a couple days in cape may

So after completely overdoing it on a ride on Saturday, and then cancelling a ride I planned to lead on Sunday (but stay tuned; I might schedule it again this weekend), The Excellent Wife (TEW) and I took off down to Cape May from Sunday afternoon to this morning. We stayed in West Cape May, which appears to be the lower-priced-but-artsier neighbor (and we were close enough to get to all the Victoriana and gewgawserie that I love about Cape May). We brought the bikes, and Monday morning we did this ride out of Tom H's book, Road Biking New Jersey (see the ride page here). Because the route passes within inches of where we were staying, I only had to edit Tom's ride slightly.

Sights along the way - The WW2 lookout tower:

 I'm not sure they needed to tell us...

The concrete ship that ran aground off Sunset Beach. TEW thinks that the idea of making a ship out of concrete is just the best funny idea ever.

After Sunset Beach, the ride takes you past the lighthouse...

... and then, after rolling along the boardwalk, brings you to the Coast Guard station. We have a nephew who was stationed here briefly.

After the ride, we napped, and then got up to walk downtown and eat junk.

We've been to Cape May a number of times, and have at least one other picture at this sign. This could be the "aging with Regina and Jim" section of our blog.

I don't give a damn about the beach (I like the town), but TEW opines that it's anathema to come this close to the shore and not get to the water, so to the water we went, for as brief a period as I could wangle.

WE found a place that gave us over-a-pound lobsters for about $20, so we allowed ourselves to indulge in clarified butter and crustacean.

This morning, we tried that ride again, but the GPS got wonky.

We stayed at an AirBNB that was just a delight; I'm reluctant to give the name for fear that either someone will mistreat the hostess and she'll close up, or it will get popular and we won't be able to afford it. It was a quirky and delightful home to a cat lady who has a few felines too few to earn the "crazy" part of the title (but there's a custom stained glass window in the guest kitchen all about cats... so YOU decide.) The cats are kept out of the guest quarters, so TEW, who has a wicked cat allergy, was breathing as easily as the humidity would allow.

The landlady let us keep the bikes in the backyard, and was apparently mostly absent.

We're back, of course, and I hope to ride with Team Social Security tomorrow. But I really benefitted from this little trip; the anxiety of which I've been complaining was controlled for the better part of two full days. That's far better than I've been doing, generally.

I thought briefly about trying to retire near there... but I'd go bats in winter, I'm sure. After all, I'm almost all the way to "bats" most of the time, right?