More "Then And Now"

[TeeGate]

All,

Here is another "Then And Now" photo to add to my collection. Both photo's are taken from the Jersey Central Railroad Bridge over route 72 near Chatsworth looking west towards route 70. The photo on the left was developed in 9/79, and the photo on the right was taken today. Note the speed limit differences, and the telephone poles on the left are now obscured by the trees. Also, it is now paved.

http://www.njpinebarrens.com/~teegate/9_79__3_03.jpg

Guy

[bobpbx]

That's neat Guy, I always like your comparison photos...........bob

[TeeGate]

Thanks Bob. I truly appreciate that and I will have others soon.

I also failed to mention that you can also notice that an electric wire is strung across the photo on the left, but it is no longer there on the right.

Another observation there is that 4x4 owners started to attack the hills that support the bridge, and the state has piled large dirt mounds there to stop their advance on them. It has worked. If anyone has never been there it is an interesting place to stop and visit, and as I do often, eat lunch there. It is a haven for lady bugs and usually in April there are thousands of them there. Yesterday we saw one.

Guy

[JeffD]

That must be the railroad bridge where Savoy Road just comes in, not far from Woodmansie. At least that's the only RR bridge over 72 I know of on that side of Chatsworth. The sidetrack switch isn't far from there, if this is indeed the place I think it is.

It's good something was done to prevent irresponsiible 4 X 4 ers from ruining the hills that support the bridge.

[TeeGate]

The sidetrack switch isn't far from there, if this is indeed the place I think it is.


That is correct.

I was at the switch yesterday.

Guy

[JeffD]

Guy, when you and Ben were in that general area last week, you reported that the unpaved roads were driveable. What was it like yesterday, with the rain. You may, of course, have been there before the rain.

I may visit Twin Lakes some day. I gather that if I make the left turn on Savoy Road, coming from the north, follow it until it crosses the tracks, I then depart from the paved road and follow the first sand road where there is a sign for the Pasadena wildlife management area.

The only problem I found visiting this area is parking. You're not allowed to park in that area off the paved road shortly after crossing the railroad tracks, and I'm not sure if it's OK to park off the road where the railroad crosses Savoy road. It seemed to draw some suspicion. I was only there an hour or two when I parked there.

[TeeGate]

Jeff,

You can easily get to Old Half Way in your car. I did it yesterday with my new 2001 Focus.

Cross the track in Bullock where Savoy road and Egg Harbor road meet, and take the dirt road that heads slightly to the left. Basically it is the large far left dirt road.

Look for the red target symbol on the first two maps.

http://topozone.com/map.asp?z=18&n=4414520&e=547146&s=25

Then travel a short distance to your first turn off to the right.

http://topozone.com/map.asp?z=18&n=4414159&e=547721&s=25

Continue on this road until right after the road goes around a curve to your right. You can see it to the left of the "V" in the below photo. You will be coming in from the top of the map. Just below the curve and to the left of the "V" there is an intersection and you go to your right. That takes you directly to Old Half Way. You will come to a sign that says No Vehicles Beyond this point. You can park there or continue on to the lake and park there which I do.

http://terraserver.microsoft.com/image.aspx?t=1&s=12&x=685&y=5515&z=18&w=2

Remember there are two lakes so take a map with you to find the other one. Walk around the lake to your left and head WNW toward the other one shown in the above photo. Again, you should get a GPS to show you the way. Sorry I couldn't resist mentioning that.

To see the car in the water, go to the deep end of the first lake and it is there.


Guy

[TeeGate]

As you can see my friend and I spent many of lunch times at the JCRR bridge. Below is another photo taken by him at an earlier date than mine. This photo was developed in June of 1977. Compare this photo to my 1979 one and there is a noticeable difference in the height of the trees.

http://www.njpinebarrens.com/~teegate/FromJCRRBridge6_77.jpg

Guy

[JeffD]

Thanks, Guy. Maybe some day I will get a GPS unit. I'm just leary of technical things. It took me years until I came kicking and dragging into the computer age.

Old Halfway doesn't look very hard to find, and the directions and map are clear and it looks like one can do a loop around the lakes. I can get around almost anywhere as long as I have a landmark.

The pictures were taken only two years apart, and the trees grew that much! Wow!

[TeeGate]

Just don't drive around the lakes, make sure you walk. The roads are not that great there.

Guy

[bruset]

Actually the roads are closed as you go to the lakes, so park in and walk. I think it's better to walk there than drive anyway.

