The mighty fall

The mighty BobCakes, that is, because today our beach team took down both the massive chocolate BobCake

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and the second of the CaBobCakes.

Beach life is dessert destruction life.

National Hot Dog Day extends to the beach

Of course it does!  Why would it not?  In keeping with this day of tube steak celebration, my lunch from my favorite local sandwich shop was their "Two Dogs Done Right."

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The dish was definitely messy, but it was also quite tasty.

The beach trip is winding to a close, and so, too, are the BobCakes.  The main BobCake is still standing, but it is now far the worse for wear.

The second CaBobCake is going down more gracefully, but it is nonetheless going down.

Beach life is food life.

Apes and dogs

Kyle and I headed today to the only cinema in the area to catch War for the Planet of the Apes, the latest (and pretty good) installment in this franchise.  The theater is a hot mess, but it's the only one in easy driving distance, so we visit it at least a couple of times each beach vacation.

On the way, we stopped for lunch at a drive-through hot dog stand, where we each enjoyed a bottle of water and two of these creations.

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Meet the pimento cheese bacon hot dog, truly a feast of rare beauty.

Beach life is animal life.

Today's BobCake update shows that we are not making very good progress against the mighty cakes of Bob.  The BobCake is resisting us,

while the second and final CaBobCake slowly succumbs to our attacks.

Beach life is dessert life.

The beach, 6:45 p.m.

Two shots, one in each direction, from the same spot on the beach.

Looking east.

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Looking west.

I do love this place.  Being able to go to the beach and see no one who isn't with you reminds me of my teen years, when I loved Florida and thought it was the most beautiful place on Earth.

In more news of the beach, the BobCake is small but strong and seemingly impervious to our attempts to consume its final chunk.

The second CaBobCake, however, is now considerably smaller.

Will the BobCakes survive another day?

Tune in tomorrow to find out.

Keeping it simple at the beach

Saturdays are when people check out of or into their houses, so traffic is at its worst. Because we're staying in the house, we kept to ourselves and avoided the roads, going out only to pick up some take-out Chinese for dinner. It was a quiet day indeed, exactly what I like.

In news of the BobCakes, the big fella is definitely showing the signs of our continued assault.

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I do believe we will polish it off fairly soon.

The second CaBobCake managed to avoid detection for a while, but now we've cut into it, so its days are numbered.

Beach life is cake life.

Stress monkey checks in, CaBobCake #1 checks out

Last night's sleep bombarded me with the largest and most powerful set of stress dreams of the trip so far.  I'm choosing to view this as positive, as a sign that my mind is finally cutting loose some of the stress, but it could also be no more than another sign that my stress management skills suck way worse than I had realized.  Stress monkey is still on my back.

In news of the BobCakes, the first CaBobCake fell to our army of eaters.

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The BobCake itself, however, is standing proud despite an ongoing onslaught.

I think it's possible we've reached the halfway mark, but I'm not certain.  We clearly need to consume a huge amount more chocolate.

I have to confess that I am not doing my part.  Today, for example, I specialized in ice cream and had none of either BobCake.

Tomorrow, perhaps I will rejoin the attack on the cake fortresses.

In which I'm still sleepy, the meaty mess hits the beach, and the BobCake still abides

During normal work weeks, I sleep very little.  I simply can't afford the time in bed.  Here on vacation, I am sleeping about eight hours each night and napping every few days, yet I am sleepy almost all of the time.  Some of this fatigue is due to more exercise; though I'm not doing much, I am walking a couple of miles in the heat each day, and I'm usually in the pool twice a day.  Some of it, though, seems to be just part of the process of trying to shed the stress of my normal life.  I shouldn't be surprised at how much stress I need to get rid of, but I keep being caught off-guard by how pervasive it is.  Clearly, I need to learn to manage my stress better.

Beach life is sleepy life.

Dinner tonight found our group splintering, with some going out, some foraging on their own, and some eating my meaty mess entree.

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Kyle pointed out that without context it's hard to appreciate just how large that bowl of meaty goodness is, so he volunteered to be in the blog with it.

Yeah, the bowl is huge and brimming with meat, pasta, and cheese.

In BobNews, the first of the CaBobCakes is nearing its end.

The BobCake itself, however, abides despite our best efforts to consume it.

We may need to throw a BobCake eating party for our beach neighbors just to give ourselves a fighting chance against it.

And so endeth the news of the beach.

The BobCake abides

Over 24 hours have passed since our first brave eater cut into the massive slab that is the BobCake. Many more cuts has the BobCake endured, and yet it abides.

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For the BobCake is mighty, and it laughs at our paltry efforts to consume it.

The merely mortal CaBobCake (number one) also abides, but it is smaller now and showing weakness.

By tomorrow, perhaps it will have summoned its sibling.

We shall see.

BobFood

One of our many beach traditions is to have our friend and (former) deli owner, Bob, prepare a dinner for us. Even though he and his wife, Rose, are now retired from that business, he still agreed to cater a meal for us tonight.

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The beach crowd this week is huge, but Bob still made more food than we could eat in one sitting. The meal included grilled cheese sandwiches (delicious!), hot dogs with optional chili, burgers, cheeseburgers (great!) with optional bacon, buns, salad, two homemade dressings, tuna, salmon, and tile fish.

The meal was delicious, and everyone ate their fill (and then some).

For dessert, Bob made us three cakes:  two carrot cakes (CaBobCakes, and here's one),

and one incredibly dense chocolate cake, the legendary (at least among us), BobCake.

