August 18, 2024 - August 29, 2024 -- Thousand Trails Chestnut Lake, NJ to Wallenpaupauk Creek Farm
Written By: Wendy
To be completely honest, and we do not mean to offend anyone (I'm talking to you Cate & Russ), we were not extremely excited to go to New Jersey. We had been to the Jersey shore on our previous year of travels, 11 years go, and we did not love it. We went in October last time, so very much the off season, but even still, we couldn't imagine it being that much better in the summer. We made this goal, though, to go to all 50 states and make pies and pizzas in every state, so New Jersey, here we come. It was August now, so prime season, and we had some travel friends from New Jersey who we'd met on the road, and they were coming to meet up with us and give us a grand tour, so it should be better this time around, right?
Well, when we pulled into our campground, I attempted to help Scott back into the spot, but I could barely stand up and was shivering with a sweatshirt on in 85 degree weather. Not a great sign or start to New Jersey. After we parked, I took my temperature, and sure enough, I had a fever of 102. A few minutes later, two bright pink lines appeared on my COVID test, confirming that Hershey, PA had sent us with a parting gift of COVID. Over the next few days, all of us, and the Herd family traveling with us, would get the symptoms, so the first several days were spent in our tiny campsites trying to keep our germs to ourselves and ourselves from going crazy.
Once we recovered a bit and were on the verge of losing our minds from cabin fever, we headed to the beach. We went on a weekday to a less popular beach to hopefully keep our germs to ourselves. It was a wonderful day of recovery spent laying in the sun while the kids played and got all their energy out running in and out of the waves. We had made it to the Atlantic Ocean. 6 months ago we were at the Pacific Ocean in San Diego, 2,800 miles away. It was mind boggling to reflect on all that we had done and seen in the past 6 months over all those miles.
After we were all fully recovered from COVID, some other travel friends arrived that we had met back at BASH in January. We excited to all see each, and we, of course, celebrated with a pizza party that first night. We had a lot of fun all together that week with all 3 families hanging out. We spent our days exploring a couple of the different New Jersey boardwalks, having a moms night at a candle making place, seeing Lucy the elephant, and going to a singing ice cream shop. This was my favorite thing in New Jersey - The Music Man Singing Ice Cream Shoppe - you had to sing in order to get your ice cream sundae and the waiters and waitresses put on a Disney sing-along show while we devoured our delicious sundaes. Definitely a hidden gem on the Jersey shore! It was all fun, but everything was pretty expensive and crowded and had a lot of rules. Our family thrives on nature and freedom and room to roam and yell. We were all feeling a bit like caged animals, and it came to a head on our last day there when we decided to skip an amusement park that everyone else was going to. We were extremely bummed about missing the adorable storybook themed amusement park, but we just couldn't take another expensive, crowded, over stimulating activity where we would be stressed about our kids running away and getting into other people's space. When we told Parker we weren't going to go (mind you, we were in the parking of the amusement park and we could see the rides and hear the laughing), he did not even seem disappointment. In fact, Scott and I both detected a sigh of relief from him. We were shocked that there was no screaming, no protesting, no fight, no nothing. He willingly climbed back into his carseat and just patiently waited to see what we were going to do instead. This may seem like a small thing, but Parker always speaks his mind loud and clear and likes to put up a fight often if he does not agree with our plans, which is frequently. So, this was an incredibly huge moment for our family. It solidified that we are an open spaces and nature family and that our kids need that, too. That is what Scott and I have always preferred, but Parker's reaction made it clear to use that we need to prioritize activities that are life giving to our family.
After that, we said good bye to our travel friends for a few days and headed to meet up with a friend from college back in Pennsylvania, close to the New York border. He now lived on a farm in Pennsylvania with his wife and 2 kids (or was it 3 kids now?). We hadn't seen him in 10 years, and both Scott and I were friends with him, so we were excited to reconnect. We greeted each other with warm hugs and he introduced us to the baby in his arms, the girl that was running behind, and then the boy that was hugging his leg, and...then the other little boy that came running out of the house. Wow, he has 4 kids?! We really had lost touch! Our kids instantly hit it off and starting running around their farm playing together like long lost friends who had known each other for years. Isn't is great to not have any social anxiety and be totally oblivious to all social norms and just do what feels right? He gave us a tour of his breathtaking property along Wallenpaupauk Creek, and Scott and I instantly felt our souls being cleansed. The air was fresh, the trees were green and abundant, and the space was plentiful for running and playing in.
We spent two nights there, exploring his farm and helping out in little ways that we could. Scott helped make a massive batch of pasta sauce for the freezer from all their garden tomatoes, the kids enjoyed getting tractor rides and "helping" to feed the cows, and I helped with wrangling all the little ones when they weren't playing farmer. It was truly a blissful 3 days on the farm, and it made Scott and I dream about what we wanted our future to be. We still had no clue what we wanted after our renter's lease would be up in a year. Would we keep traveling? Move back into our old house in Washington? Move to Colorado to be near family? Go international? Our minds constantly raced with possibilities, which was exciting but also exhausting. The peace that we all felt on this land, though, made us think more about exploring options that we hadn't considered before like buying land and doing something on the land. Just another possibility to consider!
We said goodbye to our friends, and left with our arms full of pasta sauce, fresh peaches, and steaks from their cows. We felt this would turn out to be an incredibly important and meaningful stop on our journey, but we just didn't know how yet. Either way, we left with a sense of rejuvenation and headed north to upstate New York, the place that we were most excited to go back and that we had dreamed about visiting again for the past 10 autumns.