Close Encounters on the way to Sandy Hook

There are a number of rides that I have done many times and Sandy Hook is one of them that I do at least once a year. The route that I use hasn't changed that much over the years but because of my high point exploring last year I found a couple of new roads and a way to get to Sandy Hook with a slightly more northern route. Here is a link the to route we actually took.

This route offers a little less traffic on the way to Sandy Hook and allowed me to check out the old Bell Labs office complex. This lab was once one of the leading research facilities in the world and was birthplace of radio astronomy, the transistor and the cellphone. Now it is an abandon campus that is going to turned into an office park and housing development.

One of the most unusual features of the property is the water tower that looks like a UFO. (BTW don't google Bell Labs and UFOs unless you want to see some posts from some dumb witted people who believe Bell Labs helped create today's technology by reverse engineering the wreckage from the Roswell UFO crash)

Contrary to the insane beliefs of the people who think the X-Files was a documentary series, the water tower is not from another planet. It is just an ugly water tower in the shape of a transistor. Now I am an electrical engineer and worked with a lot of transistors early in my career and that water tower doesn't look like any transistor I used.

So I guess it must be an artistic impression of one. 

Joining me on this ride was Laura, Jim, Ed and Jack. This was Jack's first real road ride since his fall and Ed had just got back from a trip down under. We made our usual stop at the Quick Check on Rt 36 before heading down to the beach.

The wind had started out brisk and was a lot stronger by the time we got to the beach. So much so that we were sand blasted a few times. It was blowing at least 20 mph with stronger gusts.  Instead of our normal ride out to the end of Sandy Hook and back we decided to just go to the first beach and turn around there because of the wind.

We went back home from Sandy Hook the normal way with a quick stop in Little Silver before the push home. Although we had head winds most of the way home there was enough cover to make it bearable although it wore me out a little. About 3 miles from the end I started cramping up but made it to the end with out having to stop to stretch it out.

We did have more traffic than normal on the way home because it was a warm sunny day and it is beach season. I will go back to Sandy Hook again and now have two ways to get there but probably would try to go there only in off season to avoid some traffic.

Although I quickly recovered from my cramps I felt pretty bad Sunday night and developed a dry cough. It turns out I caught a case of bronchitis so it will probably be a week or more before I can get back on the bike.