*"The Wildwoods" refers collectively to five municipalities (see below) including as Wildwood Crest

This entry features a series of 30 pictures from my just-concluded, all-too-short, annual summer trip to the Jersey shore with Gary, Larry ("LP"), and Wendy. All the pictures in this entry were taken by Wendy and they are a subset of a larger set she took. Wendy was only with us for the nights of the 22nd to 23rd and 23rd to 24th before returning on the 24th (Sunday) in order to get back to work on Monday.
This entry does not really include a narrative of the entire trip but instead just features the pictures she took with captions. I intend to post the pictures that I took in a subsequent entry that includes such a narrative.
I really do want to do this because (1) I never had a dedicated entry following last year's car rental seattle cheap trip that included the bulk of the 75 or so pictures I took; and (2) I have now been to "The Wildwoods," not to mention car rental seattle cheap Cape May, enough times, including a set of business establishments, that I now have a decent idea of the lay of the land of that part of the Jersey Shore. (Though I am from the Jersey Shore many years ago, my area was about 90 miles north of there in the Long Branch / Sea Bright area.)
As in previous years, we took an evening ferry -- this year, the Cape Henlopen, one of three in the fleet* --from Lewes, car rental seattle cheap Delaware (after driving across the Eastern Shore) to Cape May, New Jersey. Of note, the Cape May - Lewes Ferry system celebrated its 50th anniversary this past June.
There was a live band playing music and it was rather festive as night fell and the Jersey shoreline approached including car rental seattle cheap the lights of Cape May and the flashing beacon of the Cape May Light itself while the lights of Rehoboth disappeared over the horizon. (You can also see from the middle of the crossing the distant glow of otherwise below-the-horizon Ocean City, Md., the Wildwoods, and (looking to the northwest) the Wilmington / Philadelphia area.
I got kinda drunk on the ferry (now there's a shock) but I wasn't driving any car on either end, just a passenger. Wendy had driven separately and met us in Lewes. Once in New Jersey, I rode with her to the hotel in Wildwood Crest while Larry drove with Gary.
We stayed at the Adventurer Oceanfront Inn located just inside the Wildwood Crest ("dry") boundary. On the other side of Cresse Avenue is "wet" Wildwood. Our first night was on the second floor facing the ocean -- beyond the quarter mile or so wide beach -- but then we had to switch rooms to the 6th floor. While that room faced the north, we still had a substantial ocean view including of sunrise.
August 23rd, Saturday, car rental seattle cheap was our first full day at the shore -- part of my annual, all-too-brief return to my native New Jersey. I am from the Jersey shore area as well, but about 90 miles north of "The Wildwoods"* in Long Branch and Sea Bright at the opposite end of the Garden State's Atlantic coastline.
*"The Wildwoods" refers collectively to five municipalities (see below) including car rental seattle cheap as Wildwood Crest and Wildwood. car rental seattle cheap Our hotel and beach spot were literally on the boundary of the two, so it is possible some of these pictures were technically on the Wildwood side even though I have it marked as Wildwood Crest.
Wendy and I first had breakfast in the hotel's restaurant (seated outdoor next to a family with screaming, out-of-control small children that seem -- in that characteristically odd American way -- to dominate, control, and dictate car rental seattle cheap everything that the family does.
Uh, oh ... Nag 'Em the Concerned Cheesecake-Eating House Hippo -- she who is to be featured in "The Wall-P Me Chronicles" -- isn't going to like hearing that. Better call Nancy Grace and alert her to the fact that "the children" aren't being fully "self-actualized" at all times by properly "helicoptering" parents.
Another picture car rental seattle cheap of the two beach chairs featured in the lead image at the same time (1:29PM Aug. 23, 2014) and place (Wildwood Crest, N.J.) and spot (in the surf of an astronomically (New Moon) low tide, but from a different camera perspective.
While the surf looked very gentle, there was actually quite a rip current tearing along / parallel to the beach from north-to-south, driven in part by a 20 to 30MPH wind that was whipping right along the edge of the surf.
