The Jersey Shore

Over the kids’ spring break, we headed to the Jersey Shore to explore a little more. We had such a great time there walking around in December that we thought we could handle the not so hot temperature wise beach scene. Well, we lost and retreated back to our home in northern New Jersey. On the drive there, we had snow. Actual sticking on the ground snow. We wandered around the white (snow) beach and then quickly headed inside to warm up and stay there.

Temperatures aside, we had a good time. Cold weather meant plenty of board games and movies, all the things we don’t have time for during the school week. When the sun did come out, we headed over to the Ocean City boardwalk.  We bought saltwater taffy, cheap sunglasses and pizza. Adam had his hopes on a shooting arcade game but it was not yet open for the season. We settled for Haunted Golf, which was tons of fun. And since we won a free game, we’ll be back.

A highlight of our exploration was Cape May, an old resort town of Victorian gingerbread style houses, a light house and lots of city beaches. Cape May is the southernmost tip of New Jersey, right where the Delaware Bay enters the Atlantic Ocean. We have friends in Germany who talk about Cape May, so it was a weird experience to be there and not be with those friends. We filled the time without them, on a whale and dolphin watching tour, heading about seven miles out into the ocean and then looping back to Cape May.

The tour was great, with lots of information coming our way from the captain and more importantly, lots of dolphins. We saw our first dolphin right when we entered the ocean, out of a salt marsh. And that was a good omen at least on the dolphin side. We’ve been on dolphin tours before and struggled to see a dolphin or two all afternoon. Here, the tour guide estimated that we saw over two hundred dolphins in the first hour of our cruise. We stopped trying to take pictures of them and just randomly clicked the camera. Dolphins in the photo regardless.

It’s been a crazy transition time, back to all things American, back to navigating a new sports schedule, earlier school starts, less vacation time for all. We don’t yet know where to get our bikes fixed or buy kid’s swim suits. So it is particularly nice when a dolphin just falls into our photos. We all knew instantly to appreciate it and the afternoon of sunshine.