Adventures with Abi

This weekend's adventures featured a copilot: Abi, one of the only Johnsonburg staffers who also lives in Ocean County. I did forewarn her about the adventures that she'd have to accompany me for, mainly a visit to a church a little over two hours south of camp. But first: Friday!

We left for camp from Toms River mid-morning. The weather was incredibly gorgeous, the ride plenty easy. The highlight: getting stuck behind a tractor going 20 mph on County Road 612 in Allamuchy. While this might sound like the antithesis of highlight for some, I was enjoying driving with the windows down and feeling like I wasn't in any sort of hurry. It was a nice reminder that we were in the country. It made me smile.

We were at camp to work a junior high retreat, which went very well, I think. It was much cooler out, but still sunny. We had a great group of people together to work the retreat, and a pretty sweet speaker. I always enjoying working with youth in that beautiful place.

So, today. Ridiculous. While the drive to the Woodbury church was long, it was pretty easy and mostly lovely, through a lot of farm country and small, historic downtowns (Route 206 most of the way, which is becoming more familiar). Leaving camp, it was quite dark and cold, but we were able to enjoy the super moon until the pretty sunrise over said farms about an hour into our drive. The visit went well at the church and it turned out to be a beautiful spring day.

Leaving the church, I told Abi how sometimes when heading home, I liked to just choose county roads with a certain whimsy and see what I could discover as a way home. She said, "Ok!" so we turned right instead of left, although that first stretch lasted about two blocks when we saw a Rita's and remembered that it was the first day of spring! free ice! and stopped. While waiting on line for them to open, I double checked that she didn't mind wandering, mostly through Pine Barrens, and her response? "Sure! I don't get out much."

She said I could quote her on that.

This is what happened next:

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So we didn't make a ton of progress early on due to roads lying about their cardinal directions ("Let's go south northeast!" -Abi) but eventually found some really peaceful stretches of the Pine Barrens. It ended up being free stuff day as far as we were concerned-- our free water ices were one thing. Later, we pulled over to take a picture in front of a ridiculous super hero woman statue in front of a tire place and a worker ran out and gave us a bobblehead doll of said statue for free.



A while after that, we found a sign that said Free Manure, but we just took a picture, didn't actually receive any manure. Honest.



We stopped by Bass River State forest but didn't really have a good enough map available to find that pygmy forest that I've become infatuated with, so we carried on and eventually hit the east coast in Tuckerton. Since we didn't end up making a pilgrimage to anything in particular, we visited Barnegat Lighthouse before getting Abi home. The light was closed "due to worker illness" so we walked around and enjoyed the salty air for a few minutes before bringing our adventure to an end, 18 Wawas later (+2 more for me between Forked River and home). Hooray for South Jersey!


no power lines in Wharton State forest means a glorious drive through untrimmed pitch pines

I will be breaking 153,000 miles on my car tomorrow.

I pine for... not the feller buncher.

Meet my arch nemesis: the Feller Buncher.


The first time I saw one of these in action, it was in the construction zone one Route 1 behind Cook Campus of Rutgers. The machine kind of hugs the tree and then saws right though its base. I was so in shock that such a machine would exist that I actually stalled my car staring at it all sorts of slack jawed and upset.

Well, we met again today. I didn't stall the car, but I may have yelled at the trucks, not that they listened as they chopped down my beloved pitch pines (which win the tree of the day award for a record fourth time as best I can tell from my own blog) along the Garden State Parkway southbound. And why was I driving southbound on the soon- to- be- wider- GSP South?

I spent the last two days in Atlantic City at the American Camp Association Tri-State meeting (which oddly enough involved people from all over the country). It was a great conference. I attended a slew of sessions about marketing and youth development and media and this crazy awesome lady. I got to have a lot of great conversations about how to build relationships with parents and how teens are interacting with media and each other and how interfaith communities can be about conversation and not conversion.

