Pam’s Pictorama Post: Yesterday I highlighted our day trip to Asbury Park as part of our summer vacation in New Jersey this year. (That post can be found here.) Today I just have some bits and pieces from the rest of our time off – some lovely visits with friends who came to stay for a few days and our wanderings into town, our annual visit to the local fireman’s fair (prior posts on the fair can be read here and here) and of course my adventures in gardening.

I am afraid I must report that gardening this year didn’t pan out especially well on the vegetable front – my sweet peppers have consistently been sneakily consumed, hollowed out by the likes, I believe, of a particular chipmunk who I spy daily (or a rotating cast of chipmunk characters), who teases me hopping around the deck every morning. Only my hot peppers (two varieties of jalapenos and one banana pepper) have performed admirably – the critters having tested them and realized that they were indeed too spicey. A few measly cherry tomatoes and a single full sized one round out the produce. Sigh.

Meanwhile half the dahlias have had the good grace to bloom while I am here, the other half have buds but are holding out. I especially adore this red, pink and white one and the hummingbirds share my enthusiasm – they and the butterflies stop for long drinks of nectar there and I find bees drunk with the pollen as they roll around in them.

I commuted longer than usual before vacation on this trip and Kim and I discovered Senor Peppers restaurant and take out across from the train station. A little careful planning and I could place our dinner order when the train hit the station before mine and by the time we got to Red Bank our order was just about ready.

Ice cream ran a close second to Mexican food this summer and I discovered that Nicholas Creamery does a powerful peach ice cream which rivals Ryan’s, my go to until now. The Creamery has the great advantage however of being within walking distance of the house. We further explored blackberry and lemon pie flavors (thank you Deva for pushing us out of our comfort zone) which were wonderful, but peach is still my go to.

The weather ran to rain (after some extreme heat) which meant I had fewer beloved evenings out on the deck although we did sneak a few in at the end.

A trip to Red Bank with our friend Bill resulted in several purchases. He and Kim did some buying at the comic book store, but I had my go at the Antique Annex. Among my purchases were: a cat picture (future post), a copy of Peggy Parker, Girl Inventor, some silverware (yes, I bought Bakelite silverware in Asbury and some silver flatware in Red Bank – we’ve been suffering a loss of silverware in the NYC apartment), and a rather extraordinary pink glass with images of stars on it.

A later trip to Red Bank (taking Bill to the train) resulted in a real discovery – a new independent bookstore opened there in the last few months. Tucked on a side street called Monmouth it is called Crazy Story Books. It is large and well stocked and I look forward to many happy hours of shopping there.

A few select other dahlias.

Last night we hit the first night of the Fireman’s Fair. Kim and I took our favorite ride on a firetruck around the neighborhood and threw caution to the wind and went on a rather nutty, jarring ride in some flying saucer cars. We bought raffle tickets and of course lost and ended the evening with veggie burgers at our local diner. If I haven’t mentioned it before, the fireman’s fair which runs about a week, is one of the oldest and largest of its kind in the country and raises almost all of the annual funding for our (largely volunteer) fire and first aid. (A prior post about this fireman’s fair and its history can be found here.)

Fireman’s Fair fun.

Kim’s distance walking has improved over our vacation and just today we walked into town and back – yay! So it is time to pack the New York kitties up and head back to Manhattan. I suspect this won’t get posted until after we are back there tomorrow. We need to gather up our dress duds and get ready for our trip to Washington on September 10 and Kim’s talk there so more to come about that soon too.

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Posting this shortly after arriving back in New York. Cats are recuperating under and on the bed. Unpacking (and lunch) up next!