After Kate’s wedding, Donna and I were ready to take a
few days off.
There’s a considerable amount of stress in planning a big
production like a wedding: You worry that you will forget something; that the
vendors won’t do what they’re supposed to do, when they’re supposed to do it;
that the weather won’t cooperate; and on and on. When it’s over, and everything
has gone well, and there were no fistfights or wine thrown in someone’s face,
and no one fell and hurt themselves or threw up in the limo or missed the bus and
were stranded at the venue; when you realize you got through the day and can’t
find anything that didn’t go just as you had hoped, you take a deep breath, say
a prayer of thanks, and trade in your real clothes for flip-flops and a
tee-shirt.
So we headed to New Jersey’s Long Beach Island, a barrier
island that we have visited just about every summer since we were married, and
where Donna spent her summers since she was a little girl. It's a place that’s made
for decompressing.
LBI is about a four-hour drive from our home. We arrived at
our destination, the gorgeous Sand Castle bed and breakfast in Barnegat Light, on
Monday afternoon, and relaxed for a while. We had brought a bottle of
champagne, and broke it out to celebrate Kate’s and Steve’s marriage, and having the reception in our rear-view mirror. How many times did we look at
each other and say simply, “We did it!”? Lots and lots.
Our room faced west, with a view of Barnegat Bay. Across the
street is a lot where cars and boat trailers were parked and a few small boats drydocked,
a bait shop, and a little gazebo. Beyond that is a small marina.
We took a walk over to Old Barney, the lighthouse on the
island built in the 1850s, and came back in time to go up to the rooftop deck
of the inn to watch the spectacular sunset. A crowd had started to form in
front of the gazebo, we assumed to watch the sunset. Soon a collection of guys
about our age were in the gazebo, with instruments. It was a sunset concert! We
came downstairs, crossed the street and joined the crowd of a couple hundred as
the band – The Kootz – started playing outstanding classic rock – Beatles,
Rolling Stones, Rod Stewart, Joe Cocker, Marshall Tucker. They were really good,
and with the engaged audience, great music and backdrop of the sunset over the
bay, it was a magical bonus to our day.
After the concert, we walked to Kubel’s, a restaurant next
door to the Sand Castle that has been on the island since 1920, when it opened
as Ketzel’s Bar. According to Wikipedia:
"This
location provided rooms to local fisherman and was the prominent location in
the city for nighttime entertainment. The bar was later purchased by
"Ma" Kubel, resulting in the new name Kubel's Bar, a restaurant which
continues to exist today. The bar began serving meals in a dining room addition
and was known for its local parties featuring Norwegian dancing."
Luckily, Donna was unaware of Kubel’s legacy of Norwegian dancing,
whatever that is, or she probably would have gotten the patrons up on their
feet to try it out.
After a sound sleep – the first we had had in a while -- we got up
early (sadly, 5:30 or 6:00 am is about as late as we do any more), and took a walk
to the lighthouse by way of Inlet Deli for coffee. I say the lighthouse, but
really, that structure is just a landmark along the way. The lighthouse is
situated at the mouth of an inlet, for which the nearby deli is named. The
inlet used to be a narrow, harrowing passage to the ocean, but in the 1990s it
was widened. A part of the massive project was the construction of a jetty that
stretches out for maybe a thousand yards. A concrete walkway was built on top
of a section of the jetty; we enjoy walking on it in the early morning, among
the optimistic fishermen who rarely seem to catch anything other than some
quiet alone time.
We returned to the inn and were treated to an incredible breakfast
of egg quesadillas and Taylor ham (the fancy name for pork roll, that processed
meat loaf spiced with Jersey attitude). We spent a little time by the inn’s
pool, but decided to head to the beach.
LBI’s beaches are a mix of public and private. Private beaches are
those where road access is prohibited. Think of a leaf, with a main artery down
the middle and veins coming off it to the edges. The artery is Long Beach
Boulevard, the main thoroughfare that runs the length of the 18-mile-long
island. The veins are access roads that run either to the bay or the ocean,
with beach houses on the sides. Some of the ocean-side roads are privately
owned, by one or more of the homeowners along it, and generally prohibit parking
by non-residents. Once you are on the beach, there’s no demarcation between
public and private; they all run together. From the beach, the only way to know
if you are on a public or private beach is at the public beaches there are
generally lifeguards.
We had never gone to a public LBI beach – Donna’s family house in
Loveladies, the town just south of Barnegat Light, was on a restricted-access
road – so this was new to us. The innkeeper told us which roads in Barnegat
Light were public and therefore fair game for parking.
We picked one, found a parking spot, gathered our chairs and
towels and stuff, and hiked to the beach. I say “hiked” because the beaches in
Barnegat Light are enormous – much wider than those in Loveladies. A path from
the street takes you over the protective dunes, then it’s a couple hundred
yards to the water. Those wide beaches actually are a good thing: Hurricanes
and Nor’easters can create surges that destroy houses too close to the ocean. In
2012 Hurricane Sandy did hundreds of millions of dollars in damage to the
island, yet there was little property damage in Barnegat Light, thanks to those
big beaches.
It was a great beach day. The water was so warm Donna – a diehard
beach lover with an aversion to going in the water – went all the way in. We
took walks, re-hashed the wedding, read, people watched, and had a gloriously
relaxing afternoon.
After returning to our room to shower and dress, we stopped at
Donna’s brother’s beach house for cocktails with him and his wife Patricia
before heading to dinner at our favorite LBI restaurant, Raimondo’s in Ship
Bottom. Larry and Patricia are gracious hosts and we had a great visit with
them.
The next morning we repeated our walk on the jetty, enjoyed
another sumptuous breakfast at the Sand Castle, then checked out. Larry and
Patricia invited us to spend a couple days with them, and we readily accepted. We
get along with them very well and have many shared values (maybe not around
politics, but the more important things). The weather on Wednesday was like the
day before – hot, but with a cool southern breeze that picks up that
indescribable ocean smell and keeps the annoying greenhead flies well inland. We
feasted on clams and a broccoli salad for lunch and Larry grilled steaks for
dinner, washed down with copious amounts of adult beverages.
Thursday’s weather was like Wednesday’s, and in the morning we
were grousing that while it’s always hard to leave the beach at the end of a
great vacation, it’s especially difficult when the weather is ideal.
The gods must have been listening. We came up to the house and
were digging into lunch on the deck when a thundercloud rolled in and opened up
on us. It was time to go home.
We’re settled in back home now, and ready to resume our real-life
routine. The stress-filled preparation for the wedding and the emotionally
draining event itself, as joyous as it was, left us in need of some serious
rest and relaxation. LBI was the perfect location to find it.
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