Hike #910; Blizzard of 2016 Washington Loop

Hike #910; Blizzard of 2016 Washington Loop

1/24/16 Blizzard of 2016 Washington Loop with Lerch (Kralc Leahcim), James Quinn, and Rob Anders.

The Metro Car plowed in

This turned out to be a really interesting weekend.
Things were not going as planned. This was to be the “next big thing” weekend, the next series our group would embark on, the September 11th National Memorial Trail series. I had about seventy RSVPs as of the beginning of the week, that is until people saw the forecast.
Early in the week, forecasts were already calling for a potentially massive snow storm on it’s way. I didn’t believe the hype; we’d seen this so many times before and it turned out to be nothing. I continued in disbelief until Saturday morning.
We were bombarded with snow, and I had to park my car at the Washington town lot about a mile away from my home. It turned out to be the biggest single storm I’d seen since I was little, maybe the largest one shot accumulation I had ever seen.

Snoooow

Jillane and I went out and shoveled out her car on Saturday, and I did the walks in front of the house. Most businesses were closed, even the Quick Mart I frequent across the street. Fortunately, the Italian bakery was open so I got us some snacks and a bread pizza.
I waited until about 6 PM before making the call to reschedule the planned 911 National Memorial Trail Hike: Part 1.
New York City was on lock down, and on line it was saying that NJ Transit should be expected to be closed until noon on Sunday. Furthermore, the water taxi we planned to use from the start would not be running in the morning. Nothing was going to work out for this.
Still, I didn’t want to give up on having a hike. After all, I’d only canceled two hikes in over the last decade, and both because I was severely physically incapacitated (the fire, and impaling my leg on a skid steer).

The Metro Car snowed in

It was really depressing at first that I wouldn’t be heading to NY City. There was no way I could get out in the morning anyway. I woke up, and a few were still interested in doing a hike. I got myself dressed and took care of the sidewalks, then shoveled Jillane’s car out again. Then, I walked with the shovel to the town lot.
The town lot I am forced to park in is not taken care of by the town until the rest of the roads are clear. When I arrived, only one narrow pass with a plow had been made through the lot. I’d have a long stretch of snow to shovel through to get it out, and with all of the other cars parked there, I could not really shovel myself out without shoveling someone else in.
I made my way around it, shoveling and patting the snow down on the piles I made as not to make it too hard for the neighboring car owners, and once I got to the back I could shovel and walk all of the snow around there so I wouldn’t be shoveling anyone else in. It took a while, but I got the car dug out.

Exploring night before

However, once I had the car free, the battery was dead. I was just about ready to give up. This day was not working in my favor. We had two feet of snow on the ground, and the only kind of distance hiking we could do would be back roads.
The night before, Jillane had the idea of going to Allamuchy and getting some food at the general store, and checking out the abandoned houses in the area. It was a fantastic idea, but now I couldn’t even get my car out. I also couldn’t be sure that there would be anywhere to park in that area (it was a good thing we did not go there; my plan was to use the school, and even the next day schools were canceled because their lots had not yet been plowed out).
I had a rather last minute idea to do a loop on back roads and such around Washington. Both James and Lerch were up for it. James showed up first, and offered to help with my car, but I’d just finished digging it out. He could help me jump it later. Lerch wasn’t far behind. When we were all together, they parked not far from my car, and we walked directly from there. I used this as an opportunity to photograph places I’d wanted to visit around town again, and just wander a bit.

The corner of Rt 57/Washington Ave and Belvidere Ave/Broad Street

We headed out to Broad Street and turned left up through town, to the center, where it all started. The town of Washington started with this little intersection on the corners of two historic roadways.

Historic view, downtown Washington

Present day Rt 57 was originally the Easton-Morristown Turnpike, a major thoroughfare between those two important cities. The present route deviates from 57 in places, but Washington retains the original route.

Historic depiction of the Washington House

The north/south route through town at this same intersection was the Spruce Run Turnpike, an historic highway that connected the Oxford Furnace with Clinton NJ area, and the Union Furnace. Today, that road is Belvidere Avenue and Broad Street. On the corner of this intersection was the Washington House, a stage stop named for the President. I always tell everyone that the town of Washington was not named for George Washington, but rather a bar that was named after George Washington.

