Hey, aren't dunes supposed to be, like, round? This newly-concave dune at Dorset Avenue in Ventnor had its middle carved out by that freakishly ferocious nor'easter yesterday that pounded our house overnight, flooded the roads that usually flood and made grocery shopping an Olympic event. I'm sure that Ventnor police officer found it amusing watching me hanging on to my shopping cart in 75 mph sustained winds in the parking lot, feeling imperiled for possibly the first time since I moved to the shore, but do I get a prize for my thoughtfulness in making sure the cart got back to the cart corral? (Sent it with the wind at my back, only way to do it). Still, schools were open and people went about their usual business, barreling their SUV's through two feet of water and taking note of trees on their sides, roots exposed. As the day wore on, it became clear: this was one of those nor'easters that sneaks up on the weather people but pounds a punch way bigger than the hyped storms. As Jen Miller details below, Ocean City was even more of a mess, with the bridges closed in the afternoon and lots of erosion. It was December in mid-May. Now, is everyone looking forward to Memorial Day?

UPDATE: Here's a link to Jackie Urgo's story and Tom Gralish's photos.

One of our favorite shore bloggers, Jen Miller of Down the Shore with Jen fame and newly published Jersey shore guide author, barely escapes back to shoobie land after trying to get authentic salt water taffy today in Ocean City for her book party (to be held in Rittenhouse Square...?). It was a windy rainy mess down the shore. We barely survived the parking lot of Pathmark earlier in the day, with winds threatening to take the contents of our cart and our car out to sea. Glad you made it back, Jen. Here's her harrowing report, with excellent and soggy photos.

So I really meant to blog during my vacation. Truly. I brought my laptop, took a ton of photos, and had the best of intentions. But there's something about the Shore - or vacation in general, I suppose - that saps the urge to do work right out of you. So instead of dispatches from Sea Isle, you're getting a dispatch from my desk at Philly.com. (My excuse is that there was rarely a wireless signal, but really, it was Vacation Brain.)

I spent nearly two weeks in a rented house in Sea Isle City. For that stretch, I lived with my parents, my sister and brother-in-law, and my niece. I have an army of aunts and uncles and cousins, and lots of them were there. (Some rented a house a few blocks away, others camped out in the house directly behind the one we rented.) And yes: it is expensive to rent a house, upwards of $1,500 a week for any sort of place at all. I could have gone to an all-inclusive resort for cheaper. And yes: I did share a room with my two-year-old niece, and shared a bathroom with several other people. And yes: we did cook most of our meals, so that meant that we were not immune to chores, even on vacation.

And yes: there were seaweed and shells and murky water, and I swam in it, just the same. Loved it, even.

And yes: summer wouldn't be summer without a trip to the Shore. And not a daytrip, mind you. You need at least a week to properly relax, and to eat enough Mack and Manco's Pizza to satisfy your cravings for a while, until you get the urge in the middle of winter and drive back just because.

I know it's corny, but I feel lucky to have grown up with this particular tradition.

Here's a view from the deck of Aunt Jane's bay-facing house. Boy, it's hard to be back at work today.

It was a beautiful day on the beach in Sea Isle City on Saturday. Blue skies. Hot sun. Cool breezes. Still, on the first weekend after the official start of summer, the beaches weren't packed.

I finished my Shore/Summer solstice day at the 59th Street beach in Ocean City, where the Surfrider Foundation held its annual International Surfing Day Festival. Hundreds of people surfed, ate, played Frisbee, and listened to music. The weather was stunning, and I wasn't sure if everyone knew each other or this was just a really, really friendly group of people. I think it was a little bit of both.

Surfrider is a nonprofit organization that's about more than just surfing. Jen Zappone, a member from Linwood who doesn't surf herself (her husband, Mark, does) explained: "For our family, it's about keeping the beaches and oceans clean so we can enjoy surfing." While her kids Charity, 5, and Bodhi, 3 (means "peaceful warrior") ran around in swimsuits, the family dog Bailey, a chocolate Lab, appeared to be the most joyful creature on the beach. Dogs, who are normally banned from O.C. beaches, were given a temporary reprieve for the event. Life was good.

Steve Muller, president of the South Jersey chapter of Surfrider, expounded on Jen's philosophy: "We're promoting clean water, environmental activism, and surfing access."

