New Jersey

After Cole and David left, Shawn and I stuck around for a couple of days and we took time to see parts of New Jersey that we had never seen before.  It is a beautiful state.  And of course we were there at the perfect time for fall colors.   We went to see some of the historic sites first.  We went to the Princeton Battlefield, where a major victory was won during the revolutionary war.  Then we headed out to the Crossing of the Potomac state park.  There is a park on both sides of the river, one on New Jersey and one in Pennsylvania.   The one on New Jersey side is more natural and rustic with a few of the original sites being maintained, like the trail to Princeton, and the well and house that were on the site.  The other site has built up homes, and tents and is more of a reenactment of the  events.  We saw a little of both.  Then we just drove around and looked at the beautiful scenery on that side of the state. It was so pretty.  Beautiful rolling hills, and farmland, and so many woods.

A well at the crossing

The Potomac River

Part of the park

The Park on NJ side

Park on NJ side

The house and mill at the NJ site.

Sunlights filtering through the trees.

This was a little lake and forrest we passed just outside of one of the little towns.

The second day we headed along the Eastern side and drove down the coast.  And I mean most of the coast.  We could see where the last hurricane had really caused a lot of damage.  Houses were completely gone, and streets as well.  Some of the coastal towns were nice, some were pretty seedy.  We stopped in Atlantic city for lunch and it was less than stellar.  The city itself was less than stellar.  It all looked pretty run down.  I think it has fallen on hard times.  The casino's were practically empty, and no one was on the boardwalk either.  Course it was rather chilly.  We continued on down the coast till we got to Cape May.  I really wanted to see the quaint little town, but by the time we got there, we didn't have much time so we went to the state park instead.  It was beautiful and I really enjoyed it.  We thought we would walk around the town and get some supper afterwards, but apparently it is off season and not a lot of the places were open.

Cape May light house

Wet lands around Cape May

The light house.

Walking along the wetlands looking back at the lighthouse.

The beach on Cape May.  There is a sailboat on the water.

The beach at sundown

The lighthouse from the beach.

On the last day we cleaned up Cole's place really really well, got a car to rent,  and drove to an art gallery and then up to the airport.  The gallery was all sculpture gardens, and the gardens were quite nice.  Throughout it was sculptures from different people but mostly from one artist, who took people from everyday life and put them throughout the gardens.  They were very good.  There was one of a college girl laying on the grass with her earphones in, and she looked so real I had to do a double take.  There were quite a few like that.  He also did some sculptures of famous painting.  They were nice as well.  There was a little restaurant at the gardens called RATS.  It was terrific food.  And it was busy for a Tuesday.  This is the view from the patio where we ate at RATS.  It was so pretty.  Then we headed up the state to JFK, caught our flight and headed home.  It was a nice week, all in all.

This was one of the pieces he did, I real life version of Mona Lisa, so I snuck into the picture!!

I was going to mention that on the first day Shawn and I got honked at over and over, and we couldn't figure out why.  Then we remembered we were in Cole's car and it said "Just Married" on the back window.  Not only that but it had two grooms holding hands stickers.  I'm sure to motorists that passed us looked at us and thought, wow....  Funny gay couple, she looks female.  Anyway the second day we cleaned it off so we didn't get honked at the whole time.