Lucy, Long Beach Island and Ly-ins.

Last Sunday we set out for a day trip. The kind that happens a lot more in the Sring and Summer that it does in the Autumn Winter. I had it all planned first to Margate New Jersey and then on to Long Beach Island New Jersey. I had all the driving directions and indeed the only problem was our being very tired. Marc was tired from school, Jill was tired from getting up early again now that I was back from Ireland and oh I was unbelieveably tired.

I could not believe how much the trip to Ireland (where admittedly I did not waste a minute and I was up very early each morning) had taken out of me. In years gone by I would visit Jill 3 times a year and fly back the same morning I had work and would go straight to work and get back home that evening.This time it had taken me something like 10 days to truly feel normal again and in some respects I am still tired even whilst writing this.

Anyway we were all tired and instead of leaving maybe at 7am it turned to be 9.15am when we did leave and all was well until we got to Philadelphia and trying to get onto the Ben Franklin bridge. I have to admit this was my fault and cost us 40 minutes as we drove and drove and finally asked for directions to the bridge which was in full view above us and seemed in touching distance but we could not get to it. Having gotten onto the bridge the rest was fairly plain sailing and despite some really expensive tolls at $2 and such for a car we got into Margate a small town 10 minutes from Atlantic City (the east coast Las Vegas). We did encounter another toll whic demanded exact change of $1 in coins!!!....mad scramble for coins as the people behind us waited patiently. Coins got dumped into the basket and on we went to visit Lucy the elephant, a national historic landmark. Lucy was and still is an old style early 1900's beach resort attraction which was used in those days as an accompaniment to the famous elephant hotel where those with vast sums of money would come from Atlantic City and climb on top of Lucy the elephant )who is 65 feet tall) in order for them to pick which lot of land they desired to buy for investment and then they could get back to Atlantic City in good time for the night. Lucy has gone through various states is disrepair and even ruin and ever since 1960 onwards she has been coming back to her former glory. Lucy over the years has even been used as a beer garden but is now an important historical landmark on the atlantic ocean. Before we took the 30 minute tour of Lucy we had lunch and after all of this we drove north along the coast to Long Beach Island and as we always do there we went to the lighthouse in Manahawkin and then drove downtown to have a look around. It is just before the summer season so it was completely quiet despite the nice weather and there was not much happening. We spent a nice time by the beach and set back home on the 2 1/2 hour drive. A pleasant if maybe uneventful Sunday afternoon was had ny all.