Sunday, August 24, 2008
A midweek special
There may be no such thing as a "simple" vacation, but nothing ought to be simpler than a few days in North Wildwood. Choosing a motel is easy. The Wildwoods are packed with expensive palaces sporting names like Fleur-dy-Lys, Quebec-by-the-sea, Le Voyageur. In addition to the usual amenties, these places will wake you in the morning, feed you, tan you, sauna you, bus you to Atlantic City & hand you an ice pack for your brain when you stagger home at 4 a.m. Competition is fierce. One motel even advertises a "solar heated pool," which could also be said about the Atlantic Ocean. Many of the French-Canadians who flock to these exotic hostelries by the thousands only see the boardwalk & ocean from their neon-lit balconies.
I patronize a small, no-frills, family-owned motor court called The Kismet, a few blocks south of Hereford Inlet & a mile north of the nearest loud boardwalk amusements. It has no swimming pool, game room, or resident psychiatrist. I don't need those frills anymore.
After making reservations in May for a 5 night "midweek special" in August, I start worrying about the weather, intently studying the long range forecasts, hoping for the jet stream to make a certain snakelike loop over the Great Plains. I expect 85 degree days, balmy nights, & a big thunderstorm scheduled to begin promptly at midnight Wednesday & ending 30 minutes later. Since having my flesh slowly incinerated at the beach holds no appeal for me, a cloudy day won't ruin a visit to Cape May Zoo or keep me out of the undertow.
Vacation logistics are about what to bring & in this matter I am a Survivalist, so I must transport my own coffeemaker. Because I want to spend money on good stuff, like crab cakes, pizza, & ice cream, I also pack bowls, utensils, snacks, cereal & anything else that might keep me out of an all-you-can buffet, I stop by the local Pathmark before I check in. Wandering around the shore on an empty stomach is risky; nothing blows a budget faster than boardwalk food. I also pack Alka-Seltzer, boombox, a couple of books, & the strongest sunblock legally available.
Clothes perplex me. Might be hot, cool, rainy, or the first ever August snow. The worse weather pattern has muggy days with a nippy drizzle & a hurricane 200 miles offshore, which happened one year. All possibilities must be anticipated. Fashion counts for little. No one on the beach in late afternoon looks thrice at a skinny middleaged guy wearing flowerprint swim trucks, xtra large Mister Bubbles teeshirt, sea shell necklace, & green Aloha Surf cap. Only a writer would look like that.. For evenings on the boardwalk I bring ten pocket baggy khaki pants. Lots of places to stash coins for pinball. Forget about socks.
Finally, I pack everything in backpacks & plastic supermarket bags, taking care to remember small essentials. While I think nothing of pushing hard cash across a counter for a funnel cake or Ramones shirt, I get really annoyed if I have to purchase toothpaste or shampoo at inflated prices from a store that mainly sells bait & beach balls. Everything goes on to the back seat of the car. I have an irrational fear that the trunk will fly open just past New Gretna & deposit my stuff in the marsh.
Vacation officially begins, rain or shine, over an iced tea at Forked River rest stop. If the car broke down there, I'd have it towed the rest of the way to Wildwood.
Hopefully, I'm on vacation "double occupancy."
(8/05, from an earlier column for Worrall Community Newspapers)
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
I patronize a small, no-frills, family-owned motor court called The Kismet, a few blocks south of Hereford Inlet & a mile north of the nearest loud boardwalk amusements. It has no swimming pool, game room, or resident psychiatrist. I don't need those frills anymore.
After making reservations in May for a 5 night "midweek special" in August, I start worrying about the weather, intently studying the long range forecasts, hoping for the jet stream to make a certain snakelike loop over the Great Plains. I expect 85 degree days, balmy nights, & a big thunderstorm scheduled to begin promptly at midnight Wednesday & ending 30 minutes later. Since having my flesh slowly incinerated at the beach holds no appeal for me, a cloudy day won't ruin a visit to Cape May Zoo or keep me out of the undertow.
Vacation logistics are about what to bring & in this matter I am a Survivalist, so I must transport my own coffeemaker. Because I want to spend money on good stuff, like crab cakes, pizza, & ice cream, I also pack bowls, utensils, snacks, cereal & anything else that might keep me out of an all-you-can buffet, I stop by the local Pathmark before I check in. Wandering around the shore on an empty stomach is risky; nothing blows a budget faster than boardwalk food. I also pack Alka-Seltzer, boombox, a couple of books, & the strongest sunblock legally available.
Clothes perplex me. Might be hot, cool, rainy, or the first ever August snow. The worse weather pattern has muggy days with a nippy drizzle & a hurricane 200 miles offshore, which happened one year. All possibilities must be anticipated. Fashion counts for little. No one on the beach in late afternoon looks thrice at a skinny middleaged guy wearing flowerprint swim trucks, xtra large Mister Bubbles teeshirt, sea shell necklace, & green Aloha Surf cap. Only a writer would look like that.. For evenings on the boardwalk I bring ten pocket baggy khaki pants. Lots of places to stash coins for pinball. Forget about socks.
Finally, I pack everything in backpacks & plastic supermarket bags, taking care to remember small essentials. While I think nothing of pushing hard cash across a counter for a funnel cake or Ramones shirt, I get really annoyed if I have to purchase toothpaste or shampoo at inflated prices from a store that mainly sells bait & beach balls. Everything goes on to the back seat of the car. I have an irrational fear that the trunk will fly open just past New Gretna & deposit my stuff in the marsh.
Vacation officially begins, rain or shine, over an iced tea at Forked River rest stop. If the car broke down there, I'd have it towed the rest of the way to Wildwood.
Hopefully, I'm on vacation "double occupancy."
(8/05, from an earlier column for Worrall Community Newspapers)
Labels: boardwalks, jersey shore, motel hotel, Wildwoods NJ
