DelBloggolo: EXIT 0

Tuesday, September 23, 2014

EXIT 0

Yes, there is such a place and if exits were ratings for where they led you, then the exit would be called AAA1.

It is the very end of the Garden State Parkway in New Jersey, the state of Governor Christy and is located just off the George Washington Bridge and down the parkway a bit.

But once you travel down the Garden State, about 2 hours worth of driving, and you start to see the exit numbers dwindle down to 9 or 4 then 0, your heart starts to race and an excitement takes over. You can feel the beach and the sounds of the boardwalk, the stirring breezes as they whip around your face and body, gently cooling you and finally, you see the bridge that takes you across the marsh that cuddles Cape May.

You wonder once again if your visit to Aleathea’s Restaurant will be the same, sitting on the wrap-around porch for a drink or two, chatting casually, rocking gently in an old wooden rocker and viewing the ocean ships and the horse and carriages or tour trams of the busy world of Cape May going by.

Peter Shield's Restaurant

You wonder what new place to visit for dinner or lunch, or even breakfast holds a nice surprise, as you remind yourself of the Mad Batter and the best pancakes in the world. You see the many families, and older couples who travel down to this Mecca of sunshine and tranquility, of joy and play and see the faces that are happily experiencing the joys of the Cape.

There is the beach: one of a few, that sits at the end of a long road and past the

World War II monument and the sunken concrete ship from an experiment that was abandoned during World War I, sitting out off shore, and the flag pole where every night during sunset, the flag is lowered to the stanzas of Il Silenzio or as we all know it: ‘Taps”.

You could stop on the main street, but which one? The street where the beautifully preserved Victorian homes stand in peaceful silence, or the main street where the shoppers stroll unencumbered by the horseless carriage, or perhaps you mean the main street where you can walk and find a surprise waiting for you in some little tucked away shop?

I will continue to believe that Heaven has been visited, or that my life is now completed, because I have found that little jewel in the world tiara that I love so much, Cape May, New Jersey.

I started early, took my dog,
And visited the sea;
The mermaids in the basement
Came out to look at me.

And frigates in the upper floor
Extended hempen hands,
Presuming me to be a mouse
Aground, upon the sands.

But no man moved me till the tide
Went past my simple shoe,
And past my apron and my belt,
And past my bodice too,

And made as he would eat me up
As wholly as a dew
Upon a dandelion's sleeve -
And then I started too.

And he - he followed close behind;
I felt his silver heel
Upon my ankle, - then my shoes
Would overflow with pearl.

Until we met the solid town,
No man he seemed to know;
And bowing with a mighty look
At me, the sea withdrew.