Summertime on the Jersey Shore

14 July 2009

I'm spending the week on the east coast, mostly working with a colleague at Yale. On Saturday, I flew to Hartford, Connecticut, rented a car, and drove to visit my colleague and friends Charlie and Lulu in New Jersey.

The plane trip was long but uneventful. On Southwest, you may not get much, but you do get what you expect!

The drive, though, was something else. There isn't a particularly easy way to get from Connecticut to New Jersey. In the rush to finish up some work before leaving, I hadn't done a good job of preparing for the drive. But, with the shaky confidence of having made it once several years ago, and after buying a map at a gas station, I headed off. The route: 91 south to Hartford, 84 west across the Hudson and into New York, the NY Thruway south and then the Garden State Parkway into midstate New Jersey.

Along the way, I was treated to fireworks in Hartford. (People pulled over to the shoulder of the freeway and got out of their cars to watch!) Next, there was a spectacular lightning display. A little too spectacular for safe driving, though! Then the rain started coming and it poured buckets for a few hours. Driving in that, late at night, on a road I didn't know, and along a route that I wasn't too confident of was tough. I did manage to avoid any wrong turns, but I had to stop a few times to make sure about my route. I arrived about 1 AM, 4.5 hours after leaving the car rental agency, but at least I made it safely.

Charlie and Lulu live in a rural (or maybe exurban) part of New Jersey not too far from the Atlantic coast. It has been a cool early summer here and after Saturday night's storm passed, Sunday turned out to be a terrific day. In the afternoon, we drove down to the Jersey shore and strolled along the boardwalk for several hours, soaking in the sun and the sights.

We started in Belmar and headed north, passing through Bradley Beach and Ocean Grove, and then Asbury Park. The beach was colorfully crowded in many places (top photo). People enjoyed strolling on the boardwalk, even covered from head to toe in black and white (second photo). Others soaked in the sun, perhaps past the point of wisdom (third photo). Families gathered for portraits (fourth photo). (I didn't stop to ask whether the man was the father of all seven of those children!)

In Ocean Grove, there is a collection of tent houses that are set up only for the summer time every year. We met this woman who showed us around hers and then posed for a photo. She's been coming to Ocean Grove for the summer for 43 consecutive years!

Ocean Grove wasn't all about the tent houses, though. Here we also saw some special Victorian houses, as shown in the photo below. At the top end of the walk, we saw some classic old buildings of Asbury Park, including the casino shown at right.

Yesterday, I said goodbye to Charlie and Lulu and made the long return drive to Hartford. I dropped off the rental car at the airport and took a shuttle to New Haven. More about Yale and New Haven later.