While my camper was getting a pretty new alternator, I lamented my missed dance in Philadelphia and stayed at the StarLux Motel, a groovy motel with 50's decor. Check out these photos that will take some of you back 40 years. On the first morning, I walked to the grocery store to stock my little motel fridge, partly because almost nothing was open, but also to save money on food, since I knew I'd be waiting for several days.

In my four days in Wildwood, it rained a lot, and when it didn't rain, it was cold and windy... but that didn't keep me from taking walks most days. There is a long and interesting board walk, and also, of course, the beach itself. As you'll see in the photos, the distance from the boardwalk to the water is about a quarter of a mile - very strange. Due to the rain, there was no way to avoid large grabby puddles, so I was happy to finally find a perpendicular boardwalk that went most of the way out.

My focus for this week was birds, so here are the six best photos of our winged friends.

It was very strange to be in a tourist town with almost no tourists, but most days I did fine. Here's the details on the worst day: I walked 6 or 7 blocks before I found a place open for lunch one day (when I'd had all of the peanut butter sandwiches and microwave food that I could stand). I had hoped to find a place with WiFi (since the motel folks couldn't get theirs to work), but no such luck. And: it started to rain. So I got back to my room, looking forward to a long hot shower... only to find that there was no hot water. It took about an hour for the motel to decide that they couldn't fix it... but if I was willing to move, they did have hot water in one of the suites. So I did. It was actually pretty nice to have a two-burner stove and a little more room... but what a pain to move.

Actually, maybe the worst day was the one when I had to pay the bill :-) Alternators on these vehicles are weirdly expensive...

Oh well. It wasn't so bad. But it sure felt good to get back on the road!