It was decided that ordering pizza would become the dinner plan, still not cheap for sixteen people, but much better than seafood prices! ...and the efforts to put everything together - other than determining toppings and slapping together something on a store-bought, gluten-free crust for my sorry ass - were nearly elininated. As much as our gang enjoyed the former marine menu, it has always been the time together, and not what we were jamming in our mouths, that was the focus of the weekend!
People might be amazed how well we get along, but it really helps that we are mostly the type of people who do everything to avoid conflict, plus the fact that we've known each other (and our respective quirks) for so much time. Mind you, there is plenty of good-natured teasing, but it is seldom pushed to extremes, and the giver quickly becomes the receiver to dispel the tension. Call it common ground that there is something about each of us that "isn't quite right"!
This autumn marks forty years that Sue and I have been together, and for all but a couple of those years, at a point when I considered myself a "hockey player who keeps in shape with cycling" in the summer, before switching to a "cyclist who keeps in shape with hockey" during the winter, I have had a bicycle with me down AT the shore. Mind you, I do enjoy my time pedaling around the flat terrain, as well as the ocean and bay views I'm able to take in along the way, but with the regular mileage I put in, the routes can get rather repetitive down here.
A cyclist is very exposed when riding at the shore - with very little tree cover, the sun is constantly beating on you. The winds, especially when they are blowing in off of the ocean, can be extremely difficult to deal with, and the humidity can turn rides into a sweat-drippy mess. Add to that the poor quality of the weatherbeaten asphalt on some of the roads down here, and people who understand my cycling mania also "get it" when I'm not as enthusiastic about extended stays at the shore than would be expected from normal humans.
One of my favorite routes, and it is actually a fairly new one, is to head south out the Ocean Drive causeway across Grassy Sound. Anglesea Drive is a nice ride through its namessake neighborhood of North Wildwood, then I take Central Avenue (a much less-trafficked route than parallel New Jersey Ave.), which heads southwest, paralleling the beach. There is a dogleg onto Pacific Avenue into the busier area of Wildwood proper, but it isn't awful, then there is a bike lane most of the way into Wildwood Crest.
Unfortunately the road surface quality deteriorates out over the chain of islands to Cape May, and there are some tight squeezes on the low bridges and main draw (photo above) over the Middle Thorofare of the Intracoastal Waterway. Traffic is reasonably light through here during the midday hours when I usually ride, but you still need to keep an eye out for nutjobs abruptly turning into the various restaurants and marinas along the way, as well as occasional trucks entering and leaving the area around the old Bumblebee Tuna plant.
Routes 109 and 9 can be a little hectic out towards the Cape May/Lewes ferry terminal, but it is a short enough stretch not to be too much of a bother, and most of the way there is a fairly wide shoulder on which to ride. My absolute favorite place to ride is along Shore Road in North Cape May, out towards Wildwood Highlands. Traffic is light, the road is flat with a pefect asphalt surface, and there is a nice view across Delaware Bay.
A short dogleg reaches Clubhouse/Bay Drive, and another longer one connects with Bayshore Road out to Del Haven. From there I zigzag on back roads through wooded neighborhoods to Whitesboro, where I can take the Middle Township Trail up to Cape May Courthouse to reach the causeway for the return to Stone Harbor, or if I want a longer ride, keep on the trail up to Swainton, then head out to Avalon and back.
