So one of my many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many interests that I fake knowing something about is architecture.  And my favorite style of architecture by FAR is “mid-20th century futuristic space architecture.”  I absolute adore the crazy stuff that people dreamed up at that time.  It was the height of the space race, and people around the world looked forward to a time of robots and flying cars.

Crazy.

So crazy.

But this idea of buildings of the future went way further than just giant [...]

Batona Trail Batsto to Ongs Hat 3 days – 34 miles

Back in November, Skunk, Danny, Pat, and I went for a little three day, 34 mile stroll on the Batona Trail.

(Note: This is more adventure log and not so much trail info.  For trail info, go to https://southjerseytrails.org/batonatrail/)

Three of us managed to get off on Friday (sorry Danny), so we met at Batsto and, after getting our permits, headed off down the Batona.  The first few miles flew and we walked through the areas that burned in the forest fire a few summers back.

The first bit of really [...]

Grave of Henry Charlton Beck Harleigh Cemetery 1640 Haddon Ave Camden, NJ 08103 GPS Coordinates – 39°55’27.20″N,  75° 5’19.56″W

It started with a slow news day…

“…the foreman of a newspaper composing-room, always ready with ideas for making busy people busier, proposed that an honest effort should be made to locate the town still indicated on maps of New Jersey by the mysterious name of Ong’s Hat,” (Forgotten Towns of Southern New Jersey, 1936)

Henry Charlton Beck, a reporter for the Camden Courier-Post, was the one sent out in an old car down suspect roads with a photographer who could also [...]

Cedar Bonnet Island Environmental Trail – Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge – Manahawkin, Ocean County, NJDistance – 1.5 miles total if hike every bit of trailType – Loop with some spursDifficulty: 1 of 10

Website – NoneOpen – Sunrise to Sunset.

Terrain – MarshlandsSurface – Crushed gravelTrailheads –  39°39’26.77″N,  74°11’39.19″W

Directions – If driving onto Long Beach Island from the mainland, the parking lot is located on the right side after the first bridge (which takes you onto Cedar Bonnet Island), but before the second bridge (which takes you onto Long Beach [...]