A Perfect Day in Millville

On Thursday, January 16th two friends and I went to Millville and had a perfect day!  We had lunch at Wildflowers, a vegan, vegetarian restaurant (all three of us are vegetarians bordering on veganism).  Then we hiked the Maurice River Bluffs.  We did the blue trail up over the bluffs, up and down to the floating dock, beneath the towering pines and over the little bridge, beyond the mysterious ruins.  Then, when we got back to the car, my dog, Trixie, wanted to stay, so we did the orange trail which gives a nice view over the estuary part of the river.  There was a huge flock of some kind of bird we couldn't correctly identify, chattering away in the tree tops.  Nice to hear birds singing in January.  My two friends are 'birders' and one has an app for bird identification, but as we had no binoculars, we couldn't see the birds very well.  She thought they might be grackles.

After our walk, we headed back to town, to enjoy a coffee at Bogart's Book Store and pick up some books.  One of my friends is a frequent visitor and had dropped off a couple of boxes of books, so she had a book credit due which paid for her brother's birthday gift.  He likes true crime thrillers.  Bogart's will accept books and dvd's and credit you for them.  Barb Spector (the book credit holder) and I also took them up on their excellent prices for used dvd's and I bought a biography of Agatha Christie and another movie called "The Reading Room."  We enjoyed a hot 'cuppa' mine was hazlenut decaf, my friends had tea, and we enjoyed conversing with some of the locals.  A fellow in a red shirt was sitting at the counter when I was waiting for my coffee and he reminded me that the Maurice River is prnounced "Morris" not with the French pronunciation I use when I forget where I am and call it "Maur eeece" and he told me it was named for Prince Mauritz, a Dutch name.  He also showed me the window cabinet of local history books that they have at Bogarts, many of which are also in my collection from my time as a volunteer at Bivalve.  I've written about Margaret Mintz, local historian from Salem County, now deceased.  

By then, it was late afternoon and we headed home.  What a perfect day!  I picked up a bunch of brochures and a local paper while I was there and the paper had a cover story about Marianne Lods, who you might remember, wrote a book about her parents experience in Europe during World War II.  More on the brochures and the novel later.  The title was "It's Been a Long, Long Time.  And I had bought it and read it some time ago.  A very good read.
Happy Trails!  Jo Ann
I'm off to the movies and lunch with friends amidst the snow flurries this morning, Saturday, January 18.