Semi-Spontaneity at the Jersey Shore

As of last Friday morning, Sarah and I still had no plans for Memorial Day weekend. The traditional barbeque at our house never materialized, and between Sarah's busyness with the kids and my busyness at work, plans such as Dutch Wonderland and Sesame Place were kicked around but for a variety of reasons never firmed up. So we were pretty much ready to make it a garden variety weekend with the blessing of an extra day.

At work at around 11am, Sarah called me and suggested that we do a quick ride to down to Wildwood Crest and stay over Friday night. Sure, why not? Having been there twice in the past four years, we knew the route and we knew where to go for good food, and the kids always are suckers for the beach, so it seemed like a winner. So after I got back from work early, we huddled into the car and made our way down the Garden State Parkway, and after enduring some pretty gnarly traffic, we finally arrive at our little beachside motel.

It was a great time, and I'm glad we did it. The kids got a good hour and a half of beach time before the sunset. We went to an old favorite, the Ravioli House, and stuffed ourselves before grabbing a cannoli for dessert. The kids were fading, and we put them in the separate bedroom in our suite (after our insomnia session on a trip last December, we've become big believers in finding and booking accommodations which include a separate room where we can put the kids) before calling it a night. The next morning included a good three hours of beautiful beach time, lunch at the Lobster House, and a surrey bike ride and shopping in Cape May.

For a hyper-organized (i.e. anal) guy like myself, it was a nice departure from the usual "plan weeks in advance while trying to scour the web for any discount" routine. Angst from screaming kids in the backseat while driving notwithstanding, I think I enjoyed myself enough to do it again someday.