The North Jersey Girl Goes South: Part 1?
I am NJ born and bred. Most of my life has been spent
in Northern NJ. As a matter of fact, I can probably count on one hand the
number of times that I have driven below exit 82 on the Garden State Parkway.
(The furthest I usually go is exit 88!) That's not to say I've
never been to South Jersey, I have. In a "former" job, I
traveling points south for sales presentations heading to places in Camden,
Burlington and Atlantic County. But truth be told, the last time I'd been
as far south as Atlantic City was over 20 years ago when hotel casinos like the
Showboat still existed and the only time I'd been as far south as Wildwood was
my senior year in high school. (And I'm not saying how long ago that
was!)
And sadly, things would have
probably stayed that way if I hadn't found out about a Civil War battle
re-enactment that was going on at Historic Cold Spring Village. My son is
a true Civil War buff and I knew this was something he would love.
However, taking a trek to Cape May (exit 0!) was not something I felt we
could do in one day. The event was on a Saturday and the drive down would
take about three hours one way. We would need to do a family weekend and
that would mean taking the boy out of school for a day (and just a little over
a week after school started). Now my son is not the best student, but he
has been working hard to make this school year better than the last. (I
know we are barely into it, but I can still see the effort.) He hasn't
missed a day of school in the past two years (which I probably should not have
said) and I decided one day early in the year would not be the worst thing.
My husband and I discussed it
and we decided to do our best to surprise him. This meant that his
teachers (or his teachers-to-be when I first plotted this out) would know what
was going on and he wouldn't. I let them know via email before the school
year started that he would be away on the 15th. Initially I didn't want
to tell our son we were going away until the day, but his teachers wanted to
give him some assignments PRIOR so we ended up letting him know the weekend
before that we were taking a family trip (with the emphasis on the fact that it
was not a MAJOR vacation) and he ended up doing classwork before we went away
and taking a quiz the day before. With all the extra work he told us the
trip better be worth it. Was it?
We tried to pack light as our
hotel (http://hotelmacomber.com/)
did not have an elevator or bell staff and our room was on the top floor!
(And had a fabulous view, but it was a lot of stairs.) I did some
packing for our son, but told him to pick out shirts/shorts as the temperatures
were supposed to be in the upper 70s.
So Friday morning (not too
early: didn't want to hit commuter traffic) we headed south on the parkway.
The kid still had no idea where we were going and we weren't telling him.
The only thing I did tell him was that we had to stop at his
grandparent's house (exit 98) to drop something off. It was NOT our final
destination.
Stopping off at my parents the
kid had either his second breakfast or his first lunch; I'm not sure. (I
thought it was just an early lunch, but...) We stayed for less than an
hour (during which time the kid caught a crab in his net with no bait) and then
got back on the parkway and continued south.
We passed the exit for Atlantic
City (where the boy thought we might be going?). We only took one quick
rest stop (because I drank too much iced tea at my parents) as the Garden State
Parkway whittled down to a quiet two lane highway. (Nothing like it is
towards the "top" of the state.) It wasn't until we were down
to the single digits in exit numbers that he asked if we were going to Cape
May. He said he kept seeing signs for it, so was that the destination.
We told him it was and he didn't seem too thrilled. As he
confessed: "I'm not so much into the shore anymore."
Suddenly, he started to get interested. Things were looking better than he thought.
Then we arrived at our destination for the next several days.
As I mentioned, we were on the top floor. The three windows that you see at the top of the hotel; that was all our room. But it was quite a haul up. As you can see there is a flight to the first floor to enter the hotel. We checked in with ease and then had several more flights to the very top. When you're taking that many stairs (which I DID know about), there is no suitcase/luggage that can be light enough! We DID get our work out that weekend!
The room was spacious and the view was wonderful.
There were some things that I hadn't considered when I booked the
room. (And I'm not giving the hotel a bad review; these are just my
thoughts and opinions.) As I said the room was quite spacious, but the
bathroom was teeny. (Considering that it was a "historic" hotel
I guess we were lucky to have our very own bathroom. I know some Cape May
resorts still have shared baths.) If you are a larger person, the shower
MIGHT be an issue. (Just something to consider.)
While the room had modern amenities (room was air conditioned, had
two tvs and a small fridge) it was NOT designed for a person to work in. I had brought my laptop and did have some work that I needed to do that evening and there was no place in the room to sit down and do so (no desk area). Additionally SOMETHING (and we never could figure out what) kept making a noise every once in a while. (The only way I can describe it is to say that it was similar to the noise that Phillip Jefferies/teapot made in Twin Peaks: The Return. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, shame on you for not watching the 18 episode series this summer!) It was irregular and it was NOT the fridge or the A/C unit so I have no clue what it was other than annoying!