Cornish Mansion Today

Washington is steeped in history, and one of the greatest things it is known for is that it was once the Organ Capital of the world.
I decided we would start by walking Belvidere Avenue to the north for some history, and pass the infamous Cornish Mansion.

Cornish Mansion, late 1800s.

The mansion used to be absolutely stunning with high peaked rooftops and and ornate porches and decor. It was the home of Joseph B. Cornish, owner of the Cornish Organ and Piano factories.

Cornish Mansion in the early 1900s.

The company was different in others in that they did not sell to other stores, but rather had customers order direct I understand. They put out several thousand organs per year. Washington also had pianos, and Baby Grands were made in town as well.

Another Cornish Mansion view

J. B. Cornish’s son, Johston Cornish took over the business, and served as Mayor of Washington for a time.
The Cornish Mansion underwent enormous changes within the first two decades of the twentieth century. I recall somewhere that eighty thousand dollars were put into renovating the mansion at the time, an incredible amount for that time.

Cornish Mansion about 1912

I suppose the changes were made because the guy was rich, and was moving up in politics. He probably wanted to keep with the times, and old Gothic looking buildings were going out of fashion.

Cornish Mansion, 1968, Washington Centennial program

Sometime in the earlier 1900s, there was a fire that caused major damage to the mansion, so some more alterations were made. It’s rather amazing that it’s lasted all of this time.
By the time I came to know the old building, walking through town when I was in high school, it had already been sectioned off into apartments.

Cornish Mansion 1998

None of the views of the building look really anything like it looks today. It’s not as bad as it was in 1998, but it will never be the amazing building it was at the turn of the century.
Before Cornish came to Washington, and before the stage stop the town took it’s name from, Washington was known as Mansfield. This is why the Mansfield Woods Church Cemetery is on the south side of town, because it was all Mansfield Township at the time.
Belvidere Avenue developed around the time of the organ factory and is full of beautiful Victorian style homes.

Historic view of Belvidere Ave

Belvidere Ave still retains a lot of it’s historic character. The houses are still really nice. The thing with Washington is it’s full of a lot of drunks and degenerates in the middle of town. The town had been missing culture for the longest time. It was actually really nice when Juanitos Mexican restaurant came in, so we’d have something a little different.
As we walked north through town, a bearded guy was sitting on a chair with his shovel, and he said to Lerch that he’d better have wine and booze in his bag. That was an off the wall comment. We had missed the turn I intended to make and had to walk by the guy again, who grabbed his shovel like a baseball bat pretending like he was going to hit us with it.

Historic view of Belvidere Ave

Another guy shoveling asked if we were coming back because that “old troll wouldn’t let us by”. So strange.
We walked to the east a bit to the railroad fill. This was the old Lackawanna main line, the former Warren Railroad on which I run the anniversary hike every year. We couldn’t really easily walk this because it was so covered in snow, but we climbed the fill over to the other side, to Port Washington.

Port Washington

From the railroad tracks, I pointed out the collection of buildings that made up Port Washington. Brick structures were associated with the old railroad, the Warren Railroad build in 1856 through town, which soon became the main line of the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western. Port Washington was where the rail line crossed the Morris Canal. The one wooden building next to the brick one at Port Washington was the canal offices. It was conveniently located next to the railroad because in the early days coal could be loaded from train to canal boat nearby. In fact, the original Washington Station was at Port Washington.

We descended from the railroad embankment to the road next to the old office buildings. The former Morris Canal prism was notable easily right here, so when we got to the road we turned right to follow the former canal eastbound.
We crossed over Rt 31, then headed onto Myrtle Ave. The canal was parallel with this, and some of the prism can be made out as we walked by on it.
The road is a dead end, but at the very end of it there is a pathway that leads onto a power line, which utilizes the former canal route. We turned onto that and fought through snow for a time to head out toward Flower Avenue in Presidential Estates.

Morris Canal at Presidential Estates

From here, the towpath and prism are both in pretty good shape. We were able to follow it pretty easily at first, but then it got rather overgrown. We fought through a few weeds, and I tripped and had my foot fall deep into a hole, so I fell over.
We bullied through it, and soon came out to Flower Avenue, at this point, we turned right to follow the road down hill.
I had been texting Rob Anders, and he was interested in joining up. We were going to head to Railroad Avenue to meet up with him, so we followed Flower Avenue back out to Rt 57.
While walking the road, there were some people talking from a pickup along the road. I heard a familiar voice come from it.

