The weather at the shore last year was grim, especially in June and July, when there were 29 days of rain. Even in August, when the total rainfall was more than 2 inches below normal, there was some rain on 12 of the 31 days.
"It's got to be better this year, and we all will be ready for it," said Rosenello.
Wildwood daze
At the Morey Organization, which runs the amusement piers along the Wildwood boardwalk, there is a measure of upscaling going on. There will be two new stores tucked in under the Sea Serpent ride on the Schellenger Avenue pier (formerly known at Mariner's Landing) this summer. One will be Create-a-Bear, the Wildwood version of the store where kids can buy a teddy bear and dress him up in a zillion different ways.
The other will be the Doo-Wop Boardwalk Museum Shop. It will be run by Cape May's Mid-Atlantic Center for the Arts and offer all manner of Doo-Wopian stuff, from pink flamingos and ready-to-rock, $1,000 jukeboxes to embroidered sweat shirts and roller-coaster replicas.
"This is no ugly T-shirt shop," said Joanne Galloway of the Morey Organization. "Who would ever imagine Victorian Cape May and loud Wildwood combining on something? But that's where we are now and we're happy to have them here."
Galloway said the Schellenger Avenue pier will also have a new ride, Pirates of Wildwood, a takeoff on the movie "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl," complete with 3-D video and human pirates, in the old Dark River ride space.
In addition, there will be new boardwalk mascots walking around the piers: a hip, skateboarding seagull and his sidekick, Curley the French Fry.
