Wildwood daze

After soaking up more than our fair share of rays last week, we were both feeling sore, itchy and irritated. The aloe vera we picked up at the store wasn't providing much in the way of relief, so Steve suggested cooling off in the pool. Since the sky was overcast at that point, I thought it couldn't do us much harm. We took our lobster-red selves down to the pool, where it was mostly deserted:

Look at that sweet sweet H2O

It seems as though the pool is going to become our favorite destination at any campground. During non-busy times, it's simply the best place to relax, stay cool and have a little fun. It even started raining (first time all week!) while we were in the pool, but we weren't deterred. Neither of us would be called champion swimmers, but we managed to have some pretty exciting races (including one where I was only allowed to use my legs, and Steve could only use his arms. Spoiler alert: I won).

There was also a hot tub "for adults only" that was usually occupied. Once it was free, we made a beeline for it, only to have the on-duty staffer there ask us, "You guys are 18, right?" Really? In most cases I'd consider this a compliment, but I was a little insulted here. How many 18-year-olds do you know who own an RV? I half expected to have her card us. We managed about two minutes of time to ourselves in the hot tub before a random guy awkwardly joined us. Clearly, it's the place to be.

On the boardwalk

When most people think of the shore, their minds probably go straight to the quintessential "beach day." I may be a little atypical in that my favorite thing about the shore isn't the beach. I love, love, love the boardwalk. Especially at night. There's something electric about the atmosphere on the boardwalk after the sun goes down.

All dressed up and ready to go

There's just so many different things you can do, at a time when most places are closed. You can grab a slice of pizza, shoot paintballs at a moving target, throw money into one of those rigged crane machines, ride a roller coaster or ogle the walking fashion statements (and atrocities) that seem to pop up everywhere. (Steve commented that this seems to be the only place where people will buy souvenir T-shirts and then actually, proudly, wear them while they're there.)

This being the Jersey Shore, the shirts/booty shorts at the ever-popular screenprinting/airbrushing shops were typically emblazoned with such slogans as "Come at me bro," "I love Single Ronnie" and "DTF." Class-ay. There was also another one we kept seeing around: "Cool Story Bro" and "Cool Story Girl." (I haven't been able to figure out if that's another infamous quote from Jersey Shore, or something else.) For the life of me, I can't understand what that "saying" would mean, or why anyone would deem it witty and deserving enough to put on a shirt. Even so, we sort of adopted it as our own, and took to responding to each others' observations with, "Cool story, bro."

You can go to the boardwalk year after year, and it might seem like nothing ever changes. But for seasoned Wildwood-goers like us, we notice every little tweak. So we were pleased to see a new bar/restaurant called Cap'n Jack's, a place that's in the vein of Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville.

Lookin' sharp there

Drinking a mojito (or a lager, in Steve's case) on a deck overlooking the boardwalk is the perfect accompaniment to people watching:

While we were there, a group of kids tried to steal a go-kart from the nearby track, and in the process crashed it into the railing of Cap'n Jack's first floor outdoor seating area. And the little jerks escaped! Only in Wildwood...

How far we've come...

In pre-RV days, we used to stay in one of the motels just off the boardwalk. If you sat outside in the evenings, you could take in the sights of underage kids stumbling home, starting fights and yelling at random passersby (and in the last year, the sounds of vuvuzelas ringing out in the night). I worried that we'd miss out on the spectacle (not to mention the convenience), but I found I appreciated the quiet of the campground, too. And with Holly Shores only a five-minute drive away, we really couldn't complain. It also worked in our favor that the campground was down the street from a Kmart, a movie theater and a Rita's Water Ice (supplying all of our needs at once!). Still! If we can find a good one in the future, we'd love to stay at a beachfront site.