Bordentown Lambertville Halloween

Bordentown, NJ

23 October 2017

Sue and Chris planned a route from Allentown into Bordentown to see the Halloween decorations. I put Kermit's ghost costume on 

and made sure I was wearing my skeleton socks.

I left the house dressed for temperatures 15 degrees warmer than what it was at 8:00 a.m. My fingers were cold but I didn't turn around. Instead I hammered until I warmed up.

The Allentown regulars were in front of Bruno's: Chris, Sue, Joe, Mindy, Mike, Ron, and Ralph.

As we set off Chris was shouting something about a horse man or a hearse man or something of the apocalypse.  This is what he meant:

"Don't move," I told him. "I need a picture of your leggings."

He said he had something to show us that would require riding on Route 206 for a little bit. I didn't mind, but he didn't want the whole group to do it. He told Sue to meet us at Thompson Street. I followed, as did Mike.

He led us to a skeleton wedding.

Bordentown's red bottles to Hopewell's blue:

As we were looking, the scene's creator stepped outside.

Around the corner someone had built an impressive web between two trees.

The rest of the group was at the end of Thompson Street. Ralph had a flat; he and Ron were fixing it. Chris described what we'd seen. "I'll see the pictures on her blog," Sue said.

Thompson Street, a short block, has a pirate Halloween theme this year. The most prominent display had the entire front of the house covered in black cloth and a skeleton Peter Pan theme going on in the front yard.

The rest of the street wasn't as impressive, but people weren't finished decorating. There was still more than a week to go before the big day.

Chris found himself a pillar of matching flowers and hammed it up for me.

We made it all the way to the end of the block and the guys were still at the start, fixing the tire. We rode back.

I hadn't noticed the mermaid the first time.

We went back down the block. The owners of the house on the corner were working on their decorations. "We moved here a year ago," the husband explained. "They said, 'I hope you like Halloween.'" The wife chimed in, "We were like, what? Oh."

The Peter Pan house were the organizers. "There's a Facebook page, a Gofundme page." They gave out the flags. We wished them luck and went on our way.

Somewhere on a block near the river, faces popped out of trees,

and a witch approached a front door.

Later, an outsized spider:

And Monster Academy:

"This is the creepiest, most Halloweeny thing, though," I said when I saw the dead sunflower.

The decaying rose underneath was a bonus:

I wasn't holding up the group by taking pictures. Ralph's tire had gone flat again, and he and Ron were fussing with it. We got going again and went east to cross Route 130 and 206. Ralph wasn't with us. He'd given up and called home for a ride.

Sue wanted to stop at the Hogback Deli at the corner of Hogback and Route 130. Think Clarksburg, but with a clean bathroom.

Keeping with the spirit of the ride, I bought a devil cake.

It wasn't very good. I stuffed most of it into Chris' pack.

When we got to Chesterfield I left the group and hammered towards home. I stopped once on Old York Road to take a picture of the one maple tree that had decided to turn red for fall.

I experimented with the route home, staying on 524 into Robbinsville Town Center then turning onto 524. There was some traffic and a few places without a shoulder. I remembered why this was not a preferred route, even if it might have been a little shorter.

Bordentown is listed as one of the top ten places to see Halloween decorations, Chris had told us. We all knew, though, that Lambertville had Bordentown beat. Once you've seen that house on Union Street, Halloween anywhere else just doesn't measure up.

So, on my way home from the glassblowing studio (more on that later), I drove into Lambertville and found a parking space in front of that house.

Enjoy.