Quick:  You’re going on an adventure. What do you bring?

A(answer): If you’re from Jersey and the adventure falls near Washington’s birthday you’re bringing flip flops, bathing suit, and the key to your (parents’) Florida condo.

It happens every year at this time — the exodus from Jersey to the sunny southern shores. If a brief survey of your friends’ Facebook photos (palm trees, sunshine, chaise lounge snapshots of pedicure-painted toes hovering over the sand) doesn’t convince you that most of the state has fled the snow and sleet for Dade and Palm Beach Counties, then a quick trip to Newark International surely will.

Bronzed faces get off the planes and pale faces board them. Shades, cell phones, Uggs and a queue at the airport e-charging station do little to disguise the fact that the Jersey Shore’s going South for a little late winter sun, and a time-lapse photo sequence shot from the airport’s blue vinyl seats would surely show you that come February, those who can, hit the beach.

Counting myself among the fortunate thousands, I interviewed my mother-in-law, Rosemarie Helm, poolside on Singer Island this week.

“It used to be that President’s Week was between Lincoln and Washington’s birthdays,” Rosemarie said. “Now it lasts for almost the whole month, and there are people from all over – a lot of Canadians, New Yorkers, and of course families from Jersey.”

Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, and it seems every other person in New Jersey’s just gotta get down to WPB or Miami International for some tennis and some sun.

So if the roads up in Essex County are looking a little empty this week, you know why. And if you’ve got a snowbird relative, maybe now’s the time to hook up Skype and ask them that question they’ve been waiting to hear: “Is there room for me by the pool?”

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