Home?!

I tried to find a song that conveyed the feeling of coming back home to New Jersey.

                             I could not find one.

                   Take Me Home, Country Roads…. Nope

                             We are nowhere near the Blue Ridge Mountains.

                   Sweet Home Alabama (New Jersey)…. Nope

                             Nobody calls NJ “Sweet Home.”

                   Green, Green Grass of Home…. Nope   

                             I don’t even know anyone named Mary.

                   Homeward Bound ….. ehh, maybe?

                             Getting closer, at least they’re from NYC!

                   Born to Run…… Now we’re talkin’!

                             This is it!

                             For all of you that live here, you know what I mean…

                             For those of you that live in far off places like Florida, Oregon , or Michigan, I will try to explain. There is no other place on the planet like New Jersey.

                             We are tiny.

                             We are crowded.

                             We have an attitude.

                             We have the best pizza.

                             We have awesome Superfund Sites.

                             And we have Frank Sinatra, Whitney Houston, Frankie Valli, Jon Bon Jovi, The Rascals, Dionne Warwick, Gloria Gaynor, The Happenings, Ricky Nelson, Sarah Vaughn, Connie Francis, The Shirlelles, Deborah Harry, Ice-T, Count Basie, Clint Black, Charlie Puth, The Jonas Brothers, Halsey, Lesley Gore, and of course, The Boss….. Bruce.

                             The Born To Run lyrics are definitely not the most uplifting words to ever hit the airwaves…..

                             “At night we ride through the mansions of glory in suicide machines… Sprung from cages on Highway 9…”

                             I LOVE Highway 9! A classic local state highway that winds its way past and through all of the great New Jersey shore towns….. Asbury Park, Seaside Heights, Barnegat, Atlantic City, and Wildwood, just to name a few.

                             “Oh baby, this town rips the bones from your back,

 It’s a death trap, a suicide rap, we gotta get out while we’re young….”

                    See what I mean?

But it’s Jersey…..

My daughter in Colorado has two tee-shirts, one says,

Welcome to New Jersey,

Now Get Out!

The other one says,

New Jersey

Only the Strong Survive

                   Those two shirts just about sum it all up.

                   But… it’s home!

                   We knew we were getting closer to home when on I-80 eastbound out of Pennsylvania, just before the Delaware Water Gap, everything ground to a halt. Looking at Google Maps we could see the solid red line (indicating stopped traffic) stretching all the way across the Delaware River and two more miles into New Jersey.

As we inched along, we eventually came to a sign that read “One and a half miles – Left Lane Closed Ahead.” Well, that explained it. When we finally covered those 1.5 miles, squeezed down into one lane, and crept along for another two miles, we happened upon the source of this absurd backup. There was a guy in the left lane of this (two lanes only) major East/West interstate and he was working on a storm grate, putting some extra tar around it, I guess to make it waterproof.

                                      I da know…. You can’t make this stuff up!

                   Mind you we made it all the way from Texas to the Delaware River without even the slightest hint of any traffic/travel issues!

                                      Until.

                                      Until New Jersey.

                   And that was just the beginning!

                                      We needed exit onto Rt. 94 towards Blairstown for the final twenty miles or so until we hit Yetter’s Diner, our “campground” for the summer. Believe it or not (and if you’re from these parts you totally believe this) we had three more “Lane Closures” on this last leg adding an additional 45 minutes to a trip that should have taken only 30 to begin with!

                                      Finally we pulled into our reserved spot at the Diner. They were very happy to see us, they always are. We surprised them, we just showed up and went in for lunch.

                                      This where the good stuff starts.

                                      New Jersey Diner food!

                                      It really is like no other!

                   And for the record, the state is not all bad, in fact, when you get to know it and all of its specialties and peculiarities, it kind of grows on you…..

                             Oh, and we have Bucky Pizzarelli, the famed American Jazz guitarist and his son John Pizzarelli, who wrote a song a tad more positive then Born to Run….. It’s called; I Like Jersey Best

                   Just for fun Google it and have a listen, it’s got a catchy hook and is quite clever.

                                      I’ll leave it at that  😊