Mind your Manners, Please

y'all make it sound brutal in NJ.

 

The first and fifth biggest cities in the country are 90 minutes or less away from the NJ beaches. It's pretty much one big metropolis from Philly to New York. Millions may flock to the beaches on any given weekend.

 

I mean, everything's relative, but...

My office is 2.5-3 miles from my house, depending on route taken (there are a number of options, ranging from 50 mph double-lane highway, to almost exclusively 25 mph back roads). My daughter's day care is 0.5 miles from my office, barely out of the way when taking several of the aforementioned route options.

On Friday afternoons last summer, it took me 45-60 minutes to pick her up and get home from work every Friday, without fail, regardless of route choice. That's absurd. Add in a wave check (both house and office are within 1.5 miles of ocean), and you're looking at well over an hour.

 

That^^^ would make me go postal.

 

Well, since you put it that way....lol

Is it peak hours or just all summer all the time?

 

Speaking for the far northern end of the coast (i.e. 90%+ NYC and north jersey "guests," not as familiar with the Philly crowd).

Weekends (unless the weather is shitty) are just 100% gridlock on every road within a few miles of the beach basically at all times (except before 8-9 in the morning). People (in many cases i'm being generous calling them that), many of whom are complete assholes who have zero manners, can't drive for shit, and treat basically the entire world as their hired help (probably actually only a small percentage of the total, but seems like everyone cause they're the only ones who notice). Weekdays comparatively less bad, but still gets to you at times.

Round my immediate neck of the woods, the wives and kids generally take up residence for the entire summer, and the men come down for (often 3-4 day) weekends and return to nyc during the week to work. Kind of a toss-up whether the women or men are worse, but they're all here on the weekends so it's a moot point then. Traffic is noticeably heavier than normal during the week, but with the exception of a few peak weeks between 4th of July and early August, you can almost always avoid the majority of it if you know all the back roads and local routes. Restaurants and coffee shops are busy during the week but still worth going to, just with about 200% more assholes and stuck up bitches than normal/off-season (and normal includes plenty anyway, this is jersey after all). Going to get coffee? Expect to stand in line behind 10-15 women all screaming at the cashier and baristas during the breaks in their cell phone conversations while their little shit kids run around the store unattended and their range rovers are still running while parked perpendicularly across three spaces each out front. But as long as you can hold it together and not lose your shit, you'll get your coffee within 5 min or so. Weekends? Often better not to even bother going out for food or coffee... beach all day, backyard bbqs and porch beers at night is pretty much the way to go, at least at my age.

It is what it is. In some ways weekends that are a total washout are a god-send, like a vacation for the locals from all of the above. But then... I like going to the beach too, despite everything I just described... it's part of why I live here, so you don't want every weekend to be a rainout either (well, assuming you work M-F).

 

Ever tried heading South on the GSP (Garden St Parkway)on a Friday afternoon in summer?
Ever tried going north on the GSP on Sunday night in summer?
It's PURE HELL!

 

yeah, that's brutal haha

Can you ride a bike to the water?

 

Glad you live there and not me!!
Sucks to be you??

 

Brutal indeed. So then, LB's prescribed method must be employed to remain sane!

 

Cant say that I have. I have been to Newark, Hoboken, Montclair, and Woodbridge NJ...never even seen the beach.

I do want to come up there though. In recent years, I have had the desire to get a taste of those Jersey pits. Maybe this fall I will go and stay at the Belmar.

 

http://www.nj.com/ocean/index.ssf/2018/05/couple_busted_for_having_sex_at_church_cops_say.html

The real Jersey Shore

 

Very, very, very rarely. Got stuck in Sunday northbound once last summer... was going to the city for a concert, should've taken the train all the way in but wasn't thinking and went with my usual move of driving to Secaucus (typically the fastest and cheapest way in and out imo, all things considered). That was a poor decision. Maybe 1-3 other times in my lifetime, when I had something random to do or mistimed a trip home from Vermont or Chicago or some other far-off place such that I naively ended up on SB Parkway on a Friday afternoon. But I can definitely count the number of times I've been in that traffic on one hand. Which is one of the upsides of living here (though only about 0.1% as important as the ability to surf any day of the year without missing work)... dealing with that traffic on a regular basis would suck exponentially more than all of the stuff I've bitched about above. Not to mention, I only have to deal with asshole bennys for a small portion of the year... people who live in north jersey/nyc are quite literally surrounded by them every day of their lives.

