![\"\"](\"http:\/\/cowlesmountain.com\/Travels\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/Jersey-003.jpg\")
<\/a>We then drove over to the old homestead and around the neighborhood.\u00a0 It’s amazing how different everything was.\u00a0\u00a0 I thought the trees were large when I was young, but now they are giants.\u00a0\u00a0 The big hills I remember as a paperboy look like flat ground now.\u00a0 The downtown of my little town still seems the same but with different stores.\u00a0 My favorite sub shop was still there. \u00a0 Hard to imagine Joyce is still alive.<\/p>\nAfter driving around the town, we drove to the farm I worked on as a teenager.\u00a0 It’s now a county park equestrian center.\u00a0\u00a0 Very few of the original barns are still there.\u00a0 Only the big house,\u00a0 the 5-car detached garage, and the horse barns are still standing.\u00a0\u00a0 In place of the others were a lot of brand new, low-slung barns.\u00a0\u00a0 I still find it hard to believe they tore down the old hay barn.\u00a0 It was gigantic and built with hand hewn huge beams using only wooden pegs to hold it together. \u00a0 It must have been from the late 1700’s similar to when the main house was built.<\/p>\n
They also had redone the roadway that used to have a couple of sharp turns and one particularly nasty intersection on a blind hilltop curve.\u00a0\u00a0 I cannot remember how many mornings, mostly Saturdays, that I was out there digging up the snapped-off thick oak posts and putting up replacements after someone over or under-corrected on the curvy road coming back from some bar late at night.<\/p>\n
We drove out to my old high school and on the way passed my old Jr high at the corner of Nut Swamp Road and Middletown Lincroft Rd. \u00a0(Wasn’t there a Springsteen lyric about the swamps of Jersey?)\u00a0\u00a0 It was still a long drive to my old high school.\u00a0\u00a0 The HS was letting out the students so it took a bit to get by it.\u00a0 The traffic on those small roads and numerous new traffic lights made me glad I live in SD where there are freeways without traffic lights and they go practically everywhere.<\/p>\n
On the way back to the coach, we passed the old Sears store where I worked nights after school, \u00a0It was all brick when I was there. \u00a0It looks like they have I let my NYC knee injury heal for a few days and then headed out for another sight seeing day.\u00a0\u00a0 Took Kathy thru Fair Haven, then Rumson, and on to Seabright to see if my first apartment withstood Sandy.\u00a0 It had,\u00a0 but the gas station that had been in front of it was gone.\u00a0\u00a0 We then drove north toward Sandy Hook.\u00a0\u00a0 Checked out Fort Hancock, which had been an old Nike missile base protecting NYC back in the ’60’s.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 When I lived here, you weren’t allowed on the base.\u00a0\u00a0 Now you can drive all around and see lots of buildings in various states of abandonment.<\/p>\n There is an old Cannon and a few stacked cannon balls which looked to be about an 18″ bore. \u00a0I had never seen one that large We visited Downtown Freehold with the family for a Mexican dinner at El Meson.\u00a0\u00a0 Pretty good fare.\u00a0\u00a0 I don’t think I had ever stopped in Freehold before, \u00a0but our campground was not very far away.<\/p>\n After viewing the Sandy Hook area, we headed back down the oceanfront back thru Seabright, Monmouth Beach, and into Long Branch to look for my old garage apartment.\u00a0 It was still there on Bath Ave next to the railroad tracks and LB train station.\u00a0\u00a0 Took a quick drive thru west end looking for the Inkwell, but it appears to be gone, although the Brighton Bar was still standing, looking very poor.\u00a0\u00a0 Ah, the pinball games we played there.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 We found the Windmill still standing, but drove on by as I wanted a Max’s Hotdog.\u00a0\u00a0 And to my surprise Max’s was still there,\u00a0 although it looked a lot different. \u00a0We went inside for Lunch.\u00a0\u00a0 Amazingly,\u00a0 they said we could bring in the pups as no one else was there.\u00a0 It was fairly late in the afternoon for the lunch crowd.