It’s a Throwback Travel with me Thursday as I walk down memory lane to Wildwood, NJ. I’ve traveled to sooooo many places, across the world and back again, dined in fine restaurants, slept in king sized beds in boutique hotels, seen the city lights from 40 stories up. But my roots are where my feet first hit the sand when I was a child, where the days were hot and long and the sun sank into the sea like an orange fireball best viewed from the top of the lazily turning Ferris Wheel, the lights and sounds of the boardwalk distant but not forgotten from that height.
Every year for most of my youth my family and I would pile into our gray Dodge Caravan, so packed with snacks, beach towels, chairs and luggage that you couldn’t see out the back, ready to hit the road for the Wildwoods. We would fight over who got to sit in the back seat because front seat meant you were on Toll duty, which meant you had to pay attention and be fast to hand my father the exact change for the tolls on the Garden State Parkway, lest you get the stink eye for dozing off.
The days leading up to summer vacation crackled with excitement, knowing the week we had ahead of us, so by the time we arrived (3.5 everlasting hours later) we shot like cannons from the car, racing to see who could get our bathing suits on the fastest. We would dash for the water, hopping from one foot to the next over the half mile stretch of scalding sand until we hit the cooling touch of the ocean.
We spent our days dozing on long, crowded beaches, giggling at the beet-red-on-white men wearing speedos and sporting beer bellies, swimming, boogie boarding, beach walking, building sand castles, collecting seashells, playing Scatch and frisbee and football. We’d walk back to the room for snacks for lunch, but other than that we were beach bound from sunup to just before sundown. Then, burnt and starving, we’d fight over who got to shower first in the vintage motel bathroom the size of a small closet with sliver soap, green tile, and rough threadbare towels that did nothing to soothe the ever-present sunburn. Come 5:30PM we’d pile again into the much-emptier minivan and beeline for my dad’s favorite paid parking lot along the boardwalk (my father is nothing if not a creature of habit. We always parked in the same lot, stayed at the same motel, traveled the same week every year, and ate at the same restaurants on the boardwalk. But memories are made from repetition as much as they are from new experiences).
Once night fell, it was on like Donkeykong as we canvased the boardwalk,. It was all about spacing out the piers strategically, weighing them against our starting and ending point, the junk food we knew we’d invariably eat immediately after dinner and on into the night, and how late my father was willing to let us stay. We’d always start with dinner at one of the 5 Hotspots (if you’ve ever been to the Jersey Shore, you know what I mean). After dinner we’d start the long walk, but always along the same trajectory – the piers with the rides, of course, the Haunted House (which is now, sadly, gone), that we’d have to work up the courage to go through, the Boardwalk Mall for cheap souvenirs and the only real shelter if it ever rained (which it definitely did), the arcades, and the endless array of Tee Shirt shops where we’d browse all week, preparing to choose our annual sweatshirt with the ironed on Wildwood logo that we’d all get to have at the end of the trip.
Some of my best memories, though, shockingly, were around the food. I don’t think any “ice cream” has ever beat a Kohr’s Brothers Chocolate and Vanilla Swirl in a cone, and then there was the Douglas Fudge (we always bought a pound for the room and 2 pounds to take home. Peanut butter was my fav.), James’ Salt Water Taffy, Funnel Cake coated in powdered sugar that turned sticky in the heat, Waffles and Ice Cream (which, by God, they do not sell anymore! I loved those toaster square waffles hot from the oven with the vanilla/chocolate/strawberry ice cream square sandwiched between them, starting to immediately melt and trickle down my arm. Those were the days…), Boardwalk pizza (yes, the fold and drip kind), french fries, cheese-steaks..oh to have the metabolism of a child again. Sigh.
Every day looked the same, and every night was a different pier, “watching the Tram car”, pushing through the crowds and jostling to get in line for the wildest rides. There were some variations to the daily routine. One night we’d always stop at a local Ice Cream Store and get a sundae. One night we’d go to this local Chinese restaurant and dine-in, family style and, my favorite, about midway through the week when we would leave the beach somewhat early and head over to Cape May and Sunset Beach to collect sea diamonds, have dinner at one of the waterside seafood places, and conclude with a fierce round of mini golf where someone invariably cried. Ahhh childhood.
It never fails to amaze me how formative these years were for me, how nostalgic I get when I think back to those annual vacations. There were many years when my first cousins would join us, along with my aunt and uncle, but sadly, my uncle passed away when I was 18 and vacations were never the same after that. I went off to college, we dwindled to a smaller family unit, and then as we got older we’d go less often, hardly ever all together as a family.
I have been back to Wildwood as an adult, most recently last summer with the BF. I loved showing him all my favorites, reveling at the things that had changed and the things that had not. No matter where I roam, no matter how far or wide, the Jersey Shore will always be in my bones. And hopefully, as my brother and sister in law continue the tradition of Jersey Shore memories with their two daughters our family legacy of summers in Wildwood will live on.
Back Camera
Night Falls on Morey’s Pier
Cape May and Sunset Beach
