Baptist Church Road
28 August 2019
Saturday was the perfect day for hills. The air was unseasonably cool and dry for late August. There wasn't much wind either. I convinced Jim, Ricky, Martin, and Bob to make the trek up to Frenchtown for a ride into Warren County.
With our favorite coffee stops dropping like flies (R.I.P. Brew 362 and the Sandy Seagull), I made a point to check that the Asbury Coffee Mill still existed and would be open. I didn't call; instead I checked their Facebook presence for announcement and even perused their menu for quiche, lest Bob get any ideas. They were open and quiche-free.
We were looking at some 3200 feet of elevation gain in 54 miles. I'd packed most of the climbing into the first half.
To get out of the Delaware watershed we climbed all the way up Rick Road. I've been down the hill numerous times; I'd never gone the full four miles uphill. It was a slog. The reward was our descent on Baptist Church Road.
Between the hills and the grass is a valley.
The ruins of the Baptist church at the bottom is always worth a picture stop.
I'd promised anyone who registered for the ride that I'd pay their $2 admission to Spruce Run Reservoir. Everyone had registered. As I forked over a $10 bill, I asked the ranger how the algal bloom was doing. The reservoir had already been closed to swimmers for a few weeks due to cyanobacterial toxins.
"It's getting worse," she said. "We need cool, dry weather." She told me that the runoff into feeder streams was loaded with fertilizers from wealthy people's lawns. She gestured to the east, across Route 31. Somehow I'd thought the highway would have been a barrier. Shows what I know.
The parking lot was empty. We went to the little overlook near the entrance first.
The guys were singing that song by the Commodores and making jokes about a brick shithouse.
I walked down the slope for pictures. Everyone else stayed with their bikes.
There was one boat in the water.
We went further in, past the empty beach.
I followed a path down to the sand.
This lone snow goose, a woman on the shore told me, has an injured wing and has been accepted into the resident flock of Canada geese.
The emptiness was haunting.
We left the park and doubled back to climb out of the Raritan watershed towards the Musconetcong River, which divides Hunterdon and Warren Counties. We crossed the river outside of Hamden.
At the bottom of Cemetery Hill Road we could see the Blue Army Shrine. I hadn't planned to go in this time, but neither Martin nor Bob had seen the place. I decided we'd need to make the detour.
The entrance is a long, steep, winding driveway.
Throngs of people were ascending on foot from a parking lot halfway up the hill. Jim picked out a handful of Dominican nuns in the crowd. I heard languages that weren't English.
On the lawn across from the shrine there was a refreshment stand open. People seemed to be gearing up for picnics.
What was that on top of Mary's head?
A lightning rod? It brought to mind the words of the late folk singer/storyteller, Gamble Rogers:
"...[he] walks by the Unitarian Church. That's the one with the lightning rod on the steeple. Agamemnon Jones says those Unitarians trust the Almighty in all things except electricity."
I took more pictures on the way back down.
We weren't far from our rest stop in Asbury. As we approached, more and more lawn signs protesting a warehouse dotted the sides of the road. In the center of Asbury, if a single street of houses could be called the center, I stopped to ask a fellow in his yard about his signs. He explained that there is a plan for warehouses along Asbury-Bloomsbury Road, near the river, next to a bridge that can't handle the weight of an eighteen-wheeler, let alone several warehouses worth of them. "We get too many of them as it is, coming down this road. All of our windows rattle." I got some more information from him as Jim circled back.
"Closed for a private function," he said. Damn it. I should have called!
I asked the fellow if there was anywhere around her we could get water. "Out on 31," he said. That was miles away in the wrong direction. "There's the bar down at the end of the block," he said. "They have burgers and stuff."
So that's where we went. They were happy enough to fill our water bottles; the bar was empty. We stood outside. watching the occasional car go by, eating whatever we'd brought with us or bummed off of other riders.
We still had a little bit of climbing to do as we rode west along the top of the ridge towards Bloomsbury. There were hills on either side of us, and in front of us, all off in the distance. I've taken pictures there before so I didn't stop this time.
We stayed to the north of Bloomsbury, heading toward Warren Glen, did a zig then a zag, and turned onto Creek Road.
Now we were on my favorite part of the ride: we were going to follow the Pohatcong River to the Delaware River, and follow the Delaware all the way back to Frenchtown. We'd still have some rollers, and they'd be annoying, but for the most part the ride would be flat.
Along the Pohatcong I didn't stop for pictures. Creek Road takes a sharp right bend at an intersection. Before we got there I checked my rear view mirror, saw everyone, and signaled the turn without stopping. In a yard on the other side of the bridge there were people fishing. We were in the woods now, going slightly downhill.
We reached another intersection, where Creek and River Roads meet, and where River Road crosses the Pohatcong. I stopped to collect everyone.
Jim was a long time coming. Martin said he'd stopped for pictures. "Did he see us turn?" I asked. "I thought I saw everyone."
Martin said, "He said he was stopping a lot for pictures." Martin had seen Jim behind him and had signaled. We waited. I walked along the bridge to take pictures.
I looked back along Creek Road. Still no Jim.
I checked my phone for messages while Ricky gave him a call. "Where are you?" We're on Creek Road. Did you turn at the bridge? Oh. Okay. We'll wait."
He showed up a few minutes later, having stopped for a picture, missed seeing us turn, turned on the bridge, turned around, and then turned back again. It was at the bridge, he said, where he got the best picture.
It's only fair that I post it here. It is a good one:
I apologized, because I never drop people off the back on purpose. I've been dropped by several leaders when I've stopped for pictures. I know how it feels. I need to add to my pre-ride spiel: "If you're stopping for pictures, make sure I know so that I don't make a turn without you when you stop and we don't."
We reached the Delaware River, a cliff of red-brown rock on our left, train tracks (finally cleared of weeds) on our right, and the river down beyond the tracks. Jim, spooked, didn't want to stop for any more photos, even though we were on his very favorite road.
At Riegelsville we did stop for a couple of minutes.
Between Riegelsville and Milford are the Millford Bluffs, where the road turned away from the river and up into a series of small hills which, but for a good tailwind, are always annoying.
On the other side of the hills the road narrows, moves back to the river and the tracks again, and there are more cliffs to take pictures of.
Jim, Bob, and I were hungry when we got back to Frenchtown. Rather than wait another hour to eat, we cleaned ourselves off, packed our bikes, and walked into town to find food.
We didn't want to wait for table service at the Bridge Cafe, so we moved on towards the bike shop. We found a tiny place that looked to be a burger shop. Jim and Bob were craving burgers. This place was a vegan burger shop with a menu taped to the door.
As a vegetarian, I'm used to looking at menus, passing over nearly everything, and telling whomever I'm with that I'll find something. It was no different here. If what they were serving was food, you could have fooled me.
What I was craving was protein. A good helping of dairy protein. That's not gonna happen at a vegan burger joint. Jim went for a bean burger. Bob chose an Impossible Burger, that meat-thing grown in a Petri dish. How is that vegan? Whatever. If it tastes like meat I don't want it; if it is meat I can't digest it.
I perused the menu, finding nothing that would satisfy my protein craving. At the very bottom of the smoothie menu, which was filled with combinations I'd never consider, like banana and kale, was a list of extras, including protein powder. It would have to do. I ordered something that had peanut butter, bananas, blueberries, and maybe kale; I don't even remember.
When it arrived at our table, it looked as if it had been skimmed from the cyanobacterial algal bloom at Spruce Run Reservoir. It tasted like peanut butter. I was hungry. I drank it.
I spent the 45-minute drive home wondering if and when I was going to barf.
