by While meandering our way from Central New Jersey up towards the New York border, we listened to Blind Faith by Joe McGinniss; this is a true crime book that took place near where I grew up.
Insurance Broker Robert Marshall and his wife stopped to check a tire on their way home from Atlantic City in the middle of the night. Next thing he knows, his wife is dead, he’s been hit on the head, and they’ve been robbed! Except a little digging reveals he had $1.5 million of life insurance on his stay-at-home wife, some of it only recently taken out. And they also had very bad financial problems, and he’d signed her name on a loan. Oh, and he was in love with someone else and wanted to leave his wife, but his wife wanted to make the marriage work.
The whole case reached a level of stupidity so egregious you wonder how he succeeded at business at all. The murder happened on the Garden State Parkway at a picnic area (in my hometown), and the family lived in Toms River, just a town over.
We also listened to One for the Money by Janet Evanovich, a novel set in N.J. I’d never read an Evanovich book before, but know she’s popular, so thought we’d give it a try. It was published in 1994, and we’ll just say it did not age well and leave it at that.
We did a loop through Historic Walnford in Allentown, NJ. The mill (above) and home (right), along with some other buildings, have been situated along Crosswicks Creek for 250 years.
Above left is the 11,000 square foot Sri Venkateswara Temple in Bridgewater, N.J. This is an active Hindu Temple, and we weren’t sure what to expect at all. We arrived and were assured we were welcome and directed down the hall to take our shoes off. We noticed others had removed their socks and were washing their feet, so we did so, too. As the only non-Hindus on the premises, it was completely clear we had no idea what we were doing, and a nice family offered to escort us into the Temple itself. No pictures were allowed, but there were 16 shrines such as pictured above right (picture from Wikipedia), and people made their way past, stopping to pray for wisdom, righteousness, etc. A group of priests came out and began chanting. After we went to the canteen and ordered dinner, which cleared out the sinuses. It was an interesting experience!
We did a 3.7 mile hike at Pyramid Mountain in Boonton, NJ to see the infamous Tripod Rock. The park’s website says it is a 180 ton boulder balanced on three smaller boulders deposited by the retreating Wisconsin Glacier 18,000 years ago. A slightly more fun story says it was levitated in place using magic by early inhabitants of the area, and it is now a Spiritual Energy Vortex. We tried feeling the rock and channeling something — anything — but came up empty.
Yet another possibility, of course, is that aliens did it. What I’d really like to know is, how many people have tried to push it over over the years?
Pictured only partly at right (and yet another part is the cover photo above) is Ringwood Manor in Ringwood, NJ.
The home is situated on the site of ironworks from the 1740s to late 19th century, but it was such a lovely spot that Mrs. Hewitt (daughter of Peter Cooper, founder of Cooper Union in New York City, and husband of Abram Hewitt, mayor of New York City and Congressional representative as well as chair of the national Democratic Party) asked to have her summer home built here.
Additions were made again and again in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and eventually the house reached 51 rooms and 30,000 square feet (which is why there are two pictures of the home in this post but only part of of it is pictured!). The Victorian home was decorated to showcase the family’s wealth, with furniture, paintings, wall coverings, musical instruments and other display items from around the world. One of the documents on display is the wardrobe bill for complete outfits for five family members for the summer season, totaling $250,000 in 2023 dollars.