I also SHOULD have taken into consideration the fact that
there was an arcade directly across the street from us. Those machines
can be loud. They did shut down at night, but usually we are early to bed
and even though we stayed up later than we would at home, the arcade and its
noise didn't stop until late.
Once we caught our breath and settled in a bit, we went back out
(looking the door with an actual key) and across the street to get some lunch
for my husband. Also for my son as it turned out he was hungry too!
(Was this lunch #2? Or was the meal at my parent's breakfast #2
making this just plain lunch???) Anyway, they ate while I wandered on the
beach a little. I wasn't sure if we were going to actually "go" to
the beach while we were there (and I knew my husband wouldn't as the sun and
his medicines don't mix well). I had brought bathing suits and a beach
towel for my son and me, but I HADN'T brought sun screen. (Not the
smartest of moves!) I ended up walking for a quite a while, and not just
on the beach. A mutual friend of ours is a musician (https://www.facebook.com/officialscotterickson)
and would be playing at a local pub that night (http://delaneyscapemay.com/). I
wanted to find the place and see where it was. (Because IF we were going
to go, we would have to walk.) It wasn't too far, but ended up going in a
round about way (thank you Google) before making my way back to the hotel.
The boys were "resting" when I got back and my son said
he was bored. So I took him out for a walk. Figured we could go to
the shopping area I had passed on MY walk. (wwhttp://www.heartofcapemay.com/w.heartofcapemay.com/) Before we went shopping, I wanted to show him another hotel that I knew he
would love.
Then it was on to (window) shopping and a stroll around the mall.
We nearly got away without purchasing anything, but we found the
kiosk for the trolley tours run by the Mid -Atlantic Center (https://www.capemaymac.org/). I
had been considering trying the Ghosts of Cape May trolley tour and when my son
heard about it, he insisted we buy tickets right away for the following
evening. I had planned to purchase tickets the next day, but I'm glad I
took my son's suggestion as the tour does sell out some times!
Tickets in hand (actually
wallet), headed back to the hotel. We picked up my husband and got into
the car for the evening's activity, which, once again, my son did not know
about: an evening dolphin watching cruise. (http://capemaywhalewatcher.com/index.php)
It was a quick drive to the
Miss Chris Marina. (A drive that I'm sure is much longer "in
season." I have to say that Cape May was still pretty crowded two
weeks after Labor Day, so I'd imagine that during the official summer season it's
REALLY busy!) The two hour sunset cruise included a meal of pizza
(delicious) and hot dogs (not so much) and dolphin viewing was guaranteed or
your money back! (How can you go wrong with that?) The cruise
couldn't have been more perfect. We saw dolphins, learned about them
(although with my junior marine biologist nothing much was new), enjoyed the
view along the coast and saw a spectacular sunset. The boat was not
crowded and the staff was incredibly nice. This family owned business
definitely does it right and I would not hesitate to go back and do another
cruise (they offer several different ones) or even the same one again.
(Although no cruise could ever be exactly the same; that's the joy of
nature.)
Back at the hotel, I had some
work to do. (Which was not easy with my desk or table to put my laptop
on. I ended up hunched over on the wicker love seat trying to update my
weekly report. It was painful.) My son said he was tired and he was
fine with us leaving him alone in the room for a while. He said he'd go
to sleep while we were out. I have to admit, this mom was a little
nervous about leaving him alone in a hotel room, but...
Hubby and I walked the 1/2 mile
to the pub, arriving about 20 minutes before our friend was supposed to start.
We had no problem finding a seat at the bar. We had drinks: a
beer for him and a specialty drink for me. I have to admit that I was a
little nervous as there were no prices on the drinks menu and I had two drinks!
(Hey, I was walking!) But there was no need. Prices were very
reasonable, staff was friendly (extremely so after they heard we were friends
with the evening's entertainment) and were able to relax and enjoy the music.
The two of us rarely go out so this was a nice treat.
We didn't stay all that long;
maybe an hour or so. We walked back to the hotel to find our son still up
and watching tv. (So much for being sleepy.) Not too long
afterwards (after learning you had to wait for the hot water in the tiny
shower), the three of us turned in.
My son didn't know it, but
tomorrow was going to be a memorable day!
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