Cape May Lighthouse Narrative

This past June my Girl Scout troop went on a trip to Wildwood, NJ. While we were there we went to Cape May to climb the WWII tower and the lighthouse. This made me nervous because I am afraid of heights. Anything that is not secure or solid freaks me out. It causes me to freeze and clutch onto the nearest object, and shake until someone can coax me out of it. For example, I am fine in airplanes or a building, but freefalling through the air or feeling movement up that high sends me into a panic. Although, I think it is more about the fear of falling from those heights than anything else. So, after we dug for Cape May Diamonds on the beach, explored the gift shops, and climbed the WWII lookout tower, we drove over to the Cape May Lighthouse.

It had more stairs that led up to the light but we were not allowed to go up there. I was not fearful at all. In fact, all my fears had melted away. I felt perfectly safe, and was happily distracted by the mesmerizing sight before me. The view out of the windows was absolutely spectacular! You could observe all of Cape May. You could see the beach, the WWII tower and bunker, the WWI shipwreck, another lighthouse, and you could even see the edge of Delaware! The lighthouse also had a balcony that wrapped around the whole top of the lighthouse, but there was no way that I was ever going to go out there. It was very breezy up there, and you could hear the wind even from inside the lighthouse. One of the employees then proceeded to tell us about the lighthouse. She said it was still a fully functional lighthouse, and that the Coast Guard comes in every year to replace the lights. There were also some examples of lights that were and had been in the lighthouse. She also described how it works, and what keepers had to do in the days when the light was basically a giant kerosene lantern. She explained that because there were few windows, it was lit with lanterns. That light would then filter up through the holes in the cast iron stairs, lighting up the whole stairwell. I found this