Nov 2007

Logistics:

Miles Driven - 116
Weather - Sunny & Clear, but cold and windy
Camped - Walmart in Mays Landing

Narrative:

I actually got up early, for a change, so we got a good start to our trip south to Cape May. We didn't know what to expect there, they had a lighthouse and beaches, but we expected we'd check them out quickly and get out of Dodge so to speak. The drive was lovely, the cold snap has really brought on the fall colors down here. We tried stopping at a couple of museums only to find they were closed for the season.

Mom did see a 'Hereford Lighthouse' on the map, so we decided to check it out. This one wasn't too tall, only 53 feet above sea level - but it protects a bay and can be seen for 13 miles, so that must be high enough. The light is built above the keeper's house, rather then in a separate tower. It was built in 1872 and housed a forth order Fresnel lens.

Here is the view of the beach & bay from the watch room just below the light:

This lighthouse had a museum also, but it was more of a lighthouse museum than a general museum as was the one in Stoneington, NH. They had a lot of information about the Lighthouse Keepers in Hereford. The first one was killed shortly after taking over when his boat sank as he was rowing back from the mainland (the bridge we drove over wasn't built until later.) We also learned that Fresnel is pronounced 'Frei-nel'. Wikipedia has a nice article explaining about why these are so special, the difference between the sizes (Hereford had a fourth order lens), etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fresnel_lens

Before electricity, lights were rotated using a mechanism similar to the gears, weights and pulleys in a grandfather clock. Also, there is usually a small room just below the light called a 'Watch Room'. During storms, the keeper was required to stay up at night and make sure the light stayed lit and 'watch' for any boats in distress. If a boat floundered, the keeper alerted the U. S. Life Saving Service (USLSS) nearby (which has since been absorbed into the U S Coast Guard).

Outside the Hereford Lighthouse is a very nice formal garden. (Yes, another Garden in The Garden State). Notice the flowers still blooming in November! There is also a sign that reads "Please don't chase butterfiles. This is their home"

We also found a book in the museum explaining why New Jersey is called "The Garden State". Basically because of New Jersey's location, it has plants and flowers from both the Northern States above it as well as the Southern States below it - it is sort of a transition zone area. In the past, both Native Americans and colonists were amazed at the beauty of the native flowers. One colonial brochure called the area "The Garden of America". While the region is much more populated now and much of it is covered in blacktop and strip malls, the name has stuck. Wildflowers still abound where ever they can get a foothold (they are probably more common in spring and summer). Also there are a few formal (if small) gardens open to the puplic as we've been finding.

After visiting the Hereford lighthouse, we continued driving south to Cape May, the far southern end of New Jersey. Cape May isn't hard to find, you pretty much just drive south until you run out of land. The 1859 lighthouse is the third one at the site (that can be documented anyway). The first two were lost to erosion, which is very severe in this area. This one is much taller than Hereford, at 157.5 feet tall.

For $6.00 you can climb up to the watch room, which I did. There are 199 steps from the bottom to the Watch Room just below the light. These steps are made of wrought iron and have hand rails on both sides as well as frequent turnouts in small alcoves, so the climb isn't too bad (if you aren't afraid of heights).

At the top, you can walk around the ring outside the lighthouse. It was very windy up there, so I took a couple of pictures of the view from the top and went back inside. Notice the RV at the far end of the parking lot.

One of the workers at the lighthouse, Percy, was in the watch room at the top to answer visitor questions (and probably check to make sure climbers are still breathing). He was also kind enough to allow me to photograph the light up above, but I couldn't go up there because it is still a working USCG light.

You might be wondering why the RV was parked at the far end of the parking lot? When we drove in, we found out that Cape May is considered the "Raptor Capital of North America". The interpretive signs and viewing platforms were all over there, at the end of the parking lot. When we arrived, a local school group was doing a field trip to view hawks and other raptors. Tony was one of their escorts and we swapped travel stories briefly. He also told me a little about what was so special about this area, because so many raptors migrate through her in the fall. I guess Mom and I weren't the only folks who were a bit chilly today!

