 |
Riding north on Lindbergh road, you crest a hill and see this beautiful valley before riding up the real hill. The road on the right is Lindbergh road headed into the valley. |
 |
Another shot of the valley. Some of the trees have turned and some haven't! |
 |
Another view of the valley crossed by Lindbergh road. |
 |
A sign marking Lindbergh's former residence. It's occupied by other people now. |
 |
Looking up Lindbergh road to the right and the "driveway" to Lindbergh's former estate going off to the left. I ignored the signs and rode up there one time. Pretty impressive. I believe we're just barely in Mercer County at this point, but by the time you get to the house, you're in Hunterdon County. It was here that the Lindbergh's son was kidnapped and the trial took place in Flemington, Hunterdon County. |
 |
Continuing on Lindbergh Road, you eventually get to the top of the hill. Here's the view looking back down. |
 |
At the top of the hill, Lindbergh Road goes downhill a bit, as seen in the photo, and then rises to a second hilltop at about the same elevation as the first. |
 |
The view forward from the second hilltop on Lindbergh Road. To the right is a dump (fortunately, out of the picture!). It's slowly being cleaned up. I've never figured out why people would bring their junk all the way to the top of a hill to get rid of it! |
 |
From Lindbergh Road, I turned on Ridge Road to Rileyville Road to Mountain Road and then made a slight detour south on Runyon Mill Road which turns into Stony Brook Road a little farther south. The reason for the detour was to take photos of this strange pentagonal gazebo(?). It seems to be associated with a house across the street as there are for sale signs from the same realtor in front of both. One can imagine all sorts of things this gazebo might have been used for: from cook-outs to witchcraft! |
 |
Another shot of the gazebo. Note the bench in the foreground (there are benches all around) and the strange thing with columns to the left of and slightly behind the gazebo. |
 |
The stone structure in the middle seems to be a five sided barbecue grill. Behind it is a set of shelves with a hibachi on top. To the left of the shelves is what appears to be an old fashioned cooler. To the right is a table: a metal frame and an unfinished piece of plywood on top. |
 |
Another shot of the grill. |
 |
A shot of the shelf structure from the outside. |
 |
Around the gazebo are low benches and tables, many supported with fluted columns. |
 |
More benches; note the supports. |
 |
Behind the gazebo is this stone platform. It's roughly triangular in shape with the side towards the camera (the gazebo) somewhat rounded and with steps. |
 |
The gazebo from the platform. The front edge of the platform is visible at the bottom of the photo. |
 |
A fluted column on the ground. |
 |
The bottom of the structure with four columns. |
 |
The top of the structure with four columns. There seems to be some AC hook up wire coming out the top. It doesn't seem to go anywhere. |
 |
Looking down the hole in the middle of the four column structure. There is some wire coming out of the hole as well. The hole seems to be filled with debris. I decided to leave well enough alone and not try to find out what was under the debris! |
 |
A toppled column like thing (pedestal?) next to the four column structure. |
 |
The other end of the pedestal. So the question is, where did the pedestal actually reside? Did it fill up the hole in the four column structure? What was on top of the pedestal??? |
 |
Each of the five corners had a pair of floodlights (although some are missing now). |
 |
The pit in the barbecue grill. That's a Marlboro Light cigarette pack. |
 |
The tongs and the rack are still there. Waiting for the next barbecue? |
 |
The table is covered with mouse droppings. In the background there are switches which could potentially turn on the lights. I tried them, nothing happened. |
 |
Later on, I rode on Alexauken Creek Road. It's one of the prettiest roads around. It connects Queens Road (north of Mount Airy) to Route 29 (north of Lambertville). This view is back towards Queens Road. I believe the bridge goes over Alexauken Creek. The creek flows from right to left in this photo and to the left joins another creek and the merged creeks are known as Alexauken Creek. (I haven't been able to figure out the name of the creek that is joined to the left.) |
 |
Downstream on Alexauken Creek from the bridge! |
 |
The marker on the bridge. It lists the freeholders, the engineering company and the construction company, but doesn't say what stream the bridge bridges! Also, my modern maps claim it's Hunterdon County, not Hunderton County. Perhaps a dyslexic stone mason??? |
 |
Upstream from the bridge. |
 |
Looking in the Lambertville direction from the bridge. Cows on the left and farm buildings on the right. |
 |
A little farther along on Alexauken Creek Road, an old iron truss bridge goes over the creek. The dirt road goes under a railroad trestle (I'm not sure such a small thing merits the name trestle...). According to my topographic maps, that's the Black River and Western Railroad. I've never seen any activity on that railroad. One of these days, I need to ride down this road! |
 |
The GPS track of the ride overlain on a USGS topo map using GPS Visualizer. The altitude is encoded by the color from the lowest (red) to the highest (purple). The purple segment is Lindbergh road. The "gazebo" is marked by the black dot near one of the corners where Mercer sticks into Hunterdon County. Alexauken Creek Road is the segment starting a bit west of Mount Airy and going to the Delaware River. |
 |
The altitude and total climb profiles for the ride. The step at mile ~27.5 is bogus. (I forgot to reset the altitude after turning off the GPS during lunch!) |
|
|