Our Summer Sojourn

What is a trip to New Jersey without Atlantic City and the beaches? Walking the famed boardwalk we found this cool scene. Bikers, walkers, riders-in-bike cabs--all have a place here.

The Atlantic Ocean beckons way beyond this lovely beach. Some communities charged $5 a day to take in the beach so we just looked from afar. (We're not really beach people.)

Another carney-type attraction on Atlantic City's Boardwalk was this building, but we were too early in the day to actually get inside.

Ron is a lover of Stewart's Orange, buys it wherever he can find it here in Canada or the States. We had a great long chat with one of the weekend workers in this diner. Turns out he is a stockbroker in New York and spends his weekends waiting tables on the Boardwalk. Amazingly he knew that Canada has a very safe and secure banking system. Interesting guy.

Near our home-for-the-week, about 10 minutes out of Atlantic City there was a wonderful little historical village--Smithville, where we spent a couple of hours traipsing around and shopping. Ron bought a neat little football-themed light cover for Ben and Kevin in one of the shops. Here is the old mill but looking closer we found the mill wheel is almost totally rotted out.

I loved this little path to the pond and a quiet bench.


I'm not sure how this carousel fits into the historical theme but it was kind of cute.

Two different days we traveled to Cape May, a delightful resort town on the south part of the state. The houses wore their best dresses to welcome many visitors. All were vintage but in fine condition. We loved Cape May.


Look at the hydrangeas! Just lovely.

We probably won't be back to New Jersey but loved our week there this summer. Not sure there is anything else we need to see although this would be a great place for a family vacation with our kids and grandkids sometime. Hmm. If we do go we'll have to make sure to take lots of coin for the tolls. Every time we went anywhere we paid at the booth. In the beginning, a couple of times we had to go through without paying as we didn't have change or the machines didn't accept what we put in. Grrr!
We met this mother and daughter at a mixology course sponsored by the Marriott resort. At first the 9 of us were kind of reserved--as though we were all Canadians! As the sample sipping progressed, however, we became great friends.


We got along famously with these teachers and though we really didn't learn to make any drinks we had a ball. Needless to say we took the shuttle to the restaurant for dinner that night! The next morning we were off to see relatives and drove through New York for the first time. Took us over an hour but kind of interesting to see.