Pumpkins, Sea and a Full Moon

Is there anything more magical at this time of year than pumpkins? I think not! Most of my best memories have happened in a pumpkin patch, including being proposed to, and Joe and I have made it sort of an unspoken tradition to go pumpkin picking on our anniversary. This year, we kept with tradition because we were lucky enough to find a place open on a Monday!

We wandered the patch area and the pre-picked areas, looking for this year's perfect pumpkins. Joe wanted a white one and I chose to stick with the traditional orange.

Once our future jack-o-lanterns were picked, paid for and loaded into the car we headed to one of my favorite places in NJ to visit my much beloved and sorely missed ocean. I'm still not used to being nearly 4 hours from the shore and unable to visit the sea more than once a year, if that. I'm a day tripping sort who wants to run to the ocean to sooth me in my many moods. So, what better place to go to celebrate our anniversary?

We spent a good portion of the afternoon roaming the boardwalk, taking in the sounds and smells of the sea shore before snagging lunch at one of the boardwalk eateries. I would have preferred to stop by the Wonder Bar for the sake of my ridiculous nature, but they don't have Monday hours. We walked in the surf, reveling in the chilly waters, collecting sea shells and for the first time in my life I was excited to see a seagull. I shit you not. We don't have seagulls this far inland in South Carolina and it's sort of weird to not see them all over the place like we did in New Jersey. Also, I haven't seen a deer in over a year despite living in a wooded area of the suburbs, but that's another story.

The random excitement of seagulls having passed, I could no longer ignore the fact that my sinuses felt like they were full of lead. We made the decision that I was hurting for some medication and a nap and grabbed a hotel room where I proceeded to swill some cough syrup (ick) and doze off until dinner time. We went back to downtown Asbury to eat before walking a few blocks back to the boardwalk and the ocean.

There is seriously nothing better than this place at night, except this place at night during a full moon.

As we walked the boardwalk hand in hand, we passed people snuggled on the benches enjoying the view as well as people heading to the beach talking about charging crystals by the full moon. Let me tell you, it was a breath of much needed normalcy for this Jersey native, you never hear that sort of thing down here! We became a pair of bench warmers ourselves for quite a while before I wandered down the beach. I walked to the place where earth and water meet, to greet the sea and the mother moon and speak softly with them for a few moments. Asking their blessing, I knelt and collected some water before rejoining my love on the boardwalk to head back to the hotel and fall into a peaceful, nyquil aided sleep.