June Jumps Into Jersey ...

“… June is bustin’ out all over!

All over the meadow and the hill

Buds’re bustin’ outa bushes

And the rompin’ river pushes

Ev’ry little wheel that wheels

Beside a mill …

Because it’s June!...”

       ~ “June is Bustin’ Out All Over”

      ~ from Rodgers & Hammerstein’s “Carousel,” one of my very favorite musicals

                ~ 1956

The beautiful month of June is bustin’ out all over the historic town of Phillipsburg, New Jersey, with boaters on the Delaware River enjoying the picture-perfect postcard day of June 1, 2024.

To the left, the historic Northampton Street Bridge, commonly called the Free Bridge, can be seen from my vantage point across the river at Delaware Canal State Park, Easton, Pennsylvania near the Forks of the Delaware Trailhead of the Delaware and Lehigh National Heritage Corridor (D&L Trail). The iconic Jimmy’s Hot Dog Stand can be seen to the right of the bridge.

The Free Bridge that spans the two states was completed in 1896 and survived massive flooding from Hurricane Diane in 1955. It underwent a thorough restoration in 1990 and is one of my very favorite places to photograph.

New programmable LED lights were installed as part of a bridge rehabilitation/improvement project that spanned from late 2021 until spring 2023. The bridge is colloquially referred as the “Free Bridge” to distinguish it from the Easton-Phillipsburg Toll Bridge (previously the Bushkill Street Bridge), a short distance upstream.

Phillipsburg was established March 8, 1861 and was named for William Phillips, an early settler of the area.

Running from Wilkes-Barre to Bristol, the D&L Trail passes through the Lehigh and Delaware rivers and their canals in Pennsylvania.

 

Safe Passage ...

“My home is in Heaven. I’m just traveling through this world.”

   ~ Billy Graham

   ~ 1918-2018

 ~ American evangelist, prominent evangelical Christian figure, and ordained Southern Baptist minister who became well-known internationally in the late 1940s. One of his biographers has placed him “among the most influential Christian leaders” of the 20^th century.

I spotted this “Jesus 2024” sign in front of Friedens United Church of Christ, Slatington, Pennsylvania and had to stop to photograph this uplifting sight as a car sped by on Route 873 on a late May evening in this election year.

In these tumultuous times especially, it is a reminder that when all else is failing, Jesus is still there for us, and a powerful reminder of the hope that Jesus brings as we travel through this world.

 

Mirrored ...

“Faith is the bird that feels the light when the dawn is still dark.”

               ~ Rabindranath Tagore

                  ~ 1861 ~ 1941

 

Perched on the banks of the Coplay Creek, a beautiful male North American Cardinal gazes upon his reflection on an April evening along the Ironton Rail Trail, which loops more than nine miles through Whitehall Township, the Borough of Coplay and North Whitehall Township, Pennsylvania.

The Ironton Railroad was a shortline railroad in Lehigh County. Originally built in 1861 to haul iron ore and limestone to blast furnaces along the Lehigh River, traffic later shifted to carrying Portland Cement when local iron mining declined in the early 20^th century. Much of the railroad had already been abandoned when it became part of Conrail in 1976, and the last of its trackage was removed in 1984.

 

In 1996, Whitehall Township purchased 9.2 miles of the right-of-way from Conrail, transforming it into the Ironton Rail Trail.