But let's be honest. In addition to learning all sorts of interesting things that are relevant to my job at camp, my work with the youth in my church and my life in general, I really enjoyed the drive. I rarely have an excuse to take the Parkway south through the Pinelands National Reserve. This time of year (not summer) it's peaceful and empty. No rush hour traffic. Hardly any traffic at all! I've probably mentioned before how much I love seeing the various stages of forestation in this region that, if humans would stop meddling, would be driven by fire ecology (although the human meddling part probably leads to some of the fires the pitch pine so desperately needs to propagate). I love that it's green even though nothing else is yet. I love seeing the vast stretches of wetlands around the Bass and Mullica Rivers, too.

I do not love feller bunchers, although I have to admit the name is kind of fun.

This morning I left home as the sun arose in a glorious way, with a few thin dark purple clouds stretched in front of the deep orange sphere. It was a beautiful day to make that drive with the windows down, that incredible smell of pine mixed with salty air. Goal for the (hopefully not so distant) future: visit Bass River State Forest (for the pygmy pines), Apple Pie Hill (the highest point of the Pinelands) and Brendan Byrne State Forest (because I've passed it a million times, every time I go to Virginia or anywhere else west or south of where I live), possibly all in one glorious Pine Barrens loving day...

So that's my green for the day. Despite my name being an Americanization of a Gaelic word, I did nothing to celebrate St. Patrick's Day. My bad. No beer of the day, not even Guinness or green beer (which I've never had, actually). Love those Pine Barrens though.

spring ahead

I absolutely love that springing ahead coincided with a beautiful, beautiful spring-like day.

Yesterday, I went up to camp for a board meeting. One of our board members lives 15 miles north of me and offered to drive me up, for which I was grateful. Usually I love to drive myself long distances, but I'm still feeling a bit travel-lagged from the last adventure, and it was nice to just sit back and be able to look around a lot more than I usually get to. I was curious to see what all of the flooding would look like up north, and to see how camp fared in our bad rains last week. It didn't seem too terrible on any of the roads we were driving. I enjoyed the scenery and noticed a lot of things that I don't usually see while focused on the road-- lots of creeks, actually. Then it occurred to me, that was what flooding looks like in the mountains. I wasn't along any coasts that have lost ground, just saw much faster and higher streams than usual. Interesting. Also, the snow at camp is finally almost gone (last time I was there, we had about a foot and a half, plus another 6-8 inches fell while I was there). Different. Spring is coming.

Today I had a visit to Belmar. It went well. I had some good conversations with families in the First Presbyterian Church, and also with the pastor, who is a huge Johnsonburg enthusiast. It was a gorgeous day to roll down the windows and take the long way home along the coast, smelling a little salt in the air. Ah, the Jersey shore. Not Jersey Shore. The real Jersey shore.

Big brother was here for a short visit and the beer of the day is the Mikkeller Coffee IPA I've been saving for him. Pretty good.

Happy Daylight Saving, everyone!

same as it ever was...

On Friday, I was brainstorming a post entitled, "Miles to go before I sleep" but ran out of time in the transition between excellent concert adventures in Virginia and excellent youth retreat adventures in New York. And so you get another Josh Ritter- covering- Talking Heads- reference (since he did it again on Thursday night): same as it ever was, same as it ever was, same as it ever was, same as it ever was! As ever, I am tired and paying dearly for my adventures, but pretty happy for them nonetheless. I traveled by car about 1100 miles in a week, about 800 of which were between Thursday and Sunday-- Northern VA to Charlottesville and back, to Toms River, to Glen Spey in New York, and back to Toms River. As Joe Pug sang when he returned to the stage for the encore, "I don't mind riding around."

