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.)
It’s May which means that the official start of the shore season begins here in NJ, it usually runs from Memorial Day to Labor Day. When my children were growing up, my parents would spend a few long weekends each summer at Ocean Grove. There were a few years that we went down to join them and celebrate my son’s birthday at the end of July.
Ocean Grove is known for it’s no alcohol policy, and observance of Sunday by following blue laws, generally a community that tries to maintain a high moral standard. It is a VERY popular destination, as you can see from this picture of a crowded beach:
This is not my personal favorite time to be on the beach, I’d much prefer being there after the busy season in September, at around sunrise or sunset, sitting on the beach looking at serene scenes like the following…nothing more soothing than the sound crashing waves:
Ocean Grove has a great boardwalk which takes you right to Asbury Park, and is known for it’s many Victorian homes, many along the ocean have been turned into hotels, like The Shawmont where my parents used to stay. We hope to take Mom down there this summer.
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I’ll have some more Jersey Shore posts in the days to come as the season is upon us!
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.
As we honor Women’s History Month, I thought a post or two honoring New Jersey women who have made it into the history books for their influence in American history would be appropriate.
All of you, boomers and non-boomers alike will remember reading about Clara Barton. I have to admit I wasn’t much for history class, no matter what grade I was in, the teachers made it so boring to listen too, but it fascinates me today, I guess I’m making up for lost time.
Clara Barton is best known as the founder of the American Red Cross, but she began her working career in education. In 1852 she opened the first public school in Bordentown, NJ (pictured), a school that grew from humble beginnings to 600+ students. Sadly, she left the school when they would not allow her the position of head of the school because she was a woman. It’s hard to imagine, isn’t it, when you consider that she opened the school. But history shows us that she had a greater destiny.
Her real fame was realized as a nurse during the Civil War. It was then that she founded the Red Cross. She oversaw the leadership of the Red Cross for over 20 years.
Looking back at her life, I can see that it is a good example of how, when God ends something that we think is important to us in our life, perhaps it’s because He has something greater in store for us.
We are blessed to live so close to the Ocean, of course here in New Jersey we call it the shore. It’s nice to dream about as we once again have snow falling outside our cabin. The shore season officially begins on Memorial Day, and ends Labor Day, but our favorite time to go is just after the season ends in September. It’s quiet, no traffic, the beaches aren’t crowded, the prices are lower and the weather is still beautiful most of the time.
I’m not a sun bather, so don’t spend a lot of time on the beach in the heat of the day, you’ll find me there at sunrise, or sunset, beautiful, peaceful times. As for where to go, wow, oh my there’s so many different places, I’ll tell you about some we’ve visited in other posts as the spring and summer months get closer, but…sigh…I just had to take some time to dream a bit.
