“Car free / Care free” is the motto of a recent map published by the “West Cape May Citizens for Good Government.”

Published in an effort to encourage visitors and residents to park their cars and leave them parked, the map is available at the Visitor and Transportation Center of Cape May at Lafayette Street (across from the Acme Grocery Store). Interested at how conceivable the idea is, I decide to give it a go.

8 a.m.  Walk over to Beach Avenue to the Macomber Hotel. At the bottom of the hotel is Louie’s By the Sea Bistro – home of the “Ooey-Gooey Louie” sticky bun. Been thinking about this all night knowing this was my first destination. No, it isn’t on the map, but remember the map is just a guide. I can stop along the way anywhere I want. Mmmmm.

I pick the gooey pecans off the bun one at a time, savoring each morsel. Then, knife and fork in hand, I attack the bun itself. Ahhhhh. I sit back and start to sip my coffee, feelings of fat dancing in my head. The urge to walk it off strikes a gong in my brain. Looking at the map, I see I can get to the Cape May Lighthouse by walking down to the end of the Promenade at Cove Beach and continuing on across the sand. But first I want to walk to the Washington Street Mall where the Information Center is to see what walking tours are available later in the afternoon.

On my walk, I pass The Abbey Bed & Breakfast and see they offer a tea and tour at 4 p.m. I make a mental note to be there for it. I’m on Columbia Street now at the heart of Cape May’s historic district. I decide to walk toward The Mainstay Inn to take a look. It is still very quiet and no one seems to be up and about. The Mainstay’s famous porch is empty and serene. I turn the corner past The Mainstay and find myself on Hughes Street. What a pretty little street. It is much narrower than Columbia. Tree lined. Old like Columbia but feels more like a neighborhood, and for me it’s easier here to imagine what it must have been like to live here a hundred or so years ago. At the end of Hughes is Ocean Street and I’m standing in front of Captain Mey’s B&B and the Queen Victoria is to my left. Amazing. Before I even get to the mall, I’ve done my very own walking tour and have taken plenty of pictures already.

I hang around the mall because MAC’s Information Booth doesn’t open until 9:15. Take a peek at The Lemon Tree Restaurant’s menu and decide to have lunch there when I get back.

Loaded down with tons of brochures, I begin my walk down Decatur Street toward Beach Avenue. Lots of people out now, especially on the Promenade. Walkers, bicyclists, roller bladers — they own the boardwalk until 10 a.m. I walk down to the Cove on the west side of town, step onto the sand and head toward the lighthouse. This view, folks, is worth the price of tired feet. I’m lucky because I’ve picked a beautiful, glistening morning and the whole scene is like something out of a movie.
There is a nature trail leading from the beach to Cape May Point State Park. I walk just a little way and I’m in back of the Bird Observation Deck. The lighthouse is just across the parking lot. I am standing in front of the Cape May Lighthouse at Cape May Point State Park. Will I or won’t I? No, I don’t think I will climb the 199 steps to the top, at least not today, not on a Saturday, and definitely not in 90-degree weather. Another time, because, as I realize to my chargrin, I still have to walk back for pity’s sake.

It’s now 11:30 a.m. Yes, I make it back, but not without one or two dips in the ocean. Believe you me, it has to be really hot for me to go in the ocean without a certain bathing suit. Standing in front of the Lemon Tree Restaurant on the Washington Street Mall, I have no feelings of guilt when I, without hesitation, order a Bagel Brunch and a freshly squeezed lemonade to go. I walk over to the Rotary Park and slobber over myself. Back to the Lemon Tree for another lemonade. Time for shopping. Then back to my friend’s house on Jefferson Street for a shower. Yes, it is another fifteen minute walk, but the promise of a nap encourages me.

I arrive showered and refreshed for tea and the tour. Abbey owner Jay Schatz is very friendly, just informative enough without being a bore. Afterwards, lemonade and iced tea on the porch. I restrain myself and only take one sweet cake instead of hogging the whole platter which, of course, is my inclination.
I wander around for a bit until it’s time for dinner.
6 p.m. Meet my friend for dinner at the Merion Inn on Decatur Street. Martinis and seafood. Does it get any better?
9 p.m. Walk over to Howard Street to see Jilline Ringle’s cabaret show in
the Henry Sawyer Room at the Chalfonte. The show’s very funny and a nice way to end the evening is by sitting on the porch at the Chalfonte walking, I mean rocking, the night away. Another short walk I’m home to a nice comfy bed.

