the Colleen authority of NY and NJ

At the end of last week, I had some unexpected journeying through New Jersey. While I love NJ dearly and am always excited to check out new places in the state, the circumstances were not the greatest-- the new beau was coming to visit for the weekend from Virginia and totaled his car en route. Taylor thankfully walked away unscathed.



And so I had the opportunity to drive to Bellmawr late Thursday night to retrieve him from a state police station, and down to Deptford the next day to help him empty his car and say goodbye to it. Both of these drives involved heading straight through my beloved Pine Barrens and hanging out in semi-rural Wawa country on the other side of the state. Not much going on down there, though we did stop for an afternoon snack at a perfectly legit Jersey diner. The drive was fine, and the grey skies actually provided a lovely backdrop for the changing leaves.



The weekend was redeemed with a trip to New York City that had been planned all along to see an exhibit of artistic maps at Pratt University. I mean, really artistic. Like the gelatin Lady Liberty and New York Skyline. The exhibit had the term "psychogeography" in the title... so not my particular branch of geography, but very interesting nonetheless. This was Taylor's original excuse to come visit, since he's a cartographer.



Other highlights of the city included discovering Odessa Cafe over by Tompkins Square Park and the Joe Strummer mural, a total gem of a diner with well priced good food; hanging out in Central Park (tree of the day: black maple that dropped its leaves all over the rock we sat on there); meeting up with one of Taylor's friends from college for a beer and to see Megamind, which I thought was pretty great. All in all, a good trip to the city.