Category Archives ⇒ South Jersey

Trav­els around the byways and swamps of South Jer­sey, with occa­sion­al for­ays to sur­round­ing locales.

Lighthouse Challenge 2016

October 17, 2016
· Martin Kelley

This week­end was the annu­al Light­house Chal­lenge of New Jer­sey, a two-day cel­e­bra­tion of shore­line sen­tinels dur­ing which every work­ing light­house is open and staffed by vol­un­teers. The tru­ly com­mit­ted dri­ve hun­dreds of miles over the two days to vis­it the eleven light­hous­es open to the pub­lic. Because of a scout­ing week­end for Theo, we just hit one on Sat­ur­day and three on Sun­day. But these are the last four for our lighthouse-obsessed son Fran­cis, who has been to the oth­ers over the course of the summer.

Francis declared the Twin Lights of Navesink to be his favorite of the weekend.
Fran­cis declared the Twin Lights of Navesink to be his favorite of the weekend.

Tinicum Rear Range Light

The fam­i­ly look­ing off in dif­fer­ent direc­tions, of course 
Fran­cis goes full nerd talk­ing about con­struc­tion dates with the light­house volunteers. 
The Tinicum light is closed because of some struc­tur­al bowing. 
The light­house is right in the mid­dle of a bunch of ball fields. A neigh­bor has a great snow cone stand, a tra­di­tion in the town going back to his child­hood at least. 
The area where the Tinicum Front Range light used to be is now a sliv­er pock­et park along the water­side. Pret­ty except sur­round­ed by refineries. 
Fran­cis at Tinicum Rear Range 

Sea Girt Lighthouse

The Sea Girt Light­hous­es is house with a light on top. 
The res­i­dence of the Sea Girt Light is incred­i­bly homey and cute. 
Climb­ing down from the light. 
The lights of the Sea Girt light 
Fran­cis lec­tures on the fres­nel lens. 
Mod­els of NJ’s light­house laid out on a map of the state. 

Twin Lights of Navesink

Some fam­i­ly (Gre­go­ry is behind Julie here) 
The giant 10 ton for­mer lens. 
Hap­py kid 
Sign for the lens. 
Beau­ti­ful work­man­ship on the bilding 
Detail from light well 
Look­ing through the win­dow of the south toward toward the north 
View from atop the light 
Grill met­al­work of the cage of the Twin Lights 
Theo look­ing less wise-guy than normal. 
Gre­go­ry tries the lock to the top of the south tower 
The Twin Lights of Navesink are up a high hill, part of the Pal­isades per­haps, giv­ing our kids a rare hill to roll down. 
Fran­cis looks out over the hill top. 
The Twin Lights of Navesink 

Sandy Hook Light

The Sandy Hook Light­house is on a for­mer base. 
The light­house house hous­es the museum. 
The Sandy Hook is the old­est con­tin­u­ous light in the coun­try, pre­dat­ing the coun­try itself. 
The orig­i­nal light­house was just the out­er mor­tar. Lat­er brick helped shore it up 
Details of bricks 
The set­ting sun com­ing into the Sandy Hook Light 
Detail of stairwell. 
Fran­cis looks across the view 
Two 1000 watt bulbs shine out over 19 miles because of the fres­nel lens. 
There’s a lot of cool old struc­tures up on Sandy Hook. 
Gre­go­ry unsuc­cess­ful­ly tries the heavy door. 
Sandy Hook has pret­ty dunes 
NYC sky­line from an obser­va­tion deck on Sandy Hook. 
Sun set­ting, Gre­go­ry makes a mini sand­cas­tle before we leave North Jersey. 

Wheat planting at Howell’s Living History Farm

September 27, 2016
· Martin Kelley

We’ve got­ten into the habit of vis­it­ing How­ell’s Liv­ing His­to­ry Farm up in Mer­cer Coun­ty, N.J., a few times a year as part of home­school­er group trips. In the past, we’ve cut ice, tapped trees for maple syrup, and seen the sheep shear­ing and card­ing. Today we saw the var­i­ous stages of wheat – from plant­i­ng, to har­vest­ing, thresh­ing, win­now­ing, grind­ing, and bak­ing. I love that there’s such a wide vocab­u­lary of spe­cif­ic lan­guage for all this – words I bare­ly know out­side of bib­li­cal para­bles (“Oh wheat from chaff!”) and that there’s great vin­tage machin­ery (How­ell’s oper­a­tions are set around the turn of the twen­ti­eth century).

