New Jersey Baby Boomer

Yesterday was Father’s Day, and like many, we decided to visit my Dad’s grave. The weather was cloudy and rainy at the time when we visited, and because of it the balloons that were brought to decorate graves were bowing more than standing tall. Dad was buried in October of 2005, 2+ years ago, and I miss him still. The night before Father’s Day my daughter visited her Dad, we had a lot of laughs, and also a few tears. I started talking a bit about the day he died, and she drew more out of me than I thought I’d share. He died at home in the bed that he shared with my Mom for over 50 years, I was staying with Mom because we knew the time was close, and was able to be with him at the end, which, even though he had been ill for over 5 years, still seemed to come suddenly.

As I stood next to his grave at the beautiful, peaceful George Washington Memorial Park graveyard, I thanked the Lord that Dad was now with Him; and as my husband and I tried everything we could to get the balloons to stand rather than bow, I laughed and said “Dad, if you can see us, you see we’re trying to figure things out, just like you did with every little thing”…Dad was a brilliant engineer.

Below is a statue that I love that is at the entrance to the Cemetery of George Washington on bended knee with head bowed in prayer. It is better seen “in person” as it is a large statue, and beautifully detailed. The side view is even better than this, maybe next time I’ll capture that…my husband took this one quickly in the rain.

I hope all of you had a special day yesterday remembering your Dad’s, enjoying your Dad’s, or watching your children enjoy their Dad’s.

When we went on our trip a bit over a week ago, from a distance, I was able to capture the Twin Lights that are situated in the Navesink Highlands. These historic lights were originally built in 1828, and then rebuilt of area brownstone in 1862. Today they are much like they were when rebuilt, but are no longer operating lighthouses.

Sitting about 200 feet above sea level, when in operation, one light remained stationary while the other flashed. The lights brought cargo and other ships safely into New York Harbor on the Atlantic Coast.

It was interesting to me to see two lights, as most of us are more accustomed to seeing just one. These were built with the light house keepers area, and rooms for storage built between, and connecting the two towers.

Twin Lights was decommissioned in 1949, then purchased by the State of New Jersey as a historic monument and is a museum today. If you visit, you can climb one of the towers and view the beautiful Atlantic Ocean. Enjoy the exhibits showing the history while your there.

As a boomer, I remember well the draft during the Viet Nam war. I remember that when friends were drafted, they usually went to Fort Dix in south Jersey. Fort Dix has a great history dating back to the early 1900’s, you can go to their website and read the history here. They are now a training and mobilization center for the Army Reserve and National Guard.

It is the largest military base in NJ, and one of the largest if not the largest on the East Coast. Coming up the last weekend of May into June is the 2008 Air Show & Expo, I love air shows and we have been to this one. It take place at McGuire AFB very close by. There is nothing like the powerful sound of those military jets when they fly by, excellent!

I was listening to the weather today, and heard some not so fun news about one of our beautiful shore points, Cape May. They are experiencing some flooding. They showed a picture of water-filled streets that someone captured on their camera.

I’ve also heard that a woman went overboard late last night from a Norwegian Cruise Line ship at Atlantic City, another popular shore point, and it’s not easy to search for anyone during coastal storms like we’re experiencing today. I guess we’ll hear more about that later today.

I hope all will turn out okay, and I’m not here to post a lot of “gloom and doom”…life goes on, and life in Cape May is beautiful.

We have had the pleasure of vacationing there on a few occasions, and I had a class trip to the area when in 8th grade. To get there from here, we have to drive the length of the State of New Jersey…we live almost as far north as you can get, and Cape May is almost as far south as you can drive in NJ…approximately 3.5 hours away. Pictured is the Cape May lighthouse.

Cape May is not far from Wildwood, so we enjoy both beaches when we’re there. The walk to the water on Wildwood’s sandy beach is a long one on the hot sand if it’s a hot summer day, but that makes for a lot of area to enjoy the beach.

