Jersey Shore Chronicles, Day 2
Jersey Shore Chronicles, Day 2 - Sunday
5:07 am CST
We arrive in Chicago. This is the closest I’ve been to home since April 2000. We hop off one plane (where I got to watch Someone Like You, which was so exciting it put me STRAIGHT to sleep) and …
6:00 am CST
get immediately on another one. We go back to sleep… sorta.
9:01 am EST
We arrive at Phila Int’l Airport (they can’t afford the letters to spell it out on any of the signs). By this point, I have been awake for nearly 22 hours. Matt Yake picks us up at the airport - he looks strangely like Kris Wralstad, a guy I kinda dated for a week my freshman year at St. Olaf… or maybe it’s just his hands. He is HELLAcool, and I am instantly de-stressed.
9:15 am EST
We get into the YakeMobile, and I instantly fall asleep. Bill and Matt proceed to get lost twice, which prolongs my nap. I’m awake just long enough to see a HUGE bridge out my window. I hear Bill and Matt trying to figure out where our turn is for the Ben Franklin Bridge. I wake up twenty minutes later to see that we have circled back and are on the bridge. I laugh at the stupidity of boys. I go back to sleep.
12:15 pm EST
We arrive in Seaside Park, New Jersey. Bill shows me the beach house his family has stayed at for years. He grumbles about getting stuck in a “beach apartment” this year.
12:20pm EST
We arrive at the “apartment”. It is HUGE BEYOND BELIEF. Wood floors, decks galore, hammock, hot tub, big screen tv, breakfast porch, etc etc. Excellent.
12:30pm EST
We stuff some food into our faces, rush into swimsuits and head for the beach, which is a block away. This is my first time seeing the ocean, and I am totally floored. There is sand EVERYWHERE, and water that goes on so far, all we see is the curve of the earth and the ocean disappearing into nothingness. I can’t even imagine what it must have been like growing up this way. At this point, I take my watch off. I don’t put it back on until the flight home… time has ceased to be important. I sit down on my beach chair, streeeeeeetch my toes way out into the sand… and doze off.
Yay, vacation.