Friggin New Jersey
Buried in the background of the local news this last week is the story of a bottle-nose dolphin pod that followed a shoal of fish upriver from the Atlantic and have gotten "stuck" off Sea Bright, New Jersey. As the Fourth of July arrived, there was concern about the holiday boat traffic being dangerous for the critters, so there was plenty of news coverage. On one channel, the anchor asked, "How on earth could a pod of dolphins get lost in New Jersey?"
Come on! Who hasn't gotten lost in Jersey, and what makes dolphins all that special?
Like a dolphin, I too have traveled up and down the Atlantic seaboard for years. For the most part, I get along just fine. I rarely use the maps in most states, relying instead on well marked roads and large traffic signs. Sometimes, if I want to get somewhere a little off the main drags, I'll pull out a map. And these days, might even plug in my GPS.
But all of that is useless in New Jersey.
I learned the hard way once about getting off the highways in NJ. The Interstates are there for one major reason - to protect drivers from the wrath of the regular streets. The signs told me I could find a fast-food joint off the highway, so I decided to stop before I got to Pennsylvania. I'm not really sure who put the sign there or why, but I wound up on a divided road with no burger shacks for two miles - or anyway to make a u-turn for another two after that. And then, of course, there was no entrance back on the highway from that road... so I followed detours for an hour until I was able to get on different highway, but heading the wrong way. I decided to cancel my trip and just go home instead of getting off the highway again.
I imagine these playful animals swimming up the coast and following baitfish. You take a turn here, another turn there, following the locals as you munch on them... after all, the little fishes know how to get around this town. So up this estuary and around this current... and at the end of a submarine jug-handle they finish the last few fish and discover they are in the middle of New Jersey waters and they no longer have anyone to follow.
YOU try getting out of New Jersey if someone just plopped you down on a random sidestreet in Newark. This is the land of the jug-handle, divided street, rotary, fork and 5-way intersection that all go nowhere.
Of course, the signs in New Jersey are not much of a help. If you want to read a map, you have to know where you are. And dark green street signs with thin white letters only three inches high isn't much more than an excuse for car insurers to raise their rates. After all, how many accidents have been caused by people squinting as they try to read out the road name?
My favorites are the small signs that point out important things, such as highway entrances. Like the street signs, they are small and very difficult to read. And they are placed in such a way that, by the time you see them and read them, they are telling you what it was that you just missed while trying to decipher the sign. My favorite is for a highway entrance on the right, around a right curve, with the only sign 30 feet after the exit. It's almost like the sign is laughing at you - by the time you read it around the curve, you've passed the exit. Why not just put it another 50 feet further ahead and have it proclaim "You just missed: (insert road here)". At least it would seem a little more polite.
So maybe the dolphins just missed an exit because the sign was after the current; and after they got off to try and backtrack they couldn't return to the highway, so they keep swimming around in circles until they see a sign saying "Welcome to Sea Bright, New Jersey." They like the name, they are tired of trying to find their way out of the state, so they give in and decide to settle down for a spell...
Actually, seems like that would describe so many people from NJ. So it's a good thing NJ never put up better road signs, or they would have no population and no porpoise. Er, I mean, dolphins.
Come on! Who hasn't gotten lost in Jersey, and what makes dolphins all that special?
Like a dolphin, I too have traveled up and down the Atlantic seaboard for years. For the most part, I get along just fine. I rarely use the maps in most states, relying instead on well marked roads and large traffic signs. Sometimes, if I want to get somewhere a little off the main drags, I'll pull out a map. And these days, might even plug in my GPS.
But all of that is useless in New Jersey.
I learned the hard way once about getting off the highways in NJ. The Interstates are there for one major reason - to protect drivers from the wrath of the regular streets. The signs told me I could find a fast-food joint off the highway, so I decided to stop before I got to Pennsylvania. I'm not really sure who put the sign there or why, but I wound up on a divided road with no burger shacks for two miles - or anyway to make a u-turn for another two after that. And then, of course, there was no entrance back on the highway from that road... so I followed detours for an hour until I was able to get on different highway, but heading the wrong way. I decided to cancel my trip and just go home instead of getting off the highway again.
I imagine these playful animals swimming up the coast and following baitfish. You take a turn here, another turn there, following the locals as you munch on them... after all, the little fishes know how to get around this town. So up this estuary and around this current... and at the end of a submarine jug-handle they finish the last few fish and discover they are in the middle of New Jersey waters and they no longer have anyone to follow.
YOU try getting out of New Jersey if someone just plopped you down on a random sidestreet in Newark. This is the land of the jug-handle, divided street, rotary, fork and 5-way intersection that all go nowhere.
Of course, the signs in New Jersey are not much of a help. If you want to read a map, you have to know where you are. And dark green street signs with thin white letters only three inches high isn't much more than an excuse for car insurers to raise their rates. After all, how many accidents have been caused by people squinting as they try to read out the road name?
My favorites are the small signs that point out important things, such as highway entrances. Like the street signs, they are small and very difficult to read. And they are placed in such a way that, by the time you see them and read them, they are telling you what it was that you just missed while trying to decipher the sign. My favorite is for a highway entrance on the right, around a right curve, with the only sign 30 feet after the exit. It's almost like the sign is laughing at you - by the time you read it around the curve, you've passed the exit. Why not just put it another 50 feet further ahead and have it proclaim "You just missed: (insert road here)". At least it would seem a little more polite.
So maybe the dolphins just missed an exit because the sign was after the current; and after they got off to try and backtrack they couldn't return to the highway, so they keep swimming around in circles until they see a sign saying "Welcome to Sea Bright, New Jersey." They like the name, they are tired of trying to find their way out of the state, so they give in and decide to settle down for a spell...
Actually, seems like that would describe so many people from NJ. So it's a good thing NJ never put up better road signs, or they would have no population and no porpoise. Er, I mean, dolphins.