The Ocean City Life-Saving Station Museum, housed in the former coastal rescue headquarters that was once slated for demolition, tells the history of the U.S. Life-Saving Service. Ocean City Life-Saving Station Museum

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A touch of Art Deco in Colonial Beach, Virginia: The 1948 Riverview Inn has a vintage vibe. Hannah Armstrong, Virginia Tourism Corporation, www.Virginia.org

Winter at 40-ish degrees had arrived, and I inched toward the ocean through two traffic jams to escape Washington, D.C. Clutching the steering wheel on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, I plowed on through the Maryland countryside in a steady, dreary rain.

At my Ocean City hotel check-in, the clerk chirped, “You have a great view of the ocean, and your room is all warmed up.”

This was a perfect welcome for my winter beach vacation at this popular playground.

Ocean City, Maryland

I was at the shore to savor the winter season, a time when all the rabble-rousing college kids are gone, amusement parks are closed and most of the piercing, tattoo and souvenir shops are boarded up.

The rhythm of the waves always soothes the soul. In the off-season, though, the beach is clean and practically deserted except for gulls and shorebirds. The rising sun over the Atlantic is mesmerizing.

With my binoculars, I studied more than 50 gulls flocked together on the sand and counted 25 oystercatchers — eye-catching, 16-inch-long, black-and-white shorebirds with red-yellow eyes and red-orange bills.

The beach in winter is a perfect retreat for slowing down, decompressing and rejuvenating. My ocean-view room on the seventh floor became my cocoon.

If you want to venture out, there’s plenty to do in Ocean City in the winter. Room rates are discounted, more oceanside rooms are available, and restaurants are slow-paced. Parking is easy, and there are no lines.

On a therapeutic stroll along the three-mile boardwalk, I nabbed a few gifts at bargain rates at some open shops.

I chomped down a 16-ounce cup of fresh-cut Thrasher’s french fries in the sun, accompanied by opportunistic gulls awaiting a dropped morsel. I hung out at local eateries that stay open all winter and mingled with locals, who confided they were glad summer was over.

Indoor amusements

A must-see stop is the Life-Saving Station Museum, built in 1891, pre-Coast Guard, which was home to men who patrolled the beach until 1915. From there, they monitored the ocean for shipwrecks and ships in trouble. If the incidents were 30 yards out, they took a surfboat out, shot out a line with a breeches buoy and pulled the men in distress into the boat.

The museum displays an older iron “lifecar” that rescuers used to cram in four or five men. George Hitchens, a Smith Island keeper, once said, “I’ve helped save many a sailor from a watery grave.”

On the lighter side, the museum has an exhibit on the evolution of bathing suits, live Chesapeake Bay fish and sand samples from around the globe.

At the Museum of Ocean City, located in a former bank building, I learned about hotels and amusements of old and the really old: a mastodon tooth, indigenous peoples’ grinding stones, projectile points and tomahawk heads.

About eight minutes out of town, I explored the largely undisturbed Assateague Island National Seashore, best known for its 80 or so free-roaming horses. This barrier island, “an island on the move,” is a refuge of pounding waves, shifting sands, maritime forests, saltwater wetlands and mudflats. I caught a glimpse of the ponies and a few birds and noticed egret, raccoon and fiddler crab tracks.

Colonial Beach, Virginia

My next stop was Colonial Beach, a small, laid-back town of 4,000 people 70 miles south of Washington, D.C.

Called the “playground on the Potomac” in the late 1800s steamboat era, the waterfront town was popular with Washingtonians who sailed down and frolicked in wool bathing suits. I didn’t try that.

Here, the waves don’t roar because it’s on the Potomac River, which is three miles wide at this point. Still, I enjoyed the beautiful sunrises, the boardwalk, the soaring bald eagles and the cormorants, flying with wings askew.

Alexandria resident Katya Wanzer likes how “friendly everyone is in Colonial Beach,” she said. It has a “good mix of people, including military, retirees, gay-friendly [people] and small-business owners.”

Most restaurants and shops are open in winter. I warmed up with locals at a chili cookoff at Colonial Beach Brewing. Later, I bought shell art at the CB Creative Art Center and indulged in bingo and karaoke at local pubs.

Always up for a museum, I checked out the Colonial Beach Historical Society and Museum, housed in an 1885 building. Exhibits tell the area’s story with artifacts like a Pissaseck tribe’s stone tools, oyster shells, pottery, mortars and projectile points dating from 500 B.C. to 1,000 A.D.

Displays of Colonial Beach’s pre-big-box-store life reminded me of my small-town childhood: items from a former Amoco Station, the Gem five-and-dime and Cooper’s Department Store, whose motto was “We Sell Everything.”

Some of the old medicine bottles and remedies like toothache drops recalled my grandmother’s doctor’s home visits and his compassionate care.

I was entranced by the trains at CB Train Junction, a museum-shop where owner Mike Byle tutored me on model trains. He started in 1957 with his first model train set; today, his trains buzz around on ping-pong tables topped with miniature villages.

Next I wandered through the Riverboat on the Potomac, a casino and restaurant, and watched patrons take their chances on simulcast horse races, Keno and lotteries. While its entrance is in Virginia, part of the building extends over the water into Maryland.

Dining options in Colonial Beach range from homestyle Southern to Italian and, of course, fresh seafood from the Chesapeake Bay, only 35 nautical miles away. Locals brag that there’s only one chain restaurant, a McDonalds.

The beach in winter can be nippy outside, but there are plenty of ways to warm up and indulge in the serenity.

For more information, visit ococean.com and visitcolonialbeachva.com.