I woke up on Saturday morning at 5:30am so I could finish my packing since I didn't finish the night before. Mom wanted to be on the road by 7am. We didn't exactly leave at 7am, but 7:30am. We had to pack coolers and mom still had to finish packing all her clothes. Drive time, 10 hours...
When we finally hit the road we stopped at a rest area for a bathroom break and then got back on and later stopped to fix lunch, by that time I was starving. The closer we got to Jersey the more stop and go the traffic got for no real apparent reason. There would be some cops that had pulled over some people and some accidents that were pulled off on the side of the road but no major accidents that went on. Since the drive was going to take a while I decided to use it to catch up on my Year of the Bible reading since I had gotten a month behind, which I was very disappointed in myself for. I think I read for about 2 hours and took two naps on the way up. When I wasn't reading or napping I was flipping to radio stations to have some kind of entertainment that didn't involve static. With all the traffic I want to say we lost a good hour and a half on time.
Between taking 95, 295, 895, 201, 495 and 95 some more we were about to miss it at some point. Yes we took some wrong turns and had to stop off for more food later. We got lost in D.C. and had to literally drive through and I called a client of mine who is from D.C. to help get us through. We took some other wrong turns, but finally got to Atlantic City 12 hours later. And at that point we were just ready to go to bed.
~Beach Days~
Sunday was just a day spent at the beach and to get settled into a routine. We already had our week planned out.
Sunday: relax
Monday: Cape May
Tuesday: relax
Wednesday: NY
Thurs/Friday: relax
When mom and I got up the first agenda was the gym, and now that I think about it the first time I've worked out on a Sunday in a while since it's my normal rest day. After that I took a shower only to eat lunch and head down to the beach and get nice and sweaty from the sun. It was really neat because we were close to Steel Pier Amusement which was really neat to see, and my favorite and what I've wanted to do for the past couple years...a sling shot. We were out at the beach for about 2 hours and the natural way to cool off when you get too hot from the sun is to hit the water. NJ water equals about 70 degrees or less, so yeah kind of cold for a girl from North Carolina. After the beach came a nap, which seems to become a staple in my daily routine. We went to dinner at Atlantic City Bar & Grill which was unusual when the check came because they do not separate checks. That became a big ordeal that it didn't need to be.
Tuesday was another day spent on the beach, but only for about an hour to and hour and a half. It was really windy that day so a sun bath felt more like a sand bath. Mom and I went for a walk down both sides of the beach. The one thing that truly fascinated me was that there we lifeguards on the beach, not something you see too much of on NC/SC beaches. And they were blowing there whistles like crazy for either going too far out which for here wouldn't be that far and for getting to close to what I am guessing were rocks. The tide never really rose or fell while there, or at least while I was on the beach. Tuesday was a gym day that morning as well, but I slept a little bit later than mom. I just wanted to sleep in, after all I was on vacation.
Wednesday turned into a relax day instead of New York for reasons I will explain later. As much as I wanted to go to the beach on Wednesday I was just too lazy to put on my bathing suit. Wednesday turned into a shopping day which ended up in a very cute new dress with a jacket to go with it, a new pair of workout capris from Nike that we on sale and some training cones. You've got to love Tanger Outlets! After shopping was a nap and then fixed dinner in, basically left overs from Sunday and Monday night.
Friday I woke up around 9:30 and mom and I headed over to the Absecon lighthouse. We climbed all the way to the top, 228 steps to be exact! It is the 3rd tallest in the U.S. or the world, one of the two I can't remember. After the lighthouse we headed over to Brigantine Beach which was suppose to be a little quieter than Atlantic City. Brigantine was a little more slow in terms of the noise. People just hung out on the beach and not too many people in the water. We were only on the beach for about 30-45min before someone came by and asked if we had beach tags to be out on the beach. So we had to leave...$8 for the day! We went back to Atlantic City beach and then headed back to the condo for a small nap and shower and then off to dinner. We wanted to go see Step Up The Revolution but we wouldn't have gotten done with dinner in time. We had dinner at Harry's Oyster Bar & Grill...it was amazing! We order cajun calamari for an appetizer and I had a Sex on the Beach. Last day of vacation wouldn't have been complete without one, and there was a live band. It was very relaxing. Dinner was a house salad with salmon and balsmatic vinaigrette. I devoured the whole thing in about 5min. I definitely had a pretty good buzz going from my drink, which was probably what resulted in my eating my food so fast. If I would have had another one I probably would have been drunk. After dinner I stationed myself up on my sofa bed and watched the opening ceremonies of the Olympics.