Morris Canal walkin'

It was Marco Matteo, making some cash doing some snow removal. We tried to help him save the Washington Theatre with two fund raising parties, but it just didn’t work out, so that building still sits empty. I chatted with Marco a bit about what’s going on there, but there’s really nothing new to report. I’m afraid it’s going to end up getting torn down eventually at this point.
We headed from here across 57 behind the Arctic Foods building, then climbed up the fill to the old Lackawanna Railroad tracks again. We swing onto a rail car on the ladders to get over and across to the other side, then passed the site of the old Washington Station. I pointed out again more of the history on how the yard looks the way it does now, and how the Morris and Essex, originally a different company had to go over the Lackawanna main on a bridge to make for no interruption in service.

Related?

We made our way from here out to Railroad Avenue and turned right. Rob had texted me that he was on his way a short time before, but he got to us far quicker than anticipated. He parked along the road, and we all turned back and headed the direction I’d intended to go anyway, tracing the old railroad bed to the south of Washington.
We followed Railroad Avenue north, and I pointed out where the through road used to go under the rail line, rather than at grade just to the east, and continued to Washburn Ave. We turned left here, then right on Changewater Road. This section immediately paralleled the former Warren Railroad, Lackawanna Railroad old main line.

Historic view of the bridge on Washburn Ave

There used to be a pony truss that carried Washburn Ave over the railroad, which is long gone now. The line heading to the Washington yard is passable when there’s no snow, but on the other side it’s a huge mess of weeds.
The road went up and down while the rail line stayed at the same grade, sometimes in cuts, sometimes on fills.

Old rail bed looking toward Changewater

As we headed north, I could see someone was logging likely state land on the old railroad bed, and there were several “no trespassing” signs placed, probably illegally on the rail bed. State Park Service owns a good amount of the railroad line from Washington to Changewater, and the section on the other side is NJ Department of Fish, Game, and Wildlife land. Matt Davis and I have discussed to great lengths making this section a public trail, and how great it would be. Hopefully we can make it happen eventually. We followed the road to the site of Murderer’s Bridge, where Changewater Road crosses Asbury-Anderson Road, and McCollough Road joins. McCollough Road was originally known as Changewater Road, and was off centered when the railroad was built in 1856.

Historic photo at Murderer's Bridge

The Changewater Murders have been the topic of books and local lore for a long time. When the Castner Family was killed, it was a controversial case; Park and Carter were tried for the crime and found innocent, but there was huge public outcry. Someone had to hang for this. So...they tried them again: Double Jeopardy. They were found guilty the second time and hanged, then buried along the road in Changewater.

Historic view of Changewater Station

When the railroad came in, a station stop on the old Warren Railroad/Lackawanna main line, and it changed the route of the road, the graves, which were on the east side of the road originally, were then on the west side of the road. They would be buried roughly where the stop sign is today at the south side of McCollough Road, though some locals claim they have the graves in their back yard.
Maps of the area show different stories, and I’d been shown what are believed to have been the markers for the graves, though not many know they still exist. The 1874 Beers Atlas of Warren County shows that the graves could be in the yard, but the map is inaccurate as it does not reflect the changes in the road after the railroad was constructed.

Historic Beers Atlas map

The Beers Atlas depicts the railroad crossing the road at roughly the same years, but at different points altogether, so I would not trust it’s accuracy in the matter, however if the graves were indeed on the east side of the road, they would be on the opposite side from the railroad realignment. If they were actually buried at the crossroads as was said, this would have to be the case.

Changewater Trestle site

We headed on from here along Changewater Road. To the left of us was Maxwell Farms, the farm stand area and former site of Changewater Station and Creamery. The creamery building and the old water tower are still standing, though the water tower looks ready to fall down now.

Historic view of Changewater Trestle

The Changewater Trestle site has always been an amazing place for me. Having spent every weekend at my grandparents’ house, I would ride home each time under the former site of this behemoth of a bridge, with only it’s cut stone piers remaining.

Changewater Trestle site

When the Lackawanna Railroad acquired the Morris and Essex line in the late 1800s, it no longer needed the original main line from Washington to Hampton for it’s NJ Central trackage rights to the city. It had it’s own line. So, the main line was shifted and heading south to Hampton Junction was a secondary.

