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.

New York City from afar--our favorite way to visit NYC on this trip

While we are staying in central New Jersey, we have one other road trip day planned. We are heading northeast toward the northern hook of land that is called Sandy Hook. On our way, we are stopping by Highlands, New Jersey, to see a famous lighthouse that guards the entrance to the New York Harbor--the Navesink Twin Lights.

Built in 1862, it is a steep drive uphill to get to the top of the bluff overlooking the shore. In fact, their website says that this is the tallest landmass on the Atlantic Coast between Maine and South America. If you build a lighthouse on top of a hill, you don't have to build it as tall.

In fact, you might as well build two, facing different directions to get a two-fer lighthouse special. It took a panorama photo to get both lighthouses in the same picture with Denisa in the middle.

This is a nice stop that includes a free museum. Denisa's favorite exhibit included the men's and women's bathing suits that were appropriate in the 1800's. Most people wouldn't have a bathing suit in their normal wardrobe, so these wool (yes, we said wool) bathing suits were available to rent at the beach.

A separate building housed the lens that was installed in the south tower in 1898. It was made in Paris, France, and brought to the United States for the Chicago World's Fair. Then it found its home here in the Highlands of New Jersey.

While we were admiring the old lighthouse lens, Rocky stopped in and started a conversation. He lives down the hill, so his daily exercise program includes hiking up that steep hill and making a loop walk. We think he also enjoys the opportunity to visit with tourists that are hanging out at the lighthouses. He proudly wears his Air Force cap, and we asked him about his time in the military. Believe it or not, Rocky is 97 years old and was a flight engineer on a B-17 in World War II. It was a pleasure to hear his stories this morning.

We drove down the hill, and entered the neck of land that has ocean on both sides. This sandy hook also has beaches, but our main goal is to visit the lighthouse at the end. A gate controls the traffic to the beaches, and visitors pay $25 for a beach parking pass. But when we told the gate attendant that we were heading to the very tip to visit Fort Hancock, there was no charge. We just couldn't park at the beach parking lots that we will pass on the way.

We drove the six miles to as far as the road goes on this hook of land. That brought us to the old Fort Hancock--a large military installation now in disrepair. Denisa got her lighthouse picture of the Sandy Hook Lighthouse, that has been hanging out here on the hook since 1764. It is the oldest working lighthouse in the United States.

From there we could ride our bikes on the trail to a view point over the dunes at the end of Sandy Hook. Now looking to the north, we can see the outline of a huge metropolis across the Hudson River Bay.

With the camera lens zoomed in, we can see the entire skyline of New York City. We're about 16 miles from the city from where we are standing on the tip of Sandy Hook in New Jersey.

A ship is crossing under the Verazzano Bridge--a place that we cruised under on a fall foliage cruise 13 years ago. We have been to New York City a couple times, and we don't have any plans to visit it on this trip. Cities and motor homes don't mix well. So it is fun to visit New York City from afar today.

We biked to another viewpoint, and this one had a display that pointed out some of the tallest towers that we could see from here.

Now we can put names to some of the buildings that we are seeing on the horizon.

It was an older display, so it didn't have the new One World Trade Center. Built where the twin towers once stood, the new Trade Center is 1776 feet at the top of its antenna. That height is symbolic of the year the Declaration of Independence was signed. That height makes it one of the tallest buildings on the New York City skyline.

We could also see the rides at Coney Island from our view point.

If anyone is waiting for something that was shipped on a slow boat from China, it may be on this large cargo ship that is on its way to the eastern harbor.

It was fun to watch the boat traffic in the Hudson Bay.

Also from that view point, we could look south to the beaches on the ocean side of this sandy hook. It's a good thing that the images are blurry at the "G" Beach--also known as the "clothing optional beach."

When we had stopped to talk to the gate keeper, we reiterated that without paying the $25 beach parking we must not stop at any of the beaches. The gate keeper saw our bikes on the back of the pickup and told us that we could park at the lighthouse, and ride our bikes south on the bike trail to the beach for free. So that's exactly what we did.

We rode right on past Beach G, and stopped in at Beach D instead.

It was a hang-on-to-your-hat windy kind of day at the beach. The waves were whipping up into a furry.

She couldn't find many shells on this long beach, so Denisa had to improvise with some drift wood on this long beach. 

S-H stands for Sandy Hook, and we can check another New Jersey beach off our list today.

