Heading North Two Lane Adventure - 6th Leg

The first town we came to this morning on Route 13 is known as the "First Town in the First State," Lewes  Delaware has a proud historic and nautical heritage.

The Dutch seamen who landed here in 1631 established the first settlement. Lewes is ideally situated for visitors who love the water, because it's located where the Delaware Bay meets the Atlantic Ocean at Cape Henlopen. The Lewes–Rehoboth Canal winds past the commercial district. If you prefer to get in touch with natural resources, one of our greatest assets is the proximity to Cape Henlopen State Park. The park area encompasses over 5,000 acres of natural beauty including spectacular bay and ocean vistas, a unique saltwater lagoon and the Great Dune which rises 80 feet above sea level. If history is your venue, Lewes has many homes and buildings of historical and architectural interest. You can see numerous restored homes dating back to the 18th and 19th centuries. One 17th-century home is documented to be Delaware's oldest standing building.We boarded the Cape May Lewes Ferry in our camper with the jeep in tow and we were ready to "take a break from the ordinary!" We were ready to kick back and enjoy the 17-mile, 85-minute cruise between Delaware and New Jersey. You can see historic lighthouses, picturesque harbors, oceangoing vessels, unique seabirds and, just maybe, a dolphin escort!

The ferry accepts foot passenger, bicycles, motorcycles, cars, trucks, RV, buses and tractor trailers. Each ferry can carry 1,000 passengers but holds only 100 vehicles. When you exit the Ferry we headed onto NJ 9. Where you can see the Historic Cold Spring Village. It brings to life the day-to-day activities of villagers living in South Jersey during the “age of homespun." That is late 1700 to early 1800. You can take a stroll along the 30 acres of shaded lanes, enjoying the gardens and observing the farm where heritage crops are grown; visit twenty-six restored historic buildings housing historically-clothed interpreters, who are there to educate and entertain visitors about the lifestyles, issues, trades and crafts of yesteryear. If walking is not in your plan during this visit, enjoy free horse-drawn carriage rides. Solar power in New Jersey is BIG! It has been aided by a Renewable Portfolio Standard which requires that 22.5% of New Jersey's electricity come from renewable resources by 2021. New Jersey is second in the nation in the total number of homes and businesses which have solar panels installed. Prominent solar contractors in New Jersey include Gehrlicher Solar America Corp., Trinity Solar, GeoPeak Energy and Amberjack Solar. The piece-de-resistance of solar energy is the Lawrenceville School, a centuries-old boarding school. It is home to 6.1 megawatts of high-performance solar panels. The sprawling photo-voltaic system, ground-mounted on 30 acres of school-owned farm land. The system features 24,934 SolarWorld solar panels mounted on single-axis trackers, to maximize energy production. The array is designed to produce approximately 9,264,000 kilowatt hours of solar electricity each year, enough to power the equivalent of more than 800 typical American homes, and to offset 6,388 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually, the equivalent of taking 1,253 cars off the road. The Lawrenceville School solar farm is also home to nearly 900,000 resident honey bees, nourished by a special wildflower mixture planted among and around the solar panels. We turned off NJ 9 onto NJ 50 North. On our recent trips we have panther crossing, deer crossing, turtle or terrapin crossing, well up you can now add tractor crossing to the list of the crossing signs we have seen!

Went through great small towns like Egg Harbor with vibrant Main Streets! While we were heading North on NJ 50, we crossed over the south river ... Think about it for a minute ... How is that possible? County route 563 N is one of the last roads of this leg. We ventured through the Pinelands National Reserve. The Pinelands is a unique location of historic villages and berry farms amid the vast oak-pine forests (pine barrens), extensive wetlands, and diverse species of plants and animals of the Atlantic coastal pine barrens eco-region. It is protected by state and federal legislation. The reserve contains Wharton State Forest, Brendan T. Byrne State Forest, Bass River State Forest, and Penn State Forest, which provide public recreation facilities. Franklin Parker Preserve encompasses 15 square miles in the heart of the New Jersey Pine Barrens. It is accessible by a network of sandy roads that wind though pitch pine forest and blueberry fields, and run along the preserve’s cedar swamp, shallow lakes and pristine tributaries of the West Branch of the Wading River. It is part of a former cranberry farm. The Franklin Parker Preserve is adjacent to approximately 250,000 acres of public conservation land in the form of five state-owned properties: Brendan Byrne State Forest, Wharton State Forest, Bass River State Forest, Greenwood Wildlife Management Area and Penn State Forest. The Franklin Parker Preserve contains approximately 5,000 acres of wetlands habitat and 4,400 acres of contiguous upland pine oak forest, as well as 14 tributaries that cross the preserve and eventually unite in the Wading River, one of the most popular sites for canoeing in the Pine Barrens. The Preserve is the home of several animals that are considered endangered species in New Jersey, including the bobcat and bald eagle. Several New Jersey threatened species can be found in the preserve, including the Barred Owl, Northern Pine Snake and Pine Barrens Tree Frog. Twenty-nine rare plant species have also been discovered in the Preserve, including Pine Barrens Gentian, Bog Asphodel, Curly Grass Fern, Yellow-fringed Orchid, Little Ladies’-tresses Orchid and Pencil Flower.

 If the only cranberry bogs you have seen are on the ocean spray commercials, you really need to check them out. They are pretty cool! The Pine Island Cranberry Company, run by the Haines family and the Lee Brothers Cranberry Farm are the two big growers along county route 563 N. Pine Island Cranberry Company has been in the Pine Barrens since 1890, when Martin L. Haines first began harvesting his bogs in Hogwallow, just south of Chatsworth. Lee Brothers Cranberries is seven generations of family harvesting the native fruit. The Pine Barrens of southern New Jersey, is where they have everything they need, the native fruit, the sandy soil, and abundant water–to build a successful business and help preserve one of the largest areas of undeveloped wilderness in the United States. A great deal happens on a cranberry farm before, during and after the harvest is done. We turned onto route 70 and found the Historic Whitesbog Village is an early 20th century company town and agricultural community.  In the early 1900’s, Whitesbog was the largest cranberry farm in New Jersey.  Its founder, Joseph J. White, was a nationally recognized leader in the cranberry industry.

In 1916 the first cultivated blueberry here at Whitesbog. Whitesbog is an important part of New Jersey history and the history of the blueberry and cranberry culture in the United States.  It is listed on both the National and State Registers of Historic Sites.  Whitesbog includes the village and the surrounding 3,000 acres of cranberry bogs, blueberry fields, reservoirs, sugar sand roads and Pine Barren’s forests. We finished the trip, arriving at our relatives in NJ. Our camping spot is next to the Tiki-Hut, who could ask for a better spot for a break in your travels!