Pictures 28: Adventuring on the Delaware River

About a week before Patrick and I decided we really needed to get outta dodge, we took what was going to be a day trip to High Point State Park in New Jersey and the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. It turned into an overnight camping trip that also included the Upper Delaware National Scenic River in New York.

We got a late start because I was lazy and wouldn't get out of bed, so for a while Patrick was quite cantankerous. He had wanted to do some serious hiking that day, but since I decided not to get out of bed til about 10 am, his plans were foiled. We tried to make the best of the day anyway, but when signage at the Delaware Water Gap was pretty much the worst we've encountered at any NPS site, then Pat pulled a tendon in his calf that he'd pulled a few weeks ago and which was just starting to heal, it was shaping up to be a pretty lame day.

Since we'd gotten such a late start, however, by about 5:30 or 6 pm, we were still tooling around northeastern Pennsylvania and I said... "Do you want to just - not go home?"

We were in Pat's Jeep, which still had all his camping equipment in it. So he said, um, okay. So we drove up to New York and along the upper Delaware on the Upper Delaware Scenic Byway until we found the Ascalona Campground. What the campground is, basically, is the property of an older couple who had a bunch of prime land along the Delaware and decided to do something awesome with it.

By the time we got there, it was probably near 7 pm, and there was a sign on the main office (aka the proprietors' house) that if you wanted to camp, ring the doorbell if it was before 8 pm - or, if it was after 8 pm, just pitch your tent and register in the morning. We rang the bell, and a woman with a heavy European accent came out and greeted us. When we told her we were just driving around and unexpectedly decided to spend the night, she smiled and said that instead of $15 per person, she'd charge us $12. She told us to camp anywhere - the campground was completely empty, but there was a large party coming in the next day, so we had our pick that night.

We drove down to the campsite furthest away from the main building and pitched the tent. We didn't have service at the campground, so we drove a little ways back south on the byway til we got a bar. I called home and told my parents I wouldn't be home that evening and that I'd see them tomorrow. Done and done.

I'll talk a little bit more about camping when the pictures come up...


This is the monument at NJ's highest point, which also happens to be right near the northernmost point of the state too.


We really couldn't have asked for a better day, weather-wise.

34 more images below the jump - click any one to make it bigger in Photobucket.

Pictures 27: New Jerseyan Miscellanea

Pat and I spent about two weeks in New Jersey, so I have a few overhanging pictures that didn't really fit into any other category. So here they are.

I very rarely get to ride over the Pulaski Skyway - I am usually driving - so it was quite a treat when my dad drove and I got to take pictures out the window of the urban landscape. Of course, the zoetrope-like railing didn't make for very good shots.

See? My dad drives. And Pat rides.


8 more pictures below. Click any one to see it bigger.

Pictures 26: Thomas Edison National Historical Park

A very awesome site in New Jersey that I had somehow never gone to before is the Thomas Edison National Historical Park. It includes the labs, prototype factory and home of Thomas Alva Edison, the relatively uneducated inventor who had a hand in inventing pretty much everything you use today, from the electric car to the modern movie studio. There are 1,093 American patents in his name.

Edison was a pretty cool guy, but he was also a bit of an obsessive genius. There is a little bed in his library that he would often use on overnight thinking sessions. He was constantly coming up with new things that could make life easier or, more often, would come totally out of left field and invent something we didn't know we wanted. When he was just a kid in Michigan, he started selling candy and vegetables, and soon became a relative expert at the telegraph. He'd amassed quite a fortune for himself by the time he moved to New Jersey, and he used his wealth to fuel inventing, and used the revenues from his inventions to fund more inventions.

Despite his total genius, he was a weird dude. Since childhood he had a severe hearing impairment, so he often felt awkward in social situations, unable to engage in much conversation. While he was working on prototypes of the gramophone, his horrid taste in music became clear; he often enjoyed shrill vocals and dissonant music because he could actually hear it. He was also stubborn - he worked in his labs until a few months before his death at age 84, and his employees had a personal elevator installed for him so he wouldn't have to climb the stairs. He refused to use it, however (despite a sign on it reading, "For Mr. Edison Only"), and climbed the stairs instead.

