Lavallette, NJ: 7/30/10

Once again this year, Zelda's dad did something very cool.

He rented a great house at the beach, so the extended family could spend time together:



It's got a killer view of the dunes and the ocean:



Lots of different areas for relaxing in and out of the sun...



Great for early morning walks when the beach is deserted...



We played all the traditional games like "chase-the-wave"...



Hung out on the jetty...



Hit all the big rides on the boardwalk...



Stayed til after dark...



Really a great couple of days.



(This report was done entirely with cell phone pics.)

Nice pics Harv! the chase the wave shot will be classic for years to come

You know, I LOVE the beach, and your pictures look great.  But I love the mountains more.  People tell me that in California, there are place that you can live that are an hour's drive from the beach and an hour's drive from the mountains.

But I think I'd rather live AT the mountains and be a 2 hour's drive from the beach.

I was never a beach guy until Zelda's dad started renting a house about five years ago.  It really is a lot of fun. Especially for little kids. They just love it.

That said ... I'm with you MC, my true love is definitely the mountains.  I remember a million years ago I was showing a friend pictures of the mountains, and she was showing me pictures of the beach.  Basically we were each trying to sell the other on our passion.  

I'll never forget when she said .. yeah but all your pictures of the mountains look the same!

What?

Nicely put together, Harv.  I think if you need to rest, go to the shore.  If you want a challenge, go to the mountains.  Both are absolutely beautiful.  I definitely appreciated the rest this past week!  

H & Z - So glad you guys had a great time in my old "neck of the woods." I grew up and spent most of my life about 30 miles south of there in a little town called Forked River. Wondering which boardwalk you went to... it looks more like Point Pleasant Beach (north of Lavallette). I worked during high school on the Seaside Heights Boardwalk, south of Lavallette. Before skiing, ocean scuba diving was my passion. I had a dive charter boat for 10 years (early 80's to early 90's). Some of the wrecks we dove on were off of Seaside, Lavallette and Point Pleasant. One of my favorite wrecks was the "Tolten" which would have been roughly 15 miles off of Lavallette or Bay Head. We once got a 12 lb lobster off the Tolten. I have "migrated" from the sea to the mountains with age!

P.MAC ... how you can possibly tell that that's the Point Pleasant boardwalk is beyond me. BUT - you're right.  Zelda's dad has actually rented various houses at Seaside the last few years. And we really liked it. This year for some reason he switched it up to Lavallette. In many ways we like Lavallette more.

While the Point Pleasant boardwalk required a car from where we were, it definitely seemed more kid friendly.  What a brilliant concept — load your boardwalk with tons of rides that won't scare a five year old, and the families will flock to you.

Got any pics from the deep? Post em!

Harv - not hard to tell the two boardwalks apart when you have spent as much time on them as I have!! You are absolutely right, Point Pleasant is so much more family friendly. I spent more time on Seaside boardwalk... lots of guys that I went to high school with lived in Seaside. I played baseball in high school and several of my team mates and I played on a softball team together that was sponsored by a bar on the boardwalk.
 
Free beverages after every game we won... and we didn't lose much!!

In the last 10 years the importance of photography and MORE... the importance of digital photography (take 50 pics a day!). Sadly, I have only a handful (10-20) pictures in a shoebox from my dive charter days. Now I never go ANYWHERE outdoors without my camera! I wanna get my son certified and I'm thinking Lake George will be a great place to start before I take him out in the ocean!

PS - If you go back again next year there is a bar about half a mile (maybe a little more) from the PP Boardwalk called "The Ark." GREAT sandwiches and soups! I Was skiing this past winter at Camelback in the Poconos and got talking to a couple from PP Beach and I asked them if the Ark was still there. They said "yes, and the sandwiches are still great!"