Biking your Way Through Cape May

9:30 a.m.  I’m ready for another car free day.  It’s cloudy today, not too hot.
Perfect for a bike ride. I walk over to Cape Island Bike Rentals at the back of the Hotel Macomber on Howard Street. John fixes me up with a very nice yellow, single-speed (thank-you very much) bicycle with pedal brakes of course. I do not do the Promenade thing.
Reason #1 – I’m going to turn right onto Broadway. My destination is Sunset Beach so I would have to get off the Promenade anyway.
Reason #2 – Biking on the promenade in the morning in July or August is not my idea of a fun time. There are way too many people also biking, roller blading, walking, jogging, and riding whatever other weird two-wheeled method of transportation can be thought of. In other words – it’s too crowded.
So, I bike along Beach Avenue heading west toward Broadway. Yes, this is city biking. It’s you and the cars, so you must be careful and not assume that anybody cares that you’re on the road. Drivers will begin parallel parking without looking in the rear view mirror (as one man did as soon as I got near Carney’s). Drivers will also pull out in front of you or make a right turn not realizing a bicyclist is coming up along side them. Both of these things happened to me.
The responsibility is on YOU – ME – US. In other words Watch your back. I should also mention that I am riding with traffic not against it. The same rules of the road apply to two-wheeled vehicles as they do for the four-wheeled kind.
Enough for rules. When do we start having fun?
As soon as I turn onto Broadway. It’s certainly a busy street but not like Beach Ave. No one is parking, at least not on this morning and I’m able to make the left onto Sunset fairly easily.

One thing readers should note and hopefully be encouraged by — I am not the most graceful thing on a bike. I am not confident. I am not skillful. I so admire people who can mount and dismount on the same side of the bike while it’s still in motion. That is so cool. I am, in short, a shaky, nervous twitty bicyclist. This stems from not having learned to ride a bike until I moved to Cape May at 29 years of age.  You simply can’t live in Cape May and not bike.
It’s not practical. So learn I did. I crashed into Lifeguard boats innocently lying about on the Promenade. I crashed into bushes, telephone poles, parked cars. If  I saw anyone, anyone coming toward me either on foot or on a bike, my bicycle would start to teeter and I would crash into something. Still, I got back up because biking in Cape May is lovely but also essential to getting from one point to another without tearing your hair out.

OK so now back to adventure. It’s about two miles to Sunset Beach from the Broadway intersection. I see whole families of bikers heading out the same way.
I arrive at Sunset Beach shortly after 10 a.m. and have no qualms of guilt about walking up the Sunset Beach Grill and ordering an egg sandwich with cheese, onion and tomato for $3 and a bottle of water. Sitting on the deck which wraps around Beach Grill, I look at the ocean, the ferry coming in, the fisherman, and my map while they make my egg sandwich. I decide to head toward Higbees Beach after I done eating. I can turn off Sunset at Bayshore Road follow it to the end, make a left onto New England which dead ends at Higbees. This used to be a nude beach, but a city ordinance passed last year ended all that. The beach is still au naturel but not that way.

The sun has come out and I’m thinking, mmmm this might have been a little too adventurous. Just as I get ready to move into full whine, I realize that I’m on a country road. It is so pretty and quiet back here. After all, everyone who bikes ends up at Sunset Beach. This is quite different. Open land, farms, roosters, greenery, but I think the sweetest sight of my journey was that of an older woman in a flowing skirt biking toward me with a basket of flowers. I don’t want a posed picture, so I don’t stop her but she is still in my thoughts.
Meanwhile, I’m so busy taking other pictures that before I know it, I’ve come to end of the road. New England Road is even nicer.
Shortly before I turn onto New England, I do pass land which has been torn up so that new “estate” homes can be built on it, which makes me sad because it looks as though it used to be farm land.
At any rate, in a short while I’m in the small parking lot people who are going to  Higbee Beach use. I walk down the winding path and find myself on soft sand looking out toward the canal where a fishing boat is emerging. I sit down, gulp my water and as the song says, “And I say to myself – Oh what a wonderful world.”
It is, however, not such a wonderful world when I get back to Cape May and turn onto Lafayette Street to see that a kabillion people in cars who have decided that this is not a beach day but rather a shopping day and are now trying to find a place to park. Traffic is tied up everywhere and drivers are not very nice to bicycle riders –it stems from jealousy, you see. We’re moving. They’re not. We’ll find a parking space. They won’t. Huh! Huh! is what I say to them, all smug with myself.

NOON: A right onto Ocean. Left onto Columbia and I’m back in the land of relative peace and tranquility as I turn onto Howard Street and pull up to
Cape Island Bike Rentals, returning my most perfect bicycle to John for safe keeping, until we meet again.

Note: You can get that nifty (and free) Car-Free guide map at the Welcome/ Transportation Center off Lafayette Street.  Stop by after you ditch your gas guzzler.