Wildwood is known for it’s LONG boardwalk (pictured). Walking the boardwalk is fun, and a fun activity is to ride bicycles on the boardwalk during hours when it isn’t too crowded.

There are spots as busy as Morey’s Pier in Wildwood:

or as serene as the sound of waves crashing on the beach:

(Pictures taken from Webshots…clicking any will take you to other photos.)

Yesterday was a nice day, not as sunny as it has been here in New Jersey for the past couple weeks, and not quite as warm, but with everything turning green, it is still beautiful. It was a busy day, but we took a little time between stops to unwind at the Ecology Center in Wyckoff which is now called the James A. McFaul Environmental Center. We have visited there during many occasions in our life, when we were dating we had pictures taken there; when our children were young we took them to see the animals and walk the trails; now that they are grown, we just go to walk, remember and enjoy the peaceful environment. Here are a few pictures for you:

These turkeys were so much fun to watch, they couldn’t get enough of strutting their stuff, and the closer we got to the cage, the more they strutted, what a pair!

The Peacocks never did display their tail feathers for us, there were two of them, but looking closely at the tail feathers, you could imagine what it would have looked like. It was amazing to see them run around with their long, beautiful “train” behind them.

Yes, that’s me, and I’ll do my usual female thing of saying it was at the end of a long day, I didn’t have time to fix myself up, I forgot to take of my glasses, yadayadayada, but that’s the real me, no escaping it! Isn’t the tree beautiful?

When it was time to leave, two handsome geese lead the way, a fine end to a beautiful day!

(I just had to come back and take a closer look at this picture, my husband just told me that if you look closely to the left of the goose furthest away, there are two little goslings, I think that’s how you spell it? Can you see them? They are SO tiny right now. We saw another mother goose on her nest quickly pull her little ones under her…you couldn’t see them, but could hear their little “peeps” from under her.)

I live in Northern New Jersey, in a town called West Milford. There’s lots of “weird New Jersey” lore around our town, most of it originates short drive from our home, with stories of ghosts, ice-men, devil worship, and other strange sightings.

It was popular “scarey” fun for my children when they were teens to go out after dark and drive Clinton Road, and see if there was really anything to be scared about…they never saw much of anything, but did spend a good bit of time scaring each other. Below is one video that I found that will take you on a trip that we’ve driven many times. If you turn off the sound, you’ll feel like your driving down a beautiful country road surrounded by woodlands in the fall with rivers and streams and a lake or two along the way. But if you turn ON the sound, you’ll hear all the things that have made this road worthy of being included in the “Weird New Jersey” book.

What do I think of it all? My husband and I think this is one of many beautiful roads in our local area, we’ve driven it many times, and often get out and enjoy spots along the way…but drive it at night, there’s no street lights, and it is DARK.

Enjoy this video visit from youtube of a bit of my home town. Sound on, you’ll hear all the “scarey” stories, sound off, it’s like a pretty country drive…you choose!

When my husband and I first met, it was at a church get together…something my girlfriend talked me into going to that I wasn’t really interested in. Oh, I loved God and going to church, just wasn’t into going that night. At this get-together, I sat down at a picnic table with a big burly guy and we talked quite a bit, and in our conversation, found out we worked about a block away from each other. I was a legal secretary, and the Bergen County Court House is in Hackensack (pictured), so that was the place to be.

My future husband was working only a block away for a company that installed traffic systems all over the US, but it took a while for him to get up the nerve to ask me out…our first “date” was lunch at a local diner, which lead to many other dates, and 7 months later, marriage. For the first year of our marriage we traveled to work together, and met for lunch every day. We did that until he took me away from NJ for a 7 month business trip to Colorado, his childhood home, where I finally got to know his family….and where our son, who is now 26, was conceived…and the rest, as they say, is history.

I guess our anniversary coming up in a few weeks has me a bit sentimental.