Of course, I guessed wrong as to how to organize my visit. When we first got there, I did see hawks and a vulture over the pond. I figured I'd climb the lighthouse first, then come back and take pictures of the raptors. However when I got back from the lighthouse, there were no more birds. I should know better than to assume anything about wildlife behavior by now! However, I was able to walk around a bit and learned some more about the flora and fauna in the area.

Common Reed, as this is called, is a native invasive plant, it chokes out other wetlands plants - but it's pretty when the sun shines through it.

While at the visitors center for the lighthouse, I also learned that a beach down the road a bit was the source of a so called "Cape May Diamond". These aren't diamonds at all, but Agates that can be polished to look like glass, but they're much harder of course. Since we missed the copper mine in MT and another gem mine in NH - I decided to check this out. Sunset Beach in Cape May is a happening place in the summer - wall to wall people. However, in November, with a cold wind blowing, we had no trouble parking. There is an old wreck not very far off the beach that makes the rough wave action even worse. Agates wash down the Delaware River and get tossed around pretty good, giving them a sort of natural polishing action. They lay all over the beach, mostly whites, but other shades as well including translucent ones. I picked up a handful or so, the clear ones I could find were all very small, but I thought it might be nice to pick up enough to share with friends back home. (The picture on the right is after being in a rock polisher for three weeks, the ones I picked up don't look like that of course.)

On the way out of Cape May, we stopped to fill up our propane tanks and noticed one of the gas station attendants wasn't working as hard as the others (ho, ho):

We did make it up to Atlantic City finally, but got there so late the lighthouse was closed (the Casino''s weren't). Mom lost the map for a time and the GPS software wouldn't fire up (looks like one of my two USB ports is going bad) so we had quite a time finding our way out of town. I think I drove almost across NJ before finally getting almost back to Atlantic City to find the Walmart we were looking for (another hour and a half drive to go ten miles). I guess it wouldn't be much of an adventure if we didn't get lost once in awhile. But now it's late again - and after I swore I would start going to bed at a more reasonable hour. Oh well, there's always tomorrow...

Logistics:

Miles Walked - at least one (to the RV Office to pay for a second day)
Camped (same place as last night)

Narrative:

OK - I 'cheated' a bit today and decided to stay put. It started raining last night, but cleared up this afternoon, but it was a good excuse to work inside today. I considered saying over another day last weekend when we were in New York, but since the campground wasn't open Sunday night, I had to gave up on that plan. We're in a nice campgound now and I do have decent internet service here (dial up modem, but it's reasonable), I tried to get a few chores done, paid some bills, contacted a couple of vendors about problems, etc.

Mom read a couple of books and worked on a jigsaw puzzle. We also went through her pictures from September and are printing out several pages on paper for her friends without internet connections. Boy do we take a lot of pictures!

Status of Blog & Questions:

(1) Trip Map: I don't update the Map very often (just lazy I suppose). When I do, I'll always post it in a separate blog entry. The reason for this is that it takes a LONG time to load unless you have very high speed internet. So, if you don't have great internet service, you may just want to skip the map.

(2) Photo Editing: Somebody mentioned using Photoshop or other software to fix shots? I don't usually have time, so most shots are just like they are taken. The one exception is cropping. Since the blog only uses 800 x 600 resolution, rather than resize some photo's, especially of birds, I'll crop the section with the bird only. This is effectively lusing a digital zoom that multiplies the 12x optical zoom on my camera.

On one occasion, I did edit out somebody who didn't want to be on the picture (sloppy, but effective). I always try to ask people if it's OK to put their picture up on the internet, if they say "No", then I don't use it. The one exception was a shot that really added some value to the blog for that day, but had one guy I just in the wrong place (& frowning at me with the camera).

Most of the time I use a freeware program called Irfanview, that I really love. It allows me to resize pictures to the 800 x 600 used by Travellerspoint in batches. So first I sort the pictures I've taken for the day and select which ones to upload (Honest - I DO NOT upload most of the pictures I take!) If any need to be cropped, I do that next. Finally, I convert them all to 800 x 600 (or smaller sometimes if cropped), then upload them. After uploading photo's, I have to go through them on travellerspoint and add titles and descriptive information.

I do have photoshop now, it came in a bundle with their video editing software. It has a few nice capabilities that Irfanview doesn't, so I may use it on occasion - but for the most part, the pictures you see aren't doctored very much, if at all.