Jersey Adventures
Cape May
Monday mom and I spent the day in Cape May, NJ. It's the furthest tip in NJ complete with a lighthouse, an WWII lookout tower and sunken ship still sticking out of the water. We climbed to the top of Cape May lighthouse and mom's tradition is to always buy a mini statue of the lighthouses that she's been to. We checked out the times for what time the other memorial closed. We had plenty of time so mom decided that she wanted to drive around and we ended up in the downtown area with little outside shops. We stopped in and shopped for a bit and then headed out to the beach for an hour. We found this really cute restaurant called Cabana's and ate there, right across the street from the beach. I love beach life and being able to eat and look out at the ocean, it's so relaxing. Mahi Mahi fish tacos...what more could you ask for. After dinner we climbed the WWII memorial and then headed down to Sunset beach to see the sunken U.S. Atlantus. We stayed for the flag ceremony. We thought that was going to be a bigger show than it actually turned out to be. When we left the sun started to set and it was absolutely beautiful.
Walking Around In Circles to Get to New York
We had planned for Wednesday to big our big day in NY. I got up extra early to head down to the gym and get a workout in before heading out to NY. 40min of cardio in the somewhat not gym at all(2 treadmills, 2 seated bikes, and elliptical, ab chair, and half ass universal weight rack). So done sweating and then shower. After getting ready mom and I caught the Jitney down to Bally's, only a couple blocks away, and walked over to the Trump Plaza bus terminal. We didn't have tickets and started to use the automated ticketer, but decided to weight because we were looking for Academy Tours and the ticketer was Greyhound. The person who was suppose to show up at the ticket office never showed up so we never got tickets to go to NY on Wednesday. After leaving the Trump Plaza bus terminal we walked to Bally's to try and figure out how to get a bus tickets since other people got their tickets from Bally's. After that we walked around Taj Mahal and mom got lost trying to find the bus transportation center. The whole time we walked around all she did was complain. She didn't receive wrong information from the people at the front desk of our resorts, just lack of responsibility from people on the other part. While walking on the boardwalk a lady passed us that was running and mom stated how she wished she could run. I told her that she could and said "No I can't!" and started complaining about her knee(recurring pain issues). I was so fed up by 9:30am with all her complaining I just kept my mouth shut and took attempted to take a nap when we got back. After waking up and eating lunch we headed back to Bally's to find out some information about bus tickets. The lady at Bally's was really helpful and told us that if we went to the actual bus terminal tickets were cheaper. So off we went. Tickets for Thursday morning to NY were booked!
Thursday morning rolled around and we went to Taj Mahal to catch the bus at 7:40am, earlier than our previous bus time for Wednesday. We hit NY bus terminal at 10:30am. After getting lost in the bus terminal for 30min.
We started off the day by getting a MetroPass to ride the subway back and forth all day, my very first subway ride. We took it down to South Ferry to see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. The statue of Liberty and Ellis Island both had audio tours that we used. Unfortunately, we couldn't go inside because they were doing renovations on the outside. When getting ready to go to Ellis Island 3 SWAT guys got off on Liberty Island. We headed over to Ellis Island and learned the history of the immigrants and the process they had to go through. It was very touching to hear about and just to see the area they all had to walk through. After that we headed back to the main land and got back on the subway up to Times Square. By the time we got back into New York it was time for dinner so we found pizza, the one thing mom was craving was authentic NY pizza. After that was the long walk to the Empire State building. We passed parks along the way and the NY Public Library. When we finally got to the Empire State Building it started to thunder and lightning, as a result we weren't allowed to go on the outside of the building once we got up to the top. It got old quick because of all the people packed inside at the top and no one wanted to move away from the windows. So down we went and back out to Times Square. You can't go to NY and not go to Times Square! It started to rain when we were about ready to leave which was good timing. By the time we had done all that we were both ready to go home, and to think that my mom wanted to go see a Broadway play.
NY will definitely have to be a single vacation by itself just to do everything by tourist standards and by local standards!
Coming Home
We felt NJ around 7am, which was the planned time. Off on the road we went. I took most of this time to take naps and catch up on my reading. I was so excited when I got done with my reading because I had been a month behind on my Year of the Bible reading. I finally got caught back up and was super excited. I am still caught up today!
NY will definitely have to be a single vacation by itself just to do everything by tourist standards and by local standards!
Coming Home
We felt NJ around 7am, which was the planned time. Off on the road we went. I took most of this time to take naps and catch up on my reading. I was so excited when I got done with my reading because I had been a month behind on my Year of the Bible reading. I finally got caught back up and was super excited. I am still caught up today!
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