Along South Jersey Roads

On Saturday we took our fifthwheel trailer to our dealer for the long awaited repairs.   The drive from our old home in Upper Deerfield Township, Cumberland County to Lakewood is 92 miles each way.

The majority of the drive is through the New Jersey Pine Barrens.   Most people mistakenly believe that NJ is all urban setting comprising of either cities or bedroom communities.   However, in actuality 22% of the state are what is known as the Pine Barrens.   The barrens are supported by a sandy, nutrient poor soil allowing mostly only scrub pine growth as shown on this shot along NJ Route 206.  The area for the most part is undeveloped.   1.1 million acres are under the Pinelands Acts which prohibits most development.   Laying under the Pine Barrens is one of the worlds largest aquifers.

This is our rigs home for the next two weeks or so.  

There are two main crops in the Pine Barrens - cranberries and blueberries

 NJ is the third largest state in the growing of Cranberries.  The largest is Massachusetts followed  by Wisconsin.    Cranberries are grown in bogs and produce berries year after year from the same plants.   At harvest time the bogs are flooded causing the berries rise to the top to be harvested.

The other crop is blueberries.  Blueberries thrive in sandy soil.   Hammonton NJ is world known for its thousands of acres of this delicious blue fruit.

Now for a another great product of South Jersey - WAWA!!!!   In the early 1800's the Woods family of neighboring Millville  opened a small convenience store in Greenwich, Cumberland County, NJ.  At some point they went into a dairy operation and grew from there.  In 1964 they opened the first Wawa (named for a Goose) store outside Philadelphia.   In the 1970's Wawa began staying open 24 hours and started brewing fresh made coffee and preparing sandwiches.    Until 1996 Wawa was a small convenience store but that year they opened the first Super Wawa which included a gas station.   There are now 570 Wawa's located in NJ, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia.    We love our Wawa coffee.  The pots are timed and none is older than 20 minutes.    In our travels we have never found a convenience store that in any way comes close to Wawa.

So here we are now.   This is our home until the rig is returned to us and we get on the road again.

After getting settled into the motel yesterday, we were graciously invited to the home of our friends Janet and Erich.   This just might be our last really good meal for the next two weeks!   Not easy to cook on the small microwave here in the room or even keep a lot of food in the small fridge.   Hey, come to think of it, there are lots of restaurants in the area and a Walmart across the street that sells prepared dinners.  I think we will survive.