So again the wife and I have no kids for the weekend. Time to do some riding! Where to go? Hmmm. Where to go? Finally we decided to hit the shore. To Seaside Heights NJ we would go. We planned out our trip and gathered our gear for a day of fun. We should be out of the house by noon and to the shore by 3:00pm. Then we got a phone call. My wife's ex was fighting with our daughter and it took forever on the phone for her to calm things down. We almost bagged the whole trip and picked her up early. But, things did calm down and we finally got out of the house, filled the gas tank and pulled onto the road at 2:00pm. Well, getting there by 3:00 is a bit out of the question, but we were determined to go anyway.
The ride started out great. It was a beautiful day and the combination of whispy and fluffy white clouds set on the crisp blue sky was accented by the lush green of the western Jersey foothills. The sun was bright and hot that day. Temperatures were in the 90's and the humidity around a thousand percent. A perfect day to be wearing all black in direct sunlight. We stopped for gas and a rest on route 18 south and had some ice cream and drinks. Once we were regenerated, we hopped back on eager to get to the shore.
Well, we took 18 down to 35 trying to avoid the main highways. That was a mistake! About the time we saw the sign that said, "Seaside Heights 20mi" traffic stopped. Now traffic generally sucks on a bike on any day, and I refuse to risk my life with 20 miles of riding down the shoulder of the road. This, however, was not ordinary traffic and on a very hot day. Stop and Go traffic? No, No, No! This was Inch, Break, and Balance traffic. Twenty miles of perpetual clutch grabbing that makes you feel like Popeye The Sailor injected his spinach with steroids and fed it intravenously right into your left arm. All the while the Sun was baking our right sides to a firm medium-well. I looked down on my temperature gauge that was now pegged firmly on "Your heads are taffy" and begged for a break in traffic. Another mile down the road I was rewarded with a slight sea breeze that cooled us from the left. As nice as it was, I got the sensation of standing too close to the camp fire on a cool summer night. One side was cool and the other was burning up. Luckily, the breeze and some shade trees cooled the engine down to "Your Rings a warping like a Slinky". When finally we arrived in Seaside Heights we were glad to be off the bike to get a little air flow to our posterior sections of anatomy. After prying my fingers from the clutch, of course.
We piled a handful of quarters into the meter and headed off to the boardwalk. My wife, while growing up, spent a lot of time at the boardwalk, so she was very happy to see many of the places where she hung out as a kid, like Lucky Leo's Arcade and some of the rides she used to love. We walked the boardwalk most of the day, played some games and did some shopping. The place is a woman's shopping haven for sure. We cured our hunger with a boardwalk sausage sandwich and a steak sandwich and walked again. We found a little shop that made vinyl decal graphics and started looking around. We each bought a decal. She got a fairy for her car. The same fairy that I put on the back of her helmet. I got "ZenCruzer" to put on my bike in some cool lettering. As the night wore on my wife wanted to hit some of the great clubs, but we were told that they don't really start hopping until around 1:00 am and we were pushing midnight already. We decided to head home and save the clubbing for another time in the interest of safe and awake driving.
We loaded our purchases and prizes into the bags and headed out. This time we were going to take the more direct route home. The air was crisp and clean. The temperature was just cool enough to keep me awake, but not so cold that I needed my gloves. The wife, however, got a bit chilly on the ride, so we wrapped her legs in a beach towel, tucking it in and under her legs to keep it secure. The moon was about one quarter and growing, so it cast just enough light to make the few clouds in the sky glow softly. The ride home was easy and smooth, almost like gliding along in a canoe on a slow wide river. My wife rode close to me, hugging my back for warmth and sensual closeness instead of leaning back into the comfort of her backrest. It was nice to feel her there while I drove instead of making the occasional check in the mirror or reach to her leg to check on her. Since we don't have helmet microphones, there is no real conversation while riding. That could very well be a GOOD thing, but don't tell her I said that. When finally we reached home, we climbed off the bike and what seemed to be right into bed and slept in the next day (or same day actually). The ride was the longest we have taken and may have been a bit too long for her with the traffic, but I'll get her back on soon. Maybe next time we'll try the shore on the WEST side of Jersey.
