Cape May, New Jersey

[My 50th blog post!]

View of Cape May along Beach Avenue

After six nights of Outer Banks camping, bookended by single night stays (in Charlotte, North Carolina with cousins Lynn & Jim and in Aberdeen, Maryland at my step-dad Ed's and Georgette's house), Erin and I were heading next to Cape May, New Jersey, which is on the southernmost tip of land, a tiny finger, that juts down into the Delaware Bay on the west and the Atlantic Ocean on the east. I have a bit of history with Cape May. My mom and step-dad had a vacation place here for several years, my younger brother Jeff was married here and, since this was a place that was near and dear to my mother's heart, we spread her ashes in the Atlantic Ocean on Poverty Beach, one of her favorite shelling haunts. I myself also lived in New Jersey (just across the Delaware from Philly) for a few years when I was in high school. I was nervous about what Erin would think about Cape May and, since I hadn't been here myself in two decades, concerned that maybe Cape May was just a fond memory of mine from the past. Thankfully, Cape May is still the quaint seaside vacation town I remember and Erin has fallen under it's spell. Yes -- Erin has become an honorary Jersey Girl. She loves it! And we've both bought about a dozen items -- t-shirts, car decals, coffee mugs -- that say "Cape May" on them.

Sunset over the cabanas on the shore

The "Painted Ladies" along Beach Avenue

Beach Avenue in the morning

The Inn of Cape May

Erin and I decided to pop for a few nights in a hotel. We're considering it a belated 13th Anniversary celebration, which we never got around to celebrating in August. After almost a week of camping, we felt we needed a break (this is only our 3rd and 4th nights of hotel stays for the last 4 months). So we found a nice place called the Beach Shack down on the south side of Beach Avenue and have hunkered down for some tourist-type sightseeing.

The Beach Shack

The view from our room

Erin reading poolside

Your humble blogger posing from the pool

We also visited Poverty -- or Poor Man's -- Beach to pay our respects to my mom. Visiting the beach where we spread my mom's ashes over twenty years ago was the first thing I thought of when we talked about an eastern leg of our 5-month sojourn. I often feel a connection to my mother anyway, but here on her beloved beach I felt an especially strong connection.

I love you mom.

Mary Jane's Beach, Cape May, NJ