(3) Status of Old Blog Entries: When I first started the trip, I went through some kind of learning curve as to doing the trip, taking & uploading photos, and writing blog entries. I started falling farther and farther behind - so I decided to start updating the blog on a current basis and keep that up to date - with the intention to go back later and get the older dates caught up.

One of the things I worked on today was that 'catch up' stuff. I didn't edit the old entries yet, but have now gotten all photo's uploaded (that I plan to upload anyway - not video's, but still shots). You can see them in my photo album, but I recommend you wait until they're posted in blog entries (my photo album has gotten quite large as you can imagine). So anyway, I haven't forgotten the old entries (these are marked with "Placeholder" in the title) - made some major progress today - will let you know when I get the rest done.

(4) Video's: So far, I've just been able to upload single shot video's without any editing (ugh). There are some great shots I haven't uploaded because I was waiting to edit them and some less than great shots I did upload because I was tired of waiting. Anyway, I do have Adobe Elements software now and have loaded it on the laptop. I don't know when I'll get around to editing video's, but would like to try. Will have to keep you posted...

- In sum, I'm glad to start getting a few things done - but would prefer to be out seeing new things, not sitting in the RV all day! After all, we're on the trip to see the country, not the inside of my RV. Maybe we still need some more downtime, but it will have to wait. I think we both want to get back on the road tomorrow.

Logistics:

Miles Driven - 126
Weather - Absolutely Fabulous! (Sunny, mid 60's, little wind until late afternoon)
Camped at - Lake & Shore RV Resort, Ocean View, NJ (20 miles south of Atlantic City)

Narrative:

It was cold last night, mid to lower 40's, but we were snug enough in the rig. While there are all sorts of political issues and valid concerns about Wal-mart, I SO MUCH appreciate their RV friendly attitude! I'd often be willing to pay for a campground - but can't find many open this time of the year in the northern states. I'd probably just park on any old side street, but Mom seems to get stressed thinking some policeman might wake us up and tell us to move in the middle of the night (so what, we move then) - so anyway, it's nice to know we can park someplace relatively safe (lighted, with security camera's, and where overnight parking is allowed).

Anyway, I digress. Again this morning we found ourselves driving through strip malls for the first couple of hours - then I saw a sign saying lighthouses and beaches were out on Hwy 72. Mom pointed out that it would be at least ten miles out of our way, but I figured I was tired of just driving through strip malls so I just turned, no plan, just did it.

We drove over a long bridge over the intercoastal waterway and onto an island. It was very heavily populated with large, two and three story houses packed in fairly tightly - but this was clearly a seaside community. The Chamber of Commerce had a nice visitors center with a very helpful staff who gave us a map of the island and pointers on what to see. At the far north (nine miles away) was the lighthouse (the island is about 18 miles long and can be as narrow as 1/4 mile wide). The bridge connects the mainland to the middle of the island. I decided we wouldn't have time to drive both directions, so focused on driving to the north end.

By the time we got to the lighthouse, the weather had warmed up considerably and was just incredible for November - mid 60's, no wind, clear and sunny. If you don't go to a beach (or someplace nice) on a day like today it's almost a shame. This is the Barnegat Lighthouse on the north end of Long Beach, New Jersey:

At 165 feet, it is by far the tallest lighthouse we've seen yet. It was built in 1858 by George Meade, later of Civil War fame. It was retired in 1944 and is now a state park. As with any seaside area (and most of the inland area's as well we've learned), there were plenty of seagull's looking for something to eat. I thought this was a little unusual lunch fare however, but maybe not for seagulls:

We spent some time enjoying the lighthouse, fishermen, and shore area at the state park, then drove on to look for the lighthouse museum the visitiors center had told us about. The museum was closed for the season, but guess what - they had a nice little garden outside. Yes, I finally found a garden in 'The Garden State'. Of course this time of year there isn't much in bloom, but it was still a lovely little spot (especially on such a lovely day). (I'm not too happy with the pictures I got, but since it's the first garden we've come to in the garden state, thought I'd better prove that there actually was one.)

