Missed the beach this year? Yes!

This summer has just zoomed by, zzzz...   Of course I am lucky I had the pool and I was able to swim a lot. But the ocean is different! Finally last week we made it to Jones Beach, after the Season it was,  a wonderful warm day on September 26. And even the water was still warm, no life guards to be seen, and there were some frolickers and swimmers. Yesterday just a week later it had turned seasonably colder and instead of going into NY we drove to Island Beach State Park,  located off the NJ coast, on a long sliver of an island (10 miles long). A spectacular place and in summer it is apparently drawing immense crowds of people  — a money maker for the State. 

Anyway when we went there yesterday  no people to seen, it was completely empty, and I walked on this never ending beach  along miles of sand dunes on this very rainy and stormy day. The waves were magnificent, the grayness beautiful and wherever you looked plants, thickets, bushes, flowers and and here and there an osprey colony's nest (empty now of course). This narrow barrier island stretches on and on and Henry Hudson sailed by on his Half Moon and first described the Jersey shore. I found also a large expanse of heather and grew very excited about it; but this heather blooms yellow in Spring for one week only (and is not of purple color blooming in August as it does in Northern Germany). The plants look a bit the same, but this is where the similarity ends except for their name. We call it Heide and the translation is Heather. 


I was able to pick a few milk weed pods with seeds which apparently entice Monarch butterflies to put there eggs on it. Will try to grow the milk weed on my terrace on the 21st floor in a pot and will find some Admiral larvae on the internet; and maybe, maybe i will have a colony of Monarch butterflies in the future. I thought they were all distinct since I never saw them anymore. Let's see. I hope I will not forget to do this all in Spring. Picked some Golden Rod plants with roots and will  grow these also in a pot outside. Learned that Monarchs like Golden Rods.  What a place. Will never forget it. 


Inched into the ocean, surprisingly not icy at all, but I was pitch wet up to my hips after a while, and it rained again. Driving back past rows and rows of boarded up summer houses we looked for an open restaurant, was not easy, and finally ended up at Crab's Law, recommended by a guy in a bar. What a memorable meal I had, Seafood Newburg perfectly cooked with Sherry, or whatever "spirit" belongs into it.  Was suddenly remembering that in Hamburg we would drink  a "Grog" on a cold day to warm you up and I asked them to make one for me (a shot of rum and hot water in a glass, skip the sugar) and it worked alright. My face is still burning today from all that wind and rain. 


The  pictures from the internet. My small camera broke and I did not dare take along the "real" camera. In reality, the beach was grayer and longer, more mysterious and one of a kind,  the sky was darker, wilder, more menacing. But still everything was endlessly beautiful.


These were great hours and I feel fully energized again. All it takes is an ocean.