It’s November and definitely not beach weather, but while in New Jersey, we had to check out the shoreline and a couple of famous boardwalks. We stayed in Toms River, which was a short 20 minutes or so to Seaside Heights. Seaside Heights is a nice town, but admittedly, I only knew of it through a vice I once had: MTV’s Jersey Shore. As ashamed as I now am that I wasted hours of my life tuning in, it was fun at the time.
The show took several early twenty-somethings and put them in a house to spend the summer partying and hooking up. I think one of them may actually have been from New Jersey! They spent their days GTL-ing (Gym, Tan, Laundy), and when it was time to go out, it was ‘T-shirt time!’ The guys would grab a fresh T, and a cab was called. There were several seasons of the pretty awful, yet entertaining, series.
Not stellar television, but most people have heard of Snooki, the Situation, and Pauly D. I even had some Christmas ornaments depicting those three! So, since we were near the boardwalk where they spent a lot of their time in Seaside Heights, we took a quick trip.
It was cold, and way past season, so it was pretty empty. Some shops, arcades and restaurants were open, though. The girls had fun at an arcade, playing games for tickets that were exchanged for cheap prizes. I even played some video poker, but it’s a little less exciting when the payout for a good hand is a row of tickets and not cold, hard cash.
We also couldn’t stand to be so close to Atlantic City without spending a day there. So, that was another day… We didn’t visit the casinos, as we had the girls; but, we did have a nice lunch, walk the boardwalk, and go shell searching on the beach.
Prior to this trip, we have only been to New Jersey the few times we’ve gone to NYC. We used it as a place to stay and took the bus into the city. So, we hadn’t really spent time enjoying anything about the state. I have to say that Atlantic City was pretty cool. Beach, casinos, shopping, and lots of options for dining. The boardwalk is a great place to people watch, and this was in November. I’d like to go back in warmer weather.
We chatted with a retired couple from NJ, who were about to move into one of the condos on the boardwalk. They were intrigued by our current travel/homeschool lifestyle. And I thought they were about to embark on a pretty sweet chapter in their life. I wouldn’t mind waking up there every morning!
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