wrog

You know, I noticed the same difference (to a lesser degree) in western Michigan when I was in college. A big part of the fun of hiking around in NJ and NY is finding that sort of thing. In fact, a lot of the content of Weird NJ (http://www.weirdnj.com/) comes from those abandoned sites.

I spent yesterday scrambling up the rock face of a ravine (probably only a few degrees of difficulty away from technical climbing), walking miles of back-country trails, and visiting a private home that was built in 1745. All of this within an hour's drive of my house, which is 5 minutes from Newark airport.

People think New Jersey is that background scenery in the opening credits sequence for The Sopranos. There's a lot that they miss.