wandering Warren

Pardon the delay in posting this. It's been a busy thesis-centric week.

Last weekend, Taylor came to visit camp for the first time. This was also his first time to the glorious northwestern part of New Jersey. The first thing we did was drive over Schooley's Mountain to Long Valley (which is apparently in Morris County, which I guess maybe I knew it the back of my head but was shocked to see the "Welcome to Morris County" sign nonetheless) to the Long Valley Brew Pub, where Taylor posted this--

Long Valley Brew Pub is pretty great. We enjoyed dinner and a few beers and headed back to my cabin at camp. It was pretty cold out so we just stayed in and watched Fantastic Mr. Fox and crashed at a totally reasonable hour.

So, how rural is Warren County? Enough so that Johnsonburg (population 59) lost its post office. The USPS was renting a room of a house on Main Street, and the homeowners decided not to renew the lease. We are now without our own post office, relying instead on neighboring Greendell (can't find population info). I had a few packages to mail, so Tay and I went wandering around to find the Greendell post office. It turns out it's located in an even smaller room in the downstairs of a community building on a small "main" street between some county roads. How quaint.

We did a little more driving around and then some hiking and sharing meals with the other people who were on site for the weekend, my friends Abi and Tadd and Tadd's son.

On Sunday, I was scheduled to visit the church in Washington, which was about a half hour drive from camp through farmland and hills. It was a lovely church, very welcoming and down to earth. I had a nice visit. Afterward, I wanted to take Taylor to Hot Dog Johnny's, somewhat of an institution in the region. (I might not eat meat but I love their fries and birch beer.) We missed a turn (there was no street sign) and drove up the side of a mountain first. Lovely views! Some turns later we had happily arrived and enjoyed our lunch in Buttzville. Yes, that is a real town.

Some hiking later, it was time for Taylor to head home. I had a peaceful evening reading over my committee's comments on thesis draft number six. Soon, armed with lucky draft number seven, I will be defending my research and moving on to the next adventures in life. Don't ask me what they will be though, I don't know yet.