I am grateful to Fiona for driving us to the Jefferson Theater in Charlottesville on Thursday, saving me several hours behind the wheel. The concert was awesome-- Josh never fails me, and Joe Pug as the opener was a great match. I enjoyed the rolling drive along county and state roads between Fairfax County and the City of Charlottesville, including at least six counties... I wonder what it would look like if I started keeping track of that (more a la this blog). That drive actually reminded me of another ridiculous time in my life (not more or less ridiculous so much as different ridiculous) during the infamous spring of senior year. I made the same trip with my friends Matt and Ross when they played a show at a tea shop just a few blocks down from the Jefferson Theater. Anyway, awesome adventure with Brittany and Fiona.


never a disappointment

Friday morning I woke up, already quite exhausted, and left the D.C. Metro area at the tail end of rush hour with far more success than I expected. I arrived back home a swift four hours and fifteen minutes later, and after a quick run, shower and double checking of what I packed, I was driving a van full of luggage to Lake Champion in Glen Spey, New York for our youth group's annual Winter Camp retreat. I was delighted to have a co-pilot, my friend Mike, as that drive is notoriously harrowing. We made it alive and didn't have to kill too much time before our busload of junior highs arrived with the rest of our leaders.

After little sleep and lots of fun (and ukulele jam sessions), the retreat was quickly over and I found myself behind the wheel of the van again, returning home earlier than the rest of the youth group as to participate in the bell festival at church.


This is what said harrowing drive looks like during daylight.

Mike again served as co-pilot, our overtired silliness carrying us through the 150 mile drive home (through a nor'easter, no less). The concert went well and I was in bed by 9PM. Over 9 hours of sleep later, I am still paying for these adventures, even more so now because I'm still awake, loaded with caffeine, determined to finish Thesis Draft Number Six tonight, after this short blog-updating-break... which ends now...

Urban hiking with Becky is the tree's knees!

Yesterday was a beautiful day on the verge of spring in the Washington, DC area. I took the Metro to Rosslyn to meet up with my awesome friend Becky for some urban hiking.

We started with a stroll to Roosevelt Island. I'd never been there before, but it was quite lovely despite the lack of leaves. I'll have to go back when it's green again. Tree of the day: bald cypress, which I was able to identify despite its lack of foliage by the knees in the dried up wetlands. I first saw this tree when driving through the Inner Banks of the Carolinas en route to a geography conference in Charleston during senior year of college. Because of that, I was surprised to see this tree so far north, but it turns out its native range is from the Delaware Bay to the Gulf of Mexico. So cool (or dorky, whatever, but I'm excited about it)!



After a loop of Roosevelt Island, we walked over the Key Bridge into Georgetown down a busy street. After a few blocks, we cut down a side street, which was surprisingly silent in comparison, crossing the C & O canal (which we have vowed to bike some of together sometime) and walking along the Potomac for a while.

The main attraction that our hike was based on was an India exhibit at the Kennedy Center that was supposed to be opening yesterday. We got there and found that aside from a few beautiful saris on display, the exhibit was still being set up and there was very little to see. However, I did learn that saris are six yards long (apparently quite a lot of which is just folded up to form pleats at the bottom-- Becky has experience in this department from her time in Peace Corps and her world traveling thereafter). We sat on the roof and enjoyed the sun for a while, ate lunch, and continued on our way.

We kept walking along the waterfront, passing behind the Lincoln Memorial and walking over the Arlington Bridge. We walked through the cemetery (while jogging is prohibited out of respect, apparently it's ok to just stroll through... it is kind of a strange feeling to have this sacred burial space being so open to the public as a park). I thought about our last living WWI vet's passing earlier this week. He'll be buried at Arlington with so many who have gone before him. It's amazing how history just rolls on. Becky showed me that on the back of one of the headstones toward the end of the cemetery was a plaque-- he was one of the men who raised the flag at Iwo Jima. We would cross the street and walk near the Marine Corps Memorial next on our way back to her lovely home.


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Beautiful day, over 7.5 miles of excellent walking. Back at Becky's place, we spent some time looking through her gorgeous photos of India and hanging out with her husband Dana. So wonderful.

After a while I went on to meet a few college friends at 51st State for happy hour. I was exhausted but it's always great to see everyone. It was also funny to take the Metro to the same area I'd walked earlier. Beer of the day: 51st State's Amber Ale.

Good day, good company, good weather, good night's sleep.