Looking for New Jersey's Sweet Spot

Over the weekend, I visited Alyssa in Princeton where she is working at ETS. She and I went on a search. We wanted to find New Jersey, not just any old New Jersey, but the essence of New Jersey at its most scenic. This blog post is the story of that search.

At first we thought we'd found it in in Princeton. How can you not love a town which has a fake gothic university, fake tudor houses and looks so much like a gingerbread fairytale you just want to rip a piece off the pavement and wolf it down? When Alyssa pointed out that, despite a large student population, Princeton has only two bars in it, we came to the realization that we did not in fact love this town much, and it was not the scenic New Jersey we were looking for. But it had to be close. The scenic I heart New Jersey moment we wanted was out there. We knew it. We just had to find it, amongst the rolling hillsides around the town. So we set off on our bikes, searching.

We rode and rode, the sun came up, the leaves flamed yellow and gold. Then, suddenly there was a sign. Scenic Outlook, it said. Autumn Hill.

This had to be it.

Through the knotted woods we rode, over gnarled roots and exposed loam, so fast the foliage blurred around us. Past the rusting hulk of a bus. Paths twisted in all directions, we thought we'd lost our way. But then a second sign: Scenic Outlook.









Before us lay a calm glade with slabs of rock and a curtain of vegetation on its far side, through which the scenery opened: rows of prim town houses, fanning out like the wings of a dove towards the horizon. Green and beige corduroy bands of luxurious lawn undulating in soft swell to where, far off in the distance, the low purple crest of hills.



New Jersey. A feast for all senses, but especially the sense of irony.