I'll babble a few more facts as we go through pictures. Patrick and I went to Edison's Labs on June 20, 2010.


The thumbs-up!


The area around the big brick buildings (which include the machine shop, library, chemistry lab, blacksmith, etc - everything needed to create any invention known to man, basically) is very cool, and feels like you're stepping back in time to when it was a bustling factory.

36 more images below! Click any one to see it bigger in Photobucket.

Pictures 25: The Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island

Backing up a little, getting caught up again on photo posts, we venture way back to June 15 to our jaunt into the Hudson to visit the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island (which, if you want to get picky, are the Statue of Liberty National Monument and Ellis Island National Monument [part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument], both National Parks System sites in New York). Yep, they are part of the NPS, so we got to check a few more off our list of NPS sites to visit!

We decided to go on a weekday because we figured the crowds would be easier to handle - and while we were probably right in some regard, we made the sore mistake of choosing a weekday in June. Anyone with any experience with public schools in North Jersey will know that there are a few places notorious for being the destination of many schools' end-of-the-year field trip, and the Statue of Liberty/Ellis Island is one of them.  (Various resorts in the Poconos are other top choices, as are art museums in the city and historic Philadelphia - and once I even went on a June field trip to Amish Country [Lancaster County, Pennsylvania], which was definitely the best end-of-the-year field trip ever.)

So while we missed the weekend crowds, we were inundated with hordes (no, seriously - hordes) of middle-school-age kids bouncing off the walls, screaming, running back and forth, and generally being obnoxious and terrible. I can understand the impulse of taking kids that age to Ellis Island, but you really would be better off taking kids of a high school age to the site - they would probably understand it better and actually read the trillions of text-based exhibits. The kids who were there seemed to have been given a scavenger hunt to find facts and information around the site, but they seemed to better enjoy running from clue to clue than actually learning about what they were finding.

That being said, the first two hours of our jaunt into the river was pretty rough, but once the school kids cleared out just after lunch time, things quieted down and we were left with mostly fellow adult tourists, which I can deal with much easier.

A few words to the wise about visiting the Statue of Liberty (which I always want to call "Shashoo Liberty" for some reason) - book your ferry tickets early, your pedestal tickets earlier, and your crown tickets months in advance.

You must take a ferry to get to Liberty and Ellis Islands, of course, but many people (including me!) don't realize that you need to advance-purchase tickets to the observation pedestal under the statue (they are typically sold out one to two weeks in advance), and if you want to climb all the way up to the statue's crown, those tickets need to be bought three to six months in advance. Crazy! I don't know why I didn't realize these things, but at least we were able to get ferry tickets online ahead of time.

So, without further a-blah-blah, here come some pictures. I am starting out with pictures from the visit my dad, Patrick and I took to Liberty State Park the day Patrick arrived in New Jersey.


I like this one.

26 more images below; click any one to make it bigger in Photobucket.

Sandy Hook revisited

Much like Morristown National Historical Park, I have been visiting the Sandy Hook area of Gateway National Recreation Area since I was a kid, but never went there specifically for its role in the National Park System. My family used to go down there to swim all the time when my brother and I were kids - there were no gaudy boardwalks and piers to distract us from the ocean (which was probably very convenient, since I was - and perhaps still am - one of those kids who insisted their parents buy them something at every possible opportunity), and it's essentially the northernmost and thus closest expanse of beach along the Jersey shore.

Patrick and I went down on Monday, June 14 - it's generally a good idea to do all of one's shore-visiting on a weekday, because weekends get pretty ridiculous (Pat said that, when he came into New Jersey on June 12, it was the first time he'd ever heard a radio traffic report on a weekend - it was most likely for shore traffic).

Gateway National Recreation Area has sections both in New Jersey and New York; the Sandy Hook unit is the only one in New Jersey, and in New York it has areas on the southern shore of Staten Island and in Jamaica Bay in Brooklyn and Queens. I've never been to either of the New York areas, mostly because they're a pain in the ass to get to. Sorry, New York, but that's just the way it is.

