KiKitC's VirtualTourist Home Page

Many of our friends know us as "RedRover" in reference to RedRover: our modified, red, off-road Land Rover Discovery...which we take all over the country to explore remote trails and areas.

Read about RedRover's Adventures:

New Jersey Pine Barrens is our usual muddy playground of South Jersey
Rausch Creek Off Road Park in the mountains of Pennsylvania
Montrose, CO for the National Land Rover Rally, old mining roads are spectacular, steep and exhilerating.
Outside Ouray, CO, offering trips to the heavens...
Moab, Utah...the off-road mecca of North America, in the red rocks of southern Utah.
Canyons of the Ancients, and Hovenweep National Monument remote trails to numerous ancestral Native American ruins in Southeast Utah/Southwest Colorado

Gordie and I have always had interesting hobbies, which we love to do together. But off-roading, motorcycles and paintball isn't all of what we're about. I'm also a history buff (especially Native American) and a camera shutterbug...a dangerous combination, but makes for informative pages!

We have a "Roving" lifestyle...often times on the road without specific destinations in mind, or on a "different route home". This way, we find those "Never Would Have Known" places and events. When hitting the asphalt trails, we often travel in my "mostly on-road" Rover, Nigel.

Some of our "interesting" trips:
Black Canyon of the Gunnison the Grand Canyon of Colorado
Mesa Verde National Park the most amazing cliff dwelling ruins of ancient Puebloan Indians
Bok Tower Sanctuary a tranquil repose at Florida's highest point
Any of the islands in our beautiful Hawaii
The Historic town of Lakewood, New Jersey our home now, but once home of the prominent and wealthy
San Antonio, Texas on a mission tour
Canyons of the Ancients outside Dolores, Colorado
and Hovenweep National Monument for high density of ancestral Puebloan Indian ruins

Yes, we enjoy driving our Rover off-road, but, we all have adopted the Tread Lightly attitude, one which respects and protects our environment. Following is an excerpt from the Tread Lightly.org website:

Tread Lightly! On Land

*Travel responsibly on designated roads and trails or in permitted areas.

*Respect the rights of others including private property owners and all recreational trail users, campers and others to allow them to enjoy their recreational activities undisturbed.

*Educate yourself by obtaining travel maps and regulations from public agencies, planning for your trip, taking recreation skills classes, and knowing how to use and operate your equipment safely.

*Avoid sensitive areas such as meadows, lakeshores, wetlands and streams, unless on designated routes. This protects wildlife habitat and sensitive soils from damage.

*Do your part by leaving the area better than you found it, properly disposing of waste, minimizing the use of fire, avoiding the spread of invasive species, restoring degraded areas, and joining a local enthusiast organization.

New Jersey is more than the Parkway and mobsters. So many visitors never leave the concrete jungles of North Jersey...or they drive straight through unique ecosystems and historic sites to catch the rays at our beaches. I'd like to introduce travelers to the historic, the charming...the Garden State.

If Gordie and I ever come up missing...start searching the 1.4 million acres of the New Jersey Pine Barrens. This area of unique ecology and beauty is a part of New Jersey that offers incredible historical, geological, anthropological and adrenaline adventures.

The European settlers refered to the area as "barrens" because of the sandy, acidic soils that would not cultivate crops. But, the area offered other resources, such as bog iron, clay, lumber, sphagnum moss and game. This desolate area played a pivitol role in our country's industrial and national advancement through the centuries.

New technologies, new cultivating techniques, new industries, the pines raised them all. This "barren" expanse of land played a pivotal role in our country's independence and strength...The bog iron found here was used to craft cannons and cannon balls for use in the revolutionary and civil wars. 2 large munitions factories were built here in 1918 for World War I, including the largest in the country at the time.

A Pennsylvania investor...owning a large portion of the land in the 1800s, had plans to dam all the streams, flood the pines and pipe that water to Philadelphia. Luckily, the New Jersey Legislature would not allow that, and Wharton had to change his plans for the area. Eventually, the land was obtained by the State of New Jersey, this becoming Wharton State Forest.

The pine barrens is also the home of the cultivated cranberry and blueberry industries...did you know the plastic wrap that covers produce in the stores started with a blueberry cultivator here...in the pines?

Crowleytown the home of mason jar...now a ghost town...

I wish to share a history of the New Jersey Pine Barrens, offering a virtual tour of the many ghost towns of abandoned industries throughout the centuries as well as the folk stories that accompany this unique area.

Begin your tour here...at Atsion, a famous bog ironworks, which eventually saw ruin...another wonderful stop is to the Village of Allaire, a restored iron village with period demonstrations of iron work and other 18th century crafts.

Gordie and I became clowns as a service project for Kiwanis International. (not because a judge made him do it...) Our first "gig" was a walkathon for autism awareness. We had a profound effect on the children, almost every child came right out of their shells to visit with this bouncing, squeaking, cartoon character come to life...

But, it's not the children at the hospital, or the autistic children at carnivals...the person that gets the most out of the experience is me...
My husband, who doesn't bounce quite like he used to, told me often that when he put the clown makeup on and became "OhNo" he could bend down to the kids level and dance around, and his arthritis was non-existant. I couldn't relate to that until the accident. It's true. While I sit here and type, my hand is screaming with pain, but, iy's all part of my therapy. But, when I'm clowning, the pain isn't there, my fingers all move just the way they should, and "all is right with the world."

June 2005

I spent a year planning our first trip to Hawaii. The Kiwanis International Convention was in Honolulu that year. But really, if you are going half-way across the world for a trip, you want to stay, explore and enjoy. So, we planned 15 days to explore three islands: Maui, Oahu and the Big Island.

We purchased our own snorkel gear, packed the hiking gear and flew 10.5 hours non-stop from Newark to Honolulu. This would be the trip that changes my life forever. Just the second day of our trip, a freak accident almost took our lives.

It's an ancient native belief that if you face death, and are scared during the ordeal, a piece of your soul remains in that spot until you come back to reclaim it. Thus, I need to get back to Maui...I have a lot to say to the mountain that tried to kill us.

Love to ride motorcycles? Maybe you're tired of the same old scenery?

What a deal!! Fly to your destination and rent a Harley for the day. Ride all day, give the bike back full of bugs and road dirt, and the best part...let them clean it.

Fly and Rides have offered some of the best rides I've ever taken. What's the top rides of my life?

Hands down, Maui The scenery is unparalleled...we rode along the west coast, stopping at one gorgeous overlook after another. We did not get a chance to ride the Hana, but someday I will be back...in a Jeep.

The second best from Austin and rented a bike to ride through the hill country. We rode the hill country, to New Braunfels, around the "Devil's Backbone" and north towards Enchanted Rock. (too much rain kept us from reaching that sacred spot.) Simply...this is like riding a rollercoaster through a John Wayne movie.