Strange Vintage Holiday

My husband and I went away for a few days to Cape May, NJ. The weather had gone from rainy and cold to really beautiful--sunny and 55F on Thursday and almost 70F on Friday--the first truly Spring days we've experienced on the North East coast of the U.S.  We packed a lot into two days and now that we're home, looking back, it was a bit of a Strange Vintage weekend, so I thought I'd share some images here.

Our hotel of choice,  Congress Hall, is a gorgeous old Victorian hotel that's been rehabed but the feel is still very much vintage. The rooms are very simple and tasteful with lots of white, white linens, bright walls and white vintage bath tubs and sinks. We love this place.

When walking the hallways you feel the ebb and flow of the dips in the floor.  This old building has seen so many years of use and rough weather.  Despite its sloped floors,
ill-fitting doors,
drooping hallways, the place feels solid like an old stone monument.  If you get a chance, I highly recommend staying here.

They stock the bathrooms with Aveda bath products and lush white towels.  It's a joy just lying in the deep old tub for an hour.  There's no overflow, so fill to your heart's content.

While in Cape May we visited the Aviation Museum.  I was concerned I'd be bored but went anyway, because I knew my husband would be so entertained here.  I was completely blown away.  It was this massive old World War II hangar full of many old airplanes and helicopters and other displays.  I think what interested me was the light from the high windows cast upon all the contents.  I felt like I had gone back in time.  We were able to sit in WWII red cross helicopters and old Coast Guard helicopters.  We got to see the tiny spaces pilots occupied when flying these heavy beasts.  I got lots of photos of old dials and switches and engine parts. It was pretty amazing.

Once more I got some shots of museum manikins (a passion of mine) used for diplay purposes.  They always make me smile because they always look so wrong somehow.  This poor guy was severely wounded and needed an airlift, but nevertheless, his hair was perfect. 

Afterwards, we looked through our favorite antiques shop and as usual, I found a strange vintage thing to take home with me.  This time it was this weird little portable communion set complete with 4 small "shot" glasses, a specimen bottle for wine, and a small silver platter for, I'm guessing, a single host.  I'm a non-theist but find all the trappings of religion fascinating.  Also, just the sight of small-glass-anythings sets my heart a flutter.  It's the scientist in me.  Here's the set, as it appears now with butterfly specimens--at home in our curio cabinet full of oddities.

I don't know what I'd call my favorite thing of the weekend, but this last item comes very close if it's not THE special thing.  I took my shoes off, the sand was warm and inviting.  We roamed the clean, sandy beach, and as usual, my husband with his binoculars was looking up at birds, out at ships...and I was nose to the ground looking at shells and rocks.  I said to him, "I want to find something really odd in the sand this time." And within minutes I spotted this:

"A FOSSIL!" I yelled.  I think it's a trilobite.  The sun was setting and raking across the objects on the beach and what caught my eye was the texture/pattern of this fossil.  This find made me more happy than pretty much anything else on this little trip.  When we got home I did a little research and found that trilobites were alive from 526 to 250 million years ago when they were part of a mass extinction event.  I had found something hundreds of millions of years old.  Just lying there on the beach. Life is really amazing, is it not?

This was such a lovely strange vintage holiday.  Thanks for hanging out here till the end.