Palisades State Park, New Jersey

Yesterday I crossed into New Jersey, on purpose. It gets a bad rap mostly. Most of it is beautiful, but people usually retain the images given to them upon exiting a tunnel, crossing into it from Staten Island, using the PATH train, arriving/departing using Newark Airport, or watching the Soprano's and The Real Housewives of New Jersey. Those things are sadly real but they are in no way representative of the entire state. I ventured across the George Washington Bridge yesterday to spend some time at the Palisades Interstate Park which abuts the Hudson River just across from Yonkers and Westchester County in New York.

The Park begins just south of the GW Bridge on the New Jersey side, and stretches north for about 12 miles and ends just above where New York and New Jersey meet up. At its widest the Park is only a half a mile wide, but inside it you will find over 30 miles of hiking trails, 4 different picnic areas along the Hudson River, 2 public boat basins, 3 scenic overlooks, places for fishing and crabbing, blah blah blah... you get it.

There wasn't much traffic yesterday and it only took me about 30 minutes to get from Manhattan to the Alpine Picnic Area (where all of these pics were taken). It was a super easy drive, just off the bridge and onto the Palisades Parkway North. From there just follow the signs for the park entrances. The Website lists some public transportation option from Manhattan and some of the surrounding areas of the park, but none of them seemed descriptive enough for me to trust their accuracy.

Of course no visit to Jersey is complete without some music right? The past few days I have been listening to Boys & Girls - Martin Solveig (Feat. Dragonette) Super perfect summer fun from the French Producer/DJ and the ridiculously fantastic Canadians that call themselves Dragonette.

Another song I have on super heavy rotation lately is Tigerlily - La Roux. La Roux is a British duo/band of the moment with an electro-pop style that I cant seem to get enough of. Their Album dropped today in the UK with an expected release in the US sometime in September. I guess all good things...