The Value of History - Morristown, NJ

The second day of Patrick's visit - the first full day he spent in New Jersey - we decided to waste no time in starting our exploration of New Jersey's participation in the National Parks System. New Jersey only has four sites that are part of the NPS - five if you count the Statue of Liberty (which is considered in New York) - and two of them straddle state lines, so we had some looking around to do.

First on the lineup was Morristown National Historical Park, which I've visited a hundred times before but have never really appreciated as a part of the NPS. My town, Chatham, is right next to Morristown, so as kids we always went on field trips to the area - especially to Jockey Hollow, which is the area where Washington's troops spent their most horrid winter during the American Revolution. We visited the park on Sunday, June 13, which was a slightly cool and overcast day in the morning, but turned into a day of torrential downpour as time went on. But that's later.

Book excerpt: The Last Three Miles

In my last entry, I talked a bit about the roads in Northern New Jersey, in particular the Pulaski Skyway. It's not an easy road to drive—however, since I grew up driving these roads, I don't see them as such a big deal. While I had my learner's permit, even, I often had to navigate 13-lane toll plazas on the Turnpike in order to get to the mall. Ain't no thang. As a result, driving anywhere else in the country is downright simple. LA? You don't scare me none. Boston is downright user-friendly. Let's go tour around Oklahoma City, it's all good. See what I mean? Daaaamn right.


In that spirit, I'd like to present you with an excerpt from Steven Hart's book, The Last Three Miles: Politics, Murder, and the Construction of America's First Superhighway, a book about the Pulaski Skyway. I started reading it upon coming home, and admittedly I stalled (no pun intended) on page 100 of the 192-page book; it was a little dry for my taste and I couldn't really get into it. I'd be willing to give it another go, however, after rediscovering this passage, which is a truly evocative description of driving from the Holland Tunnel and across the Skyway. (The author is a born-and-bred New Jerseyan.)


Below is the excerpt, in bold.

Initiation By Tire

We're here, we're here. I didn't just forget about this blog, indeed no. We have simply been running around like complete and total maniacs, I haven't had time to update.

Patrick arrived here in New Jersey on June 12 (two Saturdays ago), and literally within a few hours of his arrival we started running around and seeing the sights all around New Jersey and New York - aaand we still haven't stopped (though, seeing as Pat pulled a muscle in his leg in Pennsylvania the other day, we are taking it easy at the moment). Patrick, who spent most of his life south of the Mason-Dixon, vowed to himself some time ago that there are two places on the planet he would never visit: New Jersey and New York City. Bwa ha ha ha ha ha!

But, I think I'm getting a bit ahead of myself. It's time to back up a little.

The reason I created this blog was so that people who, like I used to do, are wondering what it's like to hook up with a relative stranger and run away with said relative stranger, can know precisely what it is that happens amidst the flotsam and jetsam left over once these decisions are made. I think an important part of the story, then, is my relationship with Patrick - the ins and outs and terrifying moments and marvelous moments and the general struggle that you face when you're still coming out of one life and trying to force your way into another (in other words - hitting the Rebound Road).

bring me that horizon

Last anyone knew, my road trip was canceled. Finito. Done. Off. Patrick went back to Tennessee and called everything off and I came home to convalesce and I didn't know what was coming next in my life.

But then everything changed.

And everything changed again.

And before it had a chance to change the second time, it changed a third time.

And then things stayed the same for a second, then changed back again to before the second change but after the first change. So they were still gonna change but a bunch of other changes were annulled.

And here I am now - 10:42 pm Eastern time on Tuesday, June 8, and right this second I will say this:

The trip is back on.

Now, I noted the precise date and time because who knows what will happen at 10:50 pm or even 11:37 pm and don't even ask about 8:02 am. But right now, all systems are go.

Below the jump, find out WTF happened.

call the waaambulance, i have a waaamburger and some french cries.

