My family has spent summers in Surf City on Long Beach Island since 1952. My parents built our house when I was 8 years old. We never went camping to Florida or on sightseeing trips around the U.S. on our vacations. We would pack up the day after school closed and head down to the Island.

It was not a short trip – 2½ hours from our winter home. Weekends from Easter to Thanksgiving were also spent at the “shore house,” as my sisters and I called it.