Mom said she wanted to actually visit a beach on the Atlantic Ocean since we were close to it again. (I was trying to hurry along a little bit), but I didn't mind going to a beach again either - so we pulled over (it was at least 1/2 block out of our way!) We were both a little surprised at how soft and white the sand was here. The tide was out and there were lots and lots of shells, real atlantic ocean waves (vs. ripples in the more protected bays and coves), sand dunes and even a butterfly!

Finally, I couldn't leave Long Beach without taking at least one picture of the quaint, seaside ambiance we found there:

I'm not sure why we ever left the beach, maybe because there was no RV camping allowed? Oh well, we headed back inland and south again towards Atlantic City. Even though I'm not the least bit interested in the whole Trump Towers thing, the Boardwalk & Park Place connection should be fun given how much Monopoly we've played over the years.

At least as we drove south from Hwy 72, the strip malls finally started thinning out and we started seeing older, more historic villages and some rural scenery again. We were both interested to see the forests in eastern NY, PA and now also New Jersey don't seem to have much underbrush. I suppose they looked this way during the Revolutionary War, which wouldn't provide much cover.

We continued to look for interesting places to stop and investigate, but most had closed for the season. Just before we got to Atlantic City however was a sign for "Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge".

http://www.fws.gov/northeast/forsythe/

We both joked about how every time we stop at a wildlife viewing area, we don't see a thing - but we see plenty of wildlife away from the marked stops. I had a bunch of cars stacked up behind me however, so pulled over to let them by. Somehow, when I pulled back onto the road I had decided to check out the NWR (maybe it's because we hadn't seen much else to stop at today).

The first thing I found interesting is how the NWR is tucked in right next to glitz city, USA:

This NWR has an 8 mile one-way dirt road (Wild Life Trail) that takes you into the wetlands area over dikes. This is actually the preferred way to view the park, as less foot traffic (& human interaction) helps preserve the place for wild life. The speed limit on this trail is 15 mph, but we probably averaged a lot slower and stopped often. This time, we actually did see a lot of birds at a wildlife refuge (and a deer).

Because we saw so many cool birds, I'm just going to display the thumbnails below. You can click to enlarge these if you want - plus a bonus. I'm not a birder, but sometimes also get tired of labeling my photo's as 'Birds'. This time, I used the recent survey the NWR posts of what birds have been spotted and a lot of Wikipedia research to identify what most of the birds are in my photo's! (And Mom wonders why it takes me so long to update the blog every night!)

An finally, when we were almost at the end of the Wild Life Loop Trail, we passed this. I could have saved all that time and just posted one photo for a whole bunch of different birds!

After spending so much time at the beach and watching birds, it was too late to go to Atlantic City. I suppose must people probably don't even start out there until dusk, but I was tired and didn't want to mess with it until morning. So we located an RV park about 20 miles south of Atlantic City that was still open (Yeh!) and headed off. On the way, we stopped at a little, Greek family restaraunt - the Athena. It's worth mentioning. It caught my eye because the sign said they did all their own baking on premises, so we went in. At first, the prices seemed a little high to me (for a 'family' restaraunt). However, we soon learned that the prices were all inclusive, beverage, salad, and dessert as well as the meal. In addition, the food was excellent and way too much for either Mom nor I to finish - so we'll get at least two meals out of our dinner.

I probably should have bought some rolls for breakfast tomorrow, but was too stuffed to think about any more food, so took our 'doggie' boxes and drove on to the campground. (We used the GPS tonight, thank goodness - we were both too tired, and full, to mess with trying to navigate down here in the dark).

The weather is supposed to turn bad again tonight and the campground here is quite nice so I may stay over a day and try to get the things caught up that I didn't do Sunday (maybe even that section of the blog that never got updated, edit some video's, etc.) Tune in tomorrow and find out...

Logistics:

Miles Driven - 156
Weather: Overcast, Cool (low 50's) but dry
Camped: Wal-Mart in mid- New Jersey somewhere

Narrative:

I've decided to drop the summary, seems like I was just repeating what's in the Sub Heading, so I'll try to make sure that summarizes the day properly going forward.

Actually, I hope (someday) to go back and update all the blog entries, standardize them, edit & improve - probably the same time I get all my pictures at home organized and all the other 'round tuit's caught up... With global warming, are we at risk Hell won't freeze over as quickly as we'd planned?

