The Shore

East coasters goes to "The Shore" like us Minnesotans go to "the cabin." Dan has been spending some time there lately and I have had a picture of what his vacations there must be like. In my head, The Shore is a place where the women wear pretty dresses and big floppy hats while sitting on wooden lounge chairs, mojitos in hand. The men wear checkered shorts, loafers with tassels and polos while smoking cigars, drinking brandy and talking on the deck. Nannies take the kids for gelato on main street and somehow there is always live music playing in the background, even though you never actually see musicians.
Apparently, The Shore in my head does not exist.
Ocean City, New Jersey is a dry town, so there go my mojitos and brandy. Replace the wooden lounge chairs with cheap, plastic fold ups and line the beach with 16 year old punk kids instead of glamorous couples. Instead of musicians, there are vagrant mummers trying to coax you into emptying the change from your pockets into their cans. One fringe benefit of the lack of liquor is that the frat children keep their Natty Ice drinking, Lynyrd Skynyrd blasting parties down the coast at Sea Isle City.
A detail that was left out of The Shore in my head is the surrey rides. I had never heard of a surrey before today but apparently they can carry a family on two wooden benches. Above is a canopy, and below are pedals generally out of reach for mothers and children leaving Dad to propel the family down the boardwalk Flinstones-style in their very own lane.

When I asked Dan if they at least have icecream stores there for the imaginary children to visit with their imaginary nannies, he said, "About 17 billion. In a town with no liquor, ice cream is king." Someday, when I have real children instead of imaginary ones, I would like to go there with my family. And Dan's. We could always bring our own mojitos, right?

"The Shore" picture combo by Dan. "Surrey" from Google images.