Blog

I have been meaning to start this blog for a while now — fall of 2019 to be exact. The ideas have floated around for years, never really landing on anything solid. The only thing that stuck was that I wanted to write about my home state of New Jersey. The specifics shifted over time. Originally, I wanted to focus on local lore and history — ghost stories, legends, odd towns, and long-forgotten moments tucked away in the corners of the Garden State. That will still be part of the focus, but this blog will also cover what’s happening in New Jersey today, especially in Monmouth and Ocean counties. Those are the areas I know best, and the places where most of my life has played out.

Since 2019, life has changed in more ways than I could’ve guessed. I met my now wife, Brianna, we got married, and recently bought a house together. We both moved from Monmouth County down into the middle of Ocean County. The difference between the two counties is noticeable — almost like crossing into another version of New Jersey entirely. Ocean County sits straight on top of the Pine Barrens, one of the most unique ecosystems in the state, stretching across over a million acres of forests, wetlands, and ghost stories. You might even remember the Pine Barrens from that Sopranos episode — halfway between wilderness and suburbia, where you can lose cell service and find yourself wondering what’s out there.

Growing up, I spent time camping and hiking through the Pines with the Boy Scouts. The legend of the Jersey Devil was always close behind us — told and retold around a hundred campfires. One year, a group of us even went on a “Jersey Devil tour” led by one of the scout dads, who claimed to know where the creature had last been seen. The two things I still remember from that walk are cutting off the circulation in my dad’s hand from holding on too tight, and the story about the “red trees.” Their bark, so the tale went, had been stained by the blood of the Devil’s victims. Supposedly, the FBI even took a sample for testing — or at least, that’s how the story was told around the fire.

Whether truth or myth, that’s part of what makes New Jersey fascinating to me. Beneath all the highways, diners, and shore traffic, there’s an older story running underneath. Legends live just under the surface here — from the Pine Barrens to Mount Holly, which held its own witch trials back in the late 1600s. Every town seems to have a mystery or a bit of forgotten history waiting to be uncovered.

That’s what I want this blog to be — part travel journal, part history book, part collection of stories. Some posts might dive into folklore like the Jersey Devil; others might focus on small towns, roadside landmarks, or what’s changing across the state I’ve always called home.

If nothing else, it’ll be a way to finally put all these thoughts and stories into words — and maybe help others see the Jersey I see: strange, layered, and endlessly interesting.