While Denisa was playing with sea shells, Mark was taking more pictures of New York City, this time with the waves crashing in the foreground.

It was an interesting picture of NYC from afar!

As we left Sandy Hook, we saw that the kite boarders were taking full advantage of the brisk sea winds. 

We also got another perspective of the Twin Lighthouses, as they are poking out of the hill top as we passed by on highway 1.

It's a slow road, but we enjoyed driving straight south on the highway that runs closest to the ocean. We didn't have any preconceived opinions about New Jersey before we made this trip, but we were impressed with the number of jaw-droppingly huge houses that we saw as we drove near the coast. We drove through the town of Long Branch, and enjoyed this postcard-like mural.

The parking at most of these beach towns gets much easier in the evening. While they require a beach badge to get down on the sand, a stroll on the board walk is always free. It's a good place to get some exercise on this cool evening.

We drove on to Bradley Beach, where a flower-filled town sign begged for another picture.

We actually stopped at Bradley Beach because we spotted some live music going on at the pavilion beside the ocean. Mark is great at making fast u-turns when we see something interesting. We sat for a while and enjoyed the music and the waves.

We started the day with a lighthouse, and we'll end it with our third of the day. This is Sea Girt Lighthouse. It's at the end of a residential street now, and a little difficult to find. But we are becoming very experienced at locating lighthouses this summer. 

Our shadows made a long silhouette on our last New Jersey beach today. It was a nice day of beach-hopping and lighthouse shopping here on the northern coast of New Jersey! And for an added bonus, we even got to visit New York City from afar--our favorite way to see that city on this trip.

A Historical New Jersey Day

After a couple days at the Jersey Shore, we moved the motor home 32 miles in-land to full-hookups at Timberland Lake Campground near Cream Ridge, New Jersey. That puts us right in the center of the state. While staying in central New Jersey, we have a road trip planned to visit some historical sites. The first stop is Trenton, where we found another state house undergoing some major renovation. In fact, the entire front of the state capitol is shrouded in scaffolding with a backhoe digging up the front lawn. We have seen pictures of the glittering gold dome of this state house, but it was under wraps today. The capitol wasn't exactly looking its best for our visit.

It isn't just the front facade that is undergoing major work. Our tour guide took us to this side view, where she explained that the New Jersey capitol has been added to like leg-o blocks over the years. It looks like the leg-os don't fit together very well, as we saw different styles and colors of exteriors in the additions. Because New Jersey has chosen to add on instead of starting over with a whole new state house, this is the second oldest continuously used state capitol in the U.S. Maybe when all of the renovation is over, it will be beautiful.

We did get to tour most of the inside of the building, including both houses of the legislation.

This elaborate light fixture in the senate is one of the crown jewels of the entire state house. It is so big that it has to be lowered to the ground to change bulbs and clean it.

The senate looks like a very ornate marble room, but we would find out later that New Jersey cut some corners when they built their capitol.

For example, they cut some space up in the gallery of the Senate. Mark couldn't sit here long with his knees jammed into the back of the seat in front of him.

We also found that the marble wasn't really marble. It is actually scagliola, a method of painting a surface to make it look like marble. When we looked more carefully, we could see seams down the back of this "marble" column that was cracking apart.

The tour guide explained that much of what looks like wood is not wood. This is actually concrete, painted to look like wood--on top of the concrete painted to look like marble.

The central dome section of the state house was--you guessed it--closed to the public because of renovation. We have a picture because our tour guide gave us a postcard with a picture of the rotunda. 

She mentioned (and we have to agree) that the color choices in the dome make is look like a fried egg.

We've read that Amish quilts always include a misplaced square because only God is perfect. The craftsman working on the state house must have agreed with that philosophy. You can look at the stair case rail to see the imperfection.

This stain glass window is actually on the ceiling of a public area in the capitol. It includes some of New Jersey's most famous landmarks. We could use this window as a check list of places we hope to visit before we leave the state.

"What is New Jersey" is the answer to the Jeopardy question "From what state capitol can you see another state out the window?" Through that window down the hall in the New Jersey state house we could see Pennsylvania. That question was actually used on the Jeopardy game show.

After our state house tour, we explored the downtown area of Trenton. Across the street is the state's World War II memorial, honoring the "greatest generation" of veterans.