Historic view, Changewater Trestle

The line remained in use until about 1955 when it was deemed no longer necessary. The trestle was the only part of the entire original main line that remained single tracked. Even the tight Oxford Tunnel was double tracked in the days when locomotives were smaller. There were plans to replace it at one point when William Truesdale took over as President of the Lackawana, but those plans never made it off paper.

Historic view of Changewater Trestle

The bridge was razed in 1959. One of the Kendrick family boys died during the dismantling of the bridge.
Changewater once had a general store just north of the bridge site. Edson Castner was the store owner, and my grandfather purchased the house I lived in at Port Colden from him many many years ago. He told me the story about how he wanted to pay for it up front, but that Castner tried to sound like a nice guy and had him pay it in increments so he could collect the interest as well.
Castner was a living legend worthy of Weird NJ. He was notoriously cheap.
When Castner’s wife was having a heart attack in his store, one of his patrons dialed 911 and tried to assist. Castner charged the guy ten cents for the phone call!
That’s not the strangest story. Castner met his end of starvation...in his own store full of food, because he was too cheap to eat any of it.

Historic view of Changewater Trestle, note the old Musconetcong bridge still in use, but capped with concrete

Changewater Trestle site

We made our way over the old double stone arch bridge across the Musconetcong River. The bridge is made of stone, but is capped with concrete on the downstream side. It is planned to be replaced. At this crossing there used to be a graphite mill on the Warren side, owned by Asbury Graphite. The mill still stood in ruins when I was little, but was then demolished.

Present view of the Musconetcong bridge

On the other side of the river was an old wooden mill, purpose unknown to me. It stood longer than the old stone graphite mill, but then began to collapse. I wished I’d had more photos of it, but I only captured it as half of the building was collapsed. It was then quickly removed without question, and one day I went by to find it gone. Only a small out building remains by it today.
We turned to the right on Musconetcong River Road heading west. The old trestle site has one concrete pier which until recently always had me befuddled. I then found an historic photo that showed it replaced an earlier double arch stone span.
I had also always wondered about a kiln built into the pier on the Warren Co side. I finally came up with the theory that the kiln could have been built into the pier so that the mortar for the other piers could be fired on site rather than elsewhere. I’ve heard no other theories on this.

Historic view of Changewater Trestle

As we turned, I tried to get a photo to compare with another of my historic photos, and realized that the present route of the road was not the original. I could not get the same exact perspective because the original is now someone’s private driveway.

Present view of Changewater Trestle site

I got a rather close view however. The effort forced me to look at the original road route, and realized two homes are there, and the old road remained along the river, or possibly followed the other end of the road back to the current road. We noted another old road a bit further down as we walked.

Old hotel in New Hampton Circa 1840

My grandfather had once told me of an older road closer to the river, which then intersected with the Spruce Run Turnpike route. That road is today New Hampton Road, where it hits present Musconetcong River Road.
We followed the road to this point, then continued ahead on the former turnpike route into New Hampton.
New Hampton is an historic town first settled in 1700s, a beautiful little settlement along the river. We walked past the old school house first, then descended to the Shoddy Mill. Rob talked to us about how he had considered buying it at one time, and we wanted to see if the sign was still on it (it wasn’t).
Since it was still early, we considered walking to the New Hampton Inn. I told everyone what a crazy dive bar it is, and that everyone would probably like it. A guy shoveling his drive told us we were close, though I knew, so we opted to wander on.

New Hampton inn and store

The walk gave me the opportunity to tell everyone why the town of Hampton is newer than the town of New Hampton:
When the Jersey Central Railroad came in in the 1850s, the town sprung up around it, then in 1856, the Warren Railroad was built and the junction between the two became the community center, known simply as “Junction”. The generic junction name was soon no good, with junctions and rail lines turning up literally everywhere. The nearest other town was New Hampton, so the town became Hampton Junction. When the junction was abandoned in 1955, that part of the name was dropped, and it simply was known as Hampton.
Prior to that time, towns typically sprung up around churches or other industries. Musconetcong Valley Presbyterian Church was built in 1837, but then when the railroads were built, they built a new church in the settlement rather than a mile outside. Since that time they have warm weather services in the 1837 valley church, and cold weather services in town. It continues to this day.

