2015-01-19 40 -74

Location

Back of someone's house in Emerson.

Participants

OtherJack

Jevanyn

Plans

Meet at the Emerson train station at 2:58 pm (time of arrival of OtherJack's train.)

Expedition

I'll be there to meet OtherJack, probably at the station depending on his travel arrangements -- Jevanyn (talk) 00:05, 19 January 2015 (EST)

... and indeed there was Jevanyn on the platform at 3pm when I arrived after a very slow, antiquated-feeling train ride from Secaucus Junction which featured a lot of swamps. He was clearly recognizable from the wiki. After a brief pit stop at the Boston Market across the street, we walked the three short blocks to the hash house. It was a pleasant neighborhood of older, nicer wooden houses and trees on modest lots in a little valley. This house actually had quite a big yard though.

We went through the gate, up to the front door and knocked but no one answered. My GPS seemed to indicate that the point was straight back through the (large) house, and Jevanyn's google map thought it was against the side of the house towards the back. Either way, we didn't want to traipse around while no one was home to give us permission, so we called it close enough and Jevanyn posted

We're here! -- Jevanyn (talk) @40.9773,-74.0254 15:14, 19 January 2015 (EST)

My yellow GPS pegged us at 35 feet (~11m) at the closest, with error of only 15 feet, so I'll give myself the No trespassing consolation prize. Jevanyn may call this a success though. Anyway, we posed for pictures, and then Jevanyn kindly offered to give me a ride back to Route 4 so I wouldn't have to immediately disappear onto the local bus to get there. (The train was not a reasonable option for my return trip, because I would have had to wait an hour and a half.) With the extra time we swapped origin stories and during the ride I got to learn a little more about Ingress, the game I had been mistaken for playing during a previous expedition.

When I reached the bus stop on Route 4, I texted the widget on the sign only to find it was estimated for 15 minutes later than I'd written down! Drat... 20+ minutes out by the highway waiting for this? I hoped it was in error. But then just a few minutes later, a little white minibus / jitney looking thing pulled up and opened its door, with no clear markings. Was *this* NJ Transit? I asked the driver if he was going to the George Washington Bridge terminal. He said he was, and it was only $4, so I hopped aboard. Apparently this was an informal, for-profit minibus line, like I'd seen in parts of eastern Europe and Asia. I had no idea there were such things in the US, so I hadn't thought to look.

It worked great though, took me directly to the GWB terminal in upper Manhattan, impeded only by traffic (bad but not horrible) and the occasional passenger pickup. A quick subway ride and a quicker walk through Morningside Park, and I was home. First New Jersey expedition!

-- OtherJack (talk) 17:30, 19 January 2015 (EST)

Photos

Some unexpected greenery at Secaucus Junction
First look at Emerson
Front walk of the hash house. Still 49 feet away
Colorful houses
"You got a problem with that?"
Driving to the bus stop
The treacherous New Jersey Icefall (OK, it was much more impressive further up the highway but I didn't get a shot in time...)
Back in Washington Heights
and back in Morningside Park