We also stopped by the New Jersey State Museum, and then The Old Barracks Museum. We could have spent much more time seeing the historical sights of Trenton, but we had more places to explore in western New Jersey.

Our next stop would take us over one of the narrowest two-way bridges we have ever crossed. We almost touched mirrors with the vehicles we were meeting as we crossed this river bridge. We're sure glad that we were in the pickup today, instead of the motor home. By crossing that bridge, we were in Pennsylvania.

That bridge is crossing the Delaware River, and that is why we are here. This is where General George Washington's army of 2,400 continental soldiers crossed this river on December 25, 1776. He devised that plan to secretly move his troops to surprise attack the enemy troops camped 9 miles away on the other side of the river in Trenton.

We are visiting the Washington Crossing Park, a Pennsylvania state and national historical site. It includes some old buildings that are currently undergoing refurbishment thanks to the Toyota Foundation. 

A few displays were open, including the barn where the Durham boats are housed. We got to see examples of these boats that were used for that night-time river crossing in 1776.

We watched the film at the visitor center, and learned a lot about that trip across the Delaware River, and its ramification to the American Revolution. Up to this time, the new American army had lost all of its battles to the better trained and equipped British forces. We have seen the painting of Washington crossing the Delaware in our history books at school, and it was part of the film. It was interesting that a display also noted the inaccuracies in this famous painting. A few of them are: ice forms in sheets on the Delaware, not chunks like painted; these Durham boats were designed to haul cargo--not people--so no seats were in the boats, so everyone would have been standing; a boat this size couldn't have held that many passengers; the "Betsy Ross flag" in the painting was not used by the army at this time; etc.

We crossed that narrow bridge again, to put us back in New Jersey and the Washington Crossing state park. It was 4:00 a.m. when the Continental Army assembled again on this side of the Delaware River to begin their nine-mile march to Trenton to battle the British forces. 

A raging winter storm made things more difficult for these tired and hungry and very cold soldiers. They weren't allowed to light fires to warm up, or even to speak lest the enemy forces should learn of their advances. They marched through this very path on that night that would change history. It was a very educational and inspirational visit!

On this day filled with historical visits, we are now headed to the Howell Living History Farm. This has been a working farm for over 200 years. When the Howell family donated it to this New Jersey county, they agreed to keep it running and looking like it did around 1900.

A working farm has to have a milk cow, and we arrived about the time she needed to be milked.

A working farm needs horses to pull plows and wagons, and these were beautifully brawny animals.

A working farm needs chickens, and these hens have been working all day long.

We were there when the eggs needed to be gathered, and they asked Denisa to help. We found 12 eggs this afternoon. Denisa hasn't gathered eggs since she was a little girl visiting her grandparents' farm.

A working farm needs a herd of sheep, and these woolly creatures were looking for shade with their wool coats on this warm summer afternoon.

One thing a working farm in 1900 doesn't have is air-conditioning. We enjoyed our time at this working farm that Mercer county provides as free to visitors. They seemed very happy to have us this afternoon, but we were hot and ready to move on to our next location.

We moved on to another historical site--the Clarke family farm just outside the city of Princeton, New Jersey. After the battle win in Trenton after Washington's crossing of the Delaware, the two forces met again here on January 3, 1777.

It was in this open field in front of the Clark house that the Battle of Princeton was fought. We are running into lots of American Revolutionary historical sights here in New Jersey.

Princeton, New Jersey, is probably best known for the historical university that has been here since 1746. 

We finally found a parking place, and then took a walk around this campus filled with beautiful Gothic buildings.

We didn't have a guide or a map, as we wandered from one historical building to the next. It is evening by now, so we have no guidance from the visitor center.

But it was pretty easy to find the centerpiece of the campus--the Princeton University Chapel. This building is huge, and you can barely see Denisa standing on the right side of the big front doors. We had read about its beautiful interior and stain glass windows. But it was closed except to students with IDs. So we were forced to admire it from the outside.

While the buildings are lovely, we were surprised that the grounds were so plain. It has been a dry and hot summer here in New Jersey, and the grass on campus was brown and crispy. The only flowers we found was this bed of handsome lilies.

This has been a very full and busy historical New Jersey day. We've seen the state capitol city, Washington's crossing of the Delaware River, a 1900's working farm, the battlefield from the Battle of Princeton, and toured an Ivy League campus. Whew--we're worn out! Who knew that history could be so tiring?!?