Plenty of both in this unlikely juxtaposition...

Well, not diving, exactly, but peeking over the edge outside a restaurant being gutted...

Emptying out a restaurant turns up all manner of quotidian supplies...

Cape May County may be a resort area, but it’s also home to numerous residents who have been affected by the recession. A new meal center is opening in May to help feed the Shore poor.

In case of fire or other emergencies, including being tapped out, this alcove is the place to be...

A few minutes after these pictures were taken, cross-country skiers came schussing down the beach...

Facing the beach in Cape May...

If you’re cleaning out your linen closet this holiday season, or ditching the toys that your dog sniffs at (in a snooty way), Cape May’s Billmae Cottage is seeking animal-friendly donations for its annual Animal Giving Tree.

We headed south last week for our Exit Zero outpost, expecting that not much had changed in the two years since our last visit. We were right.

Some towns celebrate the Fourth of July with parades and fireworks. That’s true for Cape May, but this year they’re planning even more of a blast that day to mark the town’s 400th’ birthday. The main attraction: a beard-growing competition.

Michele Gillian was so amped up that she could barely catch her breath – Ocean City has been named top beach in the state.

The Chalfonte Hotel in Cape May was known for its lack of air conditioning and in-room bathrooms. A lot of people liked it that way, but progress finally caught up with the old gal, and she’s ready for a modern audience.

Now that Oprah has bestowed her approval on Twitter.com, the messaging service is taking off. Looking for South Jersey folks to follow?

In the lobby of a busy hotel, a dark ascent to a landing in the sun...

If on the inside it looks like a diner, serves like a diner, charges like a diner and satisfies like a diner, but occupies just part of a plain brick building on a street corner in Cape May, it is a diner, and a darn good one at that.

Before there was SPF, there were these...

You can welcome spring this weekend with something old and something new on the South Jersey festival circuit.

Why would anyone spend a Sunday morning running in the rain? I don’t know, but I, along with over 800 others, did just that for the Ocean Drive Marathon and 10-miler this past Sunday.

Arts and crafts in Shore towns, and festivals up north.

Spotted poolside at the Congress Hall Hotel in Cape May, a takeoff on the tarp, featuring a unique, self-contained, deployment and retraction mechanism...

Used to be you needed a long memory to think of Asbury Park as a happening town. But look at all the renovation of classic Asbury places like Convention Hall and Paramount Theater, plus the restaurant scene, chic shopping, and like always, the beach. You see why it’s cool again. Or is it hot? Get both this weekend with the 20th annual Asbury Park Jazz Festival. Performers and schedule here.

Grange Furniture Warehouse www.ctdrifters.com/ctdrifters_001.htmin South Hackensack is having a sale of tables, chairs, beds, armoires, sideboards, TV cabinets, sofas, dressers, desks, accessories, and outdoor furniture, with up to 70 percent off today through Saturday. We heard about it from www.topbutton.com; sign up and they send you news about all kinds of sales.

Last Friday, NJ My Way got subscribers looking for Father’s Day gifts a 10 percent discount at the Metro Golf and Fitness Center in Tenafly, where they have simulators with cool 3-D graphics to put Dad in his favorite golf course, virtually.

You may be reading this from your laptop as you “work from home” this morning at the beach house. Or you may be considering heading down the Shore to soak up the first real sunshine of the season this long weekend. Consider us your guide to the summer season, with plenty of ideas and new sights to keep you busy off the beach.

“That looked like a Savannah,” Scott Barnes said. “The Grasshopper is going to fly up like a helicopter.”

If you still haven’t made Mother’s Day reservations, do not abandon hope. We found six culinarily and geographically diverse eateries that told us they would take people who called today.

You can start this weekend off on a good foot at the first ever North Jersey Komen Race for the Cure, Sunday at Branch Brook Park in Newark, to benefit breast cancer research. You can register on the website, or beginning at 7 a.m. on race day at the park.  There’s a 5K run/walk and the 1.5 mile Fun Walk.  NJ My Way is a media sponsor of this event.  Make sure you wave to our cameras!    

Here are some seafood markets/restaurants our food editor Rosalie Saferstein has found where you can have a casual fish dinner or purchase fish to cook at home.