This past Friday, Liz and myself took a trip to Atlantic City. Our friend group was in town and staying at the Borgata for the weekend. Coming from Harrisburg, we packed a lunch and hit the road in the AM (11ish) but instead of direct routing to AC, I had a couple places to stop along the way to show Liz.
Since we have been dating, I think I have visited Susquehanna U (Liz's alma mater) a half dozen times. Its a beautiful campus in the heart of the quaint town of Selinsgrove PA. It was time for Liz to see Stockton University since we would never be any closer than a trip to AC.
We took the grand tour of the campus starting with the housing on the north side of Lake Fred. Each housing unit was detailed with its pros and cons in my day and it was great to see they had expanded their solar array over the parking lots on this side of the lake; formerly, panels were only located on the freshmen parking areas to the south.
Parking in front of the Arts and Science building, we started our walking tour from the beginning. Walking through the halls which I spent four years in, I came to realize that numerous professors had since resigned or were no longer a part of Stockton's teaching staff. Alot of the names on the doors had since changed but the maps and diagrams on the walls were still the same from 5+ years ago. . . Might be time for an upgrade.
The tour continued down the serpentine academic building which runs A-H wing. Around the time of my graduation in 2011, the indoor pool on campus was being reconstructed into an Art Gallery. The reasoning for this, or so I'm told, was due to the fact that even though Stockton had a pool. it was intentionally designed inches short of regulation size to prevent the school from having a competitive swim team. Darn hippies and their non-competitive nature. Anyways, we made our way through the newly installed Art Gallery which featured about a dozen artists works within the two story space. Liz and I found one artist (Lisa Rickerhauser) who featured stunning pieces of her portfolio done in a similar theme of pastel colors of animals. We were fans
Rounding out the Stockton tour, we walked through the Campus Center which is also a newly constructed building (within 5 years). This one was operational in my time and features a food court which replaced the sheit one over in G-Court. The marble columns and wooden acoustic architecture stunned Liz since she did not expect such grandeur from my little Stockton.
We made our way back to the car and grabbed our lunch so we could have a cold and windy picnic on the benches surrounding Lake Fred. The foot path around the lake gave us the opportunity to sit and have a bite and also see a big box turtle in the water. I reminisced the times spent zipping up and down the path on my crappy huffy bike from Target, narrowly avoiding students while trying to not crash into the lake. Good times.
Back to the car once more, we left campus to our next pit stop; Forsythe Wildlife Refuge. Forsythe is a bird sanctuary in the tidal marshes of the Atlantic Coast. There was a 4$ entrance fee upon entering the facility. From the looks of it, the facilities on site had been greatly improved since I had been around and construction on a new building was taking place. The Subaru had no issues getting down the rocky sand-packed path which loops the sanctuary in an 8 mile loop. On the track, we saw three nesting osprey pairs on the nest stands overlooking the Atlantic City skyline. It was great to see that so many birds were using the facility as humans intended. The osprey is a bird of prey which calls this area of the state home and also the Stockton mascot. KA KAWW!
Unfortunately, Liz had packed her camera with a dead battery and no spare. The image above is for reference and taken from Stateparks.com We also saw a dozen or more great white egrets, some small terns, a three-some of Bufflehead, some water turkeys (Anhinga) and of course dozens of common gulls.
Here's a link to the Forsythe Wildlife Refuge Osprey Cam.
Upon completing the drive, we hit the road once more for the short remainder to AC. We parked in the Borgata parking garage and met up with friends; friends who convinced the six-person group to bolt across the speedways of AC to reach the Golden Nugget across the road. Frogger skills kicked in. The name of the game was Blackjack and the GN gave cheap folks a shot at 'affordable' betting with $10 minimum. With our unemployed status, Liz and I were only able to play a few hands before defaulting to the slot machines. Liz tried her hand at a classic 777 one-armed-bandit while I performed magic on Kitty Glitter penny slots. I personally only lost $24 which is great compared to many who are unable to stop the craving for the lights, bells and whistles that these machines put out. This was Liz's first AC experience and over all, she really didn't find the allure of the gambling mindset; probably since we don't have much money to blow.
Around 7, we packed ourselves up and got the car from the lot. Only 5$ parking! Not too shabby. We took a short drive down the strip and parked on California Ave to hop onto the boardwalk for a moment for expensive 'cheap' pizza and a view of the surf. The beach was nearly empty aside from a few shadows in the far distance. As the sun set, we shared an embrace on the beach before getting back to the car for the 3hr return. Overall, it was a nice start to our journeys and something we should remember for a while.
Stay tuned for the upcoming departure on our much larger road trip.
Right now, we have a working plan for the Southern Route. Harrisburg to TN thus far with stops at waterfalls in Virginia, hiking in Shenandoah NP, Lost World Caves in WV, FOAMHENGE, The Great Smokey Mtns NP in NC/TN down to our first WWOOFing hosts at Blue Ridge Co-op in Glenville NC. Then we turn around and head up to Shade Gap PA for SHAREfest followed by camping with the gang in Poconos for Memorial day.
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