A Site for Shore Eyes

It’s once again time for my annual Memorial Day advice, although I don’t give it out every year. I did a thing on highway surfing last year, so I can officially call this my annual Memorial Day column.

If you plan on hitting the Wildwoods, you’re in luck, because most of the beach is still there, especially in Wildwood and Wildwood Crest. The Mother’s Day Nor’easter wiped out some of the beach in North Wildwood. Fortunately, they’re installing a sheet pile bulkhead at the end of our street, which should prevent future flooding. Unfortunately, I watched my car disappear on a flatbed yesterday. The insurance company told me they didn’t think it was a good idea to keep it any longer, due to water in the glove compartment. I watched sea water run out of the tailpipe and slosh around in the headlights when it got dragged up the ramp of the truck. The sheet pile arrived about a week-and-a-half late. Better late than never doesn’t always work out.

Year-round residents were dismayed when they realized that all of the giant beach balls, as well as the silly-looking palm tree street signs, survived the storm, as did all of the elected officials.

For those of you heading to Avalon and Sea Isle City, try to negotiate a discount on your beach tags, because most of the beaches in those communities disappeared.

The escape toll is in effect on all Ocean Drive bridges, so if you’re heading for Cape May or Stone Harbor from the Wildwoods, take the Parkway getting there, but come back for free along Ocean Drive. On the other hand, now that it’s cheaper to fill up your car with vodka, rather than gasoline, you just may want to pay the dollar for the shorter distance. For the first time ever, the one-way tolls are starting to make sense.

To avoid the rush to the shore, leave early, which means yesterday or the day before. If you come down 55 to Delsea Drive, you’ll be delighted to know that the interchange at 47 and 83 is complete. They installed a traffic signal so as to keep the 83 traffic flowing for the one or two cars per hour that turn left onto 47. This was a brilliant solution, and only adds about a three-mile backup on 47 during heavy weekend traffic. This will enhance the backup at 47 and 347.

In order to relieve frustration, and make the time seem to pass more quickly, travelers can indulge in a number of fun activities. If you have a talking GPS system, change the language to Japanese, and don’t look at the screen. Try to guess where you will end up. For even more fun, ignore the directions from the GPS and continue until it starts screaming, “Make a U-turn! Make a U-turn!” If it says, “You can’t get there from here,” you have achieved expert status.

The mayor of Wildwood wants everyone to know that the first high-rise has been approved. This is something he has been waiting for since he first started working in the family concrete business. In a few years, you Philly people can save a lot of time and money by just staying home, because both places will look pretty much the same.

As I reported earlier, Rio Grande Avenue is safe for travel. All other streets are pretty much the same as they have been since I first left town in 1972, only worse. The city purchased some new paving equipment for patching streets. The workers now have extra heavy duty work shoes to stomp down the asphalt fill. They were also given flatter shovels with baseball bat weights installed on the handles near the shovel heads. For those of you who don’t want to pay the price for amusement rides, just drive around town. It’s sort of like going on the dinosaur ride, or whatever it is, at Disney World, but a little scarier.

The Great Nor’easter, on Morey’s Pier, sports new cars with state of the art seats. The harness now comes down over your lap, instead of over your shoulders, allowing passengers more freedom of movement. Now you can fling your arms in the face of the person sitting next to you, and they can do the same.

The International Kite Festival will be in town over the entire weekend, and these kite flyers are really something to see. I’m not kidding. I’m not sure why anyone would devote so much time to mastering the art of flying kites to music, but it’s impressive to watch. Ironically, kite flying is normally banned on the beach. Go figure.

If you plan on staying at a motel in the Wildwoods, book your reservations early, like in 2002 or so, before most of the motels disappeared. Don’t waste your money on a Doo-wop tour, because there’s not much left to see. Let me clarify that statement. There’s still a lot of Doo-wop architecture, but most of the really classic stuff has been bulldozed away. There’s also quite a bit of neo doo-wop, but it’s not really the same thing. The doo-wop era of architecture ended long ago, and the contrived new stuff is way overdone.

Okay, so Wildwood doesn’t have any casinos, but you still could hit the jackpot if you fall through one of the rotten boards on the boardwalk. You know, the ones they keep threatening to replace. Some of the tram cars are new, and have improved suspension systems. I think that means they actually have suspension systems.

Parking meters got more expensive in Wildwood, so you now get only fifteen, instead of twenty, minutes for a quarter. This will generate enough additional revenue to buy some more giant beach balls, called “infrastructure” by the city officials. This was a necessary measure, because each new condo means fewer parking meters. Now they’re talking about building huge parking garages that will capture some of the money now being lost to private parking lot owners. Hopefully, plastic palm trees will be included in the design, along with a sign sporting a rotating ’57 Chevy.

So, come early and stay late. Enjoy the kite festival. All city officials plan on being in attendance, just in case there’s not enough wind.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 22nd, 2008 at 7:56 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.