A Fun Day at the Beach

We figured we’ve been hitting the educational agenda hard enough with Kaleb on this trip, that we treated him to just a fun day with no agenda down at the beach before we head back home.  The weather was perfect and he’d yet put his toes in the water on this side of the Atlantic Ocean, so we were off this morning driving an hour east to get to the Jersey Shore.  Connie needed to stay home but it would have been nice to have her along.

Our destination was Cape May, but we stopped at a bakery on the way down and the guy there told us to go to the city of Wildwoods instead, right next door.  He said it was all about the kids there, and he was right.  I’ve never seen a beach community like it.  It has the boardwalk like Atlantic City, going two miles along the shore, but jetting out from it is pier after pier of thrill rides, roller coasters and things the carnival brings to town.  It was a combination of Atlantic City for kiddies and Seaside, Oregon on steroids.  Kaleb was in heaven.

We walked the beach a bit and couldn’t find any shells or rocks (it’s just pure sand), so we went in the convention center.  Kaleb went to a Pokemon card collectables kind of show and I went to a craft fair.  It was supposed to be handmade crafts but I could tell much of it was stuff made in China with the tags ripped off.  The things that were handmade were old lady stuff like crocheted poodle toilet paper holders.  I can’t believe I paid three three dollar entry fee for THAT.

We were back outside again in no time and Kaleb started drooling over all the thrill rides we passed.  After we found out they were eight dollars a pop, we let him pick one to go on and it was over in less than a minute.  He was still thrilled though and talked about it for at least a half an hour afterwards.  Better him than us.  We’ve finally realized we are just too old for such thrills and none of them looked terribly safe.  I prayed the whole time Kaleb was on it and was thankful he came back alive.

The city has a tram that travels the full length of the boardwalk, so we walked all the way down to one end, then took the tram back to the other.  It felt good to sit down and let the ocean breeze pass us by.  We were pretty hot and clammy after a few hours in the sun.  The humidity is back.

Robbie told us about The Lobster Shack, a popular restaurant in Cape May, that everyone goes to, so we drove a few miles over to Cape May to eat there.  We found the restaurant right away as it was hard to miss with all the signs pointing to it.  I’ve never seen such a large parking lot for any restaurant in my entire life.  In a way, it’s like the Ivar’s of the East Coast, since they had fresh take-out fish and chips counter, and a fancy sit-down restaurant next to it.  But they also had a boat anchored in the water that served a different menu altogether, which is where we ended up.  Sitting on the edge of the boat right on the harbor.   It was divine and the food was great.  What a treat that was.

We walked the beach after our late lunch and Kaleb enjoyed jumping the waves as we went.  Lots of shore birds gave him something to chase after and the breeze kept us all cool.  We later drove around the city to look at all the oversized houses that people have built to impress everyone with how much money they have.  It’s hard to imagine the kind of taxes they must pay, let alone the upkeep and mortgage payments.  There’s a lot of “old money” on the East Coast, people who descend from successful business owners many generations back.  Kaleb was wondering what it would be like to live in some of those monstrous houses and I told him it would be a lot of work and I sure wouldn’t want to clean them, or do the yard work.  We all decided we are happy with what we have, because it’s manageable, both in terms of our income and our possessions and we’re thankful to God for it all.

We got back to Connie’s after dark, then sat and visited with her for a while before we all were exhausted from the day and headed to bed.  Only one day left and tomorrow we’ve decided to do more yard and things to help out Connie.  Robbie was doing a little remodel on her downstairs before he got real sick so she has some trim that need replacing around windows and doors that Kory will try and put back up.  And hopefully we’ll see Robbie again before we leave, but we fly home Tuesday morning then hit the week running as school starts the day after and our weeks are already filling up fast. 

East or West, Home is Best.