New Jersey's High Point

As we left our camping spot in the center of New Jersey, our route took us through the narrow streets of Princeton. Denisa was glad to have a great driver at the wheel as we made our way through this busy town.

This is an unusually long drive for us today--110 miles--and it took us close to three hours. We are finding that New Jersey miles are slow miles. We are trying to avoid the expensive toll-ways that run the length of the state, and we are winding our way through the many paved roads that are lined with mailboxes. This is one of the most densely populated states. Even when it seems we are far from any town, there are mailboxes every 100 yards. It's hard for a couple raised in Oklahoma to wrap our minds around how thickly populated these little states are. We headed to another Boondockers Welcome site, and they had flowers and a welcome sign set up in our private space by the barn.

We had our own view of the stream and the trees. The owner's house is over the bridge and out of sight. Lawrence met us to make sure that we were comfortable and happy with our site. He is retired from his work as a physician in New York City, and he shared very interesting stories with us. We have been privileged to meet so many wonderful people during our Boondockers Welcome stays!

Our hosts are also RVers, and he showed us his collection of foreign cars parked in the barn beside us. This is quite possibly the coolest motor home tow vehicle we have ever seen.

Our drive was up-hill today, as we are quite near the highest point in New Jersey now. In fact, after setting up the motor home we drove just a few miles in the pickup to get to High Point State Park. Again, we have to say "thank you" to New Jersey for making their state parks free to everyone--even out-of-staters. We would come to find how unusual that was before we finished our time in the northeast. At the top of the hill inside the state park, we arrived at the monument marking the 1,803-foot highest point in the state.

At the base of the stone monument, we are standing at the highest elevation on the Kittatinny Ridge, part of the Appalachian Mountain Range. From this point we can see parts of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York. We also met an Appalachian Trail through-hiker up here. It took an extra 0.4-mile hike to get to this over-look. We have wondered how often these long-haul hikers will opt to add extra miles to their journey to see a point of interest off the trail. We took a picture for him at this high point monument, and listened to his stories of his journey this far. It's always so interesting to us!

Just down the hill, we came to Marcia Lake, the highest lake in New Jersey. We thought it was lovely, with the monument reflecting in the mirror-like water. That pictures reminds us that we have wandered into another of God's wonders.

As we drove to several sections of this state park, we found several more glass-like lakes--with distant views of the highest-point monument.

We must be a little lazy this evening, as we normally would be inflating the kayak and exploring all those lakes. But instead, we headed back to the motor home just a few miles away. We need to get to bed early, because we are planning to leave early in the morning. While we enjoyed seeing New Jersey's highest point this evening, we are saving our energy for some more exercise tomorrow.