Zoo Cruise

 

We haven't been able to do any bike vacations this year so instead we have done some local rides to parts of the state we haven't been too in a while. This Saturday we headed down to Bridgeton which is in the deep southern part of the state. There are a lot of quiet flat roads in this area in and among the farmland that makes New Jersey the Garden State. Down in this area here is also the Cohanzick Zoo. Its a very small zoo and will take you all of 10mins to walk through but its worth the diversion if you are in the area and gave us another reason to take the hour and 20 min ride to get to there especially since we all got nothing but time. I got most of the crew to join me included Laura, Jim, Pete, Jack and Ricky.

Bridgeton was one area covered in my Road Biking NJ book and I called the ride around the Bridgeton area the Zoo Cruise because as part of the ride it visits the zoo. We also stopped here in 2015 as part of our high point rides. The ride we did today was sort of a combination of the two with a few new roads thrown in. This is a very rural area filled with farmland, small lakes and a few grouping of buildings that they call towns. 

We started the ride going into a stiff north west wind which made the hill we were climbing seem worst than it really was. We passed by Rainbow lake and Parvin lake on our way to the high point of Cumberland country which at 140 feet is hard to even find. From there we wound our way through a lot of open farmland to Alloway where we stopped at a general store. The southern part of the state is a lot redder than other parts of the state and the sign on the door of the store made it clear that the owner didn't agree with Govern Murphy's mask mandate. 

We continued on some more quiet roads and eventually got a good tail wind as we headed south along some rivers and swamp land not far from the Delaware river. We did have a few small hills to climb towards the end which felt harder than they should of but then we got another good tail wind to push us back to where we started. 

After the ride we took a walk around the zoo. They have some small marsupials and lemma but the main attraction is the lion and the tiger and the bear. I had bought a new gaiter for Halloween. I like the SweatVac Shapshifers as they have two layers and are a simple mask I can easily pull up when needed when I ride. They also have some cool patterns. I got the tiger one because that is my favorite animals. I know gaiters are not the best mask so when I know that I'm going to be closer to people I put a surgical mask underneath it. 

Of course with a tiger mask on I had to try and get a selfie with the actual tiger.

I took one with my phone which came out okay but Ricky took the one at the top of the blog which is a better close up. Here is a better picture of the actual tiger.

I didn't get a good picture of the bear as he was laying in his hammock and was just a ball of fur.  

Last time I was at the zoo I got a good picture of the people riding we me in front of the (plastic) Gorilla. I was going to try and do a similar shot this time but with the Gorilla roped off and social distant requirements we took a slightly different type of picture. 

 

For some reason giving the finger while taking a group picture has become our standard. This time Laura got to partake instead of being the recipient of the picture. I guess this is our FUCK 2020 picture.

Although it was a long day it ended up being a fun day and so we may do a few more of these type of excursions as a way to get some mini bike vacations in.