Dewey Beach Running Of The Bulls

July 5, 2024, 8:57 am
They both started laughing. Now police shut down Route 1 to the disgust of people who have driven hours only to get stuck in a baking-hot traffic jam a few agonizing miles from Rehoboth Beach or Bethany Beach. This is the 10th year of a tradition created on a whim that inexplicably ignited: the Running of the Bull, apologies to Pamplona.

Running Of The Bulls Dewey

Their beach house group kept changing, too, as people got older, busier. It seemed like the Spaniards knew what to do, and only the two Americans were scrambling for cover, hopping a fence as the bulls raced by. That changed it: Now there's a new bull costume, all clean and smiling, instead of glowering. They videotaped the first Running of the Bull, camera lurching alongside 40 or so friends dressed in white with two guys in a ratty old rented bull costume, people on the beach confused, little kids chasing after them. In the '90s, when McDonnell and Walsh started renting beach houses, the town was dominated by summer weekend people like themselves crashing on sofas to sleep it off.

Events In Dewey Beach

Money raised from T-shirt sales is donated to the town. Those who kept coming noticed they were starting to like the slow off-season, too, and going out to dinner rather than just grabbing a slice between bars. Bud Light is a sponsor. Planes fly over the beach trailing banners: Look out for the bull! They laughed about what idiots they were -- until the bulls came back about a minute later. Dewey Beach, which swells from just over 300 people in the off-season to 60, 000 some weekends in July, has been changing. "It had run its course, " Walsh said. When they came home, they wanted to recreate the Carnaval-meets-Mardi Gras feel of Pamplona, so they planned a beach party with paella and sangria, and someone -- probably Andrew Brady, now a Securities and Exchange Commission attorney from Bethesda -- said they needed a bull, too. And some guy's planning to propose to his girlfriend tomorrow at the bull ring. Then charge along the surf with a bull chasing them. At a neighboring bar, the band stopped mid-jam to sing "Olé, olé olé olé! "

Dewey Beach This Weekend

This year, for the first time, they didn't rent a group house. "The bull riding in, all four legs pedaling. Walsh looked over the sweaty, staggering-drunk-by-midafternoon crowd like a proud father. And maybe not chasing so much as stumbling blindly inside the fleecy costume. John Hardy, who owns a hot-tub store and deejays in town, said he remembers all kinds of crazy antics back in the 1970s, like people setting up pulpits in the sand and acting as faith healers curing people of pregnancy. Howard and Brady got married and got out. Someone bought scores of giant foam fingers that said, "Go bull! "

Running Of The Bull Dewey Beach

"The bull, " Walsh said, "has gone corporate. Going CorporateSteve Montgomery pulled a red-foam bull horn over his head upstairs at the Starboard this week, laughing, and showed Walsh the matador hats and whips he got to hand around the bar. "People like to goof around at the beach, " McDonnell hazarded. "It's stupidity for stupidity's sake. On Sunday, Walsh couldn't get through one bar without being stopped by an affectionate stranger slurring, "There'sh the bull! She wrestled the bull to the ground as the fatador. And then watching two angry bulls turn around and thunder back at them. The instigators were, of course, a Washington corporate lawyer, Michael McDonnell, and his beach house buddies who weekend in this laid-back, sunburned, bloody-marys-to-take-the-edge-off town. This year, there will be a dignitaries section with local politicians. It has become a little quieter, a lot pricier, with more condominiums and more children. "Suddenly a crowd came down the street.

Dewey Beach Running Of The Bulls

Walsh blinked, swallowed some Guinness, thinking. People plan summer vacations around this. It was always rowdy. Then again... Last week, over beers in Dupont Circle, McDonnell leaned forward and said, "I think we should rent a tandem bike. And: "We were screaming like little girls. McDonnell had read it a few too many times, he said. Some guy will play Spanish songs on a little guitar as the crowd weaves out, shouting and whacking the bull with rolled-up newspapers. They'll gather with celebrants in white shirts and red bandanas at the Starboard bar.

Running Of The Bulls 2022 Dewey

Behind them was a little bare space, and then the bulls galloping, tossing their heads up and down. I'd be crazy not to. "It would be great, " McDonnell said. "If Hemingway was right... and you should 'always do sober what you said you'd do drunk, ' " McDonnell wrote on their beach house Web site, "then doesn't it also follow that you should always do drunk what you swore you'd never do sober? Mothers will grab their children and weekend visitors will jump out of the way as throngs appear over the dunes, yelling "Toro, toro! "

The Madness SpreadsIt wasn't all that weird for Dewey. Elvis will be there. "We didn't so much run with the bulls as hide from the bulls, " said Howard, now a real estate agent in Rockville. Over the years, strange things began to happen: Women showed up in full flamenco gear.