[JeffD]

I do too, Ben. I llike to walk. Just as long as I can park near the area where I being a scenic walk and I don't have to walk more than five miles. :)
It's good to have an end destination and have a loop. Otherwise, I tend to stretch the hike, having a memory lapse that I have to walk that distance back if I just turn around.

You say the roads are not that great around the lake, Guy. Are they soggy or just rough for vehicles?

[TeeGate]

Jeff,

The sign says no motor vehicle beyond this point just before you get to the lake, so you can drive right to them. I just go a little farther past the sign to the edge of the lake because I am stubborn and feel that it is obvious by my photo's who is destroying the lake, and they are the one's who should not be riding in them. I just have a car to get there and if the authorities think I am a threat then then there is something wrong with the system. It is like pulling over a car going 26 when someone else is going 70. Don't make much sense.

Anyway, the roads around the lake have some pretty nice looking puddles, that you don't want to take you car through. Most of the mud is in the bottom of the lake, and you can walk around there fine if you watch your step.

I want to again mention that it is easy to get confused going to the second lake, so make sure you print out the map from terraserver.com and take it with you. It is about a half mile to the second lake from the first.


At this map you will be coming in at the top right heading to the large white area at the bottom. Just before that curve to the right of the white area is the sign telling you no motor vehicles.

http://terraserver.microsoft.com/image.aspx?t=1&s=11&x=1370&y=11030&z=18&w=1


Guy

[JeffD]

I ventured off early this afternoon, following your directions, Guy, on a quest to find at least one of the lakes. I found A lake, but I don't think is was one of the Twin Lakes. I turned left on Savoy Road at the Route 72 RR bridge, crossed the railroad tracks and took the most left of I believe three sand roads that were more or less straight ahead after I crossed the tracks. I turned right at the first junction and when I came to the first four-way intersection, I turned right again. After a drive roughly as long as the first right I could see a lake through the trees, not far away. Before that, I passed the rye (goes well with liverworst, onion salt and mustard), that clearing you mentioned in your recent "front page" article, Ben, which you wrote is called that by hunters. It looked nice and neat. I saw other clearings, which is a good idea.

I didn't see any signs and after I followed the sand road, which was carpeted by needles and other debris, alongside the lake, and parked near a narrow strip of land that crossed the water. Except for a few puddles, which were not in the way, I found the ground quite dry.

I crossed the lake and turned left. The needle carpeted trail ended after about 1/4 mile, and there was a turn around. I went back and passed the bridge, following the trail that skirted the water. The trail went away from the water, and soon the trail, more like a sand road, was bare, somewhat think sand, but not quite sugar sand (maybe a lump or two). Soon I the railroad tracks were in front of me, and I turned left, skirting the tracks to my right. After 1/2 mile or so, I came to the railroad siding switch. I backtracked and crossed back over the stip of land to the other side back to the car.After I crossed over the lake, I turned left, and followed a needle carpeted trail, bearing to the left a junctions. I came to the railroad tracks again, beared left, and followed the road, which opened up a little, skirting the tracks to my right again. Between the tracks and the sand road I followed was a depression, filled with a strip-grove of cedars To my left, with just low growth between, was the lake. At one point I crossed a small wooden bridge. I heard what I believed were animals sounds coming from the lake area. One was a peep, either a bird or maybe spring peeper? I also heard a chorus of sounds that had rhythm similar to crickets but with a different tone, a little like the sound when you're driving with a wheel that's not on quite right or have a bad bearing. It went something like "Chit--chit-chit-chit Chit-chit-chit-chit I saw a fallen tree that looked like it was pulled to the side of the road, on the edge, almost parallel to it. A cable or rope was attahched between it and a think stalk of a bush or tree. I thought is funny if anyone would expect that little stick to hold the big long in place, as if it were a leash.

I followed the small sand road and came upon the junction where earlier I had turned left from the other direction to find the switch. I turned left and followed the trail to the land bridge over the lake. At one point I turned right, and went away from the lake and then swung back. The trail to my left that was closer to the creek evidently had dead ended somewhere between where I turned right and where the trail I was on swung back towards the lake. I crossed over the creek, got in my car, and drove back to Savoy Road. This time I sprayed myself and Dolly with OFF, which contains DEET. I didn't mention on my post about my hike on the Botona trail from Apple Pie Hill to just above the Carranza Memorial that I picked up a chigger in an unmentionable area of my body. The hikers I had met that day mentioned that the chiggers are now out. I didn't pick up anything today. Maybe I didn't even need bug spray, as it was cool and a little windy.

