Framing of the garage continues... 

The weather was a bit overcast when I took this photo, but you can see that work on the garage is progressing, and it is beginning to take shape!

Sometimes my job can be a bit monotonous (as in digging lots of sterile shovel tests), but the recordation of the occasional historic site is what keeps me going. Most archaeologists don't get very excited about structures, but I certainly do. This season has been interesting for me thus far with the research and recordation of a various historic structures including this (modified) one lane bridge... 

A shot of the bridge looking downstream. I almost stepped on a snake climbing down the slope to take this photograph...

The deck (road surface) was replaced on this bridge in 1976, but the original stone abutments still remain in service. We have records showing this bridge in existence in the 1920s, but is in unclear when exactly it was constructed. 

The stone abutments jut out at an angle on each corner with infill between each one and the road surface. This was obviously built to last, and has seemingly held up well over the years.

Old and new(er): intersection of the 1976 concrete deck with the 1920s(?) sandstone abutments. A description on a historic plat map from the 1920s refers to this as a "concrete bridge"... 

The base of an abutment at creek level 

The degradation of mortar from between the stones can be seen in the lower 1/3 of the photograph. Decades of fluctuating water levels have taken their toll, but overall this looks to be structurally sound as far as I can tell...

Now, for something a little different...

I'm feeling a little nostalgia for the 1970s, so I thought I'd hit the internet and see if I could find pics of some of the toys I remembered from my childhood...


This is about as far back as I can remember for toddler toys. I think the base on my toy was white plastic, which is amazing since many of the early 70s toys were still dangerous by today's standards (sharp metal edges, small pieces, etc.)

A few toys were a little scary. I had a jack-in-the-box. Unfortunately I couldn't find an exact pic of the one I had, which was very creepy. This example is quite benign in comparison...

I had a dummy with which to practice the art of ventriloquism. The thing scared the heck out of me. I had to turn it away when I wasn't playing with it so it wasn't "watching me"...lol 

Star Wars action figures (1977) - I used to like creating my own storylines that had nothing to do with the movie... 

An early favorite was Lite-Brite... 

I later wore out an Etch-a-Sketch unit (and afterwards took it apart to see how it really worked, of course) 

My 8th birthday party in 1979 was one to remember, for my mother presented me with Pong (similar to this unit - I think we may have had the Sears version) 

This is an actual screenshot of Pong in action. We were very excited at the time to play such a game! As I recall, the game was so popular at my birthday party that I didn't even get a turn at it. 

Around 1976 I was the lucky recipient of this amazing McDonaldland train set. I must have been really good to have gotten this! My set was more complete than what is pictured here and included Barbie-doll sized figures of ALL the McDonalds characters, including Grimace, the Hamburglar, Mayor McCheese, etc. I'm sorry to report that the Ronald McDonald figure later disappeared and was found hanging by the neck from a car's rearview mirror...

At around age 3 or 4, I was interested in the neighbors' set of Weebles. Never had any of my own that I can recall... 

Amongst my favorite toys in the 1970s were the Fisher Price Adventure People series. Apparently some of these are becoming pretty collectible...

This was the first Adventure People set I received, the Air-Sea Rescue Copter, which was produced from 1975 on... I can still remember being VERY EXCITED when I opened this wrapped gift...

I still have the jeep from the Northwoods Trail Blazer set (1977+)... 

One of my favorite sets, the Dare Devil Sport Van (1978)! 

And the TV Action Team (likely for recording the adventures of the other folks). This came out in 1977. The most disturbing thing is that, I cannot recall what I had for dinner yesterday, but 28 years later I do recall the name of the black anchorwoman in this set (Carol). The mind is a funny thing, it is.

More to come... Carol says, "Stay tuned!"

Brad recently purchased an inflatable raft, and we were finally able to spend some time on the Delaware River. He opted for a raft instead of a bass boat, as it will be easier to transport on our visits to Nova Scotia...

Over the weekend, we were able to take the raft out for a test run on the Delaware River. We began at the National Park Service's Kittatinny Point Visitor Center on the NJ side and motored upriver. We only made it to Schellenberger Island, as the weather was set to make a turn for the worse. It was a short trip, but enabled us to work out some kinks with the raft, and showed us that the 3HP electric motor was strong enough to withstand going against the current. Perhaps next trip we can make it to the Hialeah picnic area or Smithfield Beach...

Parking at the canoe launch. The regular boat launch was still damaged from the spring flooding of the Delaware.