For years I have read stories
about the thousands of Red Knots that feed on the Horseshoe Crab eggs along the
beaches at Cape May. The crabs lay their eggs at the same time as the Red Knots
migrate through the area. Recently there has been a lot of alarm expressed over
the fate of both the Red Knot and the Horseshoe Crab. The crabs are used in
large numbers as bate by crabbers and fisherman. Over the years this has
reduced the number of crabs. The Red Knots depend upon crab eggs for food they
need to make it to their breeding areas in the artic. New Jersey has declared a
moratorium on catching these crabs.
We were able to witness a
little of this activity in Cape May. We saw a couple of hundred Red Knots not
thousands. There weren’t thousands of crabs either. There were lots of laughing
Gulls feeding on crabs and crab eggs. It was sort of gruesome.
Yesterday we drove from Cape
May to West Point, New York. This was
not a fun drive. The back roads of New
Jersey follow trails made by cows or
drunks. They are fairly well maintained but narrow. Their names and highway
numbers change at about every intersection. You think you are still on CR 555
after passing through an intersection but soon find that the road is now SR 471
and instead of going north you are heading west.!
After finding ourselves
driving through downtown Princeton where the streets are narrow and the drivers
drive like New Yorkers we decided to get on the interstates. Navigation
improved a lot but everything else deteriorated. They have potholes here that
could swallow small cars. The trucks are allowed to occupy any lane and they
do. And there are a lot of trucks. Very tense driving.
As we crossed into New York
we found ourselves on a toll road.
We weren’t well prepared for
this. In the backward southern states you can pay tolls with a credit card. In
some southern states they even photograph your license number, get your address
from the shared database and mail you a bill. All the tellers we met in the
south wore smiles and were super friendly. So we weren’t prepared at all for
the New York version. I handed my credit card to this lady who looked like she
had sucked lemons all day. She snarled out, “We can’t take credit cards.” All
my money was in the back and Brenda only had $100 bills so we passed here one.
You can probably imagine how happy this made the teller. She did have enough to
break the hundred but my face is still thawing from the cold glare it received.
Right now I am listening to a
lot of small arms fire. Not from the teller. We are staying at a campground in
West Point that must be fairly near a firing range. This is a beautiful
campground and we are by ourselves at one end of it. I had no idea West Point
was as big as it is.
Today we drove to Bear
Mountain State Park and hiked up to the site of the town of Doodletown. This is
about the prettiest hike I have ever been on. We ambled around one mile up and
back in just under four hours. Not bad for a couple of old farts, aye?
Tomorrow Boston,
Massachusetts.
Doodletown Creek looks pretty!
ReplyDeleteHow are the cicadas. To listen to the New York news people, apocalypse is rapidly approaching, and it sounds and looks like cicadas. Keep having fun.
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