Grind­ing the wheat 
I just love the let­ter­ing on the bot­tom of the grinder 
Gre­go­ry on the crank 
Fran­cis’s turn 
A horse- or steam-powered thresh­er had great lettering 
Anoth­er piece of equip­ment had a great font. 
Detail of the grinder 
Stove in the kitchen 
In the kitchen we made bread 
Fields around the farm. 
Wheat. This is a spe­cial kind of spiked wheat that dis­cour­ages deer. 
Hors­es com­ing back from the fresh­ly plowed field. 

Historic Cold Spring Village in Cape May, NJ

June 11, 2016
· Martin Kelley

Down near the tip of South Jer­sey is Cold Spring Vil­lage, a nine­teenth cen­tu­ry liv­ing his­to­ry muse­um just north of the Vic­to­ri­ana of Cape May Point . We vis­it­ed for it’s “Hands-On His­to­ry” week­end. In August, our 12 year old Theo will be a junior appren­tice in the broom-making shop. We also vis­it­ed here about this time of year in 2013.

Fran­cis liked sit­ting with Lau­ra on these rock­ers and asked for a pho­to of the two of them. 
Oink and baa 
In the book­bind­ing shop, lit­tle kids can use fin­gers and ink pads to draw leaves on trees. 

Bike to Work 2016

May 31, 2016
· Martin Kelley

May 20th was Bike To Work week, which I rode for the third time in recent years. This year I rode 32.1 miles, from 5:53 to 9:00 a.m., for a total time of 3:07 hours and speed of 10.3mph.

I had a phone with Google Maps direc­tions strapped to my han­dle­bar but did­n’t need it much as I’ve learned most of the route by now. Every time it feels less out­landish to do this ride, to the point where I might just spon­ta­neous­ly do it again this sum­mer if I find myself awake ear­ly. This year I got an ear­ly start, nev­er stopped for snacks, and only occa­sion­al­ly stopped for pic­tures, which togeth­er brought me in far ear­li­er than I’ve man­aged before.

Ready to leave, 5:53am, mile 0 of 32. 
Mile 10/32. This tenth of the ride is a most­ly for­got­ten 18 cen­tu­ry coun­try road. 
This is a very half-hearted bike lane. 
The longest part of my route is also one of my favorites: a rail­road avenue along the old Read­ing line going through cute old towns. 
Mile 22/32: the old­Had­don Heights train station. 
On the Ben Franklin bridge: almost there! 
Pass­ing by work a lit­tle before 9 a.m.
At work: time for a shower! 

The route (minus the blocks right around my house for privacy):

Bleak Batsto day

March 6, 2016
· Martin Kelley

My wife Julie heard that the Rowan Uni­ver­si­ty geog­ra­phy club was hav­ing an open hike at one of our favorite local spots, his­toric Bat­sto Vil­lage. Our kids are all geog­ra­phy nerds and we’ve been won­der­ing if our 12yo Theo in par­tic­u­lar might be inter­est­ed in a geog­ra­phy degree come col­lege so we came along. It was a grey, bleak, late win­ter day large­ly void of col­or so I leeched what tiny bits of green and red that remained to take black and white shots.

Maple sugaring at Howell Living History Farm

February 25, 2016
· Martin Kelley

photo_25126572241_oYes­ter­day the fam­i­ly trav­eled north of Tren­ton to a liv­ing his­to­ry farm to learn about maple sugaring.The kids col­lect­ed buck­ets of sap, prac­ticed drilling a tap, watched the boil­ing off process in a “sug­ar shack,” cut fire­wood, and then — yes! — ate some pan­cakes with farm-made maple syrup.

Reg­u­lar read­ers might remem­ber a trip to How­ell Farm last Feb­ru­ary, when the weath­er was cold enough for ice har­vest­ing on the lake.

Yes­ter­day’s vis­it was a mud­dy, sog­gy day and the lake was clear. But I think every­one had just as much fun. See more pics on our Flickr set:

Screen Shot 2016-02-25 at 10.08.55 AM