Cape May Diaries
15 - Getting around Cape May
In season, people are encouraged to park their cars and walk during their stay in Cape May. This small community of 5,000 full year residents explodes each weekend when 80,000 descend upon it, swarming over its landscape and flooding those few existing spaces providing parking. Move a car at the wrong time of year and you might never find a spot again.
So deplorable is the parking situation that most local hotels, motels and bed & breakfast cottages make deals with the few parking facilities to provide for their guests. Motels like the Periwinkle or the Atlas issue passed to their guests. In the early years, this pink pass hung from our rearview mirror. In later years, we stuck it to the inner surface of the windshield. Vehicles parked in the motel’s lot without the pass were promptly towed away.
Those more experience with the perils of such visits often bring with them a variety of alternative modes of transportation such as roller blades or bicycles. Each allows them to travel the history-laden streets without the weariness of walking. While we came in off season, we still chose to walk, not completely aware of how worn we could become due to this mode. During our first season in Cape May we painfully discovered the discrepancies in the guidebook logic, and over extended ourselves seeking to live up to the promise of reaching everything via casual walk.
In promoting the smallness of Cape May, travel brochures do a distinct disservice, especially if someone intends to reach these more distant locations. Those who are up to the exercise might qualify for an Olympic medal by the end of the endeavor. Brochures also neglect to inform the casual reader of more remote other places are, and how they might not be reached without a good set of hiking boots, and a backpack complete with overnight gear.
While Cape May may be small, it is still an endurance test, and we soon found ourselves struggling through the streets. Walking down the promenade in the morning and then through the town after that, left us exhausted by the time we reported back to the motel near noon. We were forced to rest before heading off to some afternoon adventure. This could mean a significantly longer walk down the beach to the bird preserve or even to the bunker and the light house near Cape May Point.
Such places at the county historical museum or the Cape May Zoo are miles back up the Garden State Parkway. While it is possible to walk there or ride a bicycle, each activity – even if you survive a heart attack in the attempt – could result in a visit to the local hospital’s emergency room as a result of being run down by Cape May County’s notorious drivers. Whereas speeding may be against the law, so many drivers participate that the local police departments would need a massive increase in manpower to ticket even a small fraction of the violators.
The cluster of Cape May's principle cottages are geographically close together -- yet winding up and around the streets takes its toll on your legs, even when this is your first and singular occupation.
Those in good physical shape took up bicycles. During our first year in Cape May, we saw several places where people who rent such vehicles -- unaware of the great distain distinguished ladies of 1900 had for the flood of such vehicles in Cape May that year.
Of course, other varieties of self-propelled vehicles existed, some with three and others with four wheels -- many providing peddles for the passengers to aid in propulsion. Some of these could carry whole families through the streets, open-air mini-vans without the pollution.
We rented a peddle-driven vehicle for some of our local excursions. These vehicles gave us insight to the turn-of-century frame of reference when such vehicles populated Cape May. Our four-wheeled vehicle came in several models, some powered by two people in front of a four-person vehicle. Some of the vehicles provided peddles for all four passengers.
Ours was a two-seat variety with peddles provided for both passengers. Like the others, it had a red and white canvas covering, and resembled bicycle construction in every other way, with pipes, chains, handle bars and seats that did not function comfortably for that part of our anatomy accustomed to much softer propositions. We figured we could save ourselves some walking by this means and get a closer glimpse of the local landscape without the benefit of a guide.
As flat as Cape May seems, we found plenty of hills over which we had to peddle. Plus the fact that we were so unused to such a conveyance made us a hazard on the narrow roads where bicycles like ours competed with motorized and horse-driven vehicles – no matter how fast we peddled or what road we chose to drive, were constantly blocked someone’s way and found ourselves pressured by large car, truck or bus. On the other hand, pedestrian traffic posed an equal risk as people stepped in front of us from every angle and from every point of every block, expecting us to halt when we lacked braking power sufficient to do so quickly. No matter how many times we ran our bell for people to look out, some arrogant fool maintained his or her passage as if some new edition to the game of chicken. We steered out way clear of collision with pedestrians only to become near victims to the motorized vehicles seeking to get around us.
We found peace only when we wandered beyond the traditional historic district where the landscape put us at greater risk as motor vehicles increased their speed believing they no longer needed to watch out for such obstacles. Sport Utility Vehicles whizzed past us at speeds we would have found frightening had we been far less exposed.
Our trips to these regions also taught us another valuable lesson. We saved little on our legs by peddling, merely suffering injury to different muscles – the ache of which stayed with us as thoroughly the next day than if we had walked. In future years to the Cape, we abandoned the pretense of such self-propelled contraptions and dedicated ourselves to moderate use of the car and walking, taking full advantage of the off-season availability of roadside parking.