Lemmings by the Sea

We set out early in the direction of Spring Lake, a vague idea of a getaway day in mind—Victorian and quaint, we thought. Boutiquey and proper. The roads were nearly empty, smooth as silk. The car was fleet. I tried to keep my acceleration action as close to legal as possible.

We came in on a road that wasn't precisely on the map. We saw nothing, then we saw hundreds. People dressed in Elk ears and red capes and Santa Claus bikinis. An ambulance crew holding towels. "What's going on?" I asked one guy. "Five minutes of crazy," he said, and by now the ambling hundreds were massing along the beach. They were walking straight to the water's edge and summoning their wits and courage.

"I'm checking this one off my bucket list," one woman in a gray tee-shirt told me.

"I guess so," I said.

"I don't even have a bucket list," she said.

"Well now you do," I said.

A pirate with a sword charged before the shivering crowds. A man hoisted his flag and pointed waterward. Someone with a trojan's hat screamed bloody trojan somethings. And then on the count of three, the massed hundreds lemminged themselves. Dove into the ocean froth and came up screaming harder. It was 39 degrees outside. The ocean temp? Well, you've got me.

This didn't seem like Spring Lake. Was this Spring Lake? I asked my husband. I asked my son. They shrugged. We didn't know, but it didn't matter, because suddenly, instead of going off in pursuit of our boutiques, we got back in the car and drove north. Drove straight through, to Asbury Park and Bruce Springsteen country, where we finished out the day in our own kind of crazy.

We take our son back to the bus that will take him back to his college tomorrow morning. It's been a whipping, wild week. I think I'm talked out. I know I'm thought out. This blog may be quiet, thus, tomorrow.