Hike #1517; Twin Rivers to Mercer Mall

Hike #1517; 11/20/22 East Windsor to Princeton with Neil Washington, Jenny Tull, Serious Sean Dougherty, Justin Gurbisz, Jim "Mr. Buckett" Mathews, Diane Reider, and Kirk Rohn

This next one would be a point to point in Central Jersey, which wasn't as it was initially planned, but was the perfect hike for the day and the situation we were in.

I had been bringing my little son Ev on the hikes most every Sunday, and so I was planning only on things where he could attend, but the forecast was much colder and his mother didn't want me to bring him this time. I set out in the morning pretty sad that he wasn't going to be with me.

I tried to make the best of it the night before when I first got the idea that he might not be with me, by going over maps and making sure I had a good alternate plan that didn't have to be stroller friendly.

I had one plan that involved Plainsboro Preserve, and another that involved Princeton. The big one that I figured would be best would depend on if Neil was there when we showed up in the morning.

Neil grew up in Hightstown, and I came up with an interesting route that would pass through the town, and the come back up to the planned end point at Mercer Mall. 

I figured Neil would know the area way better than me, and we might even see some interesting places that we didn't know existed, plus it would be a cool reminiscent thing for him.

Neil was there, and so the plan was set. We shuttled to the start, which I came up with as a point in East Windsor Township, at an area known as Twin Rivers, a large development area. I didn't realize there was a trail tunnel beneath Rt 33 across Abbington Drive from where we parked. Had I known, we would have started the hike with that on the other side. Next time.

We started walking from the parking area to the south. We walked along the edges of some tennis courts near the local library in this Twin Rivers area, which is apparently named for the Rocky Brook and the Millstone River is a tributary to.

We went around an apartment building on a sidewalk, and then approached a foot bridge over Quad 1 Lake. The Twin Rivers development has four lakes in it. 

Quad I Lake and Quad II Lake are on the south side. I'm assuming one in part of a development to the east of us is Quad III Lake, and Quad IV Lake is to the north side of Route 33.

We crossed the foot bridge over Quad I Lake, then continued in grass along the shore of it and next to some apartment buildings to come out to Twin Rivers Drive. Across the street, there was a gated entrance to some sort of industry or something. We went to the left to see if there was a trail along the outflow of Quad I Lake, but there wasn't. We then turned right, and just after the gated driveay, there was a pretty good trail entering the woods. 

This was a great spot. It was time to celebrate for having found a good way through.

We started off with Serious Sean's coffee imperial stout from Three Floyds Brewery that he'd brought on the last trip over the Tappan Zee Bridge. It was the perfect starter for the day.

The trail was really nice meandering through the woods. I wished I'd had Ev with me, but it was pretty windy even there. 

We continued through the woods, and then emerged at a cul de sac at the end of Lake Drive. There, another trail, paved, left the parking lot on the south side. We crossed the cul de sac to start following that.

Pretty soon, the trail came close to the edge of Etra Lake, a pretty pond formed from a dam on the Rocky Brook.

There was an abandoned building collapsing to the left side in this area, which might have been a small house, but it was really quite small. I'm not sure what it could have been.

The name Etra Lake comes from E. T. R. Applegate, one of the early farmers of the area.

Ahead, we came to a larger two story abandoned house on the left, and an opening to the lake with some really nice views of it. We walked around the house looking more closely.
One of the doors was fully open and I could have lifted it up and gone in, but I wasn't feeling very intrepid, and I had worn a nice brown leather jacket it didn't feel like beating up.

The place was probably owned by a hoarder, because it was loaded with stuff in disarray. 

I walked around to the other side of it, and there were a couple more spots I could have gotten in but wasn't that into it. I peered into a wide open window on the lake side for a look, and Justin came walking around the corner, already inside by way of the entrance I passed up.

The building had two entrances, up and down, with a set of stairs from the outside to the upper apartment, so it must have been a two family house. Someone had scrawled "you're entering hell" inside on one of the walls visible from outside.

We continued from here along the trail to the south, and we eventually came out on Milford Road.

 Across the street was a good farm lane, but it was on private land, so we didn't bother trying to go through there. We turned left on Milford Road, and soon passed by the dam for Etra Lake, which was quite pretty. We then reached the intersection with Etra-Perrineville Road and turned left.

On the corner was an abandoned building covered in weeds, and abandoned ranch style house just to the right down the road a bit, with boards over all of the windows. 

We apparently missed the taller building, a two story older home that used to stand between the two of them. As per the google maps, the roof was collapsing in Summer of 2021, so it must have been demolished somewhat recently.

We went by the second house, and didn't notice that Justin and Kirk went missing. They had gone into the ranch house to have a look around, and I should have gone with them because apparently the place was full of kids toys.

We continued ahead on the road and soon crossed over the New Jersey Turnpike. Justin called me around this time and asked where we'd gone. I let him know we would be up on the other side of the Turnpike, and so we crossed and turned right on Ward Street. 

We remained in sight of the intersection and used the shade of a tree and side of a building and fence on the right to block the wind while we waited. They didn't take long.

My next plan was to continue across a school field property to the left, but the problem was it was blocked off completely. 

This property is a private school that dates back to 1864 when it was founded as the Hightstown Female Seminary. Boys were admitted later that year and it became the New Jersey Classical and Scientific Institute. It was renamed Peddie Institute in 1872 for philanthropist and politician Thomas B. Peddie, and then Peddie School in 1923.

The school remained co-ed through 1908, and then became an all boys school until 1970 when it went co-ed again. Neil said he went to the regular school, but that he knew some people that went to Peddie School, and that it was pretty much the rich kids that went there. 

Some of them could be snobby, but some of them kind of rejected that and were pretty cool. He also said some of them started out there, and then changed to regular high school to finish out their education.

We walked down the road a bit and around the fence with the idea that we might walk through, but then changed our minds and turned back. 

I didn't want to have any problems, and since this school still has over four hundred million dollars in endowments, they probably have security at all times. We just walked up Ward farther, and looked for ways in to the west.

I misinterpreted and started bushwhacking before we got across Rocky Brook, and we had to turn back out of the woods. Again, we ended up on Ward heading west.

We went into the woods on this stretch one more time, in an area that looked like it had belonged to a garden center or landscaper, but they'd abandoned it. The ground was covered in plastic material, and never pulled up. We got out to the edge of Rocky Brook, but there was no trail, so again we headed back to Ward.

I had hoped that a trail, which is fully in place to the west of this point, might go this far, but it looked like some back yards go right up to the edge of the stream ahead.

A walkway started on the left side of the road, and then there was an opening to the cul de sac on Armellino Court, so we cut over a knoll in the grass and onto that road to the south. We walked out that road, and then cut to the left in a sloppy wet field to reach at least a little bit of the Hightstown Greenway which goes along the edge of Peddie Lake.

There were some really nice views across of the school area and we turned to the right along the shore of the lake. Ahead, we could see the East Ward Bridge come into view.

The bridge was built in 1896, and is reportedly soon to be removed.

The two span double-intersection Warren through truss with hangers was fabricated by the New Jersey Steel & Iron Co. of Trenton NJ. It is one of the most significant historic bridges in Mercer County.

This is an example of where a guideline should be relaxed based on need, location, ambiance, and significance.

We emerged from the trail, and turned left onto the bridge, which was blocked to all but pedestrian traffic by way of concrete barricades. There were plaques on both sides of the bridge with pertinent info, original date of construction on the right. The other side of the bridge had another one on when it was rehabilitated in the 1920s. I understand it was also upgraded at some point in the 1960s as well.

The views of Peddie Lake from both sides were quite lovely.

We passed the entrance to the Peddie School to the left, which at first had no signs saying to stay off of the property. The only place we saw any signs were at the regular road entrances to it.

We continued across Main Street on Ward Street, and then reached Rt 33, Mercer Street. We had to cross in this area, and drivers here certainly were not slowing down for pedestrians. Neil said people around there are probably not at all used to seeing a group of even our size hiking through town.

We turned right on Academy Street to the north, and then reached the historic route of the Camden and Amboy Railroad, parallel with Railroad Street.

It is kind of amazing that I've never bothered to try to complete the historic route of the Camden and Amboy. It was the first regular locomotive driven passenger railroad in America, having opened up in 1832.

The John Bull, the first engine to operate on the line, is still the oldest operable self propelled vehicle in the world. I've actually seen it in the Smithsonian.

The original route came up from Camden along the Delaware, now the route of the River Line, then cut inland from Bordentown up through Windsor and Hightstown, then to South Amboy and the Raritan Bay. Another branch of the Camden and Amboy was built much on the berm side of the Delaware and Raritan Canal closer to Princeton in 1838. I'd followed much of that already too.

I had walked a little bit of the line through Hightstown before, but only to where the Pemberton and Hightstown Railroad, later Union Transportation, broke off to the south. We hiked that entire line as a series, but never covered the rest of Camden and Amboy.

This would be the first hike to cover a large chunk of that line in quite a while. I would have to do one more hike to cover it from Hightstown north, and then another down to Bordentown and beyond, which I've been close to before, but not right on it.

Former junction site with Union Transportation

It is amazing while walking this line to think of all of the major changes it ushered in for all railroads to follow, starting right there with the gauge being the width of a double horse crawn carriage.

The first test of the John Bull on this line took place in 1831, but it derailed because it crashed into a hog on the tracks. As a result, all engines from there forward were outfitted with "cow catchers", the triangle shaped devices on the fronts of the engines to move stuff off the tracks.

The engine was also the first to have movable wheel trucks to handle some of the cornering. The line was ridden by the likes of President John Quincy Adams and Cornelius Vanderbilt, who both happened to survive an accident that killed some riders near Hightstown.

The trail follows along Railroad Ave for a bit, with only crushed stone surface at best. As we moved further west, on the section I'd done, there are some of the old stone sleepers to the left parallel with a cemetery. When the Camden and Amboy was built, they used stone sleepers instead of railroad ties. One of the problems with these was that they did not maintain the gauge of the rails. Other methods had to be used to try to hold them together. Eventually, the wooden railroad ties would serve that purpose.

The trail took us out to Summit Street where the AAMCO transmissions place occupies the old right of way. We had to turn left and then right parallel with Mercer Street, Route 33 for a bit.

Union Transportation close to the junction site

We stopped in at Joe Canal's Discount Liquor, which the line ran behind just after the AAMCO place, but they didn't have anything really noteworthy so we moved on.

The right of way came out closer to the highway and ran parallel after this, although pretty overgrown.

This part of the original Camden and Amboy was abandoned by the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1967, from Windsor area to Hightstown. From Hightstown to Cranbury to the north was abandoned in 1982, but north of there it is still used as an industrial spur to South Amboy. From the Windsor area to Robbinsville, it was ripped up in 2011. I remember tracks being in place on previous hikes through this area back then.

In this area ahead was the former junction with the Pemberton and Hightstown Railroad. It was built in 1868 and traveled south to Pemberton. Much of it is abandoned, but bits of it are trail, most notably Union Transportation Trail. We did three hikes to complete that line along with other stuff in those areas.

There was an abandoned building of some sort along the left side of the road just before the former junction site, but the actual rail bed was not very obvious through there.

It is completely overgrown, which isn't so surprising because it was abandoned before this section of Pennsylvania Railroad, in 1951 from Shrewsbury Road to Hightstown.

We continued ahead, and I spotted that some ties were still in place in the grass along the highway. Just beyond that, there was a big concrete thing that was probably the base of a signal or something. Maybe it was something to do with the junction that used to be at that site. Right next to this was a wooden post, somewhat deteriorating, which looked like an old mile post. I wonder if it was, but the miles were removed from it, and it has survived almost hidden all of these years beside the giant concrete slab that was certainly once partly in the ground. They probably rolled it over and out of the way during some highway widening over the years.

The railroad bed went up onto a bit more of a fill, still parallel with the road, and then crossed a tributary of the Bear Brook. 

I stepped down from the right of way to have a closer look, and it was an old stone framework around a cast iron pipe, somewhat cracking. The right of way had orange ribbons on it as if it is going to be developed as some kind of trail in the near future. If that happens, I'll certainly have to do the hike again and have a look at what they've done.

Beyond this little bridge site, the right of way started to get more overgrown, so we had to step down and walk along the highway. We crossed over pretty soon because there was a good sidewalk on the other side, and I believe the highway overtakes what's left of the right of way anyway just ahead.

We stayed along the sidewalk for a bit, past a Home Depot and some sort of supermarket and strip mall. Where Hickory Corner Road crossed, there was an abandoned building off to the right in the weeds I believe, but we didn't go over to check it out. 

It felt kind of juvenile, us walking down such a busy highway with open beers being silly. People must have wondered what we're doing. Sometimes we get a honk; I wonder if it's just because they think it's ridiculous, or because they know its Metrotrails, or both.

Route 33/Mercer Street joins with the larger Rt 130 ahead here, and the railroad bed is completely obliterated and unrecognizable. 

I think the westbound lanes of Rt 130 obliterated the railroad bed, so we just stayed on the south side beyond the intersection and then passed the front of a Walmart, which was surprisingly camoflauged behind a lot of trees still along the highway. 

We passed a couple other businesses along the road in this stretch and walked through their lots. The sidewalk ended, and we just stayed on the shoulder out to the intersection with Conover Road. We would cross over 130 there.

There was a bank and a Dunkin Donuts on the other side, and what might have been the railroad bed began to look more recognizable in the front of the places, although it might also have simply been some of the landscaping for what looked to be somewhat newer buildings.

We continued on, and no one, surprisingly, wanted to go to Dunkin Donuts for even a restroom break.

The highway and certainly the railroad bed crossed over the main Bear Brook just ahead, and I didn't think to look off into the weeds to the right, but the original or at least rail era bridge might still be in place, although it is not visible from the road. I would assume it is and that the creek was just covered over by the highway construction here. After that, the right of way became recognizable again in the front yard of a private home.

Main Street into Windsor continued ahead from here, and we walked that. To the right, there was some major new construction going on, and the shell of a new building was already up. 

If this had been a night hike, we would have been over in there climbing through it. The structure was already two stories high.

The railroad bed was parallel with Main Street, first to the south, and then switched to the north with a commercial park to the right. We saw several signs along the way advertising chocolate and free samples, so we watched those closely. There was quite a build up with this, as each one teased "almost there" and all of the different things available.

When we got to the entrance to the commercial park, and could obviously see where the railroad had been, we decided to just go ahead and walk over to it. We turned right into the business park and kept following the signs, which took us straight to the right, and then left down another road.

During this time, our friend "Major Tom" Conroy kept on texting Mr. Buckett constantly about whatever stuff, and when he does that, Mr. Buckett just replies with a check mark emoji. Tom started testing me too, so I just responded in the same way. Mr. Buckett said Tom gets really annoyed after a while when he only gets check marks as responses.

On one of the buildings ahead, there was a giant check mark on the rolling doors, so I got Mr. Buckett to pose with a picture of the check mark to send to Tom when he gets particularly annoyed with him.

It seemed like a long distance; the chocolate place was almost at the end of the line and at the second to last door into the buildings. It was a tiny little store, but actually full of lots of people. We walked in and I told them we had been walking since before Hightstown, and followed the signs for free samples. 
An older lady held out a tray to me and I asked something ridiculous like if it was chicken parm or something to that effect. "No, it's chocolate bark" she responded matter of factly. I responded "chocolate pork?", to which she corrected "No, chocolate BARK". I asserted "chocolate pork" one more time and she'd turned to offer samples to someone else. It was sort of a dark chocolate on the sweet side with some sort of frosting on it. It wasn't bad.

I wanted to get something small and not spend a ton of money, so I saw these oreos, topped with peanut butter, and then coated with good chocolate. 

They had been on the advertisements and sounded good, so I grabbed a three pack.

When I got in line, the pretty young girl behind the counter said that those were some of her favorites. I responded that I'd take her word for it, but she then said that I didn't have to, because they had a sample tray of that as well! I had a quarter of one, which was pretty big, and it was great!

When I was rung up and told $12, I was kind of in shock it was that expensive. After waiting in the line, although short, I didn't want to put it back and walk away, so I just figured I'd get it. I may never walk by there again, and it would be part of the experience, so I got them.

I headed outside, and most of the group was still in. Some of them were permitted to go in and use the restroom which took some time. 

Mr. Buckett audibly ripped ass in front of a guy shopping in there, which was pretty hilarious.

I got one more sample piece from the first lady I had seen going in, and when I went to take the piece, it was a giant piece of just plain dark chocolate. She told me it was just a lucky piece, so I was happy to have that. It was the size of several Hershey special darks. I felt a little better then about having spent the money on the three coated oreos.

I felt even better yet when Justin revealed that the entire time we were in there, he had been grabbing samples from all of the different trays. He didn't buy anything, but his pockets were loaded with samples. Justin is picky, and so a lot of the stuff he grabbed, he didn't want. 

So he just handed them to me! There were several of what they call "turtles" which are sort of turtle shell shaped nuts inside. I ate all of those he grabbed and I forget what else.

We headed out, and pretty soon were on our way. I wanted to try to head around the building in the other direction to hopefully get back to the railroad bed more quickly.

This didn't work out well. We walked all the way around the back of the building, and then had no way out there because of chain link fences and barbed wire. We had to walk a narrow spot between buildings and then just go back out the same way we walked in.

Pretty soon, we got back to the railroad bed, and the entrance roads to the facilities in this complex all still had rails in them, cut off at either end probably in 2011. This was technically the Windsor area, so I would suspect that this complex was the end of service around that time. 

There was even evidence of a siding to one of the buildings still cut off, with rails and ties of the siding still in place.

Serious Sean got out another great imperial drink called Permanent Funeral by Three Floyds and Pig Destroyer, which is a band they like. It was pretty good and strong.

We continued on the railroad bed to the west, but it got totally overgrown when we reached the end of the complex, so we had to step back out to Main Street.

Neil and I went ahead a bit, and I kept watching the rail bed to the right. All of a sudden, it looked good enough to walk at a point not so much farther to the west. I stepped back through the brush and found the route totally clear, so we all cut through and began following it. 

Soon, we emerged in the first of the front yards in the community of Windsor. We could see where the rails in that driveway were paved over. 

The right of way was a couple of tracks wide in that area, probably for a station stop for the community. There was a former grade crossing ahead at Church Street, but no sign of a station. I managed to find one photo of the historic station site, and I happen to have one of my photos matches up very closely to it. It was just before the crossing at Church.

The heavily wooded lands of the area were originally known as Magrilla, for reasons unknown. The name of this little settlement came to be Centreville because it was located approximately at the center of the state. When the original Bordentown-South Amboy Turnpike that passed through came in 1814, it was an appropriate name for the settlement.

The original township in the area was Windsor, and East and West Windsor were split from that in 1797. They were part of New Jersey's initial group of 104 townships, then part of Middlesex County.

Centreville was changed to Windsor in 1846 because of the post office. Many town names that were already taken elsewhere had to be changed as not to have confusion with mailing addresses. There was already a Centreville in Hunterdon County, and so the settlement opted to take Windsor as its identity.

Interesting that in today's township layout, Windsor is no longer in East Windsor or West Windsor, but rather Robbinsville. So much for avoiding confusion.

On the other side of the crossing, the right of way looked a little rough at first, but then was quite good and easy to follow. A few fallen trees or branches here or there, but overall very clear for walking.

Above the right of way to the left, I climbed up from a cut and checked out the historic markers placed by a girl scout we had been told about back at the chocolate place. 

It was apparently done by the neighbor of one of the ladies at the store that everyone was talking to and inviting her on future hikes.

The first sign was a timeline on the railroad and the settlement, the second had tabs on the Camden and Amboy, the John Bull, and the village of Windsor. The third was on local stories.

The right of way ahead got very clear because it butts up against private back yards that seem to have been keeping it clear. Beyond those, it got to be a little more grow in in from the sides, but still very clear. There was some evidence that ATVs were using it and keeping it clear. I wonder if a trail is in store in the future for this part.

Pretty soon, we approached the crossing of the Assunpink Creek. I could see it as we approached. The bridge was still in place, and with typical Pennsylvania Railroad style hand rails on the sides, but I wanted to know if it might be an original stone culvert or something below.

I climbed down to have a look, but it was a concrete replacement with room for a farm road beneath, built in 1915. I climbed back up and we all reconvened on the bridge. 

We continued across with good views of the creek, and soon came out to Meadowbrook Road. This was the spot when I did an Assunpink hike back in May of 2011 we walked by. It was right before the rails were removed and I got a shot of it then.

We turned right on the road to leave the railroad bed, and I'd have to plan for a future one to cover this missing stuff I needed to do in the near future.

Pretty soon, there was a good sidewalk along the left side of the road.

I didn't know it at the time, but there is apparently the "New Jersey Long Trail", and the Assunpink Trail section of it is 29 miles long, but not all complete yet. 

I had been at meetings for this trail before. The guy in charge of the project is very passionate and does a lot, but coming to the meetings with the state, he seemed quite demanding on what property we "need to purchase" to make the trail happen. Making demands like that about purchasing land for this trail just doesn't work. He also planned on piggybacking on many existing trails that really take away from some of the draw of it. Some of it is Batona Trail, a lot of it is Delaware and Raritan Canal or the Bel Del Railroad, and a whole lot is the Highlands Trail. It is really possible to get all the way to High Point on a more creative, mostly off road route that I wish they would have done.

It is kind of a trail more in concept than really existing, as we saw from everything we walked. It follows the Assunpink, but there are barely ever any blazes anywhere.

I didn't know until the hike was over that we were basically following the route through the rest of the hike.

We continued up the road for a bit more, and eventually came to the south side of Tantum Park.

There had been a good paved or concrete walkway on the other side of the road pretty much to the start of the park. We walked down a gravel lane to the right, which went slightly downhill and out to the edge of the Assunpink Creek. This was a bit of a gamble; I hoped that there would be a good path along the creek heading downstream, because otherwise we'd have to head back uphill and skirt ball fields in the park.

There was a good path, and so we continued along that downstream. It was quite a great little route I was glad to have found.

There was a large fallen tree over the stream that Justin walked across while we continued. It was a really very pretty section, and there was a marker about the hand of man changing the creek. 

This was when farmland appeared on the other side. The creek seemed very straight and was trenched probably deeper than it would normally be, to drain adjacent lands for cultivation.

There were benches and a couple of little bridges as we continued on, but no trail markings. From what I can find, this might have been known as the Thomas J. May Nature Trail.

We continued northwest, and the trail got a little narrower. It had two ruts from people riding ATVs on it, but it appeared that it is probably park employees that are doing so. Even the foot bridge was built super wide to accommodate larger vehicles.

The New Jersey Long Trail map puts this section of trail on the other side of the creek, in private land. It is farmland preserved, but that does not mean it has public access, and a lot of people just don't understand that.

We continued along the creek, and the next piece of public land on the west side was a seamless transition to Blakely Park. We followed the trail along the creek as long as we could, and then it cut to the left for a bit. 

We emerged on the edge of ball fields, and then turned to the right for a bit. This brought us eventually to private property at the edge of the park, and back onto Meadowbrook Road. We continued to follow the road to the west.

The road eventually intersected with Robbinsville-Edinburgh Road where we turned right.

We only went a short distance here, and I noticed that the fields to the left did not have any "no trespassing" signs. I realized that these fields were public land. It was West Windsor Township open space.

We passed one house on the road, and then turned to the left into the fields. I still wasn't totally sure at the time, so we tried to stay away from private homes a bit.
We cut uphill through the fields slightly, then to the next line of trees. I found a good spot to cut through to the other side, out of sight of the nearest house, and then we headed to the west a bit more, downhill through more fields. They had all been somewhat recently cut, so it was pretty easy to pass through.

There was an island of trees with some ponds in it, which we walked just to the south of, and then turned right to the north. This brought us out almost directly across from the entrance to the Mercer County Central Park.

I had walked through this park before, mostly using the paved trails, but this time we would try for some other stuff.

The park surrounds Mercer Lake, which was created by damming the Assunpink in 1975 for flood control purposes. It was supposedly done at no cost to taxpayers by having it done simultaneously with the construction of Interstate 295, and by the same crew. I suspect they probably needed fill dirt or something for the project. There has to be more to it than what I've read so far.

We continued on the grass parallel with the parkway style entrance road with the big median. I felt like I was looking at one of those early 1920s romantic postcards with the nice landscapes. 

We continued along this just a bit, then cut to the right on the other side of the road when it started to turn left. We headed over to and past the Mercer County Tennis Center. There are two buildings there, and we walked between them along a slope.

There are 27 outdoor courts in thirteen square areas, which were all to our right as we walked. We went around the back of the longer building, and then found our way onto

 one of the unpaved trails that dips down and follows the shore of Mercer Lake.

This was quite a beautiful section of trail I had never been on before. It descended somewhat steeply, and then was very pleasant along the shore of the lake. It was getting later, which cast a beautiful light on the lake.

The wind had been really killer as we walked into the park in the open fields, but in this area it didn't seem so bad. Maybe the trees or the fact that we were below a hill at lower elevation made it better.

We passed by a little shelter building, and along a nice little sandy beach. We eventually came out to a little causeway out onto Mercer Lake, which was originally the route of the Post Road that went north all the way to Princeton Junction.

I had mistakenly through that this was the Newark-Trenton Fast Line Trolley right of way, which I had hiked on the north side of the lake, but not the south. 

The line was active from 1904 to 1936, and mostly traveled "cross country", meaning it did not follow regular vehicle roads like other trolleys do. That makes it a great route for hiking. Some of it is a trail, but most of it is informal.

We actually did cross the right of way, which is now a power line further to the west from this point. This hike reminded me that I should really finish hiking that line in the near future. Especially now with my son in the stroller, it is another perfect one to knock out.

In this section, Serious Sean and I "outbucketted" Mr. Buckett. I like to ask him all sorts of inappropriate scenarios along the way to see what he'll say.

This time it was a follow up on a previous one; I usually ask him "what if you were dating this girl and..." and the scenario continues. 

This time I posed the question that the girl wore a fake moustache and spoke in a fake deep voice, but she was totally hot. And she wanted to be called Steve. Mr. Buckett kept saying no and insisting that she would be called Stephanie. And so, we continued going on with scenarios with "your buddy Steve". At one point Sean and I were both incessantly continuing with it and he was covering his ears trying to talk over us. When Sean asked him if he got a call from her in the middle of the night saying "Hey Mr Buckett...it's your buddy Steve", I laughed so hard I thought I'd have an aneurism. 

I've been listening to Mr. Buckett say weird and inappropriate things since 2004, so to be able to outdo him on something was really something else. 

We continued across a small tributary inlet on a paved trail, and then remained on the paved trail along the southern shore. The trail got closer to the shore and was quite pleasant for a while.

Eventually, the trail was moving away a bit, and I could see how there was a foot path closer to the water, so we headed over to follow that for a while. 

The sun was starting to go down, and it was quite nice. The foot trail led out to a berm of the dam just a bit ahead. I wasn't expecting to be able to just walk over that way, but Neil assured that we could get over there and that he'd done it before.

We walked onto the grassy berm, and followed it right to the edge of the dam spillway. From there, there was a steep drop to the left where a trail followed along the outflow and then the Assunpink Creek again. This was the Van Nest Wildlife Refuge, a Wildlife Management Area property. 

I had no idea there was anything so good and clear through any of this before.

This was a particularly beautiful area of winding creek and good trail. The route took us along the creek very closely for a while, and then followed a small tributary of it to the left. We went all the way around the length of this tributary, which got me a bit confused, then back to the main creek and continued downstream.

The meandering creek and trail eventually emerged on the abandoned original alignment of Quakerbridge Road, which is also Route 533.

There was a parking area to the left for the property, and we peered across the highway to see if there was some sort of trail on the other side, but it didn't look like there was. 

We turned to the right on the abandoned old road, which still has some pavement, and there is an epitaph on the left side. 

It wasn't a grave stone, but rather a memorial erected in 1902 to commemorate where General George Washington and the Continental Army made a secret night movement on January 3rd 1777 on their way to victory at the Battle of Princeton.

The engraved stone read as follows:

"Quaker Bridge

"Here Washington and his army crossed the Assanpink when making the secret night movement that resulted in the victory at Princeton Jan 3rd 1777

Erected AD 1902 by Eureka Council No. 54

JR O. U. A. M."

It is likely that this was placed by the Junior Order of United American Mechanics. 

We moved to the right, and the last bridge that crossed at this point is long gone. It didn't even look like there were remnants of abutments. I suspect that because the Assunpink here would flood so badly, they were probably removed for further flood control.

I thought maybe there would be a trail to the left that would take us out to the current Quakerbridge Road alignment, but it was thick crap. We headed back along the road and then out from the parking lot. We crossed the road, and then cut to the left through a strip mall adjacent to the Lawrence Square development.

We walked along the fronts of the stores under the awnings, and at the end, cut through the grass adjacent to the town houses and such. 

We kept far to the left along a retention basin, and then there was a woods road that went in to the left. We followed this, and then emerged at the edge of yet another retention basin also associated with Lawrence Square. Just beyond were the former Pennsylvania Railroad tracks, now used by both Amtrack and NJ Transit with trains moving at more than one hundred miles per hour. We heard a couple of them go by as we approached.

There were people in the yards of the apartments to the right, and so I decided since it was getting darker, we would head to the left a bit early. Kirk decided he didn't want to do any more bushwhacking, and that he would just walk the road back. Quakerbridge Road went almost direct to the Quakerbridge Mall, but I was going to make it interesting down to the last step if I could.

We headed through the woods, and soon came out on the south side of the railroad tracks, which was still four tracks wide in old Pennsylvania Railroad style.

On the other side was Lawrence Station Road, so I wanted to just get out to that. 

Regarding a station at this site, I don't know much about it. A search led me to one ebay photo of a shelter station known as Lawrence Station, but I don't know how long it was in use for or if there was another larger station that predated it. If it was like the Bel Del Railroad, which was a Pennsylvania Railroad property around the same time as the Camden and Amboy turned over to them (about 1871), they might have had similar happenings. That line had a lot of grand stations replaced with underwhelming shelters, so that could be the case here.

We probably should have crossed the tracks to the right and then gone out to the road, but I felt we'd be able to get out easily if we went to the left. 

There were Indian temples across the street and fenced off from the tracks, so we couldn't cut through those properties. We would have to go around. To the left, there was then some private land, and then muck lands to the right where we couldn't cut back out.

I told everyone to just hurry across because I knew it wasn't safe to be hanging around out there. 

There was a power line in wetland, and then the Assunpink Creek beyond that. I knew there was a clearer bit of property from aerial images just to the west, and I wanted to get out to that. We headed down along the muck lands as a fast train went by, and then cut along the Assunpink briefly. We then cut to the right uphill into this weird land.

The giant square piece of property was all busted up ceramic. Trenton is not so far away and was a major manufacturer of ceramics, so it could be Lenox China, or American Standard, or something else. I really don't know. Some of it looked like regular tile, and other stuff looked like some sort of industrial ceramic.

Whatever the case, the odd dump yard provided us with a less overgrown route to get back out to Lawrence Station Road. 

The area is known and monitored because I took not of at least two EPA test wells on the site. We continued to the north corner of this where we came closest to the road. We then bushwhacked out through the brush to the road. I tried to knock down as much stuff as I could to make it easier for everyone else behind me. There were a few thorns in there, but overall it wasn't too bad. No water to walk through either.

We turned right on Lawrence Station Road, then skirted a fire training center on the left through the grass. After that, we turned to the left and onto a little mowed knoll with trees on it into the Liberty Green Development. We came out behind some houses and onto Fountayne Blvd. The road split both left and right, but straight ahead was a paved trail that went right up the middle of the development. That was my planned route.

The sun was going down fast at this point. We had barely gotten to this development path with any light left. Just about the last of the light was disappearing as we went through this development.

The route took us between the buildings tightly, past a playground, and then to a parking lot near the very middle where they have a seasonal pool. We cut across and dipped down to the path to the north, and made our way out to the road at the end of the development.

We crossed and turned slightly to the right in through grass at the end of the development, and then walked straight into the woods. The plan was to get out to the WPRP-FM Princeton radio tower. My friend Pete DeFillipo used to spin a radio show on that station back when I first met him.

I had thought that there was a path from the end of the development to the tower, but actually one of the wire bracings for the tower went out into a mowed area that almost touched the development; there wasn't really a formal path.

We cut to the right, and then bushwhacked to the left to reach that mowed area, and then walked straight toward the tower.

This was the part of the hike that really was a gamble. I didn't know how crossing the tracks would be, but that amazingly worked out with the ceramic stuff. This, I was not so sure about either. If there were chain link fences or blockages, or bodies of water, we wouldn't be able to go through, and would have to head back south to get to Quakerbridge Road another way.

Fortunately, this one worked out perfectly for us too. We reached the fenced off tower, turned right, and found ourselves on the access road to it heading north to Grovers Mill Road. We went straight across that, and onto the mall access road to Quaker Bridge Mall.

I would have loved to walk straight through the mall to finish this hike, but I was getting text messages to head home and fix the front door which was blowing open and shut in the heavy winds we had been dealing with. I should have just gone through the mall and had it take longer, because my screw driver multi tool was nowhere to be found and whoever had it wasn't giving it back to me, so the door didn't get done till the next day or two later anyway.

We walked around the right side of the mall out to Quakerbridge Road. We actually had to walk in the median of the road across Rt 1 because there was no good shoulder on either side. Still, we managed to do it, and cut down to the left on the other side to reach our cars adjacent to Joe Canal's. 

It had been a really great hike that I was glad to have done, and very glad that Neil was there with us to once again share in some stuff around his hometown. 

It's a really great feeling to be opportunistic with what we are doing, and have it come out as a great success. This was definitely one of those cases, and it inspires me to look more closely at so much more of this stuff we've been heavily exploring.