Yesterday, I found little bit of a West Coast right here on the East Coast!

I mean this literally -- the West Coast of New Jersey.

Cape May, to be exact. Higbee Beach, to be more exact.

In a state of blissfully naive innocence (I had been told about the place by a nature lover), I drove to Cape May and spent the afternoon exploring this unspoiled place, which, if you look at a map of New Jersey, happens to be on the left hand side of New Jersey's cape -- making it New Jersey's West Coast. A still-unspoiled, natural beach, it is bordered by dunes and driftwood, and stretches for several miles. What I did not know until sunset was that the sun actually sets over the water there! It seems to defy common sense that there would be any locations on the East Coast where, right on the coast, you could watch the sunset over the water, but by the gods I did it yesterday. (And by the way, the math checks out, because the distance from Cape May to Lewes, Delaware is 17 miles, while the distance from beach to horizon is anywhere from 3-7 miles depending on your vantage point.)

Not only that, but the East Coast's only West Coast seems to be seething with barely suppressed West Coast activities. The place has a history as a nude beach, with the usual controversies attending same. They have prohibited nudity, but I had one of these intuitive feelings that the regulars there (I did see a few) are not sincere believers in the fig leaves which have been planted upon them.

As Glenn Reynolds would say, "I blame John Ashcroft".

In this case, though, it seems the ferries are to blame.

Hey, watch how you pronounce that word!