March 10, 2001

I have been trying to get on the grannies and most of the time I haven't been able to. I wanted to write about our little jaunt on Sat.afternoon. We had a very nice time. Got a late start because Albert (Albie's son) was here and I did want to visit with him for a bit. It was a beautiful sunny day and a little windy. We took off around 2, and headed towards our favorite area. Wanted to go looking for ghost towns but not enough time. Seems they are mostly up in middle section of Jersey. Anyway we took 49 west heading towards Salem which is about 50 miles from here. Kept trying to avoid the busy highways, but you know, no matter how many sideroads we took, we always ended back on rt. 42 or 49. LOL. We found a nice marina and what looks to be an interesting restaurant, It is closed til Easter. It is situated on the Manasquan River, I think, know it is an Indian name. Really pretty, but has lots of boats in storage. Only a few people around, driving trucks etc. employees I guess. Since it was a dead end of course we had to come back the same way. Well we meandered up and down side roads. saw lots of woods and so many times we thought we were in the wilderness and would find a beautiful home tucked away. Seems like where ever there is water, a house sits on   the acreage. I get mad, They take up the best views. Anyway we went down one road and came to a fork, beautiful area, lots of trees in a natural setting, leaves etc. haha. We stopped right there and took a few pictures of the surrounding area. sort of a panamoric view, after that we decided to take the lelft side of the fork, and guess what? there was a big home and the fork was their driveway, so we went right in a circle, haha, that took us by surprise. Well needless to say we got out of there and went on our merry way. We drove through lots of little towns, We get a kck out of some of the names. Right around the Bridgeton area we found a nice park on a lake, nothing there except a few picnic benches, Very peaceful, but probably not in the summer time. It was near a town called Gouldstown. sort of between Salem and Bridgeton. There wasn't to much traffic and we just enjoyed the scenery. Finally decided it was time to get a bite to eat and take a p. break.Looked for a nice place to eat, but wasn't in the mood for the Riverview Inn, since we had been there not to many weeks ago,. We decided to go to Cracker Barrel, had been a while, but let me tell you, never again on a Saturday, Talk about crowded. They said a 30 minute wait, well it was 45 or more. Of course you can look and browse in the gift shop. They do have so many nice things from candy to sweatshirts.but they are original and it is like going to a country store. They have rockers lined up outside, and also half of the porch is enclosed, but there were no seats. so we just wandered and of course went to the ladies room as soon as we got there, Here we were 5:30pm. and had only traveled 50 miles in 3 1/2 hours. We could have went to a lot of places in that time. Haha. Oh well it is the company that is important. We had dinner, and headed back. It was a beautiful clear night and Vel mentioned how pretty the moon was. WOW!!! It was so big and as orange as any I have ever seen. We had to pull over to the side of the road and take a few pictures of it, but they didn't turn out good at all, Sorry, It looks so close in the camera but when we   put them on the web they are small, I did put one in the album but you can see a street light and car headlights, have to look close to see the moon,. BTW, enclosing the newest album, a few pictures are from last Wed. when I thought I was off and wasn.t so we just hung out here and you will see my neighbors back yards and also one with a moon taken in the afternoon around 3pm. It was really neat to see the moon in the east and the sun still up in the west. Well my dear friends, I guess this will have to do till next week, Sorry it isn't more fun but hey, how can you make a comedy out of a nice Saturday afternoon drive. Hope you enjoy the pictures. Lots of hugs to all.