New Jersey I will always remember for three things. One, in that same time period I spent six weeks in Orange, NJ as part of a turnover of a small company that my company of the time had bought. And, I have twice been to Princeton and that town has the best "feeling" of any town I have ever visited. I can "feel" the Ivy League-ness there. And I have visited the campuses of the other seven Ivy League schools and none come close to the same feeling, although Ithaca NY with Cornell is the closest. Two, a co-worker from the late 1970's grew up in the state and the rest of us used to tease her about how there is nothing to see or do in NJ. Three, many years ago there was a television commercial for Pace Picante Sauce. Some guy said that "the other brand" of picante sauce was made in New Jersey. At that point, everyone said "NEW JERSEY!!!???". Then a real tough looking and sounding cowboy said "Get a rope!". So when I hear "New Jersey", my mind always follows it with "Get a rope", mostly because of how we used to tease our co-worker in #2.

This trip had two goals in New Jersey. One, despite Princeton not having a campus sign that says "Princeton University", I did learn about a medallion embedded into a gate. I drove around campus my two previous visits and was unable to find a sign. I spoke with a current co-worker who went to Princeton and he said there is no sign. And, I emailed with a Princeton staff member who told me no sign but about the gate and medallion. The other place to visit was a nearby town called Lawrenceville (great name!) that has a college called Rider University. Only recently even ever heard of that place.

However, I got a bonus on this trip. I learned that a Seattle friend would be visiting family in New Jersey (Newark area) at the same time I was there. So we arranged to meet and visit the Thomas Edison National Historic Museum (we both love national parks and this was the third one we have visited together) then have dinner. And since I had some time to kill that morning, I got in three more unexpected colleges: Monmouth, NJ Tech and Fairleigh-Dickinson. Nice bonus!