Looking for something different to do with the kids?  Well located in Toms River New Jersey is a really neat little place, although some people may find it a bit creepy crawly.  Insectropolis is completely filled with bugs, but in a good way I guess.

The outside doesn’t do this place justice, but as soon as you walk in you are transported into a bug-themed city.  There are thousands of bugs on display both alive and not but beautifully displayed with a lot of detailed information.

They do also offer a learning session that also includes the change to touch some unique bugs like large millipedes, beetles and of course a tarantula.  I will be honest I’m not much of a bug person especially spiders so I kept my distance but there were many people much braver (and younger) than I that couldn’t get enough of the bugs.

After you have had your fill of  bugs there is a penny machine located right inside the main door.  No admission is required to use the machine so if you are squeamish and not up to seeing the bugs you I guarantee you the machine is in a bug free zone.

The machine pressed 4 designs.  They did press a little short but the designs still appeared mostly complete.  The designs were: Monarch Butterfly, Ladybird Beetle, Emperor Scorpion, and a Tarantula.

These pennies are also knows an mules as they also had a back stamp on each coin.  The back stamp listed “Ozane’s bugseum of New Jersey”.  I’m not sure if this was the original name of the place or not but either way still pretty cool.

Whether you’re an entomology fan, or just trying to face your fears (One of these days I’ll touch the Spider…nah who am I kidding) I’m almost positive your kids will love it.  They also offer birthday parties and an overnight sleepover for the truly brave.  Or just run in and press the pennies, I won’t think any less of you as I would probably do the same more often than not.

Just the other day I had to take a trip up to northern New Jersey to visit a government building as the next required step in getting my American Citizenship.  For those of you that may not know I’m originally from Canada and relocated to the States almost 20 years ago.  So we figured it was about time to finally take the plunge, but unfortunately it is an extremely slow process.  Anyways, after my appointment to get fingerprinted I had the rest of the day off from work so I figured I would stop by and acquire a new set of pressed pennies from a place I had never been to before.

Located in Columbia, NJ is a place called Camp Taylor Campground.  This place is located up in the mountains and it did put my car to the test driving up some pretty steep climbs.  But once I arrived I could see why this is a popular place to come and camp.  However one thing did make me a little nervous about potentially camping here in the future.

It is also home to the Lakota Wolf Preserve.  Unfortunately I didn’t have much time so I couldn’t go and see exactly what it was all about.  From what I read off their webpage they offer guide tours to see wild wolves in their natural habitat.  Hopefully they don’t come too close to the campsites, but I’m sure that has been well planned out in advance.  Anyways, as I pulled in off the main road I parked outside the main store.

It’s set up almost like an old fashion general store, and I was immediately greater upon entering.  I said I had just stopped in to use the penny machine.  The nice woman there asked if I needed any shiny pennies for the machine which was very generous and something I don’t experience too often when using the machines.  I thanked her but explained I had come prepared with my own.

The machine was located right inside the front door of the store.  This place had a lot of stuff for same and wasn’t big on space, but when rolling pennies you don’t need much room.  The machine worked very smoothly which isn’t surprised as I was also told that machine had just recently been services.

Each coin pressed with a bit of a tail on each one but the designs still appears without too much distortion.  The found designs included: A Camp Site Scene, A Bear, A Wolf Howling in the Woods, and a Wolf Face.

The back of each design had information about the camp.  It said “Camp Taylor Campground Columbia, NJ” and also listed their website www.camptaylor.com.  This was the third campground I have visited that has had a penny machine.  There was of course a few machines in Florida at Disney’s Fort Wilderness Campground, and another near Gettysburg, PA that I will write about at another time.  We used to camp a lot when I was a kid, and now that I have a little one of my own once she’s a little older  I’ll definitely be taking her out of the city to the great outdoors.  Maybe we  can catch a glimpse of some wildlife and you never know maybe another penny machine.

With a recent afternoon to myself I decided to take a quick trip down to Camden New Jersey to check out a piece of history I’ve been wanting to check out for a long time.  After about a 45 minute drive south on 295 I arrived at the recently renovated Camden Waterfront that includes the Adventure Aquarium, the Camden Riversharks minor league baseball team, and the Children’s Garden.  But what I was here for was the huge battleship The USS New Jersey also knows as the “Big J”.

The USS New Jersey (BB-62) is an Iowa-Class Battleship.  It’s 887 feet (270.54 meters) in length, has a beam (width) of 108.2 feet (33.0 meters), a displacement of 58,000 tons, and had a crew of over 1,900 sailors.  It was launched in 1942 and served in World War II, The Korean War, The Vietnam War, and the Lebanese Civil War.  The battleship was decommissioned for the final time in 1991 after serving a total of 21 years in the active fleet.  In 2000 it was announced that the USS New Jersey would become a museum located at its final resting place on the Camden Waterfront.

Whew, now with all technical background out of the way let me say this is really an amazing ship (Sorry in advance as I’ll probably say that a few more times).  Before I actually went aboard there was a penny machine available right outside the gift shop on the dock.  You do not need to pay any admission to use the machine, but if you make the trip here I would highly recommend spending the money and taking the tour.

As you would assume the designs on the pennies incorporate the battleship in them.  The machine as shown above is a 4 design hand crank model.

The designs include:  Battleship New Jersey The Big “J”, BB-62 Firepower for Freedom Shield, United States Navy emblem, WWII / Korea / Vietnam.

With the pennies in my pocket I was ready to climb aboard the ship.  There are  two different tours you can take.  There is a self guided tour which I opted for just due to a limited amount of time I had available that afternoon.  But there is a guided tour available which is usually given by a very knowledgeable Veteran which gives a lot of personal insight of what it was like on the Battleship.

The self guided tour is done by following a special colored light painted on the deck of the ship and takes you in through all the different areas of the ship.  Each area has a ton of information and historical pictures available to give you more details about what it was like on board.

In the crew quarters you get a sense of how the more than 1,900 sailors were all packed into this ship.  It really is a huge floating city, but was hard to imagine that many people on all at once.  Luckily I was only there with about 20 other people and it was still pretty cramped walking through the different areas.

Above is a picture of the mess deck that fed the crew.  As you can see there was very little space that wasn’t used for some purpose.

Last up was the Captains in port quarters.  This was apparently mostly used for entertaining purposes, but gives a very interesting perspective of life on the USS New Jersey.  After my experience here I really want to head into New York and check out the USS Intrepid.  I may even come back and take the guided tour just to get some more details about what it was like to serve on this amazing Battleship.