Growing up I was lucky enough to have both sets of grandparents in my life until well after I finished high school. My father's parents lived down the shore in Brick Township and my mother's parents lived in the country in Belvidere in the north west part of the state by the Delaware river. So we called my father parents were seashore grandma and grandpa and my mother's parents were country grandma and grandpa.
While growing up I spent a lot more time with my seashore grandparents then my country grandparents because we had a boat docked at their house that we used most weekends in the summer. So to me going to the country was more fun because it was something I didn't get to do as often.
My country grandmother lived next to her sister's farm which has a some fun places to explore. My grandmother's house was at the top of the hill overlooking the farm and orchard and had a nice view. I remember that there was always a set of binoculars by the back door to look at all the deer and other animals that roam through the field.
The main crop produced on the farm was apple and peaches but they also grew corn in their fields. As was typical of the small farm at the time they also had some animals including chickens, sheep, and a few horses. If was a cool place to roam around as a kid
My grandparents and her sister pass away many years ago so I haven't been up to that area in a long time which made a perfect excuse to take a
bike ride in that area. I was close to that area last year when I rode/walked up Fiddlers Elbow. Its a hilly area so there is no avoiding some tough climbs.
I started from Milford and was lucky to have 7 people crazy enough to join me, Laura, Ron, Jackie, Jack, Jim and Lynne who I hadn't seen in a while. Although I said the first part of the ride would be flatter then the last half we started out with a couple of climbs to get out of Milford. I could of went around the hills but that would have added some miles to the ride and the gang chose hills over miles.
The climbs weren't bad but there was a really steep down hill on Shire that had most of us squeezing our brakes all the way down. From there is was mostly rolling as we went around Merrill Creek Reservoir and came dangerously close to the bottom of Fiddlers Elbow before heading down towards the Delaware to ride along the river into the town of Belvidere. We had a nice stop in at Skoogy's Deli which had Gatorade, bathroom and decent food which is all you need from a rest stop.
The town looked somewhat familiar although one of the things I remember about the town when I was there as a kid was there some of the buildings had gutter pipes that when from the roof away from the building over the sidewalk then down into the curb of the street. I didn't see any on our tour through town so I assume they found a better and safer way of keeping water away from the buildings.
Once out of town we past my aunt's farm and grandmothers house. The barn and grazing area, for the horses that was across from my aunt's house was gone but the house, farm and orchard were still much as I remembered them. It is now called Stoneyfield Orchard and is preserved farmland.
My grandparent house was up the hill from my aunt's farm and the hill was as steep as I remembered it. The house was mostly the same layout but they had replace all the doors and windows and made the landscaping much nicer.
I took a few pictures of the house and area to show my mother and then we all headed on to the climbs. To get back to Milford when had three long climbs ahead of us the first one was to get us to the top of Merrill Creek. This was a long 3.5 mile climb. There were a couple of flat spots and a couple of steep spots but I slowly grinded my way up the hill while every asked "Is this the top yet?".
During the climb we heard the cicadas in the distance. Eventually we did reach the top and enjoyed and nice long downhill on Millbrook before heading up over the second climb over into Asbury where we rode along the ridge with some great views of the hills and valleys. The view never comes out in pictures but I tried again anyway.
We had one last climb to get us back. Tunnel road is where the train tracks go under the hill. It is a long shallow climb that is not real hard but is it one of those hills that never seems to end so at the end of a ride when you're tired of climbing it is a little rude.
As we started to spread out up the hill I saw Jack stop. The I saw it. A bear. It was lumbering across the road. I pulled out the camera and zoomed in to get a few pictures. I managed to get a picture of it's backside and it going over into the woods. It was cool seeing a bear.
The payoff for doing the climb is going down Sweet Hollow a nice gentle 3 mile down hill. There was a bridge out sign about half way down but there is usually always a way around if you're not a car so we kept going only to find that the bridge was totally out with no way to easily get across. If we would have been on flat ground we would have doubled back and found another road to get us home however doubling back would have mean another 400 foot climb which nobody was going to do at this point. We ended up fording the river and walking a 100 ft through the woods. It was a little dicey but we all made it through unscathed. The only side affect was wet shows and clogged speedplay cleats.
4 miles later we were back in Milford looking at bear pictures.
Going back to Belvidere brought back a lot of memories of my country grandparents. The best way to describe them was that they were good simple folks.
My grand father was a retired mail man and a very reserved and quiet person. He enjoyed college football and just sitting by the bay window smoking his pipe. My grandmother did a lot of volunteer work for the church and the community. She spend a lot of time in the hospital volunteering as a candy striper delivering patient's meals and mail and generally helping out the nurses. After my grandfather retired they traveled a lot in a VW micobus.I think they made it to every state except for Hawaii and North Dakota. They never had a lot and had a very simple life but they always seemed happy. I learned a lot from their examples.
I'm glad I got to visit my grandparents house again. It was fund to reminisce about them see what the area looks like now. It was a tough but fun ride with some memorable moments of its own. I know the bear sighting and river crossing will probably be one of those things we will be talking about for a while.
