Where Lindbergh Once Flew....

The construction site looks like any other - big, heavy earth-moving equipment, raw earth and lots of speculation over what is coming next. Well to me this site is a little different. This was, until very recently, one of the last grass runway airports in the country. Up until a year or so ago it was still certified and in use. On weekends when I would pass by on a ride (it is actually about 4 miles from my home) and invariably see at least one plane take off or land, sometimes flying right over my head on the approach. A couple of years ago the elderly aviator who had owned/operated it announced he could no longer afford the property taxes and would have to sell. A bit of a bidding scramble broke out and for awhile it looked like it would become one more housing development in an area that (I think) already has more than enough housing developments. In the end my town and the neighboring town got together and bought it for a park/soccer field complex and the construction vehicles are now busy tearing everything up in hopes of having a playing field (pitch?) ready for the fall season.

My thought is that the soccer fields are far better than more McMansions but the passing of the airfield is also kind of sad. The field had a long history and was actually used by Charles Lindbergh when he lived in this area (his kidnapped baby was actually found at a roadside about five miles further on). The three old planes sitting in the weeds behind the deteriorating hanger are about all that is left of this little bit of local history. I'm hoping they keep both the building and the planes around just as a reminder of another era...

And so I wandered into the Sourlands on this hot and steamy morning looking for shady lanes to stay out of the sun - it hit 93 eventually - and roads that had strategically located corner stores so I could keep my water bottles full. The horse sculpture was new - was at the entrance to a horse farm that commands one of the best views in the county and is at the beginning of a pretty decent climb up to the one-time home of the same Charles Lindbergh (everything is related).

And final story....At the bottom of Lindbergh road is a little store much used by local cyclists. I bought my drink and joined an older gentleman ("older" can be a relative term) sitting on the porch. He almost defined the term "grizzled". Wiry and wrinkled and with skin like leather he later admitted to being 83 years old and laughed when I said I was 71. When I commented on his riding all these hills he kind of snorted - this is what I do, he said - cycling is a way of life. His only concession to age seemed to be the way he laid the bike down to get on but when he took off he was immediately into a pace that would be the envy of many a younger rider....I will add him to my short list of hero/role models.