I honestly hadn’t been to Atlantic City in more than 15 years, maybe 20. Half of what I remembered was long gone, and what replaced it was fairly horrifying. To be short with words – this place is a shithole, which ironically is how Trump described many other places on the planet – but failed to mention that I would start my walk at what used to be his Atlantic City Hotel, and is now a shithole. (You’ll see it in the pics).

If the summer season here is better, it would take well more than the few months they have before the summer season starts to resurrect the buildings, hotels, monuments, park benches, walkways, eateries, storefronts and the beach itself before the summer crowd arrives. At almost every turn I expected a gorilla with a rifle to come riding around the corner on a horse. It’s as if everyone in Atlantic City just gave up and walked away. with the exception of a few casinos open on the high end of the boardwalk – everything is shuttered, dilapidated and beyond redemption.

For the sake of the photo gallery, understand what this is. You’re walking with me as I arrive on the boardwalk, take a right, walk until I’m the sole survivor of an alien invasion and I turn around and walk all the way back up past where I started to the other end of the boardwalk. I often take pictures of the same thing from different angles, sometimes I just see it in a better light when I keep walking. Sometimes I pass it twice.

Here’s another fun fact:

When you decide to walk two miles back to your hotel, check the map first for the places you’ll carry a $5k camera through, by yourself. If it’s called “Blue Hills Ave”, “Rosemont” or in my case “Rosecrans” … just call an Uber. I shouldn’t have been there, and I’m lucky to still own the camera, and my life. Atlantic City – not on my schedule of places to visit again any time soon.