My Awesome Adventure at the New Jersey Teachers' Convention

You know how it is. You have all the best intentions, and you even have made your plans, hour by hour, and you're itching to get under way. So it was with yours truly when she set out at 8:30 a.m. for the New Jersey Education Association's annual teacher-fest in Atlantic City.

It's a mere 60 minutes from my door to AC, if I take the expressway. Except I hate that damn expressway. It's always busy, and it's dead boring. I take the old Route 30, locally known as the White Horse Pike. It passes through a few ugly Jersey towns charming little hamlets and then goes straight into downtown Atlantic City.

On the way to AC, my best intentions were all buzzing on maximum impact. I was going to beach comb a little bit at my favorite spot, then drive up and fling the Subaru into a parking space, and then go to the windowless Convention Center, where I had mapped out several improving teacher workshops that would no doubt leave me brimming to the plimsol line with fabulous new skills.

I had no problem finding free parking where I beach comb: the extreme northern end of AC. I pretty much had my choice. So I parked, got out of the car ... and a fresh waft of sea breeze tickled my nostrils and ruffled my hair. The sun was shining in a deep blue sky, and the waves hissed and swished onto the sand.

I thought about spending the rest of the day in a windowless convention center. And in a rare moment of completely decisive behavior, I aborted the whole teacher-fest mission for a day on the beach and the boardwalk.

I mean to say, how much could I possibly have learned at the teacher convention that would make up for a day off in the autumn sunshine?

I took a long walk. A really, really long walk. I just looked it up: well over four miles. And that doesn't include the beach combing.

Pretty, huh?

They say the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Well, la di dah, it has to be paved with something!

I had lunch with this guy. Only he didn't get anything, because the sign said not to feed him.

This concludes my awesome adventure at the New Jersey Teachers' Convention, 2017. Maybe next year it will be raining.