New Jersey - Days 30 & 31

Clarksboro KOA
Sunday, 30 & Monday, 31 December 2018

I've spent these last 2 days doing end-of-the-month things: making reservations at a Delaware campground, doing laundry, emptying waste tanks, filling the water tank, cleaning up the cabin, planning my driving route - like that.  I like to start a new month and a new state with chores out of the way.

I've also enjoyed watching the morning news showing New Year's Eve festivities in the area: fireworks displays in Philadelphia/Camden and Wilmington (Del.) and Atlantic City; a mushroom drop in Kennett Square (PA) (the mushroom-growing area); the drop of a 400 pound Peep® in Bethlehem (PA).  I really wanted to post a photo of that last one but all the ones online seem to be copyrighted, so you should google the images for yourself to believe this.

Unfortunately, all these may end up canceled because heavy rain has moved into this area, and is expected to last until about 5 AM tomorrow.  It's the same storm system that has been closing airports in the West and upper Midwest with snow, and has been dropping rain on its path across the eastern US.  If I were in charge of these fireworks shows, I'd postpone them now and put them on tomorrow night when it's expected to be clear.

The Mummers Parade in Philadelphia tomorrow morning will likely be in good shape, though, with the rain supposed to move out to sea.  Having never heard of this event, I looked it up and learned that a mummer is traditionally a masked actor, and that the parade has been a tradition for 118 years and may be the oldest folk festival in the US.  See what you can learn traveling around the country?

I would have expected the campground to be almost empty for New Year's Eve, and instead there're lots more campers here than a few days ago.  Yes, it's a holiday weekend, but I wouldn't have thought of camping in the cold (it was below freezing this morning) and rain would be a great way to see in the new year.  Obviously, others disagree with me.

I've been in the same campsite for all but the first 5 days of the month.  The whole time there's been a camper parked in the next-door site, and not once has there been any sign of occupancy.  I finally decided they just needed a place to park their camper for the winter.  And now there's finally a pickup truck also parked on the site.  Still no sign of a human being, but that truck didn't get here on its own.  Why would they skip all the other days this month - and some really nice weather here and there - and show up at year's end along with terrible weather.  If I ever saw anyone, I might ask them.

With all these extra people here, I'm glad so much rain is expected, because it's likely to keep fireworks noises to a minimum, so I won't have to worry about it scaring Gracie so much.  And keeping me awake, too, of course.

I spent a good part of Sunday making Brunswick stew, which I've been thinking of almost the whole time I've been in New Jersey, probably because of the town of New Brunswick.  Brunswick stew is something my momma used to make, using the recipe from The Williamsburg Cookbook, the place that can reasonably claim to have originated it.

I use half the recipe, which means I need a 3-pound chicken.  In recent years it looks like if I want a 3-pound chicken, I'm going to have to go to Mexico or someplace that hasn't been genetically modifying its livestock.  The grocery store had nothing smaller than a 6-pound chicken, so instead I bought a split chicken breast - one breast - that weighed more than 3 pounds!  This product can't really be good for us.  My belief in this didn't stop me from buying the chicken breast, you understand, because I wanted the stew, but I'm becoming more and more disturbed as I find chickens bigger and bigger.

Having learned how to make "baked goods" in a microwave (coffee cake on Christmas Day), I also made cornbread to go with the stew.  It suffered a bit from not being able to brown, but otherwise acted and tasted just like cornbread.

So between the stew and the cornbread, I ate too much as I do every time I have that dinner.  And enjoyed every bite.  It's a good dinner to go with a rainy night.  And I'm celebrating the coming of the new year by sleeping.