New Jersey.....and earthquakes...

I have been craving to see the ocean and to dip my toes into it, so my lovely Stuart said we could make a quick turn right and head over to Atlantic City for a couple of nights.  So we left Pennsylvania, drove through the very quiet streets of Philadelphia (it was a Sunday morning).......and thought we'd go down to an area called Cape May (NJ)....which is on the southern tip of Cape May Peninsula, where the Delaware Bay meets the Atlantic Ocean.  While we were driving down on the single lane (each way) highway, the traffic coming back from Cape May was almost at a standstill for about 15 kms.  We didn't really think much of it...and arrived in Cape May.  It seems like a very rich holiday destination...with the most amazing homes along the beach front....

There were people and cars everywhere and as we drove along the beachfront, you couldn't see the ocean at all!  So we parked the car up a side street and reluctantly paid for parking and walked towards the beach.  There were only a few paths down to the beach, so we chose one...Josh and I were pretty excited about seeing the water. We got to the start of a boardwalk that takes you down to the actual water, when a lady stopped us and asked to see our tags. We just looked at her blankly....with no clue as to what she was talking about.  She said "have you got your tags"...we said "what are they?" and she said..."you need them to come onto the beach...you have to buy them".  We looked at her like she was joking and said "Do we have to pay to go onto the beach?"...and she said "Yes"!!!  I couldn't believe it!  What a bloody disgrace.  We could not go to any beach without paying for parking and then paying to walk down to the water! So we turned around and walked back, noticing this sign on the way....

I also managed to sneak a photo in of the beach...it was really windy and the water looked awful...nothing like this photo turned out!!

So we left Cape May a bit pissed off and would you believe got stuck in the aforementioned traffic!  New Jersey was starting to turn sour.  We have been reluctant to use Toll Bridges...firstly we didn't know what to do and secondly we had no idea how much they cost....$1 or $50?  Who knew?  After being caught up in the standstill traffic for about 45 mins, we asked Simon (our trusty GPS) to give us an alternative route to Atlantic City.  This one included tolls so we took a punt.  Turns out it was really easy to do and only cost us $5.50....and we weren't stuck in a traffic jam.  New Jersey was starting to look attractive! 

We checked into our hotel in Atlantic City that evening, which was a great room.....2 TV's, 2 bathrooms, sitting room and 2 beds... overlooking an estuary..not as nice as our estuary at home, but still OK.  Stu and I decided to take in a show in the city...it was a Legends show, featuring Tom Jones, Katy Perry, Michael Buble, TIna Turner and Elvis Presley.  We drove into the city and did a few laps looking for parking.  The area we were in was the casino area and it was AWFUL!  It was dirty, smelly and there were loads of very unsavoury characters roaming the streets.
The car we have while in the States is a lot smaller than our car at home, yet Stuart still manages to make parking difficult.  We shouldn't (but we do) tease him about his parking, especially when there are no other cars ANYWHERE and he stuffs it up.  So this night in Atlantic City, we found a dodgy parking lot where a bloke tells you where to park and takes your money.  Stu parked the car and got out and the parking attendant came up to him and told him to re-park it.....as he did such a bad job!  Well, that made my day and I couldn't wait to get back to the hotel to tell Joshuah!!  ( I do love him heaps though and he has done an amazing job driving everywhere on this trip, organising accommodation, doing the laundry.......etc etc...but he is fair game!!)

The show was in a theatre in the Casino and we had a back booth to ourselves. The show was OK, with the best act being Tina Turner, who it turns out was actually a fella!! As we were leaving the Casino, my endeavour to find Kath and Kel lookalikes continued and I came up with this beauty...Kath is hard to see though as she blends in with the carpet...

Fortunately when we left it was raining, which meant all the weirdo's were hidden and we were able to run back to the car without getting mugged or stabbed or shot!!
That night we went to bed and were suddenly woken, around 1.30am by the room shaking.....it was the scariest feeling..... Stu went back to sleep, saying "I think it's an earthquake, we used to get them all the time in the Solomon Islands, don't worry about it"  I paced the floor, terrified but eventually dozed off, only to be woken by more shakes 2 hrs later and then more another hour later.  We were on the 4th floor of a 10 storey building and I wanted to pack up and leave...Joshuah hadn't stirred and Stu was very nonchalant about it all.  Anyway we survived our first earthquake, which actually was a minor earthquake, measuring 2.3 on the Richter scale!! Didn't seem minor to me!
The next day we decided to continue looking for a beach we could dip our toes in without having to pay.  We literally drive for hours...every street you turned down to the beach was a no through road, pay for parking and get a beach tag.  After nearly giving up, WE FOUND A BEACH!!!

 It was on the "wrong side of town" and had been badly beaten up by Hurricane Sandy...but it was the Atlantic Ocean....and it was a beach and we could park...and it was free.  Stu was so excited he went for a swim....while Josh and I wet our feet....YAY!

The contrasts in the buildings was a little disturbing...

While we were there we could see across the bay to another beach, and there were cars parked on it...I got a little excited with thoughts of Cable Beach in my head...so we took a drive over there.....this is what we saw on the way....

before we found the beach. 

Again the photos made it look better than it was, BUT it was nice...a bit windy and we weren't sure if it was free or not, so didn't go onto it.  It gave us a much more favourable opinion of New Jersey....again.....but as for Atlantic City....I met as American yesterday and she told me it is an awful city...and not just from Hurricane Sandy......and had similar stories to ours.......but I did manage a sunset photo of the estuary...just for my family...as I know how much they miss me sending them sunset photos of our Leschenault Estuary...

Sunset over estuary at Atlantic City..

Ooh...look what snuck in...a sunset photo from our backyard at home...just for you Margaret!!

We left Atlantic City and made our way to our next night's accommodation...in New York state.  We made a quick turn towards New York city...to show Josh.....unfortunately we weren't as familiar with toll gates as we thought as we had to pay $12.50 for 1 toll as we didn't get a ticket!  We were still in New Jersey, but on Liberty Island where we'd heard you get a good look at the Statue of Liberty.  Unfortunately they had closed a lot of the area off....and we couldn't get as close as we wanted but we got to see her....rudely, she had her back to us...

so we did the same to her.....

 

 We got a bit of a view of the city...but it was a very grey day and didn't look as impressive as when Stu and I saw it.....and it wasn't as cold as when we were last there....

 We offered to take Josh into NYC and to see the Empire State Building...turns out he's already been there... and jumped off it..... when he was Spider Man!  Confused?  Well so was I until spending the last few weeks travellling with Josh...turns out he has been to most places (including Europe)...on GRAND THEFT AUTO....an XBOX game.....so he is a very cheap traveller..."do you want to go to....?"  "Nah, been there...on GTA!" So I really have a lot to be grateful for.... to South Park., for a well informed view on most things American and to GTA....a tourist's dream!