So I spent the entire 'day off' cleaning up my laptop hard drive and didn't get the blog caught up or some of the other things done that needed doing. Sounds just like being at home to me?

We decided to drive down Hwy 209, a back road, rather then go back to the Interstate - slower, but more pleasant. New York is interesting, they put all sorts of little blue infomative signs all over the place - not always earth shattering however. For the most part, there is also no place to pull over when you see the signs, so I'm not sure how you're supposed to read them! We have learned that some French Huguenots settled in New York in the 1600's and formed the towns of New Paltz and Huguenot. We also learned (from these signs) that a tavern once stood near our campground of last night, that some indians scalped some settlers near Huguonot, that a Mrs. Rohner lived by the road in Port Jervis and holds the world record for being a Den Mother the longest - 43 years. I wonder if they'd put up a blue sign for me having the longest blog entries?

As we continued to drive south on Hwy 209, we saw several signs about a D&H Canal. We pulled over at a park for the D&H Canal and learned this was another canal built around 1825 between the Delaware and Hudson Rivers (D&H)to bring coal to New York City. The canal is mostly gone now, but can be seen in a few places where it has been preserved, like this park.

This was where a wooden aqueduct carried the canal (& barge traffic) over the Neversink River.

We also stopped at the "Erie Turnstile" in Port Jervis (named after the man who got the D&H Canal going). There wasn't a museum or much to see there, just the turnstile:

We passed a few museums on this route, but they were all closed.

Finally, we got to a town called Milford, which was fairly interesting looking in it's own right (old, victorian style buildings) - but I pulled off because I saw a sign saying "Milford Beach". Mom hadn't been able to pick up any sand for several days, it seems a lot of the east coast rivers don't have much access to them, so thought I'd give this one a try. This was a National Park on the Delaware River - mostly mud banks (I got a fair amount on me when I slipped), but Mom found some sand. It was a very nice spot, right under the Milford Bridge - so we stayed there for lunch.

After we crossed this bridge, we were in New Jersey. At first, we enjoyed the state forest along the Delaware River corridor. We also drove through some nice farmland and small communities. However, as we skirted around Newark (we were trying to avoid it, but I guess we got too close - or it just takes up a good portion of the state?) - we got back into what I'd tried to avoid - strip malls for the next 50 miles or so. It was Sunday afternoon and the traffic was bad. Not only that, New Jersey drivers are the rudest we've encountered so far - maybe the people are nice if you get to know them, but on the road they are just strange!

I'm trying to develop a thick enough skin to survive until we get out of this area (and Maryland I suspect), I promise to ignore meaningless honking, drivers that pull out in front of you - then fail to step on the gas, drive around you to the right (on a right turn exit only lane) just because you're an RV, etc.

We stopped at one place, a "Craig House" historic site - I believe it was the site of a Revolutionary War battle, but it seems to have been closed for the season. I did take a picture of a mushroom at least?

Oh well, we found a Wal-mart (most campgrounds are closed around here now) and have pulled over for the night. Will skirt around the southern end of NJ tomorrow and hopefully make it to Philadelphia tomorrow. NJ's nickname is "The Garden State" - I haven't found any yet, but will keep looking.

Logistics:

Miles Walked - 1 (to the office & back for laundry quarters!)
Weather - Overcast & cool, no rain or wind here however

Narrative:

We are fine. There was a big storm Saturday, but it didn't make it this far inland. It was overcast and cool, but no wind or rain. The campground was nice, we had a chance to get the rig cleaned up and organized a bit, got our laundry done. The hard drive on my laptop was almost full however (60G), so I spent a good part of Saturday cleaning that up - I copied most of my photographs to DVD's. I also set up an external hard drive I'd purchased and started backing up the laptop (just in case, you never know). This took several more hours, so I never got a chance to get back on the internet and update the blog. We considered staying over another day, but the resort wasn't going to stay open Sunday night and they wanted $4.00 to use their wi-fi for the day Sunday - so I figured I'd just work on it later (e.g., tonight).

I also thought since we weren't travelling Saturday, it would be a good time to reflect a bit on the trip, blog, or whatever (this would be a good time to exit out if you're not into long digressions).

