Welcome to the jungle days on Long Beach Island, ushered in by July 4th.

This year, we’ve been readied for the touristy wildness by a June that rated as the most crowded in all history. Where we traditionally celebrated Memorial Day weekend, after which the Island instantly reverted back to a spring quietude, people-wise, this year an army of extended weekenders – issuing forth from late Wednesday through Sunday – kept packing it in.