Nothing Says Welcome Home More Than Spoiled Cheese

My extended family-- aside from Sue, who got pulled over while walking a friend's dog and broke six ribs and her clavicle the day before vacation-- spent a fabulous week of sun, sand, surf, cornhole, tennis, basketball, pickleball, boogie boarding, skim-boarding, spike-ball, and alcohol in Sea Isle City.

It looked like this:

And this:

And this:

And this:

And this:

My cousin Greg and I wrested the epic random selection double-elimination cornhole championship from my brother and Caroline (Greg's daughter). Greg had to sink four holes in one round to beat them. Thanks to Keith for organizing! Greg performed admirably, especially since his wife was home recuperating from her dog induced trauma (or perhaps because she wasn't there to put the pressure on him . . .)

A great week, but unfortunately, we returned home to this:

Apparently, there was a big storm while we were gone. 

And a power outage, which probably caused this:

While our freezer was still operating, our fridge was a toasty 87 degrees. Not a great temperature for storing blue cheese. We had to clean the whole thing out. Yuck.

As for our second beach vacation during a pandemic, things went well. When we arrived on Saturday, there was a huge dredging pipe running parallel to the ocean, maybe fifty yards from the water. Everyone wedged themselves between the pipe and the water, so it was crowded. No one chooses a pipe view over an ocean view. 

But the next morning, the pipes were gone, and the newly dredged beach was huge. They had removed the pipes in the middle of the night! So plenty of room for social distancing and cornhole.

While you could generally spread out on the beach, I'm not sure about the rest of the Jersey shore. My kids went to the boardwalk arcade with my brother's girlfriend's kids, and while they wore masks there's no way that place was hygienic.

People were packed under a tent at La Costa listening to music, and there was plenty of outdoor seating for restaurants. I'm annoyed I didn't get invited to this lifeguard party in LBI-- but it's probably better that I wasn't there. Twenty-four lifeguards came down with Covid! That's going to be tough to schedule around.

Sea Isle Tip . . . if you need a boogie board because yours has broken, Heritage surf shop sells high-quality boards with the heritage logo on them for sixty bucks. Decent boogie boards are much more expensive online.

Broken fridge tip . . . call The Appliance Doctor.