Atlantic City Again

Spent a few days in AC after a nice overnight visit with our friend Virginia. We've known Virginia since high school. She made schnitzel for dinner with mashed potatoes and it was really good. She lives alone in a really nice little house so we had a nice room to sleep in Sunday night.

Monday we took off for AC but first we stopped at a cute place Virginia told us about. It's called Smithville and it is a collection of cute little shops and places to eat made to look like an old-fashioned village. Mike and I had lunch there and I bought a few things, including a carved wooden squirrel and some Thanksgiving decorations. It's pretty close to AC, so if we get to go again in November (as I hope to do) I want to stop there and do some Christmas shopping. Some of the shops were a little pricey, but for the most part I thought everything was very reasonable. 

AC was lots of fun, but I only hit the Boardwalk in the evening because it was so hot. I enjoyed the slots and at one point had doubled my money. But I just kept putting it back in to help build up comp points. Our room was free this time because of the points we earned on our last visit. Well, sort of free, because there are always fees, but even then it only worked out to about $30 a night.We didn't have any food comps, so we avoided the hotel restaurants. A buffet is $27, and I sure can't eat that much food!

There were a few surprises, too. Miss America was there with the 52 contestants. They were all on bleachers on the Boardwalk and the current Miss America made a little speech. She was very pretty, of course.

We got to see a Boardwalk Parade that seemed to be about military, but I'm not sure what the theme was. It was fun to watch and even had some Civil War reenactors. There were also a few vets from WWII--not many of those guys left, I think!

The other cool thing is that the Blue Devils were practicing maneuvers so we got to see some jets doing fancy loop-de-loops and flybys. The coolest was when a jet got really close to the water and then shot up into the air, They leave and exhaust trail that looks amazing.