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JERSEY SHORE PLACES
Crazy for Cranberries
Touring a Bog & Stepping Through Time
by Christine Menapace
I
t is a slightly overcast day in central New Jersey,
and I'm about to check off a bucket list item: a
visit to a cranberry bog. I've grown up in New Jersey
all my life, and though I was aware my state was one
of the rare places you could visit such a site, I had
never actually done it. Of course, those Ocean Spray
commercials of two farmers standing waist deep in
stunning, scarlet red cranberries had only added fuel
to the fire. What a unique and picturesque method
of farming!
Like many Jerseyans, my home-
town is rather suburban and densely
populated. So imagine my surprise
when I book a tour of a cranberry
bog, Google the address, and real-
ize it is just an hour away. Yet as I
travel, each mile seems to clock not
just distance, but to utterly trans-
form the landscape and, seemingly,
even time. Soon I am driving in an
area of peaceful quietude and end-
less forest. Taking a diversion along
a local, unpaved bumpy "road" of
hardened sugar sand, I see no other
cars, homes, or humans. Then, much
to my astonishment, a rooster cross-
es the road in front of me! Where
the rooster came from and where
Ellen
the
Wise
