Tea For Two

Hello World, Good morning, campers! This may seem an odd time of year to be thinking about camping out in the wilderness, but apparently Wading River has more to offer than just a week in the woods in July, as I do every summer. It seems that the New York State Parks folks put together the Wildwood Fall Festival out there every year, and this time around, we decided to take the plunge and check it out. It was last Saturday, and if you were in the local area at any point, you know what a glorious day that was – brilliant sunshine, clear blue skies, and unseasonable temperatures in the 80’s on top of it all. You certainly couldn't ask for a better day, if you had any outdoor activities planned, and it was tailor-made for this, I can tell you that. And I don't mind saying, just where was this weather when we needed it for the pool party, thanks so much not. We hit the road early and picked up my sister on Long Island, stopping only long enough for a quick lunch at Denny’s in Centereach, to fuel up for our adventures ahead, and it did not disappoint, that’s for sure. From there, it’s just a short hop, skip, and a jump out to Wildwood, where we were surprised to see that they let everyone into the park with no admission or parking charge, but just come one and come all, and everybody is welcome. Whoever came up with that idea, it was certainly popular, and we all agreed that we had never seen the parking lot so over-stuffed with vehicles, from one end to the other, in all the years we had been going out there, since time immemorial or perhaps even earlier. (I seem to remember that they didn't build the parking lot until after Thak invented the wheel, although there might have been a place for dinosaur parking before that.) The festivities were not actually in the campground itself, but rather behind the Registration Building, in the field next to the basketball court, where they had plenty of room to spread out in. This turned out to be a good thing, not just for the crowds, but to accommodate the many vendor tents, pony rides, radio station truck, giant slide, bouncy castle, hay rides, scarecrow decorating competition, and guess-the-weight-of-the-pumpkin contest. There were other family-friendly activities like races and face painting, and you can believe me when I say that the families responded to this by coming out in force, from the tiniest of infants in arms, to the merely young-at-heart being pushed around in wheelchairs, and everything in between. You didn't need to be Druid to hop on board this autumnal equinox celebration, which is just as well, because the Stonehenge parking lot was all filled up. Our usual experience with events has more cohesiveness, where everything is tied together culturally (Scottish, Irish) or by topic (railroads, collectibles, chocolate) into one unified whole, more or less. We found the Fall Festival much more scattershot than we're used to, without a real unifying theme to rally around, and wound up feeling more like a giant block party than otherwise. There were plenty of vendors, but they were selling just about anything and everything – from toys and games, to jewelry, baby clothes, plaques and banners – like any old flea market that could be anywhere at any time. There was a notable lack of what we would have considered basic for a Fall Festival, namely local crafts and seasonal products like apples, wine, candles, micro brews, soap, maple syrup, kites, candy, wind chimes, or yummy home-made pies. I think it’s a very telling commentary that we perambulated the entire field and didn't buy one single solitary thing while we were there, when usually we find plenty of souvenirs to tickle our fancy, no matter where we go. Candied apples, anyone? The park itself is still open for camping until the middle of October, and there were apparently no restrictions on where people were allowed to wander off the beaten track, so we took a detour through the campground to see what there was to see. We introduced my sister to the new cabins that are under construction (she was the one who alerted me to their coming in the first place) and they do not fail to impress in person, compared to reading about them on the parks department web site. Alert readers on social media may have seen pictures of us at C-35, my regular campsite, and over in A Section, where they apparently stack up the picnic tables in the off-season. Lively bands of hardy campers were clustered around the center in B and D Sections, still enjoying the beautiful late summer weather, and certainly more of them than we would have expected for the post-Labor Day period. We even trekked down to the beach (which, truth to tell, is a lot easier when it’s not 100 degrees and you're carrying tons of chairs and towels, I can assure you) where there were no life guards on the job, but plenty of visitors making the most of sun, surf, and sand. Some of us even shed our shoes and socks, and waded into the beckoning water (which was uncharacteristically wavy for Wildwood) and which in July is bracingly frigid, but by September has warmed up considerably, so that any old sissy could jump right in, and I ought to know. We were surprised that with the hustle and bustle of the festival, and the thundering herd of tourists, that none of the concession stands were open, even in the picnic grounds, which were nothing but a surging sea of humanity in every direction, as far as the eye could see. It would have been a license to print money, as they say, and that's not just the SpongeBob SquarePants popsicles talking, believe me. The festival closed up shop at 4:00, so we toddled off towards town, to look in on The Shoppes at East Wind, which is a collection of boutiques next to the East Wind (wedding and catering) hotel, in a nearby retail location that has been under construction for at least the last 3 years, because I drive right past it every year on vacation. We noticed that a few of the little shoppes are now finally open, but most have yet to see the light of day, even at this late date. The whole area is bigger than it seems from the road, with many more stores than it looks like would be there, and features a stunning carousel right in the middle of it all, that would make even the most jaded world-weary traveler gasp in wonder. In fact, there was a wedding party in full flower while we were there, and they made a bee-line to the carousel in all of their finery, with wedding photographer in tow. We didn't find much about the shoppes to entice us inside (it seems like they are designed to sell over-priced trifles to a captive audience of wedding guests, relatives, and auxiliary staff) but we did stop in at You, Me, & Tea for a cool drink, and glad of it. Obviously it would take pizza to round out the rest of the day, and after dropping off my sister, we turned toward home with our happy memories (and a distinct lack of souvenirs, thanks not) from our excursion that was different and interesting in a lot of good ways. In fact, we were prepared on the spot to give it a try next year as well, although I can’t help but feel that in 2018, we would no doubt find ourselves down at the beach in 50 degree weather with pelting rain and gale-force winds, I shouldn’t wonder. Say, who let those Druids in here? Elle