Although I like to take pictures on my rides I try to not let it interfere with the ride itself. Sometimes however I like to plan a ride just to take pictures which is what I did this past Sunday. I decided to ride from Hillsborough to Califon and back and was lucky enough to have Laura and Jeff join me.I try and do 2 or 3 rides in Califon a year since it is has a lot of scenic views but I have never really taken any great pictures there. On the way up to Califon we stopped by Solsberg airport where we saw a experimental airplane and a WWII trainer.
Once we got north of 78 the hills began as we headed up Rockaway which is one of the prettiest roads in NJ. The only problem here is that the road was freshly stoned. For those of you who don't know what stoning a road is, it is when they dump small pea size gravel on the road and let the car traffic press the stones into the road. It's a cheap way to pave a road but it makes it very hard to ride a bike on. It usually takes a few weeks before most of the stones are pressed into the road.
Despite the stone we make it up Rockaway and managed to take a few good pictures of the river and the Tulip house which is now for sale. The Tulip house is a really pretty house in the spring when all the tulips are in bloom but this time there weren't many flowers out.
At the top of Rockaway we took Water street which was also stoned. From there we worked our way over to Hoffmans Corner which has a nice view of the Califon valley. We stopped a couple of places to take pictures and realized how windy it was as we saw how much the trees were moving.
We headed down hill to Califon and made the usually rest stop at the general store. When I walked it I saw that they had some blueberry muffins that just came out of the oven so I had to have one, which was great.
Leaving Califon always requires a climb so we went up Academy to Guinea Hollow. The plan was to take a left on Sutton but it was also stoned so we vetoed that and took a left on Sawmill instead which let us get a picture of the abandon water wheel there.
At the end of Sawmill we headed towards a new road Fox Farm. A lot time we come this way we head down 517 because it has a great down hill but Fox Farm goes down the same hill and has less traffic so I decided to give it a try.
It proved to be the most scenic road of the ride. You can't speed down the hill like you can on 517 but the views are tremendous. There are 2 or 3 places where the tree cover road opens up and you can see the valley and the hills beyond. At one point I hit a clearing and immediately stopped. Laura was a little behind me and when she saw me stop she said "why are you stopping..." then looked to the left and said "WOW". It was one of those views you just had to stop and stare at. It was a clear day and the sun was at the perfect angle to light up the hills and valley. We of course took some pictures but it is hard to capture the full affect of the view.
We took a few other pictures on the way down then headed back to Hillsborough. I did manage to get a few good pictures out of the ride but acknowledge that I am no photographer. This ride did make me spend more time looking around at the scenery which was the real run of the ride.
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