Today was a perfect beach day. A worthy beach day for the beginning of the Summer of 2007:

I spent the day on a trolley, on a boat, on the beach, eating ice cream, and chatting with the mayor and council president of Stone Harbor. Pretty tough, huh? Anyway, the headline from my day is this: contrary to rumors that fly around the island every year, Oprah Winfrey does NOT own a house in Stone Harbor. Her significant other (are they still engaged?), Stedman Graham - no relation - went to high school nearby, and returns every year for a reunion of the basketball team of which he was a star. So there are occasionally Oprah sightings. But she is not a property owner. Glad we got that straightened up.

In other news: have you been to The Point? (No, not the nightclub!) It's a portion of the beach cordoned off to serve as a habitat for wildlife, especially some endangered birds that need protection. It's less than one square mile in size, and you can frequently spot piping plovers, terns, and red knots. (Wish I had a photo of a bird to show you, but no dice. Here was a funny turtle I spotted, though!)

This is what $12 million can buy you. It's the house that's the talk of the town. View from the boat, out on the bay:

This house is merely $9,900 per week during the peak summer season. It's got six bedrooms, and some of the best deck views I've ever seen. It's a beach block house, of course, and from the top deck, you can look one way and see the ocean and the other way and see the bay. It would cost about $4 million, says real estate agent Patty DeMarco of Diller and Fisher. Here's one corner of the spacious living room. I love the murals painted everywhere:

It's going to be a great summer.

By Jonathan Tannenwald, Philly.com producer

Greetings from the other side of the Cape May-Lewes Ferry -- Rehoboth Beach, to be precise. I’ve spent just about every summer of my life there, and I have much the same kinds of connections to its boardwalk that the other Downashore writers have to the Jersey side of things.

I went down to Rehoboth for the first time this summer this past weekend to surprise my father for Father’s Day. I usually go by car, but I decided to try something new this time. There’s a bus that runs on weekends from the Wilmington Amtrak station down to the Park & Ride lot out by the outlets for $7.50 each way. It’s run by DART, the Delaware public transit agency. So I caught the 5:33 p.m. R2 out of Suburban Station last Friday and decided to give the Route 305 bus a shot.

It was quite a pleasant trip. Just under two hours from start to finish on a modern, Greyhound-sized bus instead of a city-style bus – but much cleaner. There wasn’t a bathroom, but it was a short enough ride to not make much of a difference. Best of all, the bus got to Rehoboth right on time, and there’s an easy connection to Route 201, which takes you down Rehoboth Avenue to the bandstand.

Sunset, 12th Street beach, Ocean City

So I am nearly at the end of my Memorial Day odyssey. Tonight, the Ocean City boardwalk was filled with people like me, who were trying to squeeze every last moment into their holiday weekend. There were last ice cream cones, and last boardwalk lemonades, and last handfuls of Johnson's popcorn. In a way, these three days are an illusion - it feels like summer, but it's not.

"I don't WANT to go back to school," I heard a little boy cry as his parents steered him off the boardwalk.

We know what you mean, junior.

With all the recent flap over beaches in Surf City, I came here this morning expecting to talk to vacationers who were frightened by the unexploded munitions found under the sand, which had beaches there closed from March until last Wednesday. I clearly underestimated the will of inveterate beach bums. Everyone I talked to, to a person, said they were being careful and not digging too deep in the sand, but that a little thing like unexploded munitions wasn't going to keep them away from the beach.

Here, folks walk to the 4th Street beach in the late morning. Hardy souls, all.

Oh, and for you weather-watchers, it's still beautiful here. It's 72, about as cool as it's been, but the clouds seem to be giving way to sunshine. In my four or so years of working Memorial Day weekend at the Shore, this is hands-down the best weather weekend I've seen. Merchants - and their cash registers - agree with me, too.

Don Myers, beach patrol supervisor in Long Beach Township, said the weekend has been the busiest Memorial Day holiday ever. Myers credits the weather.

"This is right-in-the-summer kind of weather," he said, adding that the sun made up for 55-degree water. (Thanks, Jeff.)

In my quest to visit as many beach towns as possible during my Shore jaunt, I hit Cape May today. And of course I had to check out the ocean there, as water temperature reports I'd read put the ocean at seven degrees warmer than Atlantic City water. But it's all relative - 57 degrees in AC is freezing, but 64 degrees in Cape May didn't really feel like 64 degrees. It felt much chillier. I must say that this feet-in-the-ocean photo gets filed under "what I do in the name of journalism."

