Oh give me a home where the buffalo roam... Leaving Washington Crossing, we crossed the Delaware into New Jersey. Back into the thick of things, freeways, traffic and confusion. Our destination was Edison Historical Park in West Orange, New Jersey, a suburb of Newark. This was something my tour planner put on our map as an interesting place. Well, it was interesting, but at the end of the day we had second thoughts about going there. We found a Walmart for the night near there and planned our 'assault' for the next day. I located a Home Depot on the map near the objective and planned to park the RV there and go on in the jeep. Turns out, the Home Depot was in a very congested area with a small crowded parking lot. One street leading in, almost two lanes. The 18 wheelers had a hard time turning in. I did manage to parallel park on the edge and we proceeded to jeep on, glad we didn't bring the RV. Now most of us envision Edison in a little lab making light bulbs. In reality, he had this research facility consisting of the 3 story building plus others dedicated to chemistry,physics, and metallurgy. He had a staff of over 150 people working here experimenting and perfecting inventions, resulting in 1093 patents. His early work was done at Menlo Park, where he developed the light bulb, trying over 3000 filaments before finding the one that worked. He was a persistent perfectionist. Edison is also well know for perfecting the phonograph, some early experimental models are shown here. In these early models, the sound was recorded on wax drums. Commercial models are shown below, the one on the right having the speaker built into the box. There was no volume control, but the one on the left could be muted by putting something in the horn, hence the term, 'put a sock in it'!! The room above was actually the first commercial recording studio where people would come to make recorded music for sale. The chemistry lab is the building on the left. The first floor of the main building is the heavy machine shop. Note the drive belts to each machine, driven by pulleys on a common overhead shaft which in turn was turned by large electric motors. The second floor is a precision machine shop. There is a 3 story research library. (I dimmed out the bright window) Edison was an amazing man. He not only invented things, but built power stations to power his electric lights, had a company to make cement from waste rock using ore milling technology, developed the motion picture machine and a rechargeable battery for use in electric cars, and a line of electric appliances including a coffee maker, waffle irons, sandwich grills, and toasters. All this and more before his death in 1931. Lights dimmed for 1 minute nationwide on the day of his funeral. Now the fun begins. We made it back to the RV, hooked up and made out of the parking lot verry carefully. We had heard a couple of reports from RVer's who paid over $100 in tolls in New Jersey/New York, so we told our GPS lady to avoid them. She did quite well, taking us on minor highways through business and residential areas, places that most tourists do not get to see. We had to cross the Hudson River into New York somewhere and all crossings had tolls. A word about tolls. One bridge or tunnel we crossed charged $4 for cars, but for an RV pulling a Jeep, it was $12!!. Another tollway charged $6 getting on, but getting off had an unmanned toll both requiring coins only. The sign said $0.50 so we threw two quarters into the hopper, but a little electric sign up ahead said we owed $4.30. What do you think we did?? So we approached the George Washington bridge. $14 for cars, $14 and up for trucks. OK so the toll for a car is $14, but the toll for an RV pulling a Jeep is --- SEVENTY-SIX dollars ($76). Cash only. Here's a portion of the bridge we bought. It's a very nice bridge. Now we endure the traffic, congestion, and confusion of crossing this part of New York state, and crossing into Connecticut was like a breath of fresh air. Good roads and no tolls. The Welcome Center was something else. Remember we talked about the various welcome centers of the various states? Well this one was a fueling station for cars and trucks, plus a food court with popular restaurants, even a drive through. We arrived at this very nice campground in the woods totally exhausted, ready for happy hour, but we just collapsed on the bed instead. This place has good wifi and we need to blog and do other computer work, so we will stay here two nights to recharge, regroup, and figure out where we will go next. Here's where we've been. The rest of the story: In regards to Washington's crossing, he surprised the Hessians and defeated them, taking 900 prisoners, but more importantly, captured their supplies of food, weapons, and shoes.
It's been in the 60's here, with frost warnings for tomorrow night. Oops, I just realized we are coming up on Memorial Day weekend when campgrounds are usually full. There are a lot of them around here so maybe we can get a place. Otherwise we'll be wondering around in the wilderness. Stay tuned. Oh give me a home where the buffalo roam...
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Who are we?Chuck and Mary Lou have been traveling in their RV since 2002 and have lately been taking longer, extended trips. This is our way to share our experiences. Trip Reports
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