Old New Hampton store

New Hampton Inn was closed when we got there, but we had the opportunity to check out the historic structures with all the dates on them as we walked through. The original New Hampton Inn, the stage coach stop, is still standing and in handsome shape today. For a while through my youth it appeared as though it was ready to collapse. It’s nice to see it as a cared for residence.

Shoddy Mill

We doubled back, and then turned left, north, on Shoddy Mill Road.
I had always wondered about the Shoddy Mill itself but didn’t know much about it. It was now apartments, and there was the ruins of an old stone mill on the river side. That was all I knew. It didn’t occur to me as anything substantial, but the hike made me want to look into more.

Burned out New Hampton Grist Mill

Through researching this, I found a photo and label on an old Grist Mill in New Hampton that had been burned out. I am well familiar with the Musconetcong River in the area, an knew of no other mill dams than the the ruins of the Shoddy Mill Dam.

Shoddy Mill ruins

I assume this must be the same mill, though I had no idea it was ever anything so substantial as what was pictured. When I compared my own photos with those of the historic mill, I realized the central window areas were framed out later with cinder blocks.
The larger doorway to the right is visible on the historic photo, and if one looks at the farthest window to the left of the photo, a lower window has been filled with tone, with the new framing on top of it. It could potentially match up perfectly with the historic photo!

Shoddy Mill Bridge

The brick structure on the front of the old Shoddy Mill would certainly have been added later, but I believe the older structure to be the historic grist mill.
We walked across the historic old open top truss bridge over the Musconetcong, and looked up stream at the old dam ruin. I remembered wandering around here with my grandfather, walking on the dam. I recalled an abandoned house, but I believe that was on the Spruce Run Turnpike, not Shoddy Mill now that I recall more clearly.

Shoddy Mill Dam ruins barely visible in snow

The Shoddy Mill Dam site really looks nothing like ti used to. I recall walking on the concrete remain of the dam, and then more recently in 2009 canoeing with Jillane down the river and through the purged dam site.

Historic view of Shoddy Mill Dam

On the other side was an old spring house and cleared yard area. When I was small, this was just woods with a pull off along the road, then an informal fisherman’s path along side the river. My grandfather had told me about a cave he knew about along the river. I remember hearing that the cave once went all the way to Hampton, though then it would have to go under the river, which made no sense. I think someone said it went to the basement of someone’s house, but that it collapsed. So one day, we went looking for it.
I remember we found the cave, but that it was not easy to get in very far, or we didn’t try to go in very far. I was very little at the time, and I hadn’t thought of that moment for a very very long time, probably since the canoe trip. I started to second guess my memory until I looked it up.

Old Indian Cave

Not only was the cave real, it was prominently shown. It even looked as I remembered it to a degree. It makes me want to paddle down the Musconetcong and get out to find it again. There are so many memories that came back to me in this area, there’s just not enough time to explore it all.

Closed A&P

We walked up the hill on the road, which comes out at the top to Asbury Anderson Road. We went by a house I surveyed with my grandfather as well. Memories kept stirring.
We continued straight on Rymon Road, and followed it to Rt 57. We had done over half of the mileage I wanted to do, and still had more daylight, so we decided to turn left and walk down Rt 57 a bit to Desidirio’s Pizza, because we enjoyed it when we ordered it at the end of the hike we finished at my grandfather’s house in December. We walked by the now closed A&P Supermarket, which was just odd to see. More memories. It made me remember how when I was small, we had to make what seemed like an epic pilgrimage to Hackettstown to get McDonalds or Burger King, but around 1996, we got both of these and the A&P.

We walked over to the pizza place, now one of the only things still in use in the entire plaza. Desiderio’s has a lot of little signage out by the highway, like a last ditch effort to get people to come over without their anchor supermarket. They have to compete now with the much more obvious Ernie and Dom’s Pizza prominently seen on Rt 31. I remembered going into the A&P when it opened with all of my friends, all hours of the night to goof off because it was the only thing open twenty four hours in the entire area. I went on the last day it was open and saw where the blood pressure machine was that we used to play with.

