At play in Cape May

New York was swarming with Aussies. Here, I’ve seen not a one. No internationals at all to speak of. Just Americans.

This is the secret underbelly of Americans at play. This is their place. It is their idiom. Their culture. Their history.

It is a traditional East Coast family seaside holiday destination, glorious strands of long, sandy New Jersey beaches, low

dunes, marshland…lapped by the Atlantic Ocean.

Most of the people around us are from nearby Philadelphia.

I suppose that is why there are not too many choices of postcards sold here.

We’re staying in the Grand Hotel which is a funny old thing. It used to be very grand, I think. It was

probably once at the cutting edge of seaside resorts with its vast stretches of covered balconies surrounding a big central outdoor pool complete with bar and food service.

Our friends, Jim and Irene, are in the next room thanks to the friendly consideration of the hotel Reception as we were booking in. Hotels win or lose on the attitude of Reception staff. In some hotels, they are mean

with the power they wield and have mysterious little agendas. In others, they are the soul of hospitality which set one’s stay off on a really positive footing. Here, I’d been warned on booking that the best sea view rooms were already booked and I’d requested they list me if there was a cancellation. On arrival, I am greeted with the sweet news that they not only have an ocean view room for us but would I like our friends to be beside us?

Checking in a the Grand Hotel is complicated, though. One is fitted with a blue rubber bracelet which is official entry to the pools. And one is briefed about the trolley bus which comes past the hotel to take guests into and out of the little township down the beach. Oh, and breakfast which is a vast buffet but, for the same price, any added a la carte breakfast one might desire.

The grand of the Grand sort of ends there. No pushy valets. They supply wonderful luggage carts and free parking. Bruce loves a luggage cart. He arranges our mountain of road trip world upon it, ever more artfully. There are cases and bags, pillows, grocery bags and, of course, the all-important cooler basket which carries our chilled wine, Bloody Mary makings, and perishables.

Our room is on the first floor which the Americans call the second floor. It is very beachy and practical with a smooth pseudo wooden floor and a little bay window looking seawards. The utter joy is that there also are back windows which look out onto Cape May suburbia - huge, handsome three-storey wooden homes with flags and lawns and big, shady verandahs. Two views! Two worlds! I am silly with happiness.

Bruce, too. But it’s not the view that has him excited. It’s the wee kitchen. Spag bol, he exclaims. He starts making a shopping list immediately. In two seconds flat, he has Googled up the address of the supermarket.

Nah, we don’t need the free trolley. We need the walk. We can enjoy our surroundings. We do. Except that it is about a million degrees Centigrade and the humidity is a few million more. The heat wave goes on.

So, yes, it is an interesting walk. The architecture at Cape May is almost fairy book.There are spectacular, lavish Captain’s Houses and mad turreted mansions with widow’s walks and ornate layered balconies, all made of clapboard, of course. There are age-old guest houses and

seaside hotels. And they are painted in lovely bright colours, cheerful and pretty. It is a joy of architectural diversity.

And they are alive with holidaymakers.

The Americans work as hard at leisure as they do at jobs. They come for a seaside vacation heavily

loaded with necessities: beach umbrellas, huge cooler boxes, rugs, chairs, balls. The cooler boxes have wheels and handles and can be towed. The chairs and carry bags hitch over the shoulders, backpack style, so there are all these very chair-broad people waddling to and from the beach.

They are, of course, all around us at the hotel. The cars roll up and disgorge all this amazing beach gear. Lots of chairs. Lots. No one

wants to sit on the sand, it seems. Not even the kids. And no one minds paying to go onto the beach. It is $6 a day. What? I can't come at that. I just can't do it. It is great that they have lifeguards perched up on those sturdy high chairs. But we Aussies believe the beach belongs to us all. They stop charging at 4pm so we make it our rule to only go on the sands late in the day.

And I’m a pool-lover, anyway. The pool is gorgeous. And there is a second pool, a huge and very glamorous indoor pool. It has murals on the walls and sumptuous

armchairs and chaise lounges. It makes me feel as if I am stepping into a Scott Fitzgerald novel.

The hotel has a terrific dining room which is handy since the extreme heat has us enervated. We find a lovely big balcony at the end of the hotel where we can look at the sea and loll on rocking chairs. That’s where we take our evening drinks. We’re on dirty martinis now. With vodka at $11 a half gallon, they cost 22 cents a piece.

So, Bruce makes his famous spaghetti Bolognese for a dinner party, this time with high protein, high fibre pasta. We have pineapple for dessert. We talk and laugh and reminisce.

Irene and I have no issue in catching the $1

trolley in the drenching heat. Who knew it came with a travel commentary from Barry, the driver. We go shopping in the darling little Cape May mall, just so quaint and sweet and be-dangled with pots of petunias. The fudge shop is a downfall. We buy too much and get a free box of salt water taffy for our excess.

Over our days in Cape May, we

discover the famous Lobster House which is a complex of huge restaurants along with a restaurant on a boat, an extensive take-away shop, a great big raw bar, and a mass of tables stretching down the length of a dock. Fishing boats are moored at the dock and, also on the dock, is the big fish processing shed providing all the seafood being consumed all around us - and then some. It is a prodigious operation. Our waitress is a very fit mature blonde in a cutie-pie sailorgirl costume. She bounds to the table announcing in one of those voices which could cut glass that “My name is Cathy and I will be your server”. Then, in a dramatic move, she thrusts out her chest to display an extremely ample bust. We don’t quite know which way to look.

The food is fabulous. Oh, the freshness. Oh, oh,

oh. Clams, scallops, oh the flounder!

There are assorted things to do in Cape May. We check out the lighthouse and look at the birdwatchers’ boardwalks over the swamps. But, frankly, it is too hot and humid for anything except lolling about in pools. A huge electrical storm moves through, strobing the night sky and whip-cracking over the sea. It dumps a bucket of nocturnal rain and the humidity multiplies. Argh. Annoyingly, the Grand Hotel has the world’s worst Internet service and, after a few days of frustration, we just give up and read books and watch the Olympics on television.

Of course we return to the supermarket a few times for fruit and those wonderful sugare-free

Polar drinks. On one occasion in the little mall we hear someone playing the street piano. It is no ordinary tinkles. This man is a serious pianist. Wow. We are stopped in our tracks. We seize the moment. We sit on a shady bench. We marvel and revel. The man is playing a Chopin Prelude. It is superb. We clap. Then he plays a Nocturne. Aaaah. When he finishes, we call for more. Sorry, he responds. My lunch is ready. And he disappears into restaurant.

I am studying the people around me, the Americans at play. I watch some

wholesome families with kids with names such as Madison and Tyler. I watch just how much poolside food some Latino families seem able to consume. I watch dads at play with their kids and the unadulterated ecstasy kids have at that rare thing called the undivided attention of dad. There are families with five or six very well behaved children. They seem mostly to be very religious. Home schoolers, I wonder? People seem to be very conservative. One woman regales us with tales of evil Obama closing coal mines. She loves Donald Trump, of course. I become alarmed at how strong is that sentiment.

This is naked Americana - a cross section of the middle class. These are the voters.

I can’t say I’m not worried.