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| Bored? Take a Drive. I grew up in Monmouth County, NJ, and like a lot of kids, me, my sisters, and the other kids in the neighborhood often found that we didn't have a lot to do. Luckily, our yard bordered on some woods, so we did a lot of exploring. We were lucky some days when our folks dropped us off at Great Adventure in Jackson. But after awhile, that got tiring, too. You can only ride Rolling Thunder so many times before even it gets boring.
When we got older, and got our drivers' licenses, we (like all teenagers in New Jersey) spent plenty of time at the mall,
and every now and then, at the beach.
But mostly, we complained about not having a whole lot to do.
Well, that's what this area of my site is for: I hope to be able to provide interesting day trip ideas
for those who can drive. I believe that I can appeal to older teens and young 20-somethings, in particular, since I, myself,
am quite immature (no offense to you older teens and young 20-somethings).
As a kid, I kind of hated the Pine Barrens. All those short, scrubby pines. All that white sugar sand. All that talk of the Jersey
Devil -- which, by the way, did not scare me, as much as it embarrassed me that grown people would talk about it like it
was actually real. Puh-lease.
As an adult, however, I see many opportunities in the Pine Barrens that I missed as a kid. The long drive across Route 539, which roughly
cuts the state in half, diagonally, and runs from approximately Trenton to Tuckerton Beach, is PACKED with the wonderful and the bizarre.
The roads that connect up to 539 also prove to be quite interesting. I should warn you, however, that it is a long drive, but some of the
wacky stuff along the way makes it worth the drive.
Incidentally, for awhile, I lived in Trenton (Chambersburg), and my folks were living in Little Egg Harbor, so I would drive 539 nearly
its entire length to go visit them. There were several restaurants along the way which I never visited: they looked a bit too scary for me.
However, several years later, driving around the Barrens with Glen, and his sister (who was visiting from Canada), we stopped
at several of the establishments, and in each case, were pleasantly surprised by the quality of the food, and friendliness of the staff
and patrons. Despite all the deer heads and live bait dispensers. So it was a sunny day, summer 2003, that we took this particular road trip to nowhere through the Pine Barrens. Click the "next" button below or on one of the pictures to the left to find out more.
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