We slept in some this morning. We didn’t set an alarm and we were both really worn out from all of the driving last night. We got up just after 9:30. I decided to start getting ready and Dominica decided that she was going to go down to the breakfast buffet and see if they had “make your own waffles” which she loves. I didn’t think that there was going to be any chance of that but what do I know. They did, of course, have “make your own waffles” and so she was pretty happy.
We were out of the hotel at a quarter to eleven and on our way into New Jersey. We started by driving straight east on US78 out to exit 36 where I will be working so Dominica got a chance to see the general area and to see the office itself. It took about forty five minutes as I had thought. Not a bad trip at all. We got off at Exit 36 so that she could see the office itself. It is really cool that the office is visible from the exit ramp and from King George Highway. So she actually got to see the building even though it is inside of a guarded complex.
We drove around the area of the office for about half an hour. We took a lot of smaller side streets and actually got a little feel for the area. The basic feel was that we could never possibly afford a home out here 🙂 Then we decided to try driving farther afield and go down to Bridgewater and that area. That took a while because we got lost a little. Then we finally got down to NJ206 and we drove south on that all of the way down to Princeton. We aren’t really considering any apartments or anything that far south but I had been there last year and really liked the area and wanted Dominica to get a chance to see what the area was like. It also gave us a chance to stop at the Wegmans down on US1 and get an apartment guide. Of course, we finally made it down to the Wegmans and found that they didn’t have any apartment guides. They hadn’t seen any in months. So that ended up being a pretty big waste of time.
We travelled northeast on US1 up to North Brunswick. We had decided to make a giant loop around so that we could hit a lot of areas along the larger roads and see what areas were like what. As we were coming up the highway Dominica saw a sign for an apartment complex. It was the only lead that we had so we talked about it a little bit. It turned out that we drove right past the place as we came through North Brunswick. It was called North Brunswick Manor. We decided that since we had no reference for apartments in New Jersey that it would behoove us to stop in and to take a look at the place. We ended up getting stuck there talking to the apartment guy for about an hour but we definitely discovered that this place is a very serious possibility. The price isn’t bad. The location is decently ideal and they will allow Oreo to live there. So we are really going to be considering it.
From there we tried going up to US287. Of course, this turns out to be the exact same location that I tried to do this very same thing back last autumn when I was attempting to return home from Woodbridge. The same problem happened then too. I looked at the map that I have of the area and the roads are just close enough together that none of them are labeled. So we had to do some guess work. We worked our way through New Brunswick and discovered that it is a really nice place (the home of Rutgers University) and would be an ideal place to hang out if living at that apartment. We found an Applebee’s and decided to stop. We had been looking for food for hours and having a terrible time finding something that we could stop at without turning around on the highway. We ate quite a bit. It was my only meal of the day.
We tried finding our way back to 287 by following the signs. No luck. The signs in this area actually completely keep you away from 287. It is ridiculous. For about half an hour or so we drove parellel to 287 in the wrong direction. Instead of taking us straight to the highway so that we could go west the signs lead us due east along the highway as far out of the way as possible. Argh. We ended up doing the exact same path that I did months ago because the map didn’t give us anyway to do anything else.
We finally got back to the highway and worked out way up to US78. Then we headed west and took a look at a couple of communities to the west of the office to see if there was anything that would interest us out there. We stopped in Clinton and Annondale. It wouldn’t be a bad area but we didn’t find any interesting apartments. We did find some nice looking condos at Union Gap and Union Hill but we are afraid that they don’t accept dogs and that just won’t do.
It was about 6:00 when we finally headed back towards home. I was exhausted from having driven all day yesterday and all day today so Dominica drove for about an hour from Annondale up to the Hickory Run Rest Stop on the Pennsylvania Turnpike fifteen miles north of the Lehigh Valley Tunnel. Then I drove the rest of the way home.
We went straight to dad’s house and visited for about half an hour. Dad was watching Oreo and we had to pick him up. As we approached home the fog got to be so awful we could barely move. There had been fog most of the way back but it was rarely all that bad. But near dad’s house it was really terrible.
As we came back through Geneseo we decided that we were hungry, having only eaten one meal all day, so we swung quickly into Pizza Paul’s on Main Street and grabbed some slices just like we did two nights ago just before going to New Jersey. They have the most amazing giant chocolate fudge brownies there with tons of icing. Oh are they good. And oh so moist. MMmmm.
It was pretty late by the time we actually got home and got to bed. We were both really exhausted. Oreo was tired too but very glad to be home with us.