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Northern New Jersey (Newark/New York City) is not very RV friendly.  There are not many campsite/RV park options that will get you close to NYC.  Also, since many of the roadways in this area are older, you have to try to plan your driving route to avoid low clearances as well as tunnel and bridge restrictions.  But we didn’t want to completely bypass NYC.

We ended up choosing a county park in Freehold, NJ, Turkey Swamp Park.  Ok, I know the name isn’t that appealing but it is a pleasant, heavily wooded campground.  To get there from the Hudson River Valley we used Interstate 287 which bypasses problem roadways closer in to the Newark area.

In order to get into NYC, we drove to the New Jersey coastal town of Long Branch to the NJ Transit station.  We took the train into Newark Penn station and transferred to the Path train service to the World Trade Center.  This brought us to the very recently opened WTC Transportation Hub.  This whole process took almost three hours on a Sunday.  I think it would have been longer on a work day.  The weather for this day was predicted to be 95 degrees with humidity that would make it feel like 105 degrees.  Given the heat we decided to focus our limited time on lower Manhattan.

Our first stop was the World Trade Center Memorial Site.  Neither of us have been to NYC since the attack on the towers.  From there we went south to Battery Park then up through the East River Seaport to the Brooklyn Bridge.  From there to City Hall, the Woolworth building, St. Paul’s Chapel, Trinity Church, the New York Stock Exchange and back to the WTC.  Only days earlier, Eataly opened a 40,000 square foot store in the retail space adjacent to the Transportation Hub.  We discovered this purveyor of top quality Italian foods while visiting their flagship outlet in Turin, Italy, in January 2015.  This is their second location in NYC and naturally, we had to stop in for a snack.

In keeping with our practice of visiting state capitals when convenient, on the next day we drove to Trenton, NJ.  The original New Jersey state house was completed in 1792.  Over the years it has been extended and added onto many times, each time with different architects and in various styles.  The result is unique with different looks as you progress from room to room.  It is the second oldest state house in continuous use.  Here’s a good trivia question.  At one point in the capitol, you can look down a hallway and through the window at the end of it to see the tree line on the other side of the Delaware River, which is part of the state of Delaware.  You cannot see part of another state from any other capitol building in the US.

As for the city of Trenton, you know the old saying about not saying anything if you don’t have something good to say.

Next stop:  Pomona, NJ