Instead of turning left to return to Route 72, I turned right on Savoy, now, I believe, Padadena road, to see if it connected to route 539. It did, but it changed names at least once. I think it was Malone or something. There was a sign for some kind of pancake breakfast house, which I had passed and had seen signs for earlier. I forget the name of the breakfast house. I don't believe it was Frank Zappa's SAINT ALFONSO'S BREAKFAST HOUSE, where, after "trudging through the tundra, up north where the doggies go and make the yellow snow..., where the pancakes are all light and fluffy brown, there's the finest in the town."

I turned left on Route 539, heading north. Soon I came to the junction where route 530 splits off to go to Whiting, and continued on 539 past Fort Dix and past the Paintball place. This road is much more scenic and less congeswted than Route 206 between Trenton and Route 70, and I also passed a gas station where gas was almost as cheap as that on route 206 just outside of Trenton.

On Pasadena road, the only traffic I remember encountering was a school bus that had stopped well-ahead of me, coming the other way. Shortly before the bus, on my side of the road, was a Manchester Township police car, parked on the side of the road. This seemed like a nice, rural area. I just hope the police car was a sample of the seriousness of law enforcement, to keep the public safe and the woods vandal free.

[TeeGate]

and when I came to the first four-way intersection, I turned right again.
That was your mistake. You have to continue straight past that intersection for a while and when the road curves to the right as the map shows, you take the next "Y" to the right.

Many years ago (about 27) during the CB Radio days, I came upon a Manchester Township officer along the side of the highway reading a newspaper in his car. During those days the police stations monitored channel 19 and 9, and when I informed the traveling public that there was a "Local Yokel" along the side of the road reading the paper, he did not take to kindly to it especially since his boss probably now knew about it. I was quickly informed by other drivers he was on his way after me, and I was promptly stopped. After doing the routine he said a few obscene things to me and informed me that he was not a "Local Yokel" because Manchester Township had 32 square miles of property to patrol. Now I was living in Marlton at the time, and they also have the same size town, and I considered them "Local Yokels" also. Of course I did not tell him that. Anyway, he let me go telling me to keep the lipstick...well you know the rest.

Guy

[TeeGate]

Jeff,

Print this out and take this map with you. This shows Savoy road at the top, and the complete trail to the lake.

http://www.njpinebarrens.com/~teegate/OldHW.jpg

Guy

[JeffD]

Thanks, Guy. I didn't think I was at Old Halfway/Twin Lakes. I didn't mind, though. Sometimes one finds something else along the journey before reaching a destination, like Dorothy in THE WIZARD OF OZ.

Maybe next trip I'll find Oz. :)

[bruset]

Guy,

I really like these then and now photos of yours. Thanks for uploading them to the site.

-ben

[TeeGate]

Ben,

Your welcome Ben, I am thrilled that others like them. I sent each one to my traveling partner from years ago, so that we can reminisce on old times. I hope to have more in the next few weeks, and if I can find a photo I misplaced I may have one sooner. Each weekend before I head out, I look through old photo's of the area I am going to be in, and that is how I decide on what photo and where to stand to take a "Now" shot if an idea hits me.

I just need to improve my © text. I am not happy with anything I have tried.

Guy

[bruset]

The layer thing didn't work?

If you want I can do it for you.

[TeeGate]

It works but depending on the background of the photo it does not always look right. I took your photo and cut out your © and tried pasting it into different photo's and was disappointed. Try doing the same thing with a dark background and it looks funny. So I used light colors and still was disappointed.

Guy

[bruset]

Dark images look good with a gray box at about 60% opaque. Light images look good with a black box at 40-50% opaque.

There might be some Mac freeware program that will watermark images for you.

FWIW, your images are automatically copyrighted when you take the picture. That won't stop someone from taking your images and putting them on their own website though. I'm just waiting for that to happen to me. I will have a little surprise for anyone who links to my images from their own site. :)

[JeffD]

Guy, what kind of people did they have working on the Manchester Police force? I hope they were all not like that and there aren't any like that today. Did the township recruit that guy from a redneck bar or from the local mental institution? That is over the top! I don't see anything offensive about the term "local yokel." I guess it depends on who says it and how, and in what context. Even if you said something really offensive, cops are not supposed to act that way, and not take things personally. A woman I went out with seem to take offense when I called her a city slicker. She didn't act the way that cop did, though. When she said she wasn't a city slicker, I said that she was living in the city. "But I'm not a slicker," she insisted. I never thought of looking at each of those words separately. The woman was from Puerto Rico, was a social worker who taught a Drexel University part time. She wasn't terribly familiar with all the colloquilisms, slang and idomatic expressions here. She saw a "fly butter" float by. I think the context of my City Slicker remark was our visit to the Pine Barrens.

