Living
overseas has its challenges, especially when it comes to visiting New York once a year. I usually make the trip back to my birth country and hometown during the summer months, and there are
usually a myriad of places to go and people to see. Since I have limited time
in New York, I have to plan how to use that time well. Every moment counts and I don’t want to spend my precious time
doing things that are meaningless or that don’t give me joy. So I am together
with the people who are dear to me, and I frequent those places that make me
happy or that have the potential of doing so. In that way, I can include places
I’ve never visited but want to visit in that category. Most of them are in New
York State, but some of them are not. This year, on a hot sunny August day, I had the privilege of
visiting Duke Farms in Hillsborough New Jersey together with my good friends
Stef and John (married thirty-five years this year) who live in Hillsborough.
We have talked about visiting Duke Farms together for a few years now; they’ve been
there many times. Oddly enough, I lived near that area of New Jersey for four
years before I moved to Oslo, but never visited Duke Farms before
now. This year we managed a visit, and it was well-worth it, as the following
photos will document. I include two links to Duke Farms here so that you can read
more about this wonderful place:
http://www.dukefarms.org
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Farms
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| near entrance to Duke Farms |
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| sycamore allée--Duke Farms |
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| unsure what kind of bird this is |
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| notice the frog sitting on the rock |
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| algae-covered pond in background |
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| the foundation for a mansion that JB Duke never built |
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| dead tree in algae-covered lake |
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| the Great Falls empty into Vista Lake (not much flowing water at the time this photo was taken) |
