Vacay Crashing: Jersey Shore

Last week I crashed a family vacation. Don't worry, it was my own family's but still, I wasn't originally supposed to be there. My brothers were taking their families to the Jersey shore for the week and had invited my dad along, who came in from Illinois. I decided last minute, to pack up Gabe and his 8 shit-tons of gear and head down for a few days, leaving John home to work and fend for himself. Oh it'll be fun, I thought, Plenty of family around to watch Gabe, it won't be bad at all! And while it wasn't bad, it was in no way relaxing, a vacation or anything of the sort. It was basically a change of scenery.

But hey, the scenery was pretty sweet. Instead of battling the high winds and 2 mile trek to the actual ocean at the Wildwood beaches, we decided to head to a place we spent a lot of time as kids, Sunset Beach in Cape May, NJ. It's a little half pebble/half sand beach that is famous for "Cape May Diamonds", or basically clear-ish pebbles. You go to Sunset Beach to pan for diamonds, sifting through the piles of pebbles, exclaiming when you find one. Gabe, rock lover numero uno, was in heaven.

Sunset Beach is also known for the sunken concrete ship, a failed experiment dating back to WWII. I know, concrete ships, who woulda thunk?

 

Uncle Josh braving the pebbles with bare feet to scoop rocks with Gabe...and chase him away from the huge jutting rocks.  Way to pinch-father for him, Josh.

Gabe did get to spend some QT with his grandpa, mostly sitting on his lap,while Grandpa told dirty jokes.

At night, we'd head up to the boardwalk, which is the reason you go to Wildwood and not any of the other classier shore towns. Plop some kids in the strollers, some beers in the cupholder and away we went. It was on the boardwalk that we lamented our quickly growing ages...mostly because we had no idea what anything on any of the t-shirts meant. FYI, YOLO means You Only Live Once. It's all the rage with the kiddies.

Look over here!

Boardwalks are all about the treats. And this one was the messiest thing I'd ever seen. John, an anal sonofabitch, literally cringed when I showed him these pics.

Gabe was covered. The stroller was covered. His skin was dyed blue for 3 days. Worth it.

 

Four days later, I packed up even more shit, due to my sister-in-law passing on hand-me-downs, and headed home. I then handed Gabe to John and proceeded to lay on the couch for 5 hours. Being on every day, all day, with crap naps and early wake-ups is not for the faint of heart. Especially when there's no working coffeemaker in sight. I know, what sort of hell doesn't have a coffeemaker? Next time I crash someone else's vacation, I'm gonna have to choose the lodging.