Labor Day Weekend, September 4-7, 2009

Posted: January 29th, 2010 | Filed under: Out Of Town

A return to the Ocean Grove/Asbury Park part of the Jersey Shore, where we’ve been going every Labor Day since 2006. It’s nice because it’s not like the other kind of Jersey Shore that the rest of world gawks at now on cable television, and the accommodations, especially in the guest houses in Ocean Grove, are reasonable. Ocean Grove is quiet and Asbury Park (which is right next door) is fun, so it’s kind of a great place to spend the weekend. Plus it’s accessible via NJ Transit train, so it’s perfect if you don’t have a car (we happened to have cars this time, but one of the vehicles in our party got stuck for hours at the Holland Tunnel, so the train is a big plus).

Anyway, we visited a couple of new places — Jimmy’s Italian Restaurant and Clancy’s Tavern, where we easily attained the top score on the Erotic Photo Hunt:

Megatouch Erotic Photo Hunt High Score, Clancy's Tavern, 41 South Main Street, Neptune, New Jersey

New pages for the new water park along the boardwalk in Asbury Park, that little firehouse in Ocean Grove and that war memorial across from Rite Aid Ocean Grove.

We ate at the Americana Diner in Shrewsbury on the way in and the Broadway Diner in Red Bank on the way out. The Broadway Diner in particular was pretty great:

Broadway Diner, 45 Monmouth Street, Red Bank, New Jersey

Blueberry Cheesecake, Broadway Diner, 45 Monmouth Street, Red Bank, New Jersey

Here’s the stuff we returned to . . .

The weather wasn’t great over Labor Day, but we got one good day in at the beach in Ocean Grove:

Beach, Ocean Grove, New Jersey, September 4, 2009

Bowling and masquerading at Asbury Lanes:

Asbury Lanes, 209 4th Avenue, Asbury Park, New Jersey, September 5, 2009

Checked in to see what new mural was up on the plywood at the Casino along the boardwalk in Asbury Park, where renovation work is still happening:

Casino, Boardwalk, Asbury Park, New Jersey, September 6, 2009

Figured out where to tan in the Convention Hall along the boardwalk in Asbury Park:

Airbrush Tanning Studio Sandwich Board, Asbury Park Convention Hall, Asbury Park, New Jersey, September 6, 2009

Got a beer or two at The Stone Pony in Asbury Park:

Splintered Sunlight, The Bob Smith Benefit Show, The Stone Pony, 913 Ocean Avenue, Asbury Park, New Jersey, September 6, 2009

Earned another T-Shirt at Pete & Elda’s in Neptune:

Whole Pie Eater's Club T-Shirt (134th Edition), Pete & Elda's Bar/Carmen's Pizzeria, 96 Woodland Avenue, Neptune, New Jersey, September 7, 2009

And finally, we added a special page for those Banner Tow Planes that buzz up and down the shore after trying to figure out where to put this picture, which we took from the balcony of our hotel in Ocean Grove:

Banner Tow, Ocean Grove, New Jersey, September 6, 2009

(The Exxxotica Expo advertised on the banner — classy thing to advertise at a family beach, by the way — is featured on one of those ridiculous “NSFW” photo galleries the Village Voice likes to post to ramp up their page views. Ugh.)

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