I wonder if on my visit to the Woodmansie area the time before last, it was a cop who was checking out my car parked at the edge of the road. Anyway, by basically mistakenly driving a sort of loop on the sand roads, I found a better parking spot to explore the switch and railroad tracks, etc. I still will visit Old Halfway/Twin Lakes.

I realize my mistake on my trip now. That's right, I should have crossed that intersection and followed the road to where it turned right. The road more or less curves around the lakes.

One more thing. A city slicker and a local yokel got off at the same train stop. The sign at the depo read that it was three miles to the town. The city slicker asked the local yokel "why is this depo so far from the town?"

"I donno," said the local yokel, "I quess they wanted to put it close to the tracks." :)

[bruset]

Jeff, why are you quoting Guy's posts and not posting anything else? I deleted your 2 empty posts. All of this garbage just goes into the database and takes up space.

If you have a post that doesn't work, please delete it. If you're having problems email or PM me.

Edit: I created a testing forum for people who want to try things out or see if they have problems with posting. Topics that have no activity for 1 week will be auto-deleted so they don't clog up the database.

[JeffD]

I just posted it. I unintentionally quoted Guy on a different spot. Sorry, but we all can't be techo-geeks. And don't take offense at that like that cop did to being referred to over the CB as a local yokel.

Hey! Is it snowing where you are? I looked out my window a short while ago and it was snowing. And it WAS LAYING! I tell you, I could never move to a place like Montanna, where winters are normally much longer than they are here. I like a change of seasons, but like winter and snow for about two months. I've been considering Prescott, Arizona.

[bruset]

I just posted it. I unintentionally quoted Guy on a different spot. Sorry, but we all can't be techo-geeks. And don't take offense at that like that cop did to being referred to over the CB as a local yokel.


It's not a matter of being a techno-geek, I just don't want the forums to be a cesspool of "test" posts or other things like that. Everyone has the ability to delete a post that they made, so there is no excuse for leaving crap that doesn't need to be there around.

[JeffD]

Sorry, I just didn't notice it right away, and by the time I thought more about it (I was tired from my trip today which added to my usual frustration with technical difficulties), you deleted it and said something about it. No problem about leaving garbage out. I certain can understand that. :) BTW, I loved your little thing about me and buring the forest and running over snakes, etc. I cracked up when I first came onto your site. :rofl:

[bruset]

I'm glad you took it well. It was only a good natured joke. :)

We're still e-friends!

[JeffD]

Yeah. Other things you've said I didn't take as well. But that surprise when I logged in was hillarious, and I took it as a compliment. People have said that I bring that sort of thing out in them. On a bulletin board where I posted until shortly before it went off-line, I was the only one who wrote parodies. Others dabbled in it, but I was the parody King, if not just for the amount of parodies I wrote and posted. Some posters objected to parodies, even from a guy who had an opposing view point from mine. I told him it's great he got into doing parodies, even though I didn't agree with his content. We stuck up for one another when other posters were rude. Now, not only is the bulletin board still offline, but the web site too. It was an alternative media source for Bucks County, which the plutocracy in my county didn't like and wanted it censored. One of the guys who ran it is a reporter on the Trenton Times.

[bruset]

Other things you've said I didn't take as well.


That's ok, you've said some things to me that have resulted in me having to get up and leave my computer for an hour or so to calm down.

[ecampbell]

Hi everyone!

I've been busy hiking, kayaking, fixing plumbing, planting a pasture, etc. Besides, I forgot my password and username for this site.

Guy, a 2001 Focus? What happened to the Escort? What color is the Focus? I'll keep an eye out for you.

I'm looking forward to some more trips, now that I'm getting more time.
May is a nice time to kayak the streams. The turtles are back and the birds and frogs are active. The sweet pepper bush is about to bloom. If anyone is interested, we can make an outing.

ED

[TeeGate]

Ed,

It is nice to hear from you.

Yes the Escort had a bad water pump and it is connected to the timing belt. I normally would replace it myself but that was more than I wanted to do. The estimate was $300 and there also was a really loud clunking noise in the front end that I was worried about. I gave the car to a man I know who has some serious money problems and he had the pump repaired for $250. I told him all that I knew was wrong with it and he did not care.

The Focus is really low to the ground and it scrapes along in the woods. I also almost got stuck at the Eureka gun club this past weekend. Luckily I was on a downward hill and was able to back out. A stick shift is so much better in sand than automatic.

It is white with a black strip along the side.

I am always interested in an outing with you Ed, and there are many places that we have to visit. I am sure Ben will meet with us also for one. You asked me once if I was interested in kayaking and I still am.

Guy