- I wanted to take the trip to see parts of the country I'd never visited before (like New England). I also wanted to reconnect with how rural many parts of the country are (and get away from strip malls for awhile).

These parts of the trip have greatly exceeded my expectations. While we have gotten back into urban area's at times, most of the time we've driven through very beautiful countryside. Even most of the more populated area's seem to have a lot of countryside around them (the Catskills in New York, not too far from New York City, but very lovely). I would have to say that the amount of rural countryside is far greater than I expected, it's just that we tend to live & work in urban area's so maybe we forget that there's plenty of open space not so far away?

- I thought I was reasonably well educated, that I knew our geography and history somewhat well, had read the more important literary works.

No, I'm beginning to think I was fairly clueless! I didn't set out on the trip to 'learn', but what a learning opportunity and experience this has been. Not a day goes by where I don't say at least once, "I didn't know that". Mom and I are both learning a lot about geography, history, and all sorts of interesting things. It's especially interesting to me to see how things fit together - how the geography of one area affects the history (Plymouth vs Cape Cod for the Pilgrims, or how Lexington & Concord and Bunker Hill all are related to the Revolutionary War and the birth of this Nation).

I wish there was some way the experiences of such a trip could be captured more effectively for students (of all ages). I don't know if I just wasn't as good a student as I thought I was, or if books just aren't the most effective teaching tool - but this has really been an education.

- I wanted to connect a little bit with early explorers such as Lewis & Clark. They undertook a massive expedition under very difficult circumstances and succeeded.

The RV is quite small for two people, but of course our trip is not nearly the challenge Lewis & Clark faced. Still, I can relate somewhat to their experience. How much effort it must have taken for them to write in their journals during the trip with powdered ink and quill pens! They also had to draw pictures of new plants or animals they observed, whereas I have digital camera's and laptop computer with (generally) internet access. Still, I'm up late most nights trying to capture the day's events. If they ran out of food or supplies, they had to make do with what they could hunt or gather in the woods. We can stop and buy supplies, but still have to manage what we have and plan excursions accordingly.

When we first left and were driving the midwest and during the warmer months, there were other RV travellers on the road and in that part of the country - nobody really noticed us. Now that we've gotten to the Northeast (and late in the year), we're not seeing many RV's. Not only that, but it seems local people don't see quite as many RV'ers - we get a lot more 'looks' and questions. Some people seem surprised to see a couple of older women taking on a trip like this. Several people seem to be somewhat inspired ('I hope to do this someday' - type comments.)

- To go/not to go

Before I left (and sometimes since), I've had a lot of misgivings about the cost of the trip. A lot of people have also asked me how I could afford to do something like this. The truth is I probably can't. I'm 'robbing' my retirement kitty to do this. A prudent financial planner, which I usually am, would never do such a thing. However, I am increasingly convinced that this is worth it. I can and will go back to work when I get home and rebuild my retirement savings. But I don't know if I'd have ever taken this trip 'later', there would probably always be good reasons not to go - maybe 'later' I'd just be too old myself (to say nothing about Mom not being able to do it, she's 80 now). I may have to work longer to pay for this, but I know now that I will have a lifetime of experiences to cherish - it would be hard to put a price on all this, but I now know that it is worth it.

- Blog (especially since it keeps me up too late, almost always)

(1) I want to keep this so when I get back, I can remember all the cool places we went and saw and did.
(2) I don't remember things very well, so almost have to write this daily, before I've forgotten it all,
(3) It's fun to share something so fun with other people.

On that note, I especially want to thank the folks who add comments to the blog!

It really helps to know that all this effort is of some value to someone besides myself. Whether I write too much or too little, put in too many or too few photo's is hard to tell absent feedback. More importantly however, comments keep a dialog going and make the experience a little more interactive, so if you haven't done so already (and I haven't put you to sleep tonight yet), please sign up for a Traveller's Point membership (it's free) so you can post comments!

Maybe I can't follow every bit of advise or change everything as suggested, but you never know - maybe I can sometimes also (especially if I know what it is people want). And, it makes this more of a conversation!

FINALLY - bet you thought I'd never get here just in case you thought I got through today without taking pictures, here are a couple I snapped in the campground: