{"id":7756,"date":"2019-02-05T07:22:18","date_gmt":"2019-02-05T12:22:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=7756"},"modified":"2019-02-14T07:39:07","modified_gmt":"2019-02-14T12:39:07","slug":"cape-mays-off-season-delights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=7756","title":{"rendered":"Cape May’s Off-Season Delights"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Maybe not this past week, with temperatures in\nsingle-digits, but off-season can be a fun time to visit beach towns, like\nhistoric Cape May, New Jersey, which clings to the far southern tip of the Garden\nState, and is actually south of Baltimore and almost directly east of\nWashington, D.C. On a narrow peninsula, surrounded by water, Cape May is full\nof extravagant Victorian homes (many of them now B&Bs), impressive\nrestaurants and a range of attractions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Visiting off-season, you find the summer crowds have disappeared\nlike the flocks of migrating birds you can see there spring and fall\u2014at \u201cone of\nthe greats migration hot spots on earth!\u201d The Cape May Lighthouse has a\nhawk-watching platform, the city has a nature center, an Audubon Society\nbird observatory<\/a>, and several other attractions catering to birdwatchers\n(and the curious). Even after the big migration, there are a lot of shore and\nwading birds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jersey Shore\nAlpacas<\/a> is a place where you can pet, feed, and find out whatever you might\nwant to know about this interesting breed of animal (and buy luxuriously soft\nalpaca-wool items and gifts). The farm (whose motto is \u201cfurry fun for everyone!\u201d).\nNearby is the Cape May County Park\nand Zoo<\/a>, which, unbelievably, is free. It features some 250 species,\nincluding lions, and zebras, and giraffes, though if the day is too cold, you\nmay not see some of them. Just a guess, but the snow leopards are probably\nalways on view. There\u2019s an indoor aviary for the tropical birds, and the\nraptors are outside. Winters, it\u2019s open from 10 to 3:30 and, again, not\ncrowded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A 10-mile drive north brings to you the town of Wildwood, whose two-mile long boardwalk is almost impassable with tourists in summer. The stilled amusement park, the silent roller-coasters, the shuttered ice cream stands suggest the set for a B-movie. Sparse traffic encourages a drive past the Wildwoods\u2019 collection of doo-wop motels, architecture straight out of the 1950s!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Naval Air Station Wildwood<\/a> (NASW) at the Cape May Airport is home to an aviation museum in a converted hangar (dress warmly), which includes an array of aircrafts, engines, and interactive exhibits. It has a moving display about the 9\/11 \u201cAll Available Boats\u201d rescuers too. When I walked inside, I thought it wasn\u2019t going to be that interesting, but I ended up fascinated. It\u2019s not at all slick, and seems to be a labor of love. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cape May offers some spectacular restaurants. Our favorites included Tisha\u2019s, Union Park Dining Room, and Fins Bar and Grill. There\u2019s pleasant shopping, and the town has been an artists\u2019 inspiration for decades. Evidence is this bouncy Bud Nugent song<\/a> and my short story \u201cWindjammer\u201d<\/a> about a vengeful sea captain whose ghost haunts one of Cape May\u2019s arriviste residents. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Maybe not this past week, with temperatures in single-digits, but off-season can be a fun time to visit beach towns, like historic Cape May, New Jersey, which clings to the far southern tip of the Garden State, and is actually … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7757,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Cape May's Off-Season Delights, free of crowds, many of this resort town's pleasures are more evident. And you can park! ","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[440,104,78],"tags":[1497,416,1499],"class_list":["post-7756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adventure","category-the-morgue","category-travel","tag-cape-may","tag-real-life","tag-travel-tips"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vweisfeld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Cape-May.jpg?fit=556%2C581&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-216","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7756"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7756\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7759,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7756\/revisions\/7759"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}