"Reality" TV shows about New Jersey are all the rage right now. Of course there is the phenomenon of Jersey Shore, there's Cake Boss about some mafioso-esque bakers, and today (while indulging in some joyfully mindless America's Next Top Model reruns) I kept seeing commercials for Jersey Couture, which looks simply terrible.

Of course, anyone who knows anything about New Jersey knows that the only real "reality" show about NJ is not reality at all, but is in fact The Sopranos. But I digress.

For real, though, I am a bit notorious in Santa Fe for being New Jersey's most rabid fan. I love this state. I loved growing up in this state. I still call New Jersey "home." It's the best state in the union. America's best-kept secret. All those things.

So why is it so hard to be here?

I'm not talking the whole "oh gosh gee I actually got more used to Santa Fe than I thought!" or anything like that. (Though, the first night that I arrived home, I was following my dad to a diner and went to land a high-speed merge that I grew up with... and nearly got run off an overpass, slammed my car into the curb and ended up stopped dead in traffic for a minute or so. NJ driving fail... I bet they were all glaring at my New Mexico plates while they edged their Beemers around me.) This is a different kind of hard.

A while ago, I accepted that nothing happens by accident and that there is a reason for everything that has gone "wrong" in my life. When Patrick had to go back to Tennessee and call off our road trip, I was upset, sure - but I knew that there was a reason it was happening. I knew it would show itself in time.

I resolved to come home here to New Jersey for a while in order to relax, be unemployed, do some writing, relax, sleep, relax and relax. I was looking forward to it.

So why is it that I applied for four jobs tonight?

We are each the architect of our own destiny, but I can't seem to get my buildings to look like the blueprints. I wanted to live in the moment and be introspective, but all I can do is think about the future and the outward influences that will shape my next move. I wanted to take it easy, but I'm getting swept back into the current of being the stressball that I have been for the last forever-many-years. I have spent 10 years trying to lose weight and resolved to do so this summer (my excuse was always, "I'm too tired after work to go to the gym!"... well, what about when I don't have work?), but my grand kick-off has been foiled by a broken toe and, if the last decade is any indication, this time around may not go so well. It's hard to stay positive when you've been dealing with it for almost half your life.

So here I am. I'm not hungry, but I want to eat. I don't want to work, but I am applying for jobs. I want to take time to figure out what I am doing next, but I already have my heart set on moving to Knoxville. I want to travel a bit more and see a few more friends this summer, but I don't want to even begin to think about where the money to do so would come from. I just want to go to sleep, but I'm writing a stupid blog entry.

Maybe that's an indication that I should shut the hell up and go to bed.

It rained all day today - rain like I haven't seen in years. I missed rain. I missed water. I should go see the ocean. I should let the faucet run and not worry about it.

home again

I'm home now, after an uneventful drive from Hagerstown, Maryland to Chatham, New Jersey. I'm in my parents' house, sleeping in my old bedroom, sitting at the kitchen table, drinking coffee my mom made and eating bagels my dad bought. We went out to dinner last night with our neighbor and I had good old NJ diner food. Life is pretty good when you don't have to pay for anything. And when you're home. But mostly when you don't have to pay for anything.

Last night when we were getting ready for bed, my mom said, "Oh, shoot. Your bed isn't made. But the sheets and mattress pad are clean."

"GOD DAMN IT, MOM!" I exclaimed.

We both burst out laughing. I like being home. My dad even made me a sandwich yesterday while I sat at the table and did nothing.

It's May 17, and in a little more than a week I will be heading right back down to Knoxville to see Neil Young with Pat on May 27. I can't wait. But til then, I will hang out here in NJ, rest, clean my car, do my laundry, walk my dog, and generally enjoy myself.

Last night and today I spent a bunch of time uploading a sneak peek of my pictures to Facebook (if you're not my friend there, you should be - though my real name admittedly is not Chantal Bonney - that is merely my road name. Patrick's is Jackson Steel), and today I got the last of them uploaded to Photobucket. I divided them into albums based on location and will upload them here in separate entries.

So stay tuned.