Cape May

Time to leave Boston and our beautiful harbor view. The view out the back on our rear monitor was overwhelming-with the motorcycle on its’ lift and the car towed behind- a full 60 feet going down the road. After all of our trips to Kate and Mike’s house in NJ, we somehow forgot that the Jersey Shore was a full 2 hours beyond their house. Our day dragged on as we traveled through heavy traffic from the Tappanzee Bridge to 287. We finally hit a stretch of light traffic and made our way to Port Republic and our 1000 Trails campsite (free). Not the most charming of campsites, the full hookups were packed cheek by jowl together. We opted for a water and electric site in the open, grassy area. We soon discovered that the camp is in the middle of a cranberry bog- hot, humid and thousands of mosquitoes and horse-flies.

We explored the area on bike and by car- seeing Smithville (a tiny little collection of shops and restaurants) and driving to Cape May (exploring potential campsites) We explored the areas to the north of Cape May- Wildwood (a typical ticky tacky Jersey shore town) and the beautiful homes of Stone Harbor. Avalon was lots of new construction and Atlantic City which was every bit as tacky and horrifying as we expected. Point Pleasant- just a short drive outside NYC- had the typical NJ boardwalk as well as a great fish restaurant.

As we watched the show from our front window-watching the ‘campers’ go to and from the showers, we realized that one sure way of making one feel attractive is to come to a campsite (the same way that buying a motorhome at Lazy Days makes one feel young). Some of these people were so huge that John started taking pictures of them.

We spent the 4th with Dan and his family- meeting them for drinks and dinner in Cape May. It was a beautiful day and the dinner was excellent. Then it was on to Kate and Mike’s house for a few days in a real house. We ordered Indian take-out the first night and talked to Mike about the house they were looking to buy. On Wednesday, we took the train into NYC, stopped by the India Tourist Office and to round out our public transportation experience, we took the bus to meet Steph and Brett for dinner. (Indian food again, but spectacularly good).