Monday, June 26, 2023- New Jersey

      Since Anna is getting married in August and most of our spare money is going to the wedding, we don't have any big vacation plans this summer like we usually do.  We are planning an overnight here or a weekend there over the next few weeks, but nothing like our usual epic plans.   School ended for us last week.  (Scott added to the usual year end work by starting to put Abby's new swingset together.  That also took all week.)  We were already itching to do something.

      A few weeks ago, Emma mentioned a conference in New Jersey that she wanted to attend.  We looked at the calendar and said we could take her, so that became our first little excursion this year.  Yesterday, we drove here and took our time.  Abby liked watching for windmills as we were driving through the Southern Tier of New York and she was trying to count them.  We checked into our hotel and let Abby go swimming a little bit last night.  Julie has never been impressed with New Jersey, and this hotel is not helping to change her mind.  There are bags of garbage through the hallways waiting to be taken away and only one of the two elevators is working. 

     From our hotel, we drove around the campus of Rutgers to the place where Emma's conference was.  It was on the grounds of the Bristol-Myers Squibb company.  She was a little nervous, but seemed excited about it.  It was specifically directed to women in the sciences.  She later told us that she had come the farthest and everyone was surprised she had come down from Buffalo.  Most everyone else was from New Jersey-- Rutgers, Princeton, and other places she didn't recognize.

     Julie, Scott and Abby continued on to the Atlantic Ocean.  We went to the beach at Sandy Hook (*not THAT Sandy Hook.  That's in Connecticut.  This Sandy Hook is the northernmost part of the Jersey Shore.)  Daddy took Abby down to the ocean, but she didn't like it.  It was very cold and unpredictable.  A few waves would lap in and not quite make it to our toes, but the next one would roll in and we would be knee-deep in cold North Atlantic water.  Abby retreated from there, but loved playing in the sand.  She and Mommy made sand "castles" (although they were really more like mounds), and Abby would dance through and crush them while she giggled.  She also ran circles around Mommy, who was sitting in the sand.  Abby ran around her just as fast as she could go, trip and plop down into sand, giggle and run around in circles again.  She had fun and wore herself out like we had hoped.

     From the beach we continued through National Recreation Area to the area known as Fort Hancock.  It is the ruins of a post-Civil War fort that guarded the mouth of New York Harbor.  We went there because we wanted to see the Sandy Hook Lighthouse.  It is the oldest lighthouse in the United States, dating back to 1764.  The Patriots shot cannonballs at it during the Revolution, but were unable to harm it.   We looked around there and had a small lunch at a nearby snack bar.  Abby made a mess on the floor from her Dippin' Dots ice cream, which left blue and pink spots on the hardwood floor.  On our way out, we saw an osprey sitting in her huge nest on top of one of the chimney's of the fort buildings.  

     Abby was soon asleep in the back of the car, which let Scott make some stops that he wanted to go to.  We went to the Quick Stop convenience store in Lorenzo, NJ.  It is infamous as the site where Kevin Smith made his first movie, Clerks..  This was the store where Kevin Smith once worked. It served as the filming location for practically all of his first movie, and was revisited in several others.  Scott likes Kevin Smith, not so much for his humor, which is often raunchy and sex-and-drug related-- although if the truth be told, Scott has laughed at a lot of his movies.  Rather, he likes Kevin Smith because of his enthusiasm for comics and pop culture.  Scott thinks Smith is at his best when he's talking about those, and doing things like interviewing Stan Lee.  Scott went inside the Quick Stop, which looks much like it did in the movie, and bought a few things including a can of Pringles, like the guy had stuck on his hand in the movie.  The far end of the building is apparently now owned by Kevin Smith and used for recording his podcasts- i.e. SModcasts.

     From the Clerks site, we continued on to Jay and Silent Bob's Secret Stash, which bills itself as the most famous comic book store in the world.  It is at least partly owned by Kevin Smith and is filled with memorabilia from his movies, and lots of merchandise for sale along with the typical comic book shop stuff.  It was this store that featured on the reality TV show Comic Book Men (although that was the store seems to have moved to here from a different location from then).  That show was a Kevin Smith production, and Scott loved watching it, even when the episodes started to get very scripted.  The four guys who were featured on the show actually worked there, and upon entering the store, Scott immediately recognized "Mike", i.e., Michael Zapcic.  Scott asked him if it was ok to take pictures in the store, and when Mike said go for it, Scott also asked if he could get a selfie with him.  Mike was great about it and insisted that they take two, not just one.  He is quite a character and seemed to love joking with the various customers today.  He found a book that Scott had been looking for (Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #2 by Ryan North and Erica Henderson), which Scott bought.  Scott also got a pint glass and a t-shirt with the store logos on them.

     Julie actually said "That's pretty," or "This is nice," about several places we were at or that we drove through today, but she insists that she still hates New Jersey.  The traffic alone is enough to cement that opinion.  The drivers are impatient and mean, but worse, the traffic patterns are really weird.  Often, we had to get over to the right lane in order to follow a loop around to make a left turn, and once we twice we were already too far left to do that.

     We made our way back to where Emma was and waited for her to finish.  When she came with her swag bag and goggles, we continued on towards our hotel.  On the way we passed a tavern and decided to try the food there.  It was very good and relatively cheap compared to last night.  Abby was teasing to go back to the hotel and get in the pool, which we eventually did.   We were frustrated to find out, though, that the one working elevator was now apparently not. and we had to take the stairs up, but at least we were only on the second floor.