Jill's Journal: Rob got to spend the whole day with us today, which was a huge treat for both the girls and me. Years ago, he’d seen something on the Travel Channel which had always stuck with him, something called Northlandz. It was worth the drive to the left side of the state.
We started our Northlandz journey with a short train ride – the girls’ first – to the Raritan River and back. It got us in the train frame of mind for a journey through Northlandz, the world’s largest model railroad.
This place defies the imagination. It has over eight miles of track and over 52,000 square feet of model trains. Some of the sets are well over a story tall and the tallest mountain is over 30 feet high. It’s almost a mile walk just to go through this model train world, all one man's vision. There are about 400 tunnels, almost 4,500 buildings, 500,000 trees, and 200,000 pounds of plaster mountains. The amount of lumber, drywall, etc. used to build the sets is enough to build the equivalent of 40 houses. The working miniature HO scale trains have to number in the hundreds. It’s jaw-dropping.
Pictures, of course, couldn’t possibly do it justice. This image is of a portion of the control room.
While we were in the mood to be impressed, we took a short drive over to Princeton University. The town surrounding it is beautiful, but the Ivy League school is uber-beautiful. Founded pre-Revolution and one of the world’s most prestigious universities, Princeton is absolute eye candy and, again, pictures can’t do it justice.
Out of curiosity’s sake, we stopped in Princeton at Albert Einstein’s house, where he lived from 1936 until his death in 1955. The non-practicing Jew was already a Nobel Prize winner and considered one of the greatest intellectuals of all time when he moved to Princeton from Germany. He had learned the Nazis had him on their list of prime assassination targets simply because of his influence around the world as a “smart Jew.” The U.S. welcomed the father of modern physics and Princeton neighbors supposedly fondly recall him walking to the Institute of Advanced Study at the university with his shock of white hair and no socks, engrossed in scientific problems. His former home is still a private residence as he asked it not be made into a museum or shrine of any kind.
We started our Northlandz journey with a short train ride – the girls’ first – to the Raritan River and back. It got us in the train frame of mind for a journey through Northlandz, the world’s largest model railroad.
This place defies the imagination. It has over eight miles of track and over 52,000 square feet of model trains. Some of the sets are well over a story tall and the tallest mountain is over 30 feet high. It’s almost a mile walk just to go through this model train world, all one man's vision. There are about 400 tunnels, almost 4,500 buildings, 500,000 trees, and 200,000 pounds of plaster mountains. The amount of lumber, drywall, etc. used to build the sets is enough to build the equivalent of 40 houses. The working miniature HO scale trains have to number in the hundreds. It’s jaw-dropping.
Pictures, of course, couldn’t possibly do it justice. This image is of a portion of the control room.
While we were in the mood to be impressed, we took a short drive over to Princeton University. The town surrounding it is beautiful, but the Ivy League school is uber-beautiful. Founded pre-Revolution and one of the world’s most prestigious universities, Princeton is absolute eye candy and, again, pictures can’t do it justice.
Out of curiosity’s sake, we stopped in Princeton at Albert Einstein’s house, where he lived from 1936 until his death in 1955. The non-practicing Jew was already a Nobel Prize winner and considered one of the greatest intellectuals of all time when he moved to Princeton from Germany. He had learned the Nazis had him on their list of prime assassination targets simply because of his influence around the world as a “smart Jew.” The U.S. welcomed the father of modern physics and Princeton neighbors supposedly fondly recall him walking to the Institute of Advanced Study at the university with his shock of white hair and no socks, engrossed in scientific problems. His former home is still a private residence as he asked it not be made into a museum or shrine of any kind.
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