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.