Swainton and Wildwood, NJ
Monday, July 12 - Left Artillery Ridge Campground around 7:30 am to drive to Outdoor World Sea Pines, Swainton NJ. Our drive through Pennsylvania was mostly Rural Routes and in very bad need of repair. As we neared the New Jersey border, we saw pastoral landscapes with a lot of horse farms. On Route 322, the roads just got worse. We were on Baltimore Pike for a while and passed through Concordville around 10:30.
It is located 20 miles west-southwest of Philadelphia. Modern Concordville occupies the junction of two of the earliest public roads in the English colonies: Baltimore Pike or US Route One, and Concord Road, laid out by William Penn's surveyors. The old homes along the main drag do not show any signs they are under a Historical Society but I have read they are trying to get recognized. We crossed over the Delaware River on the impressive Commodore Barry Bridge . We saw tugboats and a lot of industry on both sides of the bridge, as well as the Philadelphia cityscape in the distance. The bridge is named after the American Revolutionary War hero and Philadelphia resident John Barry. making the bridge the fourth longest cantilever bridge in the world, and the longest in the United States.
We arrived at the Outdoor World Sea Pines Resort in Swainton NJ.
Tuesday, July 14 - Beautiful day here at Swainton New Jersey. Sun is filtering through the surrounding hardwood trees.
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Wednesday, July 15, 2009 - We drove south of our park in Swainton NJ to visit the town of Wildwood. Wildwood is a resort city that is very popular with vacationers and tourists mostly from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Delaware and even nearby parts of Canada during the summer months. Its most notable features are its beach and 1.8-mile boardwalk, home to Morey's Pier amusement complex and Raging Waters and Ocean Oasis water parks owned by Morey's Pier. The boardwalk features a trolley called the "Tramcar", which runs from end-to-end. It is also home to Splash Zone Water Park. Built in 1999, Splash Zone features the world's highest dumping bucket and the biggest family raft ride on the east coast, The Beast of the East.
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In June 2006, Wildwood’s Doo-Wop-style motels were placed on the National Trust for Historic Preservation's annual Eleven Most Endangered List, described as "irreplaceable icons of popular culture." It was ranked the best beach in New Jersey in the 2008 Top 10 Beaches Contest sponsored by the New Jersey Marine Sciences Consortium. Rock Around the Clock, often credited as the first rock and roll record, was first performed on Memorial Day weekend in 1954 at the HofBrau Hotel in Wildwood by Bill Haley & His Comets. The song's status as one of the first rock and roll hits has given rise to the city's claim as "the birthplace of rock and roll".
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Next, we visited the Victorian Hereford Inlet Lighthouse built in 1874 in North Wildwood. Located near the entrance to Hereford Inlet, which leads from the Atlantic Ocean to the Intra-Coastal Waterway linking Maine to Florida. The fixed white Light is 57 feet above sea level and visible at a distance of 13 nautical miles. http://www.blogger.com/www.herefordlighthouse.org.
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