Christmas night, 1776. George Washington rolled the dice on a stormy night and launched the march on Trenton and the 10 days that saved the American Revolution.
November 2026. Fall is still hanging on and the sun is shining. Time for a bike ride along the Delaware River.
It’s actually a section of the the D&R Canal on the New Jersey side and the Delaware Canal on the Pennsylvania side.
We began at Washington Crossing State Park (that’s the one on the NJ side) and headed north on the “feeder” portion of the D&R Canal, through Lambertville and Stockton before opting to turn back at Prallsville Mills and crossing the Delaware in Stockton.
The last of lovely fall colors.
The obsession with putting locks on bridges reaches the D&R Canal.
In Stockton:
The last signs of Halloween. Nearby, the bare white tree trunks and branches created their own skeletons.
We’d been to this brewery years ago. The cheese shop is new, at least to us.
Then it was time for Pennsylvania. The D&L Trail is crazy long, stretching from Bristol, just outside Philadelphia, through Washington Crossing Historic Park, New Hope all the way to Easton, left to Allentown and right through Jim Thorpe to Black Diamond. One day it should reach Wilkes-Barre.
This after crossing the Delaware. Do I really have to walk my bike down the stairs? Yes.
Sadly, you always have to check the D&L website for construction updates. That’s why we didn’t stay in New Jersey until Frenchtown and cross near where we once came across a polo match. Still, we hit one about a mile south of New Hope. Rather than turn back, we opted to ride on the road for almost 1.5 miles. Midday on a Monday in November = light traffic.
North of Washington Crossing Historic Park is the Soldiers Graves area, for those who died of disease and cold and were buried just before the fateful crossing. I counted 23 gleaming white gravestones; only one had a name.
Sometimes the path gets really narrow. Be careful when passing someone, or you might tumble down the banks. Here’s the canal on one side (left side looking north); the Delaware River is on the right side.
That photo was taken shortly before I came across a deer blocking the trail. I couldn’t get him to wait for me to get my camera out. But here he is in the brush:
At Washington Crossing Historic Park, a man was working on a Durham boat, a replica of the kind that carried George and his troops across the Delaware. The rehearsal of the reenactment is a month away, on Dec. 13, followed by the real thing on Dec. 25.
Back to New Jersey. Sadly, the new visitors center at Washington Crossing State Park is still not open. The Pennsylvania park is about to debut a new film about the crossing at its visitors center. Will the NJ one open in time for the 250th anniversary?
In all, about 21.5 miles.
