Sunset at Red Bank Battlefield, National Park, NJ

SUNSET AT RED BANK BATTLEFIELD, NATIONAL PARK, NJ (happens at 8:30 p.m.)

This summer, I have been going regularly to Red Bank Battlefield, National Park, NJ to see the sunset.  There are many sunset fans who show up there for this celestial extravaganza.  Because it is over the Delaware River, and relatively unobstructed being south of the city, below the navy yard, it is  a spectacle of color. 

So, when I saw an article about this artist, I was intrigued.  For many of my trips to Red Bank, I have declined to take a photograph, though I am a lifelong photographic chronicler of my world.  I just felt there are so many sunset photographs and none of them can capture that enormous radiance, why bother.  Then one day, I found a shot I wanted to take, when the sun was behind a tree and the orb itself blocked so only the radiance emanated from behind the now silhouetted tree branches.  It looked like the biblical burning bush.  Unfortunately, my phone went dead just then, and all I could do was sit on the bench in the breeze that was like the memory of beautiful summers past, and watch the sun create the gold plated path across the river.  This has been a glorious summer like the ones people always remember but in a grieving way as “lost forever” now that it is so hot.  This summer all the days in the lower 80’s have been breezy and dry, not humid.  And I know this because I walk every day after the gym and sometimes in the early evening at Red Bank. 

The historic house at Red Bank belonged to the Whitall family, a well-off Quaker family unwillingly embroiled in the Revolution when their apple orchard was confiscated for Fort Mercer, used to protect the Delaware from British ships.  

Often when I am there, I wonder if Ann Whitall ever noticed and admired the sunset, but she was so bound up in a puritanical religious view she might have found the appreciation of natural beauty to be too pagan.  Her diary reflects no such thoughts for the year of 1762, and this I know because I typed from the old typewriter copy, onto the computer so it would be available to researchers.  Then, I checked as much as I could to see that the typewritten copy was true to the handwritten copy which was Xerox copied and bound and is available for reference at Gloucester County Historical Society in Woodbury.

But to get back to sunsets.  An artist, Penelope Umbrico, cropped sunrise and sunset closeups from the multitude of vacation photos on Flickr, on the internet and created the mural pictured above which tomy  mind shows that there are still things to discover in photography, and it also comes closer to capturing the magnificence of the sun as well as our worship of it and admiration of it through all human time. 

I will try to get that photograph tonight, Thursday, June 30,  and post it tomorrow or the day after, Saturday.

See you at the sunset!  Happy Trails, Jo Ann

Tall Pines and County Parks

Many years ago, when I taught at a high school, several teachers were selected to be trained for the upcoming new regime of testing.  Well dressed super-teachers led these in-service training workshops in the summer, and we were treated to nice lunches at a place called Ron Jaworski's Eagles Nest.  Which was, apparently, a golf course as well as a restaurant.  Since I don't play golf, I would never have visited it otherwise.  It was a very nice lunch and the setting was beautiful.

Recently, I was searching for good places to hike in the woods that were not so far a drive as my usual favorites and I came across a web site, I think it was South Jersey trails, but I'll have to go check my tablet browsing history.  There were a half dozen parks near me that I had never visited so I wrote down the information and lst week, another hiking buddy and I set off to find them. 

We found two that first day and hiked part of each.  The first one we found was TALL PINES, which is apparently a State Park but administered by the county near Sewell.  It is another one of those golf courses returned to nature.  I hiked one near Cape May called Coxe's Creek.  I like walking on the paved golf cart trails, especially in tick and chigger season.  We were fortunate to meet two other women walking a Lab, and the dogs frolicked togetehr and the women showed us the way back to the parking lot.  You can get lost in that park and there are no trail maps that I have yet been able to find either by calling Camden County Parks or by looking on the internet.  There was a pond and a stream partially hidden behind two mysteriosu mounds of dumped gravel.  The dogs had a nice dip.

The Second park was New Brookly Park on New Brooklyn Road near Winslow Twp.  It has a golf course, a soccer field and a long paved trail paralell to the road, plus a small bridge overlooking the Egg Harbor River watershed, good for bird watching.  There was also a kayak ramp and a small pond.  Not a great place to hike, but good for those other things.  It needed more exploring but finding the parks had taken a LOT of time because neither my hiking buddies nor I can decipher the gps coordinate that I understand I can put in my phone or my gps.  But I have not yet learned how.  So we went for finding the closest road and then looking for an older guy in a pick-up truck.  They are the only people in America who still know where anything is.  Also, old ladies seem to know but they aren't out and about as much as old guys in trucks, so those are the best bet.  Wawa employees don't know where the corner is and gas station attendants don't speak English, so I always look for an old guy in a pick-up truck for accurate information.

There are 21 County Parks and I have visited about 7 of them.  I may go for the whole 21, why not!  I'll let you know later!
Happy Trails!
Jo Ann

HaddonHeights, a great one day excursion

Two friends and I were looking for a fun day close by so we wouldn't run into the Memorial Day traffic this weekend, either traffic going, or coming home.  In addition, our goal is always to get in a hike or a walk with lunch.  So we we went to Haddon Heights and had lunch at the Station Avenue Cafe, which has an all new menu with several vegetarian items.  We had veggie burgers with a salad cup on the side instead of freis as we are all health conscious as well as vegetarian.

