New Jersey - Day 4 - Cherry Hill

Clarksboro KOA
Tuesday, 4 December 2018

today's route

I stopped at the campground office this morning to ask about their monthly rate, which is $690 + my kilowatt hours used.  I paid $825 + elec at the Connecticut KOA, and I figured the lower cost is because the cost of living is lower down here.

But then I got a call from one of the campgrounds I called yesterday, and they charge $825 + elec, too.  It's not far from Atlantic City, which may be why it's so much higher than here, but what a difference.  I'll be interested to see what others charge.

I'd heard that there's a very old log cabin still standing in Gibbstown, a few miles from here, and decided to go take a look.

This is actually what I saw, though this is an online photo.  The original cabin is the 1-story part, and the rest was added later.  Amazingly, it's not that far from its 400th birthday.  Imagine what that cabin's been through in that time.  https://en.wikipedia.org/Log_House

Next, a stop at a grocery store.

I was so frustrated at not being able to find a NJ map at the visitor centers, and the KOA here didn't have any either, but the AAA map that's all I've got doesn't show most of the state/county roads, including the one I took to get to the campground.  It finally dawned on my pea brain that maybe I could buy one somewhere, like an office supply place, and sure enough, an online search produced a Barnes and Noble in Cherry Hill, not all that far from the KOA.  I called them first, just in case, and was assured that they do indeed have road maps of NJ for sale.  So that's where we went next.

It's been a long time since I was in a book store, and I had to keep reminding myself that I'd have to store anything I bought to restrain myself to just the map.

Then I made a stop for gasoline but found an attendant there who insisted on doing it for me.  (I later learned at the KOA that New Jersey is one of the very few states that won't let us pump our own gas.)  My problem with that was that the attendant at the Valero station where I stopped didn't speak much English - a problem because I had trouble explaining I wanted him to fill it up, instead of going to a specific dollar amount.  Once he'd started pumping, I thought I was making conversation when I guessed it'd be about $100, but when the pump clicked off at $85, he insisted on keeping on pumping to fill it up to $100.  I practically had to grab the pump out of his hand to get him to stop.  Visions of gasoline on the ground from an overflowing tank were flashing before my eyes.

It was also a nuisance because I was trying to understand this business of him pumping my gas, Oregon being the only state I knew of that wouldn't let us pump our own.  I tried 3 times in different ways to ask him if that's the way all gas stations in NJ are or was it just this chain, but he was quite clearly not understanding any version of that question.  It was a very weird experience. 

A sign on the way to the campground told me that I'm in East Greenwich.  Since that's the town in Rhode Island where my mom was born, I figured I'd better look it up.  Turns out Clarksboro and Gibbsboro are indeed in East Greenwich township.  Their website says they had nearly 10,000 people living here by the 2010 census, which was nearly double the population in the 2000 census.  They don't say but I'm guessing it's the proximity to Philadelphia that did it.  But it's an attractive area, semi-rural.

Once back at the KOA I got my propane tank filled up and then dumped my sewer tanks.  It's supposed to get pretty cold tonight so I wanted to be ready.