Ten miles East from where I grew up, where the land stops and the sea begins, are The Twin Lights. Built in 1862, it served as the primary marker for ships entering The Raritan Bay on their way to New York.
I made sure I brought my son to see this national treasure on a recent visit to my homeland. The link to their website is:
The land of the North Jersey Shore was formed in the last Ice Age, along with Long Island, which is basically where glaciers scraped the land and dumped dirt. The "Highlands" are the highest natural elevation off the Atlantic Seaboard.
The optics were amazing, just look at this lens on display taken from the North Tower.
And this is looking from the North Tower, South
....and this is looking North across Sandy Hook, The Atlantic to the right, and the Raritan to the left, with The Navesink River Inlet below....
The rich history of The Jersey Shore was a great guide for me growing up. It is on this sight that Marconi reached across the Atlantic with the first radio transmission to connect us to Europe, and not far inland at Bell Labs, three miles from my home, was where the first satalite transmission came back to us from space.
I also took Alex to explore Allaire Village, where iron bogs supplied America's need for high quality steel, almost every Missisippi river boat had New Jersey steel in their boiler, and this same steel was used in the engine that made the first Atlantic steam crossing.
Visit Allaire:http://www.allairevillage.org/
This was also home to The United States Life Saving Service, where the Coast Guard claims their roots. Just South of here is Sea Bright and Monmouth Beach, where many ship captians built large, beautiful homes, many with a glass room peak called a "widows watch", because wives would sit up top and wait for their men to return from the sea.
America has history all around, much of which gets lost to development, which I find sad. While some things are not worth saving, many more that are in danger are.
It is our history that teaches us of our connection to the land and each other, and inspires that sense of community that builds friendships between strangers.
Not far from here are Monmouth Battelfield, where in a draw we first kicked ass against the British, and Trenton, where a Christmas present for our new nation was the capture of the Hessians there. New Jersey was a crossroads for the Revolution, and my home town itself was first setteled in the early 1600's as a farm that fed corn and other foods to New Amsterdam.
When you walk around history and can "feel" what came before you it makes you think of your place in it, as part of it, and not just a visitor in some place that just doesn't feel like "home". It gives you a sense of pride and something more to reflect upon.
Our American history is important, and worth discovering, uncovering, and saving.