Yes, if needed. And the traffic has a minimal impact on my surfing tbh, since most of my summer sessions are pre-7 am (or later in the evening), for a variety of logistical and practical reasons (avoiding crowded lineups, wind usually light offshore in morning but goes sideshore by early afternoon, work/family/social obligations more likely midday, hardly any waves in the summer some years anyway). And I'm pretty fortunate in that several of my favorite spots closest to my house don't have any daytime swim-only restrictions and pretty much always have free parking within a block or two of the beach, except maybe for holiday weekends. Plus I got at least one spot within 10-30 min of my house (even with summer traffic) that only three other people even know about (four if you count my wife who has enough of an idea to give some rough guidelines to the authorities if I tell her I'm going there and am never seen again) where there's literally never anyone else out... scored glassy and hollow chest to head high waves with with one friend and no one else in sight over Memorial Day Weekend last year.

For non-surfing beach trips with family/friends, I generally just try to get there by 9 am and just don't leave till I'm done for the day. Gonna look into doing the work commute and daycare drop-off/pick-up by bike (with trailer) as much as I can this summer too (though there are concerns with this due to the oblivious asshole drivers... but this can be somewhat mitigated via route choice).

 

Luckily my area isn't really a tourist spot. Long beach and the east end get packed. I'm in the middle. It does get packed though. The non ocean types who just layon the sand drinking and leaving trash. That's my biggest gripe. Weekend before memorial day i go surfing..... relativity spotless. Go surfing Sunday before memorial day...... trash EVERYWHERE. The roads leading to the beach, the beach, the parking lots. It's a night and day differencein a matter of hours. That plus to you get alot off kooks in the water. But they can be avoided

 

especially French canadians

 

vibbbbesss

 

You are then gay.

 

Yar, I ain't but read a third of this here thang.

Not to say that I don't find it interesting.

Oh, 'cause I do. It's just that my reading comprehension level is at low levels right aboot now.

However, considering the topic:

Ok, I ain't fronting on a no one here.

Just my opinion. No not, "IMHO." I hate that shit. Spell it out, Asians. That was for you, DPSUP.

Ok. In Nueve Yersey, we get a bastion of trouble makers, from the South Philly I-talians in Wildwood, to the Staten Island Guidos and Newark drug gangs in lovely, Seaside Heights.

They all come on Memorial Day Weekend. It can get hectic, 'cause it's, like, the first hoorraaaaah of the summer season.

Kind of like a half-Irish drunk, half-Sicicilian loan shark going nuts after doing a dime in the Fed. Ya know what I'm sayin'?

But I Degrassi Junior High...

Man, after Memorial Day weekend we get, like, an armistace, because this ain't the south where kids go to schoolin in mid-to-late August...

Our prides of the Nortrheast don't get out of a schoolin' until at least mid-June. That measn they all don't come in droves until very late June.

So, then, the Fourth comes along...(By the way, I always flog British torouns in Philly during the Fourth. See me if interested. I've only been getting homeless types due to my 3-free shots of vodka policy lately...We are the republicans?)

So, June really ain't much. Just some returned college kids. They be drinken anyways..Well soon enough...

Then we got July.

July sucks. Pretty much. They all be here. Though, not many Canadians the past few years. Very sad. I likey the Canadians. Really like Canadian women and Haifax. Would like to mate in Nova Scotia with a Allanis Morrestte- Ellen Page hybrid. Open a pizza shop, smoke weed, and surf that glorious coastline.

Then August...first couple of weeks suck.

But then, the kids who are going back to schoolin start to leave. Some have early start dates. Some want to spend a week at home in King of Prussia or York Pennsylvania.

Then if no hurry canes come thru...

Once Labor day kicks by.....

It's over, sort of...

Well, back in the day...

Maybe...

If the crowds got you down

Take a chug of this

Take a chug of this

If you feel a bit stiffled

Smoke a bit of this

Smoke a bit of this

Legalize everything, right, conservatives, and let God sort it out. My PCP ain't never hurt no one...

 

I usually just skim through your blabbering, but i caught this...and it made me laugh. That was a good play on words. Canadians make the best TV shows.

 

havnt even thought of the shoobies yet,and i been waiting for a day off for memorial day.i worked every saturday for probably the past 3 months.i need my rest.

i am double fucked when it comes to the traffic.my job is in sea girt so i got to ride down the parkway,which is usually fucked.its not really bad in the morning since its like 5 am but afternoon blows.then to top it off i live off rt 36 which is another beach highway so i have to deal with that.i go buy groceries which is like 5 minutes away and it can take me an hour to get there.it really sucks.