I’m spending the weekend at my parents new place in New Jersey. I left out of SFO at around 9:15pm on Thursday, watched part of the horrible movie Chasing Liberty, and arrived at EWR around 6AM. After my parents picked me up, they gave me a quick tour of the new house, we did some quick catching up and I passed out till about 1030AM (EST). The rest of the day was spent driving around seeing all the little towns that make up this part of New Jersey and going to temple in the evening. Also of consequence was the Lakers victory in Game 1 over the Timberwolves (of which I missed the 1st half to field a work phone call — c’est la vie).
The new house is quite nice. It’s smaller than our old home in Laguna Hills, but it’s quite quaint; it reminds me much of a vacation rental in Mammoth. Being that it is a smaller than the old home, things are more closely packed in together, which I think makes it look better and cozier. The home has quite a stately and warm feel. The downstairs is almost all hardwood floor and the basement is fully finished (complete with dart board and wet bar). Upstairs are three (well, perhaps four, but the fourth has been made in to a study) bedrooms and it has 2.5 baths. Overall, very nice home.
Thinking of being in New Jersey, one conjures up images of an industrial wasteland. Surprisingly, out here in Bedminster (so many kooky Anglo-British names around here), it reminds me much of the Pacific Northwest. The trees are most definitely not as thick and towering, but are as dense and lush as one might find on the 5 between Portland and Oregon. The entire area around here is quite beautiful. I’m sure if we went and visited the Newark/Jersey City side of things, the ugly Jersey would surly show up.
Today, it’s on to take a day trip for a refresher course on historic Philadelphia. Time permitting, we’re going to visit our old digs of ’87-’88 and ’91-’92 in Blue Bell, PA to see what our old home and that place looks like today.