<\/p>\n After lunch we headed back to Bath Ave so I could show Kathy the 7′ high underpass that was behind my apartment.\u00a0\u00a0 It’s still astonishing to me that they still allow vehicles to go thru there.\u00a0\u00a0 If I took the coach there,\u00a0 the top 5 1\/2 feet of the coach would be ripped off.\u00a0 \ud83d\ude42\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 We won’t go there.<\/p>\n We headed south for a bit till we found West Park Ave and took it toward I was sad to see Mrs. Jay’s was gone.\u00a0\u00a0 It’s now an outdoor stage area for the Stone Pony.\u00a0\u00a0 When we were driving in, I sort of was lost as both Kingsley and Ocean Ave are now two-way streets.\u00a0\u00a0 They were one way the last time I was there.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Our first full day there we decided to take a drive around the old neighborhood.\u00a0\u00a0 On the way we stopped at Delicious Orchards,\u00a0 which I remember as a small farm stand we used to buy fruit and produce from as a kid.\u00a0 Now it’s massive. \u00a0I couldn’t believe how much produce and fruit they have … <\/p>\n<\/a>painted the brick white since then.\u00a0 We also drove past the little church where I had my confirmation, St. Catherine’s.\u00a0 It looks awful,\u00a0 hard to imagine it’s still standing.\u00a0 Appears the Historical Society owns it now.\u00a0 Then back to the middle of nowhere to our campsite for the night!<\/p>\n<\/a>before. \u00a0 We missed finding the lighthouse, not sure how but we did.\u00a0\u00a0 Then on to Twin Lights.\u00a0\u00a0 I decided not to push it and didn’t climb up to the light.\u00a0 (not sure how the crutches would work on that spiral staircase)\u00a0 Kathy went up.\u00a0 Nice view from up there, as was the view of Sandy Hook and NYC from the front lawn of the lights.<\/p>\n<\/a>After wandering around the lights for a bit, we made\u00a0 our way down to the little town of Highlands.\u00a0\u00a0 It appeared to have taken a direct hit from Hurricane Sandy.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It’s a really low lying area with lots of older homes that are maybe one foot above the high tide mark.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Not a good thing when a storm surge of 17 feet rolls thru.\u00a0\u00a0 I have never seen so many homes either raised 15′ or in the process of being raised.\u00a0 That storm hit back in 2012, not sure where all the folks lived for what must have taken years to rebuild.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I am thinking the town’s name, Highlands,\u00a0 is very misleading.\u00a0\u00a0 I just looked up an article on Highlands and of the 1,500 homes there, 1,250 were destroyed.\u00a0 (Highlands is a very very small place on the waterfront)<\/p>\n<\/a>Oakhurst to see what happened to a place I had worked just prior to moving to San Diego.\u00a0 It was still there, but of course, was something else now.\u00a0\u00a0 We then drove up past Fort Monmouth and over to Swimming River Road, then back to the swamps of Jersey for the night.<\/p>\n<\/a>On Friday we headed out for Asbury Park with my brother and sister-in-law for a stroll on the board walk.\u00a0 (Thankfully it’s still a boardwalk,\u00a0 not like the San Diego concrete walks they “call” boardwalks.)\u00a0\u00a0 Unfortunately, Convention Hall was closed for a private party that day, so we headed back south to find a spot for drinks and <\/a>appies.\u00a0\u00a0 Then crossed Ocean Ave to snap a pic in front of the Stone Pony.\u00a0 That place has really changed. \u00a0It’s almost the whole block now.\u00a0 Last time I was there, it was maybe 40×40′.\u00a0\u00a0 You can still see the original building in the middle of the block with the rest of the new building totally surrounding it.<\/p>\n<\/a>On Saturday we headed over to Ocean Grove for a\u00a0 birthday party at Christine’s beautiful house.\u00a0 It was a festive event with lots of ex-Sony folks that I worked with for many years.\u00a0 I was told that we had to bring the pups or I couldn’t come.. at least I think that’s what she said.\u00a0 \ud83d\ude42 \u00a0A great time was had by all!!<\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n