Next we went for a stroll along the avenue and stopped in a charming refurbished furniture and antiques shop Medford Company Store of Haddon Heights, where a friendly lady was in the midst of antiquing a desk.  She said they offer classes in antiquing and furniture refurbishing.  They also have estate sales, tag sles, buy outs, cottahge furniture, and chalk-mineral paints (I confess that's a new one on me, I don't know what chalk-mineral paints are, but you could take a class and find out).  

We also stopped in at the Market, a charming old grocery store that has been there for a lifetime.  They had a 25 cent book sale outside that benefited the AWA, so we all bought books both to read and to give as gifts to friends with those interests.  

Last, we walked two sections of the Haddon Heights Park.  I think of them as the cannon section, the Dell section, the baseball section, and the Audubon Lake section.  I think the whole thing is between 3 and 4 miles.  We did the cannon section and the Dell section and called it a day.  The Dell section is where they hold the concerts in the summer and the brochure is out, but more on that later.  I've got chores to do now and shopping for groceries.  No excursions for me today!  

Jo Ann (large type because I and some of my friends are beginning to experience vision changes that make reading small print difficult)
By the way, to re-iterate, I do this blog so people looking for something fun and healthful to do for the day can find some ideas.  If you want to contact me and find the comments section difficult to manage, my email is wrightj45@yahoo.com

Two Upcoming Events in June 2016 and Shirley R. Bailey and the South Jersey Magazine

On June 11, 2016, the June Festival of Antiques will be held at the Fairgrounds from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Rain or Shine.  75 and more Outstanding Exhibitors representing 10 States.  Gloucester County 4 - H Fairgrounds, Rt. 77 Just South of Mullica Hill, NJ $6 Admission, $5 with card you can pick up at the Blue Plate Cafe in Mullica Hill.
for more information www.yellowgarageantiques.com 856-478-0300
The Fiar will Benefit the Harrison Twp. Historical Society

The 33rd Annual WHITESBOG Blueberry Festival will be held June 25th and 26th from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.  From their flyer, "A Great Old-fashioned country Fair with artists, crafters, Musicians, wagon tours, blueberry picking, kids crafts, blueberry baked goods, ice cream, food vendors, historic house ours, local community groups and fun for all!"
for more information (609) 893-4646 or www.whitesbog.org

After readipng SoJourn, I was reminded of my old favorite magazine South Jersey Magazine   published 4 times a year during its life, by Shirley R. Bailey from Millville, NJ.

I LOVED that Magazine and I want to share with you one incident in my relationship with that magazine.  Out hiking one sunny day with a geocaching friend, we drove part way down a flooded sandy road, parked and waded through shallow pools of water that covered the rest of the road to the beach on the bay.  Once we were on the beach, we hiked along and found large concrete building pads, partly sticking out of the sand near one, I found an old milk bottle, which I still have.  It was the kind with the fat lip that had the push in cardboard lid with a tab.  When I was little, I would raid our ice-box on the back porch where the milkman left the milk.  I would peel the cardboard lid and lick the cream, like a cat, and then put the lid down.

Anyhow, some weeks later, rummaging around in my old favorite bookstore, Murphy's Loft in Mullica Hill, I ran across a copy of the South Jersey Magazine that had harrowing accounts of the flood of 1950 at Thompson's Beach and Moore's Beach, resort communities on the Bay.  A ten foot tidal flood had washed houses right off their concrete pads and floated them away.  Many people, caught asleep and unawares of the quiet rising of the water, had to be rescued.  Some clung to the debris floating from their rooftops until they washed up somewhere or were saved by searchers.  Some drowned.

I haven't gone back to Moore's Beach or Thompson's Beach since then, but the memory of that ghostly place and what it signifies is with me still, how even so benign a place as the New Jersey Bay can become a death trap.  And how you must always pay attention to the weather and heed the warnings.  For more on the stories of that dreadful night, check out this geochacher site:
https://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC5HWF1_tbt-thompsons-beach-trek?guid=65ce4028-4c73-40a7-baab-08d93656f6d8

But what I especially wanted to mention here today was a salute to the historians of the past, the ones who collected the stories and kept them alive for us to enjlighten us about the drama behind the ruins and artifcacts we come upon in our hikes around our own backyard, South Jersey.  Thank you Shirley Bailey!

Here is her obituary:

Shirley R. (Robbins) Bailey

Obituary

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Shirley R. (Robbins) Bailey

Shirley R. (Robbins) Bailey, age 83, of Millville, died suddenly Sunday morning, Feb. 20, 2011, at her residence after a brief illness.

Born in Absecon, she grew up in Dividing Creek, Bridgeton and was a graduate of Bridgeton High School, class of 1945.

She was the publisher the "South Jersey Magazine" as well as other books relating to Sough Jersey History. Previously she had worked for Airwork Corporation, Millville as the computer department head. She retired in 2003. She will always be known as an authority on local history.

She is survived by her husband Richard N. Bailey; her daughter Destra L. Bailey; and son-in-law Glenn Clark of Millville; her grandson Aaron Clark; and several nieces and nephews.

She was predeceased by her brothers Joseph and Donald Robbins, and her parents, Frank and Mina (Conover) Robbins.

Funeral services was  conducted on Friday, Feb. 25, 2011 at 11 a.m. in the CHRISTY FUNERAL HOME, 11 W. Broad Street, Millville.