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Hear Philly: The Shore Thing - Hermit Crabs, Weird Week and 'Plopping' to End Summer

By Andrew Kramer

OCEAN CITY, N.J. (CBS) - Ocean City is known for being a family oriented town, and in August that's pretty evident.

Michele Gillian with the Ocean City Chamber of Commerce says the Miss Crustacean Hermit Crab Beauty Pageant is one of several hallmark events taking place the first week of the month:

"It's a spoof off of Ms. America. We have our hermit crabs actually participate and we have children from all over and families come down, and they decorate their hermit crabs and they have different themes. They do races where hermit crabs run from the center of a board to the end."

That takes place August 5th, and Gillian says there's even more fun that week as well:

"We have a twins contest, which has grown unbelievably, now we seem to have hundreds of twins, so it really is a great week in Ocean City."

That weekend, the 53rd annual Boardwalk Art Show returns.

"It is where leading artists throughout the east coast exhibit and sell their works," Gillian says. "It's traditionally an ideal place to buy fine art and look at, not just art work, but art crafts."

She describes this as a very unique event:

"You see all the white tents going from 6th Street to 14th Street, with all the unique vendors from all over the east coast, and it's so nice to go and meet all these artist personally to see their beautiful art work."

The Art Show is August 7-9, from 10am-6pm. After that, things get a little weird in Ocean City.

"Weird Week is also another signature event," Gillian says. "It's wacky but not tacky. These events are for the entire family."

She says they have a wide variety of activities that week:

"We have sand-sculpting, we have wet T-shirt contests...throwing. We have Mr. and Mrs. Plop that will come up and actually show children that might not be in talent contests but still have a talent. We entertain children all week."

Weird Week is August 10-14. All events are at the Music Pier at 11 a.m. each day.

Before Weird Week is over, Gillian says one of the oldest baby parades in the country crawls into town:

"This is a generational event. We see not just parents and grandparents, we see great-grandparents that were in the original baby parade. It's the 106th baby parade, it has so much deep history and the tradition lives on."

That takes place August 13th at 5:30 on the evening between 6th and 12th Streets.

And it's never fun to talk about the end of summer, but in Ocean City it's not so bad because they welcome Fall with the King and Queen of Plop Competition.

"Ocean City is known for unusual ways of welcoming in different seasons, and this is how we welcome the fall in. It's August 28th and we have a contest to see who can plop the best. The event's at the 9th Street Beach, it sort of kicks off our second season to let people know they can come back and enjoy different, corky events in Ocean City."

That takes place at 11 a.m.

For more on all Ocean City events go to www.oceancityvacation.com.

Or CLICK HERE to learn more about all events taking place throughout the Jersey Shore this summer.

Listen to podcasts any time at hearphilly.com.

Follow hearPHILLY on Twitter: @hearPHILLYradio.

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