Labor Day Weekend, Part II

As promised, I'm back with Part Deux of Labor Day weekend (ie The Three (and a 1/2) Day Weekend)...

After a joyous 0.5 day last Friday, filled with Shroom burgers and sing-alongs, my roommates and I prepared for a little trip to the - drumroll please - Jersey Shore.  We were not quite sure what to expect, but we knew that we had a safe place to stay that was five minutes from the train station and on the beach, so we were all in.  

Our journey started with an early morning trip to Penn Station.  I have traveled in and out of Penn Station many a times, and for some reason, no matter how much time I plan ahead for, I am always sprinting down the stairs, running through the Dunkin' Donuts line to get coffee and bolting to the track.  Leave 1 hour ahead, leave 10 minutes, it doesn't matter; sprinting is always involved.  This trip was of courrse no exception.

Once we made it to our train, we settled into our seats and enjoyed the scenic ride.  After a relatively uneventful hour and a half train ride, we started to get the feeling that we were close to our station, Long Branch.  We asked the conductor, counted out our stops, and prepared to disembark.  We were ON TOP of things.  So you can imagine our surprise when we looked out the window and saw trains on either side.  "Hmm," I said, "It looks like we're in a train parking lot!"  As we sat and waited for the train to get moving, the little conductor lady came through, looked at us, and said, "Why are you still on the train?  You were supposed to get off at the last station.  That was the last stop!  You're in a train yard!"  Yikes.  That was unintentional.  But shouldn't they have told us to get off, um, when we were at the actual last stop?  Rather than in the train yard where there were no sidewalks and trains on both sides?!  We felt like total New Jersey Transit failures.

Lucky for us, though, the train turned around and went back to the station (a mere 50 yards or so) within 10 minutes, so we didn't spend too much time sitting in the train parking lot.  Once we arrived, my sweet friend Lauren picked us up to bring us groceries and take us to our home away from home.  We piled in the Volvo with our Vera Bradley bags and weekend snacks and headed to what we lovingly called "The Roach Motel."  I should mention that it wasn't actually a roach motel.  It was actually a motel, though, complete with a flickering neon "Vacancy" sign reminiscent of a bad horror movie.  We felt safe, though, so we checked in and headed to our room.

After dropping off our stuff and plopping on the bed (which kind of sprung around like an unintentional trampoline sandwich), we headed right for the beach.  It was a cloudy morning, but the clouds gave way to a beautiful sunny afternoon.  We enjoyed laying out and getting one last zap of sun before the cold attacked.

At night, we walked over to Pier Village, a charming little area with restaurants and shopping.  We ate, got gelato (Tony Soprano himself had visited this little cafe - it doesn't get much more Jersey than that!) and retired for a peaceful night at the motel.  

The next morning, we got up early and did a little more exploring.  Emily and I visited Turning Point, where we drank our coffee, read the Sunday Times and looked out the window at the beach.  We then spent the remainder of the day on Sunday laying out and enjoying the sun.  I must say, I was quite impressed with the Shore...it was beautiful.  We each delved into our books - LA and I the same one - and hardly moved all day.  Hannah even read Twilight (the vampire book that is quite a teen sensation) in one day!  

Saturday night we headed back to Pier Village for dinner and, obviously, more gelato, and when we were done with our adventures we headed back to our humble abode.  Monday made for a lovely labor-less Labor Day, spent relaxing one last time on the beach and then packing up and heading back to the city.  This time, though, we got off at the right station rather than winding up in the train yard.  :)