Cape May

Thursday Challenge: Time

Clock in Cape May, New Jersey, photo taken in 2009
Clock in Cape May, New Jersey, photo taken in 2009

Thursday Challenge theme is TIME (Hourglass, Clock, Sundial, Calendar, Wristwatch, Old, Young, Aging,…).

Next Week: WEATHER (Snow, Sun, Cloudy, Rain, Lightening, Rainbow, Tornado,…)

Cape May Zoo Pics

Cape May Zoo Hours

I’ve been wanting to post my photos from our trip to the Cape May County Zoo in southern New Jersey from last August. I hope you enjoy the tour.

zoo donations box
I think they painted a mailbox zebra colors and wrote “Zoo Donations.” The zoo is free, so donations are greatly appreciated.

guinea fowl
I don’t know what kind of bird this is, but it was wandering around, mingling with the zoo guests. Maybe a guinea fowl?

bald eagle
This is a bald eagle. It was hard to photograph him in his cage.

flamingos
The flamingos were fun to watch. See that gull who looks like he owns the place?

gull under flamingos
Here’s Mr. Gull again, resting with the flamingos.

animal at Cape May Zoo
I cannot remember the name of this animal, but it had tons of energy.

giraffe
Giraffes are beautiful animals.

leopard
Animals behind fences, like the leopard, were harder to photograph.

daughter in front of flowers
This zoo guest had a great time. Photos of family come out nicer when everyone is having fun.

NJPlaygrounds has more photos of the zoo and the nearby playground.

Thanks for coming with me to the zoo!

Thursday Challenge: Cloths

Woven and embroidered cloth at Cold Springs Historic Village, Cape May
Woven and embroidered cloth at Cold Springs Historic Village, Cape May

At Cold Spring Historic Village in Cape May, New Jersey, you can watch women spin wool and weave cloth.

This week’s Thursday Challenge theme is CLOTHS (Colorful, Unusually, Fashionable, Komonos, Sari, Suits,…).

Red Murals at Historic Village

red_house
It’s fun to revisit one’s summer vacation when autumn is in full swing. Here are murals from a house in Historic Cold Spring Village in Cape May, New Jersey.

ship
The murals were not painted in the 18th or 19th centuries, the periods the village is supposed to represent, but in the 1990’s by an artist who decided to depict what she thought life was like during those periods.

red_painter
Maybe this is supposed to be the mural painter, teleported back in time? The village is fun and friendly, though our visit did have its anachronistic moments, like when the tour guide’s cell phone rang when she was explaining the layout of the old schoolhouse.

For more photos with a little or a lot of red, visit Ruby Tuesday:
RubySlippers_morris

Thursday Challenge: Flight

Gull over the water by the beach at Cape May, New Jersey
Gull over the water by the beach at Cape May, New Jersey

This is probably a greater black-backed gull. Thursday Challenge theme is FLIGHT (Birds, Insects, Kites, Helicopters, Jets, Boomerang,…). Nature Notes is brought to us by Michelle of Rambling Woods. I didn’t include the nature note button this week because the colors conflicted with the photo and upset the mood.

Reds of Cape May

blue_house
I took so many pics of Cape May, and of course many of them have red, appropriate for Ruby Tuesday. Feel free to tell me which is your favorite of these.

delsea   flag   joseph_hall
arcade_ride   beachfront   southern_franklin
southern   southern_mansion   chalfonte_1876

Bottom left and bottom center is the Southern Mansion. Bottom right is the Chalfonte Hotel, built in 1876, which has “Victorian” air-conditioning (a special method of cooling off the large hotel with the attic windows).

For more photos with a little or a lot of red, visit Ruby Tuesday:
rubyslippers

Ghosts of Cape May

Ghost of Cape May on Lafayette Street
Ghost of Cape May on Lafayette Street

Boo! There are two ghost tours in Cape May, New Jersey. The one above is on Lafayette Street; the other, located in an inn on Beach Avenue, calls itself the “original” ghost tour. Unfortunately, we didn’t have the opportunity to go on either ghost tour (boo, hoo). My middle son, who typically likes getting scared, insisted that it would be too much history (both are walking tours). And for my daughter, who wanted to go, well, the next tour *started* at 9 pm, which is only 1/2 hour past her bedtime. And I’m afraid she *would* be scared.

ghost_setting
Here’s the above ghost on Lafayette Street in her setting on the porch of Elaine’s Bed and Breakfast. Maybe this is Elaine?

dusk
We went into the office of original Cape May ghost tour at the Hotel Macomber, which was across the street from this dusk scene. The woman behind the counter assured my son that the tour was indeed scary, but my son didn’t take the bait.

We visited two great haunted houses when we were at Lake George a few years back. Do you have any memorable haunted house stories?

MrsMoNJ posted about some ghost tours in Princeton, New Jersey.

For more summer fun, visit Robin’s Around the Island. Only one more week of this meme before it gets shut up for the summer!
Summer_Stock_Sunday

Review with Hibiscus

Hibiscus Outside a Restaurant in Cape May, New Jersey
Hibiscus Outside a Restaurant in Cape May, New Jersey

Recent Images on My Blog

purple_martin_house Pond at Donaldson Park, April 2009 yellow

lighthouse_bars Lighthouse in Cape May, taken from Cape May Migratory Bird Refuge butterfly_flutter

For those who want to get more out of Twitter: Twitter Chats
And be sure not to miss: An Interview with Hannah Katsman of CookingManager.com

Elsewhere in the Blogosphere

I started working on my tech-business blog, and I wrote a whole post about it. On a piece of paper. That I haven’t re-read in over a week. Maybe I’ll have something coherent to say about my new upcoming blog on Sunday or Monday. Meanwhile, this existing blog is where I give myself permission to talk about struggle. Does one really have to present oneself as never struggling in order to be successful? I don’t think so.

Birds of Cape May

gull_laughing
My local birding expert thinks this is probably a laughing gull that I photographed at the Cape May Migratory Bird Refuge.

purple_martin_house
I learned a lot about birds at the museum near the Cape May lighthouse. Can anyone guess what this is for? OK, I’ll tell you: it’s for housing purple martins. Which apartment would you take if you were a purple martin? To me, a purple martin looks like someone dunked a bird in a oil slick.

osprey
This big stuffed thing in the museum was the closest I got to photographing an osprey.

For more Nature Notes, visit Rambling Woods:
nature-note or Nature Notes

See all my Cape May posts.

Wavy Water at Cape May

Beach at Cape May, August 2009
Waves against the Rocks by the Beach at Cape May, August 2009

Because we vacationed between two hurricanes (neither of which came ashore in the U.S. but they do produce waves and rain), we had the lucky experience of beautiful weather and frolicking waves (can waves frolic? – consider this as anthropomorphism). A year-round resident of Cape May told me the waves are usually quite gentle (i.e., boring to my boys).

For more watery photos, visit Watery Wednesday:
Watery Wednesday

•   •   •

I had a whole slew of scenic Cape May photos I wanted to post for Ruby Tuesday yesterday; however, life (family, work, and need for sleep) got in the way, so I am glad next Monday is Labor Day and I look forward to posting them for next week’s Ruby Tuesday meme.

triangle2See all my Cape May photos here.