The kids are generally pretty good about bathroom protocol on the road. They’ll both go with one of us in the opposite gender’s bathroom if necessary. It never occurred to them, however, that they couldn’t pee for free. Old Orchard Beach, where we are staying now, has several pay bathroom stations around the center of town and no free ones. Costs are 50 cents per event. Ann, along with the rest of us, thought this was a good deal less than courteous toward visitors and kind of greedy. However, in the fine print, she found that children under 12 were allowed in for free. The attendant in the photo, with her thumbs up, took the kids’s word for their ages.
Kids and Harry at pay-to-pee station on Old Orchard Beach main street.
Much to their disappointment, though, the midway at Old Orchard Beach closed the day before we arrived. There is something quite depressing about an abandoned amusement park on the edge of the ocean. We’ve been going for long walks on the beach instead, and the kids have been helping Julya fill out her collection of sand dollars, star fish, sea urchins and various other treasures which float in on the tide. The only wrinkle is you have to be out there at the break of dawn, or others will have already picked up the good shells.
Closed amusement park at Old Orchard Beach at sunrise.