Beach house at Barnegat Light, NJ

After my failed attempt to visit NYC over Memorial long weekend, I got another chance to travel out of Baltimore from Jun 2 - 5. This time, I went to a beach house at Barnegat Light in the Garden State, New Jersey with Eduardo and Punar households.

Prior to our trip, we decided that each household would cook dinner for the three nights while we were there. I made Chinese dumplings (as requested), Greta cooked lots of Brazilian meals (lunch included) and Stephanie whipped up chicken stroganoff.

We arrived around 12pm and were tired since we met at 6.30am and had travelled for 4 hours. I wasted no time to snap pictures of the beach house. From the website, the interior looked pleasing but there was no picture of the exterior. We suspected that there was something amiss. Sure enough, we drove by the house because it was inconspicuous and some paints were peeling. We did not mind the exterior since it was comfortable and cosy inside with TV, DVD player, washer, dryer etc.

I tried not to sleep, so I went out to explore. The Barnegat
Light State Park was located at the northern tip of Long Beach Island. There was a group of unicyclists touring the light house which I managed to capture secretly.

In the evening, we went to the beach. Boy, it was chilling with strong winds blowing across the cold Atlantic Ocean. We did not stayed there for long because we were not dressed for a cold spell. Instead, we went to the bay side where the sea was calm. We even started to have a stone skimming contest among the adults. The highest number of bounces was six, held by Sthefane.

Unfortunately, it rained for the next two days where we spent the time watching DVDs and eating. I was teased for sitting in front of the box because I had said that I did not come to a beach house to stare at a TV. Well, I had to eat my words. On Monday, we went to a mall since we had two toddlers who were hyperactive. We needed them to run around so that they would be exhausted and hopefully sleep early. I bought myself one box of cookies & cream smidgens, and strawberry smidgens from Gertrude Hawk Chocolates to try out this chocolate chain. The sales tax in New Jersey was 7% compared to Maryland's 5%.

On our way back from the mall, we stopped by a surf shop. I bought a bodyboard and luckily, the rained had stopped and the evening sun was out. We quickly went to the beach to compensate for the lost time spent indoor. The water was icy cold and our soles even hurt standing on wet sand! Courage was needed just to go into the freezing water and the waves were towering. Anyway, you can see me riding the wave which was a superb feeling when you disregarded the numbing cold.

On our last day (Jun 5), Eduardo, Greta, Mathias and I went to the Barnegat Lighthouse before proceeding to the beach again. Climbing up 217 steps inside the Barnegat Lighthouse and carrying a 15kg-toddler was an intensive workout. We were panting when we reached the top. I had a good view of the island, the bay and the Atlantic Ocean at the viewing deck. The view was picturesque!

More photos are available here.