Hike #414; Phillipsburg to Port Colden

5/8-5/9/9 Morris and Essex Railroad; Phillipsburg (Regal Cinemas)-Port Colden with Kyle Zalinsky, Jason Itell, "Commando Tom" Petrucci, Amanda Rosanblatt, and Eric Pace.

This was one of those interesting oddball activities I always thought would be cool, but previously couldn't go through with it really. Unfortunately, the original journal to it was lost by facebook so I've got to rewrite it.

This one would be quite a bit different.
I always thought it would be cool to do a hike that incorporated going to a movie we all wanted to see, and then hiking through the night from it.
The best opportunity revealed itself with the release of the 11th Star Trek movie, deemed a reboot of the entire series, but actually tied in directly with the rest of the series.
I planned a trip where we'd meet a bit earlier, and do the car shuttling, and then get some supplies before the movie started at the Regal Cinemas in Phillipsburg. Eric of course joined us because that's where he works.
The Walmart used to be in the same complex there, so we wandered through that first. We might have gone into some other stores too, but I can't quite remember.
When the movie was about to start, we headed over to the theater.

Ever since I'd gotten into Star Trek, I'd seen the films at the movie theater. 
When I was with Cathy, we went to the movies pretty regularly, and there were plenty of movies we both wanted to see, but usually it was more movies she wanted to see. When the tenth Star Trek movie came out in theaters, she refused to go and see it with me, so I never saw it until it came out on dvd. By that time, things were not so good, and she never realized it. Even with the TV shows, there was one show I was really interested in watching, and even though Cathy watched TV all day every day, when another show came on opposite Star Trek, she said "too bad, I'm watching this" and that was the end of it.
Now that she was gone back out west, I was going to enjoy the things in life that I enjoyed. I didn't realized even how stifled I allowed myself to be with her until later.

We had a good time watching the movie, and I think Commando Tom and I were the most into the series of everyone there. I wasn't particularly happy with the film, which seemed to erase everything from all previous movies through a time travel mess. This is something the genre has taken care of to some degree at this point in time, but at the time it seemed like it was a misstep on the part of producers.
When the movie was over, Eric headed home, but the rest of us began hiking on from there.
I believe we must have walked over to Stryker's Crossing from the theater in order to follow the former Morris and Essex Railroad tracks to the east. Those, by the 1870s, became a branch of the Lackawanna Railroad. I'd walked the stretch countless times, including at night.

We reached the track and followed them east, on the high fill over Rt 519, then out through Stewartsville, under the main road and across the next grade. I pointed out the Morris Canal where it passed over the base of Inclined Plane #8 West.
We moved along walking and talking, and probably endulging in drinks that I can't even remember what they were.
I'd tried to get Jillane to come with us, but she said she had to work but then ended up hanging out with someone else instead, so I was annoyed.
We continued on across Richline Road at grade, followed by other crossings and overpasses. By the time we got to the Edison Concrete plant siding area, where I pointed out the old bridge abutments of the crossing spur, we were getting pretty tired. I was having a hard time staying awake even while walking. By the time we got to Broadway, I was struggling a bit.
We continued out behind the apartments nearing Washington, and by the time we got to the grade crossing at Broad Street in Washington, we decided to take a side trip to the Quick Chek, which was open 24 hours even back then. We had to walk down and back uphill on Broad, across 57, and to Belvidere Ave and the Quick Chek.

I'm sure we got stuff with caffeine and who knows what else. Even though it was only around two miles back to my house, we needed anything to keep us awake to that point.

The walk from there back down to the tracks by way of Broad Street to the boro park was a bit more awake at this point. The sun was just starting to come up, although our burst of energy didn't last.

We climbed back up to the railroad tracks and crossed Rt 31. We then headed out to the east and crossed Railroad Avenue. It was only a short bit further from there back under Rt 57 at Port Colden, and we climbed up the embankment we always used to take on the original hikes to get back up to my house.
We made it to my house and then everyone just crashed out on the couch and floor for a while until they were awake enough to head home.
It was a great feeling to just be able to get out and do something out of the ordinary and not have to answer to anyone or anything to have a good time. I had a lot more hope for a bright future without restraint and a lot more creative trips.
We'd end up doing similar things in the future for the next two Star Trek movies that came out, and plenty of other creative events tied into the hikes that were better than anything we'd done before.