R and J in the USA

Our introduction to New Jersey was nothing like the image we had in our minds. Not being from there, we knew little more of New Jersey than the superficial impressions we had absorbed from quick journeys through Newark’s airport, tales told from Snookie on Jersey Shore, or the view from across the river in Manhattan. We were quickly dispelled of our illusions and immediately thrust into its beauty, bounty and character. We barreled into the historic town of Cape May with all its brimming charms. It’s hard not to feel good about a place when the first shop you stumble into is a chocolate shop filled with all manner of cocoa concoctions from all over the world. We promptly made our way to the kiosk with all the various historic and cultural trolley tours listed. Just when Julie figured out which one she wanted to hop on we realized we had already missed the last tour for the day and would have to take in Cape May’s beauty unguided. We were up to the task. We had a delicious meal at a Mexican restaurant and made our way to yet another beach. The beach winds were so high that folks were encouraged to only enter the water in a small, highly protectable spot by the lifeguards on hand. 

We stayed overnight in the driveway of a generous Harvest Host in a small neighborhood and  made our way up the shore past Wildwoods through to Stone Harbor soon after waking, where we stopped to “have our morning” – Ryan in a coffee shop, Julie in the van down by the, well, you know. On our way out of Stone Harbor, where we learned Taylor Swift used to spend her summers and whet her whistle at local open mics, we stumbled upon the Wetlands Institute and decided to make a stop. Julie squealed at the sight of all the little turtles and we took in the stunning scenery of the miles of wetlands around us before heading to our second Ocean City of the trip. We got our taste of yet another boardwalk filled with what we have now come to know as the boardwalk staples – french fries, ice cream, cheeky t-shirts, salt water taffy, fudge, and all other manner of festive foods and activities.

We continued upshore to the infamous Atlantic City. A little grittier, a little worse for the wear, a little more intertwined with casinos and carnivals, but still a boardwalk like all the others, with all that comes with what we have now begun to understand is boardwalk life. We grabbed a picture of Julie in front of a store called “Peanut World”, just to give her mother a playful scare, turned $10 dollars into $.06 at the slot machines, and won two stuffed animals at the carnival to give to Julie’s nephew.

Feeling we had gotten an adequate taste of AC we moved on to our harvest host for the night and got to meet a neat couple, John and Deb, at Veteran Equine Therapy Stables. Check out our People Along the Way section to hear more about them. They were enthusiastic, helpful, and had on site a real propeller from a D-Day landing ship. We enjoyed our outdoor shower once again and had a lovely morning working on our various projects and to-do’s before moving inland to the Pine Barrens to partake of a New Jersey style hike. 

We learned about the unique Pine Barrens ecosystem, got appropriately intimidated by signs about what to do if you see a bear and how to guard against tics, and found ourselves unintentionally having chosen a spot that was also home to a beautiful historic tourist attraction called Batsto Village. The village captured a bit of what life was like in 18th century New Jersey. We made our way through the village before getting deep into the pine laden lands of the Pine Barrens, which were anything but bare. Also called the Pine Lands for just that reason, they were rich with bogs and colors we hadn’t quite seen elsewhere.

We found a special kind of peace hiking through the Pine Barrens, and an even more special kind of feeling on the drive after when we learned that its acidic and sandy soils made it the perfect spot for lots of blueberry farms! We happened to stop at a stunning one just minutes before closing time and, before we knew it, were driving away with 12 pints of organic blueberries picked by our own grubby little hands. The only question now was whether we would be able to get through 12 pints of blueberries before time had its way with them. We got started that evening by sharing a pint with our wonderful Harvest Host at their little animal sanctuary in rural New Jersey. We had a blast chatting with our host, who was quick to tell us how much his granddaughter loved those blueberries. We cooked ground beef for dinner and thought, what the heck? We’ve got lots of blueberries. We’ve had delicious blueberry chicken wings and mango salsa is always good on anything, let’s toss a pint of blueberries in with our ground beef and see what we get! You get purple beef, that’s what you get. We had purple beef tacos on purple taco shells. We prepared our precious purple picnic purposefully and playfully, peppered with a panoply of toppings, tossing them back with pep and persistence. What a panacea of perfection for our popping taste buds, pleasantly present in a purple culinary paradise.

With purple beef in our bellies, we made our way to New Jersey’s capital city, Trenton. After taking in a gorgeous war memorial, we found out New Jersey’s capitol building was not open to walk-in traffic like the others. It could be visited by tour only. With not enough time to stick around for the next tour, we stepped in the lobby so we could at least say we were inside the capitol. We popped into the state museum just next store to get a dose of New Jersey through the decades, centuries, and eons before heading up to the other “tons” of Princeton, Pennington and Flemington.

We walked the streets of Princeton, getting smarter by the second, but not smart enough not to be on our way to an evening 5K during a heat advisory. We took respite from the punishing heat in a bubble tea shop. We drove by Einstein’s house and the Institute for Advanced Study, where Julie instantly turned into a fangirl trying to absorb the physics knowledge through osmosis as we drove through its beautiful campus. Clearly Julie does not understand osmosis. 

We drank lots of water and ran a hilly 5K with the heat beating down at the Watershed Alliance (you can read more about the race in our 5K section). After the race we found a gourmet build-your-own pizza food truck to sate our post race hunger. A momentous thing occurred. We sat and ate our pizza outside of an ice cream shop and DIDN’T get ice cream. The heat must have melted a few brain cells. The pizza (including a gluten free, dairy free option to Julie’s ecstatic delight) was delicious. 

We visited the teeniest little two room museum in Menlo Park, documenting Thomas Edison’s profound accomplishments during his time there. Feeling right at home in a building maybe only two or three times the size of our current living space, we stared in awe at seeing the first working lightbulb and hearing the first recorded sound. We were quickly disabused of the false myths about a rivalry between Edison and Tesla by the passionate staff crammed in the tiny reception area of this must visit nook in, well, Edison, NJ.

We made our way up to Liberty State Park, a stone’s throw away from one of Julie’s favorite places in the world – New York City. Like being within a stone’s throw of a best friend, she wanted to run and embrace the bustling hub of creativity she loved so much, but kept pulling herself back to the New Jersey experience, which was easy enough to do in this park that easily captured our attention. 

The park’s stunning monument to what had once been a view of the twin towers did what good monuments are built to do – shock you into a state of solemnity, remembrance, and acknowledgement of profound moments of loss, tragedy, and heroism of the past.

We walked past an overgrown set of train lines which, for some reason, captured our imagination and sense of romanticism like a snapshot in time of the ongoing battle and dance between nature and industry.

Both of us having seen the Statue of Liberty many times before found ourselves surprisingly taken by the moment when seeing it from Liberty State Park. The rush of its meaning landed perhaps more deeply than ever. Here on this trip across the 50 United States of America, could we possibly be living more freely?

We’ve encountered many small-town war memorials filled with hometown heroes and commemorations of the history of Native American tribulations and enslaved peoples’ struggles toward what that statue stood for and promised. Each time, we found ourselves ever more aware that freedom is neither free nor guaranteed, and thankful for the privileges, gifts, and good fortune that gave us this opportunity to live so freely under Lady Liberty’s generous watch.

While we had indeed seen the massive highways and flaming smokestacks that we expected in pockets of New Jersey, we were ready now to leave with our appreciation for this rich and wonderful state expanded and renewed to a whole new place – a place where no flaming smokestack could burn so bright or reach so high as the torch in lady liberty’s hand. And on that note, we were ready to march on.