Cue The Banjo

Last night Ry and I attended a Christmas party one of his co-workers was hosting.  He lives close to work, so it should be about a 45 minute drive from our house to his.  We left the house at 10 minutes to 7 pm.  The first 20 minutes of our drive were without incident.  Then we got detoured.  No problem. We took the detour and a few miles down the road were able to get back to our original route.  Except the road was still blocked.  Because every power line for miles was down.  

Between our house and our host's house are a handful of country roads and the area that NJ residents lovingingly call "The Pineys".  Lucky for us, Ry had a map application on his cell phone, so we fired it up and found the only option that would get us to our party without backtracking all the way to our house.  Reed Road was the thinnest of gray lines on the map, but we foraged onward.  The asphalt quickly turned to gravel, which gave way to dirt.  

We were in Ry's car, not the truck.  He turned to me and said "What do you think?"  "Just go slow," I responded.  And slow we went.  We went about 10 mph through the most uninhabited part of NJ I have ever seen.  I briefly thought we were toast when half the "road" was washed out from our recent rains.  We finally reemerged on a paved road and made it to our destination in an hour and 20 minutes.

For anyone who thinks NJ is just a big suburb, I dare you to accompany us to Reed Road.  Garden it may not be, but it's surely not the Oil and Petrochemical Refinery State either.