A little beach time
I promised a photo blog of our trip to the shore last weekend, so here it is. We went here...
Lovely Wildwood, NJ. Specifically we stayed in Wildwood Crest, which is the southernmost part of the island. Shanna Swedson mentioned this lovely seaside community in her book, Enchanted, Inc. But she used it as a magical dead zone. I'm not sure why, I rather like the place. It's got a great family-friendly, homey feel. This is the view from our hotel room...
Wildwood is one of those 'themed' communities. We have a few - Cape May, for example, has a ton of Victorian homes. So if you want to feel like you're visiting the sea in the 1800's, take a trip to Cape May. It's really beautiful, actually.
This is a postcard, obviously, but take my word for it, it STILL looks like this. Like taking a trip back in time.
But Wildwood, on the other hand, has a 50's feel to it. There is actually a Doo Wop Preservation League, which strives to preserve the old motels and keep the modern condos from destroying the Beach Blanket Bingo motif of the city. Yes, there is much neon at night. It's kind of like driving through Radiator Springs in Cars. LOL.
The link will take you to the pics. I didn't get to take any pics of the places, but the site has better ones than I would take anyway. They're adorable, most of these places. And some of the newer businesses, like the Commerce Bank, the Wawa, and the Harley Davidson dealership, have built their buildings to reflect the Doo Wop era. Which is really cool of them. If you go to the site, click the "Neo Doo Wop" page of the gallery.
Thursday morning, we drove up the road to Cape May, where we visited the Cape May Lighthouse:
Which is a National Park. No, I didn't climb to the top. The Lighthouse beach also contains a big old remnant of WWII:
Yes, this is an actual WWII bunker, used for coastal defense. Kind of weird, since I think most of us think of Europe and forget we defended our own shores too. Even on the East Coast. There's also a gun tower on the road between the Lighthouse Beach and Sunset Beach, our next stop.
Sunset beach, named because it's the only oceanside beach in NJ where you can actually SEE a sunset (because it's just around the end of the peninsula, but before you get to the Delaware River, so it faces west) is not a large place, but it's the only place in the world you can find Cape May Diamonds. Which of course, we dug for in the rocks until we found a pile. I actually found a couple of rose quartz pieces. Even unpolished, they're all smoothed by the water, so they're pretty no matter what. Every day you can see people out there with buckets, looking for that one 'big one'.
It's also the home of the USS Atlantus, a concrete ship sunk just off the coast.
We spent Thursday afternoon hanging out, and visited friends at another hotel. They were fishing in the bay, and caught a small shark. Of course, I didn't have my camera. But Ry got to touch it, and he thought it was awesome.
Friday was convention day, and the boys went to look at firetrucks while I sat on the balcony and did some editing and watched the ocean. It rained Friday night, so we kept to the indoor attractions, mostly the arcades. Ry got enough tickets to win a three foot tall Spiderman. He tilted the slot machine (tickets, not money!)
Saturday we went swimming in the hotel pool, Ry and I. It was a gorgeous day, but I didn't have my beach umbrella, and there was no way I was sitting on the beach without it. The pool was nice. Saturday night we went to Morey's Pier, where Ry was finally tall enough to ride some of the bigger rides.
Overall, it was a great time.
