The Jersey Shore

 Brian, his dad, and his brothers like to spend time playing golf whenever they are together.  This year Brian's dad and brother Brandon were preparing for a tournament, so the boys hit the course a few times in the week that we were visiting.  As awesome as I'm sure golf is, it holds little interest for us girls (and Owen).  Barb had the idea for us to take a ride on the Cape May-Lewes Ferry and visit the shore of southern New Jersey while the boys were doing their thing.  I thought this was a great idea.  The kids had never been on a ferry before, and I thought that they would enjoy that.  So, we drove to Lewes, Delaware and boarded the ferry to Cape May, New Jersey.  The journey over was neat.  It was another chilly and windy day, so we got a snack and the snack bar and set by the window for most of the 85 minute trip over.

Once we reached New Jersey, we decided to have lunch and check out the town of Wildwoods.  This is apparently the "place to be" during the summer, and you could definitely tell that it gets lots of visitors.  There were not many people there when we visited, however.  This was probably due to the chilly weather and to the fact that school was still in session up there.

 I could not get over the width of the beach.  There was an enormous amount of sand between the boardwalk and the ocean.  It took us what seemed like forever to get too the water.  I think it would be a hassle to have to lug all of your gear down to the water here.

 We walked along the boardwalk.  There were numerous shops and attractions to be seen.  There were full-scale amusement parks built on to piers  here.  I have never seen anything like it.   A lot of these places were not yet opened for the season, but it was still neat to see them.

I had packed the kids' swimsuits so that they could play in the ocean.  It was so chilly, though, that I decided that the kids should not get wet.  I left there suits in the car and told them that they could just "dip their toes" in the water.  This was a poor decision.  Of course, they couldn't stay away from the ocean or sand.  They ended up getting both dirty and wet, and the only dry clothing that I had to change them into was- a bathing suit.  

And that is why they wore bathing suits and jackets on the return trip.  We made our second trip on the ferry as the sun was going down.  We sat in a lounge with forward-facing glass windows and enjoyed the view.