Things just keep getting better on this vacation with my awesome family. It's a good thing that, my mom, dad, brother, and I all love spending many hours out on the beach. Even better when the weather has been absolutely perfect the entire time that we've been here so far. That's of course how we started off our Monday.
My routine has been to wake up and eat breakfast, then work on my blog for an hour or so before going down to the beach to relax for the majority of the day. It's a process that never seems to get old.
The water temperature here is just barely under 70°F and the regular temperature has been around 80°F. Hot enough to make you want to get in the water every hour to cool off, but not so hot that you roast and are dripping sweat constantly.
I like that the sand doesn't have a lot of shells here, so it's a great place to get in the ocean without water shoes. The waves haven't been huge, but they've been big enough to have fun in. The water is much more clear than I imagined it would be. When wearing my polarized goggles, I can actually see underwater just a bit. Plus when above the water you can see your feet below. It's not anywhere near the clearest water that I've ever seen, that'd probably be the Bahamas. However, the water here at Seaside Heights is far from murky.
After we spent a solid 5-6 hours on the beach, we made our way to the only brewery in town. It was a place called Heavy Reel Brewery. The beer was fantastic and so was the atmosphere. There was a cool blacklight room in the back to take photos with a bunch of neon-looking posters. They even had couches for us to chill on while we sipped our pints.
After an hour at the brewery, we ventured down the road to a place called Hook's. We went there for a bite to eat and because supposedly they had a bunch of games. When we got there the place was dead and half the games we expected to play were not there. No beer pong or foosball and the cornhole setup was in use by some younger guys. Then the food was underwhelming, except for mine. It wasn't the best place ever, but I still enjoyed myself.
When we got home I decided to be the first one to try our outdoor shower. It was an instant hit, as I assumed it would be. The water pressure was better than the indoor shower, there was three times as much space, and just the fact that you were outside made it so much better than taking a shower upstairs in the house. All of my future showers here in NJ will be outdoors.
We didn't want to just sit around once we all were cleaned up. I decided that Monday night would be our family photo night. Not that there won't be more, but I asked that everyone wear a cool outfit. We all looked fantastic and I found us a cool shipping container mural to use as our background.
We ended up going to see some live music at a place called Ocean Club Restaurant. It was a beautiful place right on the beach with a giant bar and tons of outdoor seating. We had to wait to get a table outside and by the time we did, it was already getting chilly thanks to the wind. We spent most of our time sitting at the inside bar and listening to the band playing.
We hopped over to one more bar, another really cool place. I didn't get any photos there besides the one with the green wall and Beach Don't Kill My Vibe neon sign. After some time there, I had grown tired and decided to walk home while the rest of the family continued going to other bars. If you've read my Goodbye Alcoholism blog then you already know I'm not big on wasting my time/money/energy on drinking alcohol. I sipped only a little and mainly was just there to spend time with my family, even if they did all get super drunk. It's already two hours later than the other mornings and nobody here is awake but me.
I ended the night by watching the latest episode of the Bad Friends Podcast w comedians Bobby Lee and Andrew Santino. Then by the time that was over, everyone else was home and we watched the two newest episodes of The Righteous Gemstones. I was the only one that stayed awake for all of them. My mom and brother both fell asleep in some hilarious positions on the couch.
Now time for me to go upstairs and start waking people up so that we can spend another day at the beach. Stay tuned for my Day 4 post tomorrow morning.