IT SEEMS TO ME THAT MY ADOPTIVE state of New Jersey takes a lot of smack from riders who have never even been to the Garden State. Oh, I do admit that flying into Newark Liberty at night with the refin- ery stacks ablaze looks a bit more like Thunder Dome than Thunder Road, but I blame that more on New York City sprawl than anything that New Jersey really has to offer. The history of this state runs deep, and


the first real victory we had as a nation happened in New Jersey. Other very important firsts happened here as well. The first baseball game was played in Hoboken in 1846, the first copper mine in America was opened by Dutch settlers in the Kit- tatinny Mountains in 1640, and most importantly, the first brewery was started in 1642. Yes, Jersey strong. That just begins to scratch the surface of


Jersey’s deep history, but though history really is the story of time, this day in time, and this ride, would take on another mean- ing. Things would be different tomorrow. Each year most of America goes through


the ritual of moving the clocks around. In the spring, it is Daylight Saving Time, and we seem to gain an extra hour of riding. In


the fall, we slide back to Standard Time, and our time to ride grows even shorter. A few months back you could ride until almost 9 p.m. and still have light. This day it would get dark around supper, and the sun, when it was up, would be low and annoying in the sky. So, on this last day before the clocks would be set back, I slipped out of the office for an afternoon ride on BMW’s new S 1000 XR to follow some of the back roads that I frequent here in the northwest corner of New Jersey. New Jersey is bordered on the west by


the Delaware River, and the Skylands Region of the state lies just to the north of where good ol’ George and the boys rowed over one snowy Christmas morning and gave the Hessian and the British what for in the tiny town of Trenton—now the State Capital. It seemed that just a couple weeks earlier


the autumn colors were turned up to the max, and around each turn another burst of nature’s palette was in view. This day the air was crisp with a chill, and the leaves were muted and falling. Times were changing. On the back end of New Jersey above the


Delaware River, you will run across the Kit- tatinny Mountains. Actually more a ridge


than a peak and less than 100 miles away from Manhattan, the forests on Kittatinny Ridge are, according to the National Park Service, part of the largest remaining deciduous forests in the United States. Hardwood, wetlands, streams, bogs and abundant wildlife fill this part of my state. It is not unusual to run across deer, bear, bobcat, fisher, great blue heron and the rare cougar in the region called the Walpack Valley. The preservation of this natural area was made possible by philanthropists, and the Vietnam War. What’s that you say? Vietnam? Indeed, but I’ll get back to this later. My ride began with a late lunch at a


nearby drive-in called The Chatterbox. Northern New Jersey riders are familiar with this restaurant, and their Thursday “Bike Nights” draw a large and mixed rid- ing crowd. It is a very retro-style, Happy Days sort of place, with lots to see inside, and the XR could almost look out of place where so many Harleys and Hot Rods gather, but this day the crowds were light, and it was easy to get a table. Sated and ready, I pointed the XR off


busy Route 206 and onto the smaller county roads that are sprinkled around Sussex and Warren counties here in the


Inside the Chatterbox drive-in restaurant. December 2015 BMW OWNERS NEWS 77


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108  |  Page 109  |  Page 110  |  Page 111  |  Page 112  |  Page 113  |  Page 114  |  Page 115  |  Page 116  |  Page 117  |  Page 118  |  Page 119  |  Page 120  |  Page 121  |  Page 122  |  Page 123  |  Page 124