At A&P, same spot, after Prom in 1997

I took a photo of the same spot, for whatever reason where I knew there was a photo of me after prom in 1997.
All of these memories coming back make me think I should feel old, yet I don’t at all. I’m not sad the A&P is gone in the least bit. I worked for them, and they were a horribly run company at the end. I’m more sad for the history of the company and the great potential thrown away through greed of those who inherited it.
Maybe I’m reminiscing more often because I administer a social media group about New Jersey reminiscence that has over fifteen thousand people in it, and I’ve had to sift through and ban a lot of spammers lately, forcing me to see that which I often try to ignore. Maybe I’m feeling giddy about it being my turn to tell people about things that used to be there like I was always told when I was little. It’s definitely a bit of both of those things.
More than anything else, it’s the justified “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans”, my favorite of John Lennon’s quotes. The entire day was a testament to that.

Desiderio's delicioso

I had made all of these plans; big plans with a huge group to inaugurate a new series of hikes that will bring a whole new interest group and great new adventures, only to have it all derailed by nature’s fury.
In truth, I feel as though I am much happier than I would have been had I done the New York City extravaganza. I got to spend a very relaxing day out with good friends and good conversation. Everyone getting along, enjoying company and overall good feeling.
We sat down for a nice late lunch, a delicious vodka sauce pizza complimented with mushrooms and onions. We also shared a bottle of local red wine that was quite tasty (James doesn’t like mushrooms, but on the pizza they were okay).

Sunset over Cemetery Hill Rd

We left the pizza place and headed to Asbury-Anderson Road west. We followed the road to the much less busy Cemetery Hill Road. More memories were going through my mind, and I recalled working with my grandfather and falling off the bridge while carrying a measuring tape backwards at the intersection where we turned. I decided not to even bring it up because I’d tortured everyone enough with reminiscence.

Sunset on Cemetery Hill Road

Cemetery Hill Road was one of them I’d been wanting to incorporate into a night hike for quite some time, but here I got to do it in the daylight, which was actually better. The farmland views are quite lovely. We could see Point Mountain from the height of the land, now much farther away than when we saw it at our first crossing of Asbury Anderson Road at Murderer’s Bridge.

We could see the Blue Army Shrine building up on the hillside as the sun cast it’s last light on the fresh snow. The sun went down and it was getting dark by the time we reached the Washington Cemetery. I was going to go up the hill to the top, but Rob was parked the other way. I didn’t want to split the group yet, so we all stayed on the road to the intersection of Cemetery Hill and Lincoln Avenue. This was the site of the old Mansfield Woodschurch Cemetery, where an old log church once existed, but burned down. The Musconetcong Valley Presbyterian Church mentioned earlier was built for part of that congregation.

Changewater Murders graves

The graves of the victims from the Castner Murders at Changewater stand together in the cemetery eerily. Rob mentioned the peculiar and creepy script of the graves as we went by.
We continued on Lincoln Avenue from here, over the crest of the hill. We thought to visit our friend and Metrotrails board member Gregg Hudis who lives just off the road, but I didn’t get a response from my text message to him in time. I figured we wouldn’t just try to drop in at this time. It turns out we had missed him by a couple of hours, as we was out snow shoeing in the cemetery before we had gotten there.

Descending to Washington

We descended on Lincoln Ave, which was the historic route of the King’s Highway back into town. The road was still really bad, barely plowed at all, and we slipped around a lot while we headed down.
It wasn’t long before we reached the turn off for the former bank parking lot where Lerch and James were parked. We had covered a bit over fifteen miles (and I had done a couple in the morning before anyone showed up as well), so I was pretty happy. Lerch had to head out to go to work, and James and Rob helped me to get my car jumped. Fortunately, it started right up once the cables were on it, and it held the charge.
I spent the remainder of the evening shoveling out a place for me to park nearer to home.

I managed to barely shovel out a spot

The town was still alive with people shoveling, hooting and hollering all over. I was completely happy with how the day went and felt very relaxed.
It’s so easy to get caught up in miserable feelings when things don’t fall together as they were planned, but somehow they tend to work out in the long run. I let go of all of that worry as soon as we started walking, and everything felt so much more rewarding. I postponed the 911 National Memorial Trail hike start for February 7th, conveniently also my Anti Superbowl Hike. I’ll now have more time to promote that and other events coming up, so it could work out that much better in the long run.

I’m very thankful to have good friends willing to come out and wander around, to help when I need it, and to help make a wonderful and rewarding day out of what would seem bleak and hopeless. 2016 continues to be a year of glory and resilience.