New Jersey

State number 47! After I get to Delaware this week, I’ll just have Alaska and Hawaii left! 

I visited Paterson Great Falls this morning. Pretty waterfalls and totally unexpected in New Jersey!

Then I got on the Passport to Your Parks app to see which of the New Jersey parks I should visit next. Big mistake, because I saw that Hamilton’s house was only 13 miles away. I hadn’t planned on visiting any of the New York City sites, but I had no idea I’d be that close! I swear, this whole thing is like an addiction. I was willing to throw out all logic and just head into the city. I knew Hamilton’s house would have to wait for a later visit since I’m mildly obsessed and would want more time there. But Staten Island was so close! And there’s a stamp there! And someday, when I actually go to New York for real, will I really want to deal with the logistics of getting to Staten Island? Of course not! I should just go RIGHT NOW. I went to the park website to check hours... and saw that parking is a challenge. Dang it! If I took too long on Staten Island, I might not make it back in time to see the other two parks, and those parks are closed on Monday and Tuesday, so I HAD to go today. It’s kind of crazy how disappointed I was when, 5 minutes prior, I hadn’t even imagined going to Staten Island. But I have never been so close to NYC, and... I don’t know... it’s just a big deal! Every movie and TV show takes place there! I have always found it so intimidating, but today I was like, it’s just another city, and if I can handle Boston and L.A. and Chicago, I can totally handle New York! It was painful to actually see the skyline and signs for things like the Lincoln Tunnel and not be able to go there. I need to get to New York soon. 

Luckily, the next two parks I visited were unexpectedly awesome, so that took my mind off the disappointment. The Thomas Edison site was left to look like it did in 1910, so the stuff in those bottles in the lab pic is all original. The ranger said they only take stuff out if it could be harmful to people, and they never replace anything. He had an extensive library, laboratory, and factory all in one complex so his employees had everything they needed at their disposal. He said of the factory, “We can build anything from a lady’s watch to a locomotive.”

He only had about four years of formal schooling. He asked a lot of questions and his teacher called him an idiot, so his mom decided to homeschool him at age 11. My favorite quote of his: “To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.” 

I am ashamed to admit that I didn’t even know what Morristown NHP was when I showed up. I got so lucky, because it was Washington’s Headquarters from 1779-1780! I learned all about the winter the soldiers survived, which was actually a worse winter than they’d had at Valley Forge. (It was the coldest winter on record in U.S. history!) But, the reason it’s not as well-known is because the army learned a lesson from Valley Forge. Instead of losing another 1500 men that winter, they only lost 100. It was still a nightmare, but they were better equipped to handle it.

The house was owned by the Ford family (no relation to the other famous Fords), and Washington asked if they could use it for a while. British troops just took over your house whether you liked it or not, but the U.S. army asked and paid you for the inconvenience. I was a total fangirl when I learned that Washington, Hamilton, and Lafayette all hung out together in this house in 1780. 

This is a room where they all would have sat around and strategized.

And this was Washington’s private office. 

The museum had some cool artifacts, too, like this portrait of Washington done in 1795.