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For years Chris and Keith have raved about this trip they enjoyed with the boys of Endicott Five to a place called Wildwood, New Jersey. I never quite understood the fuss. That is, until recently when we – Chris, Keith, Jim and I – went there for an end-of-summer vacation!
On Friday, with our bags packed, gas pumped and coffee drank, we sped through the Holland Tunnel and were on our way! Being on the road kinda made me feel a lil’ nostalgic. When I was growing up, we always went to some summer hot spot by car. We would pack up the station wagon, put on our sunglasses and hit the road! I suppose this year was no exception, except we had a cuter car and designer sunglasses. We also had the best music on the radio! We jammed with all the girls of summer: Gwen, Madonna, Beyoncé, Michelle Branch, Liz Phair and more.
On the way to Wildwood, we stopped in Belmar, NJ to have lunch at the Circus Drive-In. The Circus Drive-In is one of the most exciting diners I've ever been to! It opened in 1954 and practically looks unchanged. Long before the Golden Arches and other chains became standard road trip fare, the Circus Drive-In had perfected its culinary delights such as burgers, fish-n-chips and, my fave, grilled cheese. But they’ve also grown with the times, as evidenced by their veggie burgers and the "Skinny Mini" salad. We laughed over the menu and discussed sampling other fun treats, such as the "Fat Lady" sundae. I’ll have a Skinny Mini, followed by a Fat Lady, please…
You can still get car hop service there by flashing your headlights or touching the speaker box next to your parking space, but we opted to sit under the circus tent and take it all in. We enjoyed a delicious lunch as well as some fun Drive-In trivia. For example, do you know the difference between a carousel and a merry-go-round? The first five peeps to email me at lulu@fredflare.com with the correct answer will win a prize! (Don’t forget to send me your mailing address.)
After lunch and a photo shoot with the giant clown head sign, we were on our way to Wildwood! If the Circus Drive-In made us feel as if we had stepped back in time, our arrival in Wildwood signified the time capsule’s official landing. We were now in 1950's motel heaven! Everywhere you looked in Wildwood’s famed Doo-Wop District were neon motel signs, most of them original, welcoming us to our vacation! They were exciting and electric, full of carefree optimism with such names as Pink Champagne, the Swan, Tangiers, La Vita, StarLux, Jolly Roger, and, the jewel of the town, the Carribean.
Everything was picture perfect except there seemed to be one thing out of place... us! We were practically the only people driving a car. Everyone else was on a motorcycle! We had unwittingly arrived during HOG (Harley Owner's Group) Week in Wildwood! But, thankfully, everyone was super nice to us. And the biker tees on the Boardwalk really made us laugh! It was pretty noisy at night but once the bikers left town, it seemed everyone else did too. It was great to have our own private resort, just us and some local retirees.
Now let’s talk boardwalk! The one in Wildwood is truly like no other I’ve ever seen. It is over two miles long, has three incredible piers, seven roller coasters, two huge water parks and enough attractions, sights and sounds to delight for days! There are many rides from the 1950's and 60's that have been restored and still run today. The boardwalk is just as exciting as the motels, so many bright lights! Chris and I went on two roller coasters our first night in town: the Noreaster and The Great White, which actually goes underneath the boardwalk for a spell.
After the rides, we ate custard, fudge, funnel cakes and salt-water taffy. No Skinny Mini’s for us!
The following morning we ate a big breakfast, then headed to the ocean. The water was warm and the beach was super wide with smooth, white sand. Keith and I took a long walk on the beach in search of dolphins but instead mostly talked about Nancy Drew. We speculated that Wildwood would make a great setting for a mystery! We collected some shells, played some frisbee and then were off to Raging Waters, one of the water parks on the boardwalk. We had so much fun sliding down all the water slides!
And there actually was a mystery, of sorts. While we were drying off before lunch, our locker key disappeared. We were puzzled and asked management about it but were told we would simply have to put down another $2 deposit for a new one. So Jim befriended a young girl at the counter and asked her to remember our former key number. In less than an hour, we had busted a ring of kids who would steal locker keys and then return them, using the $2 deposit for candy money! Sleuthing has no quitting time!
Later that day, we played a game of miniature golf at a dinosaur-themed spot called "Jurassic Golf". The winner would receive an ice cream sundae of his or her choice. Jim won so we bought him a banana split as big as his head from the ice cream parlor at the Sea Shell Motel. It was, truly, the biggest, best, most awesomest, most delicious banana split I ever had!
The rest of our time in Wildwood was spent relaxing on the beach or lounging at the motel pool. One night we had food delivered and played 80’s trivia by candlelight on the upper deck, right underneath our motel’s bright neon sign. Is it any surprise that Chris won the first round?
It would have been sad checking out, but we had planned a little detour on the way back to New York City. We would stop for lunch and some gambling in Atlantic City! The boardwalk was not as exciting as the one we had just left, but still super fun. We went to Ripley's Believe It or Not! Museum and saw crazy skeletons, optical illusions, a video of the tallest man in the world and also got our fortunes told by this crazy wax figure named Zelda. She said I would soon come into great fortune, if I was nice to animals and wore blue. Blue is not really my favorite color, but she seemed to know what she was talking about.
After lunch at the Hard Rock Café, we went to several casinos, even though our gambling budget was only $10 each. We mostly just wanted to explore those crazy, themed-out places. It seemed like the perfect way to end our themed-out weekend. We visited Ceasar's, reminiscent of a Roman empire, the Taj Mahal, an Indian palace, the Show Boat, a New Orleans style riverboat, and the Borgata, the newest casino in town, which is pure modern glamour.
The only gambling I've ever tried is slot machines and an occasional lottery ticket so I was impressed when Jim started playing, and winning, at roulette. Keith also won a round. So we took our winnings to the Borgata and blew ‘em on cocktails while we dreamed of the Wildwood motels we would buy if, as Zelda predicted, we might one day make it big.
09/16/03 |
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