To our surprise, Bob said that he managed to put two more pounds of chocolate in this year's BobCake than in last year's.  That's not two pounds of chocolate, mind you; that's two additional pounds of chocolate beyond the insane amount in last year's BobCake.  As you can see in the photo. the frosting sometimes breaks in what one of my nephews called a shingle of chocolate; the description was apt.

Beach life is dessert life.

The Bobcake report, July 18, late edition

We are gaining on it.

As you can see, under the pressure of many of us eating, the Bobcake has now shrunk to the size of a normal huge cake.

One day, it will fall.

But not today.

The Bobcake report, t0+52 hours

The Bobcake is vast, great, and tasty, but it is not invincible.  After only 52 hours, we have already worn it down to about 60% of its original size.

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We are now a smaller group, so the challenge ahead is formidable, but I am confident that we are up to it.

Beach sights you don't see every day

Two floats ate one of our party whole.

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Only a foot remained to mark the passing.

I was also in the pool.

That is my smile, at least when I'm trying to pose for the camera.

Yes, I suck at posing.

Tonight's dinner was Bobfood, which included tuna, salmon, cheeseburgers, burgers, hot dogs, and grilled cheese sandwiches.  Put a lot of those together, and you have the Burger of Doom.

That's a cheeseburger sitting atop a grilled cheese sandwich, with bacon on the burger, a split hot dog surrounding the burger, and a topping grilled cheese sandwich about to cover it all.

It was as delicious as it was deadly.

Bob also supplied this year's Bobcake, which was as majestic, intimidating, and delicious as always.

The Bobcake is so rich and moist and wonderful that it is a food sin.

Keeping it company in the house were a pair of CaBobcakes (I show only one here).

Another favorite of our crowd, this cake is also amazingly moist and tasty, a wonderful treat.

We are all about the health food here in the beach house.





Thanks to Gina for the pool photos.

Lest you think the beach is only about cake

check out this bit of choice weirdness on offer at a local shop.

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He is a fine fellow indeed--and he bobbles!

Oh, yeah, the beach has way more to offer than sun, sand, and calories.

Speaking, though, of calories, and because the beach is also about cake, it is my duty to inform you of the passing of the Bobcake.

It fought well, but it was only one--a huge one, but only one--and we are many.

Tomorrow, CaBobcake A faces serious threats.

The first cake falls

CaBobcake 1 was the first of the mighty Bobcake army to fall to the attacks of the beach people.

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Its brother, CaBobcake A, still stands tall, though a chink has appeared in its armor.

The mighty Bobcake is definitely showing signs of fading, but it is still there, despite our best efforts.

On other dessert fronts, we are falling behind on ice cream consumption and have serious work ahead of us.  I am cautiously optimistic that we can handle the task in front of us--but it is a large and challenging task.

Water, sun, books, movies, cake, ice cream--the beach.

In the night and in the day,

the beach people attacked the cake castles, and, lo, the castles began to fall.  Castle CaBobcake 1 suffered most from the attack, only a small slice of it still able to stand.

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Though, of course, its neighbor, Castle CaBobcake A, still remains untouched.

The Dark Castle Bobcake remained largely untouched along one long wall, but the ceaseless onslaught of the beach people has clearly taken its toll.

Will tomorrow bring the fall of Castle Bobcake?  Tune in then to find out.

In the epic battle between the beach people and the Bobcake

the Bobcake must always lose, because the people are many, and they are determined--but the Bobcake does not go easily or lightly.

After the first evening, it was still mocking the beach people.

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Its companion, CaBobcake 1, also scoffed at their puny eating efforts,

even as its brother, CaBobcake A, looked on in untouched splendor.

After this evening, however, the Bobcake was actually running a bit scared, because the beach people had worked hard at its destruction and had in under 30 hours eaten more than half of it.

CaBobcake 1, however, was still standing strong.

Sure, more than half of it has vanished, but its brother-in-sweetness, CaBobcake A, stands ready to replace it.

Ah, the struggles of beach life.

A new cake enters the house

At lunch today at my favorite local restaurant, where I eat lunch every day it is open, I was surprised and honored to see the specials board feature a new sandwich.

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Last summer, they created this sandwich's predecessor, which was quite tasty.  This year's version was even better.

Thanks, Bob and Rose, for this treat.  I greatly appreciate it.

While running errands after lunch, we encountered a drive-through restaurant I had never seen:  Speedy Weenie.  Who could resist such a place?  Not I.  After a conversation with the young woman stuck in the small hut revealed that they were out of the pimento cheese bacon dog, I settled for a Diet Coke and a t-shirt.  I will wear it proudly. 

For dinner, Sarah made her justly famous 7-P pasta.

This huge bowl of cheesy deliciousness fed us all multiple helpings and looked afterward as if we'd barely touched it. 

Sarah also baked us many trays of incredibly tasty butter rolls.

The CaBobcake is still with us, but it is losing ground to our slow but steady attack.

We learned a while ago from Bob and Rose, who are both from Maryland, that Maryland has a state dessert:  the Smith Island Cake.  We also discovered that Bob knew how to bake this eight- to fifteen-layer beauty.  Armed with this knowledge, we had no choice but to order one from Bob.

Today, we picked up the first SmiBobcake. 

From the outside, before you cut into it, the SmiBobcake appears ordinary enough.

Okay, we had cut it once, but as of this shot we had yet to remove a piece.

Once you see a slice, you realize how amazing it is to encounter a normal-height cake with so many layers. 

Boy, was it yummy.  Part of the reason the CaBobcake is in such good shape is the damage we inflicted on the new SmiBobcake.

I will be surprised if either cake makes it to Friday.