The Flatlands Blog

Over Mothers’ Day weekend, I drove to New Jersey. Took my kiddo out to dinner on Friday night. Saturday’s rehearsal with Katye Kellye and The Interruption was scheduled for late afternoon.  For a change, I had a chance to get a run in before driving down the shore to rehearse.

When I lived in NJ, Lake Denmark Road was my regular roller skiing haunt.  Five miles of rolling pavement, it wends through country that’s the antithesis of the tired “Jersey? What exit?” trope.  It’s adjacent to Picatinny Arsenal, and on the right day, one’s workout is leavened with explosions as they test ordnance.

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Searching for new trails not too far from home, I pointed the shooting brake west last week. Stephens State Park is in Mount Olive. Since the one time I’d been there many years ago, parties unknown — possibly the Jersey Off Road Bike Association — have put in an extensive new trail network.

All this new singletrack augments the old hiking trails, but it comes at a price. The only printed map that I’m aware of is published by New York New Jersey Trail Conference, and it is so old as to be obsolete. At the urging of my physical therapist, who rides there regularly, I downloaded an app called Trail Forks onto my surveillance device mobile phone.

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