Wendy and I stayed on the beach for about two hours while Gary and LP were at the gym. We went back to the hotel room -- by which point the staff had transferred all our belongings from room 227 to room 615 (well, except for one plastic car rental seattle cheap bottle of pumped liquid soap).
car rental seattle cheap As an aside, I didn't particularly like being on the 6th floor -- it's too high up. (Indeed, I'm not thrilled living on the 5th floor as I do; I would prefer the 2nd or 3rd floor.) car rental seattle cheap And the hotel's elevators were heavily used and very slow. I ended up taking the stairs frequently.
Anyway, Wendy and I then got cleaned up from the sand and sea water and headed over to the kitschy Wildwood boardwalk car rental seattle cheap with its three piers (Adventure, Mariner's Landing, and Surfside) all owned by the Morey Brothers.
The giant letters of this boardwalk sign spell out "Wildwoods" in Wildwood -- a reference to the five constituent municipalities that are (south-to-north): Diamond Beach, Wildwood Crest, Wildwood, West Wildwood, and North Wildwood.
We tend to follow the same routine each year of going to the Surfside Pier to the bar at the very end. This year, we did not go on Fly The Great Nor'easter rollercoaster. That rollercoaster is oddly closely intertwined with the Zoom Phloom log flume ride and water park pools.
We went to the bar at the very end of Surfside Pier. The name of it is Stubborn Brothers Beach Bar Grille . While Larry said it had that name in 2013, neither I nor Wendy remembered it. (I think it was instead called the Oasis Café.)
car rental seattle cheap None of the three Morey's Piers are true "piers" in that they stretch into / above the ocean. The beaches are so wide in the Wildwoods that the ends of these piers aren't even close to the surf under normal circumstances.
The American flag is a nice touch. As an aside, I recall being on the beach in New Smyrna Beach, Fla., in July 1993 (my dad lived near there at the time) and this group of five young people -- guys and girls -- were sitting under a large Confederate flag they had planted on the beach. The flag was whipping in a stiff wind and they were just sitting there it motionless -- hardly enjoying a beach visit -- as if they had just refought and won the Civil War, er, sorry, "War Between the States," for Old Dixie.
We then headed back to the hotel to prepare for our first night out, which was at Tucker's Pub in Wildwood, where we met a friend of Gary's from D.C. Between the five of us, we all represented car rental seattle cheap as "Feds" or contractors current or retired five different Federal agencies. We were probably the only (or certainly the largest) group of people in Wildwood that night with such a designation. More to the point, there aren't car rental seattle cheap many D.C. folks in The Wildwoods car rental seattle cheap or Cape May. We were again the only vehicles that I saw with D.C. license plates in these locales.
The Wildwoods are one of the few places along the Jersey shore where one does not have to pay to gain access to the beach. This feature of New Jersey -- along with no self-service gasoline, the "delayed green" traffic signals, and an absurdly high number of school jurisdictions (not all of which are even operational) -- are some of the chestnuts of the Garden State. (Concerning car rental seattle cheap traffic issues, I noticed that bike lanes and LED crosswalk signals with countdowns are now appearing in The Wildwoods.)
We were starting out on our second day at the beach. This time, Wendy and I went to the wonderful little breakfast place in the hotel next door. The hotel is the Aqua Beach Resort and the little family run place is called the Bagel Time Café . There are actually three locations -- one in Wildwood, one in Wildwood Crest (at the Aqua Resort), and one in Cape May. The level of service has always been outstanding and the breakfast food so quintessentially New Jersey diner. The staff have never not been anything but friendly, attentive, and courteous. You really don't find that much anymore.
Actually, the ocean still had a noticeable sideways / rip current and it was easy to get swept parallel to the beach yards at a time. The wind had relaxed, though. car rental seattle cheap By the last day (Tuesday), it was just sunny and summery.
This concludes the first batch of Jersey shore vacation pictures. I still have as many as 50 of my own that I could post, although it will likely be a subset of those and probably not until next weekend.
I'm 45 years old and live and work in Washington, D.C. I have a background in meteorology and journalism, and more recently car rental seattle cheap in public policy with a focus on environmental and energy issues. car rental seattle cheap I have worked as an earth (atmospheric) sciences and astronomy writer for NASA and the American Physical Society. At present, I am a Federal contractor car rental seattle cheap on clean energy related issues. I am from New Jersey and have lived in Seattle, Texas, England, and Belgium, although I've been in Maryland and D.C. for most of my life.