you and me, you and me, oh how happy we’ll be!
I love to be beside your side, beside the sea,
Beside the SEASIDE [HEIGHTS], by the beautiful sea!

Back in late July Rick took a day off and we headed down to the Jersey Shore. Ahh ... the shore. Anywhere else it would be called the beach, but not in Jersey. Oh, no, here it’s The Shore. It seems there is a mass exodus to The Shore in August, so we wanted to avoid the vacation crush. We went last year several times to the Boardwalk at Point Pleasant Beach (once with Rick’s visiting parents), but our neighbors told us we should head to Seaside Heights for a better shore/boardwalk experience. Plus, last year when we finally got around to going it was after Labor Day and past the high season, so not much was happening.

It’s approximately a two hour drive down the the Garden State Parkway from our house. We were obviously a little early since the boardwalk wasn’t quite fully open yet. Next time we’ll know that it all starts at noon! It’s a larger Boardwalk than the one at Point Pleasant, and during the week it was still pretty uncrowded. We walked around for several hours and took in all the sights.

I liked some of the signage:

But the highlight, for me, was the old carousel at the northernmost end of the boardwalk. “The historic Dentzel/Looff Carousel is one of the only two remaining vintage carousels in New Jersey. Many of the hand-carved animals date to the 19th century, and music is provided by the state’s only continuously operating carousel organ, a 1923 Wurlitzer military-band organ.” Of course I had to go for a ride even though the only other riders where small children and their mothers! It made me quite dizzy!

C’mon, take a ride! How many of the above animals can you spot?

Instead of opting to eat at many of the tempting places along the boardwalk, we found ourselves gravitating instead to our old stand-by: Spike’s Seafood in Point Pleasant Beach where two lobster rolls with our name on them were just waiting for us! Yum, heavenly!

I’m certain another trip to The Shore is in our near future. It’s a shore thing.