The Web site for this camping ground said it had a lake where you could go fishing and a petting zoo, which sounded good and that’s why we picked. Well for that reason and the fact that we decided on this weekend camping trip that same day and there was not much available. We packed out cooler with some supplies and away we go, figuring we would get the rest of our supplies at the camp store. Six adults, and a toddler, oh one of us was 8 months pregnant.
Have you ever heard that every town in New Jersey is just off the Parkway!! Well this is not one of them. Once we got out of the highway we had to drive for another hour thru rural New Jersey, I for one was not aware that you could travel inside New Jersey for hour and see only farmland. I was not totally convinced we were in New Jersey, to this day I still think maybe we made a wrong turn and ended up at another camp site.
Our Lake where we could go fishing was about 4 to 6 inches deep, and the only thing I saw we could catch was Dragon Flies. Unless of course you wanted to drive 15 minutes to a lake somewhere in town. The “petting zoo”, consisted of a couple of goats, a few chicken and one very loud and time confused rooster. The camp store where we had earlier decided we would complete our supplies, was not one but two vending machines.
As with everything in life it is the unexpected that can be the most fun, and so we decided to make the best of what we had and make due. First we set out to find a store where we could buy some food and drinks, the kind with alcohol as we had plenty of sodas in the vending machine. Turns out South Jersey is a little different from Central area, they have “dry towns”, or towns where the sale of alcohol is prohibited. Why, you ask? I don’t know.
“Keep driving” they told us, and you will find it in the next town. So we did, only to find what it looked like a bar from those old cowboy Movies. We pulled into the parking lot and decided it would probably be best no to drink while we were camping, so turned around and set out to find the Grocery store.
Grocery store!, isn’t there a few of those in every town? Guess not in this town ( maybe there was we just didn’t find it), we did find a “convenience” store. So we come back to those waiting for us in the camp, with lots of eggs.
Guess what we had for breakfast ! But not just any eggs, we had the best citronella Eggs we ever had. What exactly are Citronella eggs? well that happens when not one person among us had any clew how to start a fire in a fire pit (odd they did not have gas barbecues), so after we went Thur our lighter fluid we turned to the aid of citronella to start the pit.
Between the crazy rooster, the wondering chickens, the less than appetizing eggs and insane camp ground “workers” we managed to have one of the best times ever. It did take me a while to eat eggs again. Oh and let me not forget to mention that this was the first time any one of us had gone camping. It is not like in the movies.