Shortly after this shot was taken, I wrapped my feet in a warm towel. The moral of this story is: it's not quite summer yet. I much prefer a dip in water that's closer to 70, thank you very much.

I am always struck at how cute Cape May is. Tons of Victorian charm. Quaint downtown shopping area, all bricked and pretty. The sand is even quaint, with those Cape May diamonds giving it a texture all its own. And look! The motel is even different from other towns'. Although I don't know that a sign slapped on a brick front makes something Victorian. But points for effort, I say:

I love that each Shore town has its own character. Today I spent my morning and part of the afternoon in Wildwood, riding the tram car from 16th Street in North Wildwood to the Wildwood/Wildwood Crest Border, at Cresse Avenue.

I met some delightful people, some of whom I got to mention in my story, and some of whom I didn't have room for. One of them was Elena Quinn. She's 68 and, as she proudly pointed out, "The oldest tram car driver around." She loves her job - it gives her a good tan, she gets to see the sights of the Wildwood boardwalk, and the people who ride her car are very nice. Well, Nikolay Korichkov, 25, who worked collecting money on Elena's tram today, they're mostly nice. "It seems like a fun job, but sometimes, it's not so fun - there are a lot of drunks at night." Oh, right. Wildwood, with its numerous bars, is still a party town, Nikolay points out.

Of course, there are also lots of families and non-drunks, so that works out, too.

Shore merchants are seeing blue skies despite higher gas prices and storm predictions. Many hope visitors will "party like it's 1999," a record year for profits for businesses by the ocean.
Read the full story.

It was a flawless Saturday along the Jersey Shore, with Mother Nature and visitors giving the beach season a warm reception.
Read the full story.

It may have been a beautiful 90-degree day on the sands but it was a different story in the water. "It's freezing," said Isabella Capecci, 6, of Langhorne, who was playing in the Atlantic City surf .
Read the full story.

Mack and Manco's pizza is my perfect food. Now, I have already talked about this several times, so I promise to be silent on the subject for the rest of the weekend. But: I ate at the 9th Street Mack's for dinner tonight, and even I, a veteran, was astonished at the line to get in. I'm talking two dozen people for a boardwalk storefront that is not that large. Now mind you this was not for free pizza. My sister, brother-in-law, niece and two other friends came down for the day, and generously got in line while I was finishing up some work in my hotel room. I timed it just right: they waited 20 minutes or more, I only had to wait 5 minutes. Score!

And at the end, the perfect mix of sweet sauce, cheese, and thin, thin crust. Boardwalk bliss.

This is Julia Barth, not quite 3, enjoying our favorite pizza. She's my niece so she doesn't mind me snapping photos of her while she eats!

After a half-day of combing the beaches and strolling the boardwalk (is it really strolling if you have a camera, two notebooks, and a backpack to lug along?) I have come to some conclusions:

1. It is entirely too hot for Memorial Day weekend. I'm sure the lemonade vendors and water purveyors are loving it, but let me tell you - 88 degrees feels like July weather, not warming-up-to-the-summer weather. I saw plenty of people leaving the beach because it was Too Darn Hot.
2. The water is another story entirely. We're talking frigid - about 60 degrees.
3. Although I come to the Shore every Memorial Day, I'm always struck by how crowded it is.
4. People are in such a good mood when they're here. There is something about the holiday weekend, short as it is, that makes everyone I approach cheerful and happy to talk.

Ocean City is my first Shore town stop - I hope to get to as many as I can. I got my first taste of the Shore here as a kid, and it's still got the best boardwalk in town. One of the people I interviewed this afternoon remarked that while other towns seem to gentrify and change character, Ocean City stays the same, and that's what's great about it. It's for families. It's got a terrific boardwalk, size-wise and mix of shops-wise. OK, maybe the house prices have gone sky-high, just like everywhere else at the Shore, but it's still essentially the same place this woman grew up coming to in the 50s and 60s. And the same place I grew up coming to in the 80s and 90s.

(Oh, and the adorable pooch pictured is one Abby, a Red Bone Coonhound whose mom, Christine Petrillo, drove her from Williamstown for Barks on the Boards, a dog walk and contest.)

Reader Chris Johnston writes in:
"Kristen - this is a picture I took a few years ago on 49th St. and it has not left my computer desktop wallpaper since! I look at the photo and can just feel Ocean City. I relocated from Ocean City to Rochester, NY so I spend a better part of my day staring at this picture and wishing I was there. Maybe we'll see you there this weekend!"

Here's the shot: