Hike #1533; Plainesboro to Mercer Mall

Hike #1533; 3/5/23 Rowland Park/Plainsboro to Mercer Mall with Kirk Rohn, Professor John DiFiore, John L., Justin Gurbisz, Violet Chen, Stephen Argentina, and Everen

This next hike would be a point to point in the Mercer County NJ Millstone River watershed, in a strange route I devised that would include lots of development paths and such, focusing on the tributaries flowing toward the Millstone.

I had a lot of fun putting this one together, and I knew it would be an incredibly relaxing route. I wanted something that wasn't going to be too much trouble. I'd just been so stressed out lately, more than I ever let on.

I didn't get much sleep at all the first year of my son's life. I woke up every night for all feedings, despite working most of the time. Even when I was on my paternity leave, I filled in working at Taylor Rental just to be able to pay some of the bills that were piling on. 

Although Ev's mom sleeps in his room with him and can take care of him during the night now, I'm putting him to bed every night and getting whatever he needs in the morning before work, and taking care of him immediately after work. It's not hard, and I love it, but it is constant.

There's plenty of other stuff I won't bore with the details on, but one of the big stressers was the cancer marks I had to go in a couple of times and get removed from my face. I took a day off work and had some removed just a couple of days prior to this hike, and there was a part of me worried that this could be worse.

I hadn't yet gotten any results of a biopsy, so I didn't quite know what to think, and I was trying not to think about it at all. 

I had actually planned this hike much earlier than this, but the last time I'd planned to do it, I didn't have my son with me because his mom made some sort of plans with him.

As such, on that day I changed the route to something different that did not lean so heavily on having to be stroller-friendly. I could then re-post my original intended hike for that day, this one, for the near future.

I had little Ev with me this time, so it would work out actually quite well.

We met at the Mercer Mall, off of Rt 1, west of Princeton and south of Lawrenceville. I'd been meeting there for hikes over the years plenty of times and knew how to get through to where I wanted to be, and it's convenient for a lot of trails.

After we met there, we shuttled with as few cars as possible, including my Honda Element, to our starting point.

The starting point would be at Rowland Park, off of Broadway Road in South Brunswick Township near Plainsboro. I put together a route that would take us mostly along tributaries of the Millstone River.

The park didn't close after dark like so many others do, so it seemed like a good spot to have the cars for a starting point.

We drove down from Broadway Road into the park, and pulled in to the left into the first parking lot on that side. My plan from here was to skirt the southern boundary of this park.

I had wanted to try to follow the extreme perimeter of the park around the outside of the grass mowed areas, but it turned out to be very wet at this point, and so we just followed a paved walkway to the south for a bit, then turned right to the west.

We skirted a parking area, and my plan was to head west, out to Rowland Road. There was a chain link fence around the park property, so it looked like we might have a difficult time getting out, but I think I checked street view on Google the night before to determine that there was a way.

We continued on out to the road, which had a very narrow shoulder for pushing the stroller, but it wasn't all that heavily used that it was a problem. We went to the south just a bit, and soon crossed a stream called the Shallow Brook on the road bridge.

At the brook, the name of the road changed to Eiker Road, and we continued to follow it south for a bit. We then turned right on Brookside Court for a short distance, and then right again onto Heritage Way. At the end of this dead end street, a paved trail continued into a swath of woods.

The trail emerged from woods behind homes, and then turned right right, to the north, where a side trail to the left led out ot the cul de sac on Willow Court. 

We continued to the north a bit, and straight ahead, the paved trail led out to Walnut Court, but we made a left on another paved trail that went further out to Poplar Drive, across from the intersection with Woodland Drive. We followed Woodland Drive just a little to the west to the intersection with Scotts Corner Road where we turned right.

During this whole time, I stayed up near the front of the group with newcomer John L. I really enjoyed talking to him a lot; he's a strong hiker that usually does different harder hikes in areas to the north, but was attracted to the different type of thing I had posted. Certainly, no one would consider putting together an oddball hike like the one that I'd planned.

He and I talked about life, and where our own lives had taken us. He had grown up in the city, and being Asian, and at his age, he dealt with a lot of horrible racism and strife. He had quite an amazing story of perseverance and struggle to great success. His insights into humanity were refreshing and optimistic despite so many incredible and difficult experiences he'd had. 

He had been brought up at an interesting time for Asian-Americans, where the culture had gone from rather negative to more positive stereotyped with the discovery of the Martial Arts to the western world. The time just flew by as we made each turn. I watched to make certain that everyone made the proper turns, but we just kept pushing ahead in conversation. The day certainly started off very engaging, and I felt well energized from this positive energy. The regular group is already positive enough, but to find such a strong identity in a newcomer to the group was unexpected and more than welcome. 

If I were a man of superstitious disposition, I might suspect that there was some higher power at play that brought upon this positive engagement, but I rather believe it was simply the right states of mind and the right combinations of attitudes that happened to mesh well.

The sidewalk weaved around along the west side of Scotts Corner Road, and we followed that to the entrance to Plainsboro Community Park.

We followed the entrance road in a bit, and then turned right onto a crushed stone path to the right into a swath of woods. We continued along the north side of the park, and then made our way through grass and onto a sort of flood retention berm heading to the west, parallel with the access road, but along the tree line away from most of the park activity.

There was a power line crossing at one point near the east side of this park, which was the historic route of the Newark-Trenton Fast Line trolley. We had hiked much of this as part of a series I have yet to complete. I've done from Mercer County Central Park to the north to the Raritan River in New Brunswick, but haven't gone farther yet. Maybe over next Winter I will.

The line was operated by the Public Service Railroad, a subsidiary of the Public Service Corporation of New Jersey.

This was an amazing interurban trolley between the two cities, which first opened for regular service in 1904 as the Newark and Trenton Railroad. Public Service Railroad consolodated and extended on it offering lots of service around New Brunswick and through from Jersey City to Trenton, and more.

Unlike many first impressions of trolleys that come to mind, the Newark-Trenton Fast Line was mostly “cross country”, meaning it was not a street car, but rather it’s own electric railroad right of way. The trolleys overcame elevations a bit more than regular railroads because their light weight would allow for such. It makes walking the lines a bit different but as interesting.

Like most of the lines, trolley mania only lasted a few years, and by the end of World War I in 1919, it was already on fast decline. It limited service for several years before the main route discontinued service entirely in January of 1936. The last section in New Brunswick closed in 1937. Shortly after, high tension wires were placed on the right of way, and later a gas line utilized more of it.

Soon enough, we reached a crushed stone trail that went to the north side of the next bit of the park, along the tree line beyond some baseball diamonds. 

A trail broke off to the left between the fields, but we continued on the north side ot the west edge of the park, where the trail turned to the south around the perimeter. Soon, we reached the south side of the park, and it turned left to parallel pretty closely the edge of Woodland Drive.

Just a bit ahead, when we could see the intersection with Woodland and Cypress Ct, we turned and crossed over Woodland to follow the dead end Cypress. 

Once we got down to the end, another trail entered between fences at the road. We went by a couple of wetland ponds, and the trail turned to a directly south trajectory. It continued this way until it came back to the old trolley right of way again, where it turned right and skirted the right side of the trolley bed and power line out to Dey Road.

At Dey Road, we left the trolley bed, and the Meadows at Middlesex golf club was to the south side of Dey Road. We crossed, turned left, and skirted the north side of the golf course for a bit. 

We headed to Pheasant Hollow Drive, turned right slightly, and then left onto concrete walkways through a housing development of town houses I believe. We continued east across that to the other end of the half loop of Pheasant Hollow Drive, beyond which there is more of the golf course. It wasn't terribly cold out, but no one was playing golf yet. As such, we were able to go up onto a bit of a berm and hurry directly across the course, across a sand trap and a hole area, then onto a path that led to the main path on the east side of the course. We exited the course directly into another section of development.

We passed between homes, across a parking lot, across Quail Ridge Drive, past another parking lot, and then onto a swath of grass to a trail that heads north/south through the middle of the development between buildings. 

This brought us to the left of the closed swimming pool area, then to another bit of Quail Ridge Drive. We crossed, and the paved trail continued south between more buildings to the south, and came to a paved pathway intersection. We turned left a short distance, and came back out again to Scotts Corner Road. We turned slightly left here, and then right onto a concrete pathway that heads to the east.

This path skirted a retention pond area, and then had some side paths into the developments to both the north and south. We continued east and passed a baseball field, and the the Getry Club House and Pool.

We came out to Franklin Drive at a parking lot, crossed the road, and continued on a concrete path to the southeast. We skirted the right side of another retention pond ahead, and then a couple more side trails broke off into developments to the right, to Mifflin Court and Sherman Court.

Soon we came out to Bradford Lane and crossed. We passed between two houses, and then came to another trail intersection. To the left, the trail terminates at Petty Lane, but we turned right, and would follow it for a good distance. The trail skirts the outside of the development of Raven's Crest at Princeton Meadows.

The trail follows the swath of land between creeks and the developments, with the first one being Cedar Brook. After a very short while, it paralleled the Cranbury Brook, which the Cedar Brook joins.

We skirted the rears of homes, and passed through Raven's Crest Park, then crossed over Plainsboro Road near the outflow and crossing of an outlet of a small pond.

After Plainsboro Road, we continued past more homes and passed through a short swath of woods adjacent to the development. The streams were not at first in view as often as I'd hoped they'd be, but the walk was still very nice. We did get a couple of good wetland views.

The trail cut to the north and made its way back out to Plainsboro Road again. It doesn't continue around the outside of the next bit of development, so we turned left along the road, and then left again into the cul de sac loop of Ashford Drive.

We followed the road for a bit to the south and west, which had a nice sidewalk along the north side of it.

Pretty soon, we reached the intersection with George Davison Road. We crossed direct, and then turned left for a short bit until the beginning of the Lenape Trail, a longer section of trail along the north side of the Cranbury Brook, began.

The trail was pretty nice along the south side of the development, and went a bit more straight. The good section spurred me to let Ev out of the stroller to walk on his own for a bit. He was doing better walking all the time, and at this point was up to walking over a mile on his own, unassisted except for having his hand held for a bit.

We continued west until we were close to the Princeton Meadows Shopping Center. We cut to the right, and up between buildings to the north to reach the back of the buildings off of Center Drive. There was no way through the building and looked like we had a long way to go around. The back doors were only for employees.

We tried to go to the right instead, past some sort of compressor area and equipment, over some rough tree roots, but then onto a good sidewalk to the north a bit. There was a pass between the buildings there to the main parking area which was much nicer.

We walked down along the south side of the lot and soon reached Aljon's Pizza and Sub Shop. This ended up being the perfect stop for lunch, because there wasn't many people inside, and Ev could run loose around the store without much of a problem. Violet followed him around inside, which was cute. 

Because Ev enjoys pizza, I was able to get him to eat a bit at this stop before moving on.

After we were finished, we headed back south to the trail and continued to the west. We passed through a nice swath of woods, then came to the power line clearing that was the historic route of the Newark-Trenton Fast Line Trolley again. There doesn't seem to be any remnants of the bridge that used to take it across the Cranbury Brook.

We continued through a good, long section of woodslands to the south of the developments, and Cranbury Brook became the Plainsboro Pond. The area the trail passed through became very open with great views of the pond to the south of us. The trail continued along, and then crossed a foot bridge onto a spit of land that is sort of an island in the pond on the north side. A very similar but inaccessible island was also on the south side of the pond as well. 

We continued along this old farm community pond which dates back at least to the earlier 1900s, but I don't know a whole lot of the history of it. 

I do know that the pond was much larger at one time, and it appears in 1930s aerial images. The pond did not have the spits of land on the north and south sides until some time in the mid 1960s, but I do not know the purpose of them. There were bridges at either end of these islands at one time, but now only on the north one.

We got across the bridge onto the island, and Ev was getting pretty tired. We walked the length of the island, and before we got to the other side, Ev was fast asleep. The trail crossed a small piece of land to the west side of the lake, and we reached Maple Avenue.

Although there was still a little public land to the west of Maple, we couldn't go through that way. The major Northeast Corridor, still to this day four tracks wide, stood in our way. The line was the Pennsylvania Railroad previously, the route that eliminated the need for the line closer to the canal in Princeton in 1860. 

We walked Maple Ave to the north for a bit, which had a good sidewalk to walk until we got to Linden Lane. Beyond there, it was a horrible, narrow section up to Plainsboro Road. From that point, we could go left and easily cross over the railroad on the road bridge. There's a good walkway on the south side.

I was hoping a train would go by for Ev to see while we were walking, but I don't think one came until we were well across and out of sight. There are always trains going by on this busy route.

We continued down the other side of the bridge, and a sort of trail moved away from the road to the left to a farther parallel adjacen to the Plainsboro Community Garden. We walked along this a bit, but I had a side trip I wanted to do.

There was supposedly a rather forgotten cemetery on the north side of Plainsboro Road I wanted to check out, so we crossed over and onto a gravel road on the other side. It weaved out and to the right, back toward the railroad tracks, and soon reached the old cemetery, a short distance from a private home.

This spot was also the site of the Bethel Methodist Church, erected in 1812 on the land donated by Robert Davison Jr. The first minister, a Reverend Totten, stayed only until 1814 or 15, and the church did not do so well. It fell into disrepair, and was restored in 1850 when a circuit minister began offering Sunday services.

The minister switched to afternoon services, and attendance again declined. Services were discontinued again in 1853, although the building was used off and on by various denominations until 1909. It was then abandoned. It must have fallen into pretty bad shape, because it was finally demolished in 1933.

The Plainsboro Lions Club took over maintenance of the property from 1941 to 1989. The property was then deeded from the Southern New Jersey Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church to the Plainsboro Historical Society. The Lions Club continues to be active on the site as well.

A fence was installed around the cemetery, and the front step of the historic old church can still be found at the front of the grounds, with the name and dates of the church's existence etched into it.

We looked around the cemetery a bit, and continued to head back out of the cemetery in the trajectory we had been going on. On the way out, I used a historic photograph of the old church to set up one of my then and now photo compilations.

Kirk had to step away from us to blow mud in the woods, so he headed for the nearest tree line possible while the rest of us continued to the trail. I gave him some directions on where he could cut corners and easily meet up with us.

We headed back to the community garden, passed through a swath of grass to the south, and then crossed a soccar field before coming to Walker Gordon Drive. There was a paved trail around some of the outside of this development, and where we joined it was just about the point where it crossed over the road to its north side. We crossed, and the path sort of weaved north of the road, back and forth for a bit, across Paddock Drive, and then again across Walker Gordon Drive.

The trail then went through a parking area near a swimming pool and tennis court I think, and skirted the south side of buildings.

The rest of the group often walked the parallel road, but were always pretty close to me.

The Walker Gordon Farm was once a large scale farm in the area, which is now a 350 unit development, and the Walker Gordon Trail around the outside, with the adjacent road, was named for the former farm.

The trail came back to Walker Gordon Drive near the tennis court, basketball court, and swimming pool. It crossed between and then skirted the development to the south side of the homes, and rather close to the former Pennsylvania Railroad.

We could hear when trains went by, but we couldn't see them from the trail.

We continued around the outside of the development which brought us farther away from the houses and adjacent to a cricket field on the southwest side, then continued north through a swath of woods.

The trail got closer to the Devil's Brook, and continued along the north side of the community. Pretty soon, we reached a dam on the brook that held back Gordon Pond. There were a lot of "no trespassing" signs along this area, but the trail continued in public land to the east and north a bit.

As we neared where the trail came toward Plainsboro Road again, there was a small pavilion building on the left side. Kirk was waiting for us there, all refreshed and lighter.

The pavilion was nice, but a stone on the right side kind of took me by surprise.

This was the famous "Elsie the Cow" grave I had ready about in Weird NJ posts in years past. I had no idea when I planned this hike that we would be hiking by the Elsie grave.

This cow's real name was "You'll Do Lobelia", and she was chosen in 1939 to be a living representation of "Elsie", a cartoon cow first used by the Borden Dairy Company in 1936. The cow toured the country in an embroidered green blanket, and was considered to be the most recognizable advertising icon in America of the time. She even appeared in a movie.

You'll Do Lobelia served as Elsie until her death from a traffic accident in 1941. 

Many refer to the monument we stood before as the grave site of Elsie the Cow, but others claim she was buried elsewhere on the farm. I don't know what the real story is, but she was somewhere around where we were walking, and it was an interesting thing to find a monument to a cow.

Just after the monument, out on Gordon Pond, there was a little mowed side path that led to some sort of a stone ruin. I don't know what it was, but it was a nice spot for the view.

We made our way out across the grass to Plainsboro Road. The Walker Gordon Trail makes a full loop around the development and parallels Plainsboro Road heading back the way we came, but we turned to the west on the road and crossed Gordon Pond on the road bridge.

There was a facility to the left as we continued on, and a bit of paved trail turned off of the road to the left, and then closely paralleled it. We continued to follow that along Plainsboro Road.

We continued to the intersection with Campus Road, and continued to the left on Plainsboro Road just a bit. In a short distance, we turned to the left behind the apartment or some sort of buildings known as Icon Riverwalk. 

In the distance from Walker Gordon to this point, the Devil's Brook and the Cranbury Brook both flowed into the Millstone River, close to where the former Pennsylvania Railroad crosses. We'd now be following the Millstone River for a while.

There was a small pond in back of Icon Riverwalk, and then a paved trail continued to the south. We followed it to an intersection, and turned left. This somewhat new trail weaved around through flood plain wetlands, and then headed to the north for a bit. It passed behind townhouses, reached another trail intersection, and we turned left. This brought us to the edge of a parking area, and the trail turned off to the right, into the flood plain of the Millstone River again.

There was a short mowed spur trail that led us to the edge of the river, which afforded us some really nice views. We continued on the trail from there, which became a sort of gravel trail for a bit, and that trail intersected with a paved one. We turned left on the paved trail, and continued through the flood plain to the west.

This section was known as Millstone River Park, and it was quite nice. We followed the trail to the west, which eventually led to an access road to a boat landing on the Millstone. We turned left on that road to check it out, and I'd hoped there might be a way of walking beneath the immediately parallel Rt 1, the Brunswick Pike.

Unfortunately, there was no way through. We had to turn back around, and I decided we would climb rather steeply up a utility clearing immediately adjacent to Rt 1. It wasn't so bad that I couldn't push the stroller up it.

Where the utility clearing turned, there was an enormous pile of dumped contractor's waste. All sorts of pipes and tubes, plywood, a sink, a flat screen television, and lots of other stuff.

At the top of the hill, we came out to Plainsboro Road for the final time. It was a rough spot to cross, but we timed it well, and crossed directly to the Princeton Hospital sign. Behind it, I knew, there was a mowed trail through weeds up to Hospital Drive. We headed behind the sign and followed this route uphill.

We continued along the roadways and made our way to the very front of the hospital. We walked the sidewalks in front, and then through a sort of courtyard area just beyond that, which had some sculptures and such outside. 

We continued a bit to the east, crossed Punia Blvd, and then turned to the left along that road to Hospital Drive again. We crossed to a paved pathway on the other side and followed it to the right, which led us out to Campus Road. A brief left turn took us to the traffic light at Scudders Mill Road where it was safe for us to cross the intersection.

On the other side, we turned left on another paved path that paralleled Scudders Mill Road to the west. It led us across the on ramp to Rt 1, then across the bridge over Rt 1. 

On the other side, Scudders Mill Road curved into on ramps to Rt 1, but the pedestrian path on the north side of it had a path that weaved off of it to the right. 

I think Violet had to cut out at this point and got a ride, but just as we were making our way downhill on the trail, Serious Sean appeared out of the blue to find us walking the opposite direction!

Sean always has this amazing ability to just find us out of the blue when he's late to a hike. He goes over the routes ahead of time and figures on where we'd probably be, and there he is.

We continued down the trail, which took us to near the intersection of Lakeview Terrace and Mapleton Road. We paralleled Mapleton Road for a bit, and then crossed over it to reach the parking area for Carnegie Lake and the Delaware and Raritan Canal.

The area here is just loaded with history that changed the lay of the land.

The Delaware and Raritan Canal was completed through this area in 1832, at which time it was just the canal skirting the wetland areas of the Millstone River near the confluence with the Stony Brook. The canal crossed over the Millstone here by way of the aqueduct, of which there is still one in place today.

At this site, a grist mill, a saw mill, and a fulling mill, known as Scudders Mills, once existed. The first milling operation was established between 1737 and 1739 by Josiah Davison. The mill was located on the original alignment of Harrison Street, which was moved in later years and I understand part of it is now under water of Carnegie Lake.

There were historic markers to all of this, but as usual, I was irked that there was no mention of the historic Camden and Amboy Railroad.

The railroad was established on the berm side of the D&R Canal in 1838-39, and was one of the oldest railroads in America. The Camden and Amboy was the line on which the John Bull operated, which to this day is still the oldest operable self propelled vehicle in the world, in the Smithsonian.

There were problems with the railroad being on the berm side of the canal, with washouts and mud and such. The swampy and muddy terrain meant lots of washouts and issues, and so it was decided to give up this right of way by 1863. Some of the berm side of the canal is also a trail, although lesser used than the towpath, but I've not seen a single sign denoting the significance of the line.

We crossed the foot bridge over the canal, and then turned left to cross over the Millstone River Aqueduct. It's amazing that the level of the lake almost comes to the bottom of the aqueduct, but it doesn't effect the canal really.

The lake, built in 1906, was a gift to Princeton University by Philanthropist Andrew Carnegie.

Prior to the construction of the lake, the Princeton Varsity Rowing team rowed in the still busy Delaware and Raritan Canal, which was far too narrow for the purpose. While sitting for a painting by 1876 Princeton grad Howard Russel Butler, Carnegie was related the story of Princeton’s needs. Carnegie, who had constructed many lochs in his homeland of Scotland, took interest in the project and asked Butler to look into it.

Butler complied and came up with an estimate of $118,000. Starting in 1903, a group of Princeton alumni began purchasing land of local farmers in what would become the bed of the proposed lake. They would then sell the properties to Carnegie.

Having the alumni purchase the land was done as a strategy to avoid arousing suspicion in local residents, as well as to get Carnegie the properties at the lowest possible prices.

Woodrow Wilson, President of Princeton University at the time of the lake’s completion, tried to secure a second grant from Carnegie, who responded “I already gave you a lake!”.

The segment ahead is quite interesting in that we are on sort of a causeway, with the canal to our left, but the lake to the right. There's really nowhere to go out there, so for some it can be unnerving. We continued and crossed over Harrison Street, and then further across Washington Road. It was a very pleasant section, and full of people walking and cycling.

The next point of interest was the Dinky Bridge over the canal. This was the former Pennsylvania Railroad Princeton Branch which opened in 1865.

The Pennsylvania Railroad rerouted the line to the south of Princeton to what is present day Northeast Corridor in 1863, and so the 1839 Camden and Amboy route on the berm side of the canal was abandoned. This upset the people of Princeton, as they lost convenient connection to rail service within reasonable walking distance of town.

As a result, the Princeton Branch opened, which once went all the way to Nassau Street. It was scaled back over the years, first in 1918 to the station building that is now an eatery, and then again in 2014 a bit further to the south. There have been talks for years of eliminating the Dinky service to Princeton, which would end what might be the oldest Dinky rail operation in America.

It seems very foolish to even consider eliminating the service, because it has regular riders. While it is certainly a point of nostalgia, this one certainly is a point of utility as well.

The bridge was built with a round center span on which it could pivot to allow passage of the larger boats on the D&R Canal. The bridge has not opened since the end of regular navigation on the canal in 1932.

Sean ran up to have a better look at the bridge while we were there, and there were actually a few others that went up as well who were not in our group.

Ahead, we crossed over Alexander Road, then had a long and relaxing stretch of walking on the towpath to the west, with the Stony Brook to our right passing through Institute Woods. We passed through the bit of the Princeton Country Club, and then paralleled Quaker Road for a short bit.

Soon, Quaker Road turned hard left and crossed the canal. This was the historic little community of Port Mercer.

Named for General Mercer who was mortally wounded at the Battle of Princeton, which took place just to the northeast of this site, it was home to a saw mill, coal yard, lime kiln, general store, hotel, and a bridge keeper's house, who would see to the operation of the swinging bridge when boats needed to get through or carriages needed to cross.

I had one then and now compilation to set up of this site, and we continued along the trail ahead. As John L and I continued, much of the group decided to make the turn left on Quaker Road. They didn't know what I had in mind for the remainder of the hike, but I had a route I wanted to follow that I did similarly to another time we passed through this area.

The next road up was Province Line Road, which once marked the boundary between the Colonies of East and West New Jersey. My plan was to go left on that road, then cut to the right into a housing development and use the pedestrian paths through it.

We turned across the canal on the road, then went to the right onto a sidewalk path downhill and past the pool associated with a townhouse community. We then crossed Canal View Drive, and made our way up over a grassy knoll and onto a pathway that went between some of the buildings.

We went along Hawk Road briefly, and then made our way around buildings to the end of Yorkshire Village Road, where another pathway continued to the east, almost back out to Province Line Road. We turned right parallel with Province Line, and then simply followed that to the Mercer Mall and arrived just about at the same time as everyone else to conclude the hike.

Justin was good enough to go back to the start and drive my car back to the lot so I didn't have to put Ev in any weird position in a seat or anything. Kirk hung out with me in the parking lot until Justin came back, and we got to sit in his car where it was warm, which was nice.

Ev ran around a little bit and got some more of his energy out before we'd head on our way, and then sat on my lap for a bit.

This was really a very relaxing hike, and exactly what I needed it to be. There could even be other variations of this one I'll set out to do in the future, as well as other things following the other Millstone tributaries that are probably worth visiting.

There are probably some more routes that are stroller ready through the area I can put on the schedule within the next year. There's actually more stroller friendly stuff on my "to do" list than I have days before Ev is out of the stroller, which is a good thing. There are a lot of really great days ahead.