Entries from Admin

Needing to clear my head a bit, I took the van out alone (for the first time ever) and headed over to the biggest green square on the map of New Jersey. Would you believe that there is actually a considerable forest in New Jersey?

Here is the interesting part... being from North/Central NJ, I am well habituated to prohibitions of all kinds. I am used to seeing "Do Not Enter", "Private Property", "We will shoot you if you think about it", etc. So it was with glum expectations that I found myself driving South on Route 206 in heavy rain, looking to my left at the myriads of tempting dirt roads which all have a white but unreadable (at 50mph) sign posted at the entrance. After passing about 20 of these, I decided to brave the elements and my old notions, and turned into one. I had to drive right up to one to read it, and here is what it said (more or less):

Rules of Conduct in the State Forest: No bad behavior. No exploding nuclear weapons. No disrespecting small rodents.

(I stopped reading at this point. I've never experienced a "Yes you can" sign before - at least that's what this meant to me)

So I drove in and found a very nice patch to park on (after driving through a narrow opening in the bushes and listening to the sound of bush thorns on the paint for a hunded feet or so). It was still raining, so I stayed inside, awaiting nightfall, but the rain suddenly stopped and I went out to explore

This trip sets the current record for living out of a 1/2 ton van without resorting to hotels!

White Mountains National Park is located in New Hampshire, and is not that small a park (as we found out). It is vaguely reminiscent of the Blue Ridge Parkway, as the drive on the "Cank" (Cancamangus Highway, or Rt 112) is very similar - series of climbs and drops interspersed with overlooks and the occasional "Unimproved Road", as my GPS calls them, invitingly appearing on either side. Unlike the Blue Ridge Parkway, this park charges a fee, a whopping $5 for a week. The permit you get in exchange for you money allows you to park (yes, overnight) just about anywhere you want

One of these overlooks had a parking lot on either side of the road, and the back lot is where we spent most of our nighs - we liked it that much. The overlook faced East so we got to watch the sunrise from bed every morning. Despite what the locals might call a "crowded" situation (local speak for 20 people instead of 10 in a 50 mile radius), "our" parking lot was basically ours for the whole 6 days including Labor Day Weekend - the camera-vision tourist types were interested in the other parking lot, and they would periodically arrive, jump out of the car, put on fake smiles and take pictures, jumping back into their cars so fast that one might think they just smashed someone's mailbox and were now escaping the gun-toting owner.