I like to wander a lot when I travel. If I get lost, so much the better. The more I can disregard the clock and focus my attention on the surroundings, get a good sense of the place, the happier this little camper will be.

So, when I visited West Virginia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York last week, I dedicated as much time as possible to feeling out my new surroundings.

The biggest surprise? Jersey.

Consider Jersey for a minute. What image pops into your head?

I understand the inclination. Up until recently, I was right there with you. Industry, industry, industry. That’s what you expect. The phrase, “where dreams go to die,” may or may not have come into play when I used to speak of Jersey.

It’s Jersey’s reputation. But wrongly so, I discovered. Oh so wrong. And I will now be the first to admit how unfair I was.

Sorry, N.J., I hope we can still be friends.

(Oh, and to be clear, that image above is actually from an old rubber factory in Denver. Just keepin’ it real.)

This is Jersey. (Although, “Green Farm”? Really?)

And this.

And this.

Are you shocked? I know I was. Farmland, pastures, Colonial-style houses. All of this and more exists in Jersey. It’s beautiful.

Sorry, I have a thing for old bridges. They’re nifty.

I want my sister to work here. Is this not the best library? I would come here constantly.

I might even try to move in. I could be like Quasimodo. Without the hunchback. Or bells. Or singing gargoyles. (What? I was brought up on Disney flicks.)

I love the east coast. You just don’t see this kind of thing in Colorado. (Though you can see where Buffalo Bill Cody is buried.  And you can view a herd of steer driven down a main drag of Denver by cowboys. Which you can’t find in just any major city. But I digress.)

This too is Jersey. Well, a piece of my Jersey trip anyway. And if you know me at all you’ll know how much of an accomplishment it is for me to get this close. I have a difficult time with creatures sporting more than four legs. So to meet one face-to-face, then be directed to pick the thing up for a culinary dismembering, and survive to tell the tale with minimal squealing, that’s big-time personal growth. Luckily, my host was extremely kind and helped me through the worst parts.

Aw, New York. I love New York. This is the view from the roof of a friend’s house. He lives in Brooklyn. The tall, bright building on the right is the Empire State Building. The bridge in the foreground is the Brooklyn Bridge. Can you imagine having this as your view? Exquisite.

And with that, we complete our tour. I know it was a bit disjointed, so I appreciate you bearing with me.

I was somewhat scatterbrained this trip. Partly it was the lack of sleep. (I only slept for about two hours of the first two days of adventure.) I also met quite the crew of new people during the five-day sojourn. It was wonderful, don’t get me wrong, but took a lot of concentration to keep everyone straight. (Again, two hours of sleep.) As such, I didn’t take quite as many photos as I would have liked. And thus, the discombobulated nature of this blog post.

Oh, and yes, I did drive through Pennsylvania and briefly visit Philadelphia, however I have no pictorial evidence. We ate cheesesteaks (yum!), and wanted to run up the steps of the art museum as seen in Rocky (“Yo, Adrian!”), but were sadly thwarted. Three words: east coast traffic. Forty-five minute drives quickly turn into 90 minutes or longer, and suddenly there’s no time to reenact key montage sequences from Rocky.

Next time, next time.

Love ya’ all (you most of all, Jersey): a.e.