Cock-a-doodle do! 6am was when my day started. Daimon put the bike on the rack, and we drove to Seaside where he dropped me off and went on his merry way to work. I wasn't sure how long it would take to ride from Seaside to my apartment in Brick... 3 hours? 5 hours? All day? (It actually only took me 2 1/2 hours! Not bad!) It was a great 11 mile trek, on Seaside's Boardwalk, Ortley's boardwalk, and the main drag of 35 as I passed many kinds of people on their interesting mobile machines to help them lose weight. I passed many houses, lots, and businesses for sale. Construction trucks, fork lifts, and john deer equipment passed me from time to time. It was a strange feeling seeing roads littered with tiny beach houses, many off their foundations from Hurricane Sandy, and maybe one humongous monstrosity of a home stands domineering over the street, boasting it's new 10 foot tall foundation, windows and hanging flower baskets. I'm not sure how I could sit on that porch and enjoy a cup of coffee.
I passed by an old childhood memory. My grandparents owned a condo in Ortley Beach for many years, and I had so many fond memories there. I would sit on the porch at night and look up at the stars, or go through my many colorful prizes on the boardwalk; a yoyo, slap bracelet, or coloring book. I'd blow bubbles the next morning and my grandfather would try to eat them. I visited this place today, and there was no porch, no dwellers, and hardly any dune grass. Homes surrounding it were off their foundations, with bright orange stickers on their doors. Uninhabitable.
It's been nearly 3 years since Sandy, and when you experience the effects of it by bike, and take your time looking down every street, listening to the sounds of construction, or observe a once bustling street to be still, eery and frozen in time, then you see how nature can not be tamed by man, and we are at the mercy of what the ocean decides to do.
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