Staycation At The Jersey Shore

JP was on vacation last week - or, rather, he was on staycation.

It was his first time off in sixteen months other than the one day he took off when we moved into our house.  To say he needed a week off would be a gross understatement especially considering that he works in the auto industry. Oh, the stories I could tell about what it's like to work at a car dealership!  
For now I'll just save it for that book I'm going to write soon.

Taking the kind of vacation where you pack bags and travel to a place and sleep overnight(s) there was not on the agenda since what he needed more than anything was to do a whole lot of nothing.  To just be home, to take it slow, to sleep in. His daily commute is pretty much a nightmare from the Jersey shore to north Jersey so I did not want him to have to drive too much during his week off. As usual since he is the best husband on earth, he said he'd do whatever I wanted but what I wanted more than anything was for him to relax. 

Staying home for vacation is highly appealing to someone like me. I hate sleeping away from home. For one, I have a monstrous phobia of bedbugs and other disgusting things that might be present in a place you would rent to sleep at - hotels, motels, Holiday Inn, etc. Have you ever watched the television show Hotel Impossible? I've seen things on that show that have scarred me and will haunt me for all my days. 

I used to not be this way. In fact, for many years I spent the winter months in a Miami Beach hotel suite.
This was before bedbugs made a comeback. By the time they re-emerged (<---that word makes my skin crawl), I was no longer a snowbird and was instead embracing local day trips that had me back in my own nice clean NJ bed by bedtime.

For two, in the few instances that I have actually been able to get past being completely skeeved out about laying in a bed that many, many other people have laid upon and in, I literally cannot sleep. Maybe if I'm lucky I'll get 3 or 4 hours of broken sleep which means that I am basically a zombie on away vacations.  I have stayed in everything from super luxury resorts to rented cabins and it doesn't matter - I won't sleep. 

For three, many people seem to want to pretend it isn't so but...there is still a pandemic. It's really obvious that there are wayyyyy too many people who seem to have forgotten that now that summer is nearly upon us and there is fun to be had. 

We took a ride on Sunday from Seaside Heights to Point Pleasant Beach (which encompasses some of the most prime NJ shore destinations for those unfamiliar with the area) and I'm still traumatized 24 hours later but what we saw - and we saw a lot because we were stuck in summer-style traffic even though it's not summer yet.  Thousands of people on the boardwalks and beaches. Truth is I've never been big on being anywhere that a whole bunch of other people are and now thanks to pandemic, that's about 1000% worse.

Deciding to stay close to home and enjoy our house and yard and sleep in our bed this past week was just fine for both of us.

The plan now is to buy a really small inflatable pool that will fit on the patio so we can cool off while enjoying a cocktail.  If we stretch our imagination we can pretend it's sort of like a swim up bar at a fancy hotel but much, much cheaper and without the crowds. Or the bedbugs. Or various other germs and inconveniences.

In no way do we feel like we're missing out. In face, we really wouldn't have it any other way.