 30 year-old husband body surf with a bunch of kids and get clobbered by some really choppy water, which in the end was much more amusing than immersing myself in freezing water.

On the rainy days Nat and I visited casinos and went to all of the stores and shops around town. The Borgata was the only casino we spent actual gambling time in. I'm no good at table games so I, being both frugal and lazy, parked in front of the nickel slots and got down to work.

First thing you need to know about Atlantic City, in case you have never been there, is that by day it is filled with the over 65 crowd who take bus trips from surounding areas, more women than men and all of them loving the slots!! They will sit at one machine for hours with their casino cards on lanyards attached to their necks and machine at the same time, oxygen machine by their side (while smoking a ciggy in their other), completely transfixed by the sound of their machine beeping and dinging. Every once in a while a friend of theirs will come sit next to them for a quick chat, but mostly they are alone and at one with the machine, focused on hitting that button, waiting for the triple bars to appear. Nat and I laugh, knowing full well that this will be us in forty years, holding on to each others arm, wearing our nametags and hiking our pants up a little to high, excited to hit the buffet for lunch but also excited to smell the acrid, smoky odor that is Atlantic City success.

I started at my "Lucky" machine with five bucks and took it up to $20 before giving it all right back to the casino by my inability to know when to walk away. Meanwhile Nat lost ten dollars in the same amount of time, on slots as well, but he just kept laughing because he couldn't win to save his life. We have no luck with gambling. After about one hour of paying the casino to enjoy it's lovely decor, we left and went back to the hotel. The only other "action" we had while in the casino was at Caesar's when I had to make a bathroom break and Nat felt the call of the slots and lost 50 cents at the machine adjacent to the ladies room. We are hopeless.

We didn't do much better in the shopping arena either. The city is about halfway through a new upscale shopping pier right outside of Caesar's, which was awesome, but mostly out of our league. We went in to Tiffany's, Burberry and glanced at Louis Vuitton. I couldn't seem to convince Nat that Katie's mother should have a $500 diaper bag from Burberry or that Katie's should have a baby cashmere blanket, didn't bother looking at that price tag. (Shannon, you and I can never go to this mall with credit cards!!)

It was a fun little trip though, bad gambling and shopping aside, we ate well and laughed a lot and knowing that was our last trip alone was something special all in itself. We said goodbye to couples vacations, lazy afternoon naps, and quiet dinners and to be honest, right now, I couldn't be happier to see them go.