“There was an old woman who lived in a shoe…”

Pic o’ the Month:  Haines Shoe House, PA
Quote o’ the Month: There Was an Old Woman who Lived in a Shoe

Welcome to the Wanderer, a site about ghost towns, abandoned places, places with little known or forgotten history, roadside curiosities, and the occasional tourist trap. We deal primarily with southern New Jersey and the Pine Barrens, but we are now based in the Poconos and learning our way around Pennsylvania. Over the past few years, we’ve been slowly expanding and covering more area, going as far north as New England and as far west as Indiana.
Feel free to browse the 200+ places I’ve visited and photographed.

May 3, 2012:

Finally, an update.  Working on a museum exhibit and writing a 31 page thesis on Lizzie Borden took up much of the past 4 months.

Anyway, this month we have a ghost town/abandoned military munitions town in Pennsylvania and a hermit’s bunker in North Carolina.

Ghost town of Alvira, Pennsylvania
Fort Fisher and the Hermit’s Bunker, North Carolina

Because this is the first summer I’ll have off in 3 years, updates should hopefully be somewhat frequent again … until student teaching kicks in this fall.

January 24, 2012:

Made a couple day trips back in May of random things in PA.  This month we have another mine disaster site, a large pothole, and the apparent offspring of George Washington and the Great Sphinx.

Sheppton Mine Disaster
Archbald Pothole
Washington Rock

In case you missed it, because my timing is bad and I chose to update between Christmas and New Year’s last month, I also posted a few things from Niagara Falls.

December 27, 2011:

Hey!  New stuff!  Only took 5 1/2 months.  Part 2 of our Niagara Falls trip from last year is now up.

Maid of the Mist (with video!)
Journey Behind the Falls (with video!)
Cave of the Winds
Flying Saucer Restaurant

As of this update, we’re now international (barely).  Have a few things from Quebec that will be posted sometime in the near future as well.

Hope everyone had a good holiday.

October 3, 2011:

On vacation for the week.  Heading to the 1000 Islands and Quebec.

September 2, 2011:

Running behind on the Niagara Falls stuff.  Just finished up a summer semester and immediately jumped into fall semester.  15 credits of history = nothing but reading for the next few months.  Will update when possible.

On a side note, I have been collaborating with Toms River Patch on a project that aims to find something significant in the town’s history from every day of the year.  I believe so far we have 10/366 days done.  Still wondering how February 29th is going to pan out.

July 13, 2011:

In addition to yesterday’s update, my newest Patch article was just posted.

Did Al Capone hide out in the Royal Pines Hotel?

July 12, 2011:

Part 1 of our New York/Ontario trip back in October.  This month, we’ll be looking at the places we went to before heading to the Niagara Falls area – The World’s Smallest Church and Lockport Cave, both in New York.

Oh yeah, at the bottom of each page, you can now Facebook like, Google +1, Tweet, or Stumble Upon.  Hope I said that right.

June 14, 2011:

And here we are.  Only 2 weeks late or so.  Vacation will do that to you.

Last summer, the Mrs. and I took a day trip to 2 places in southern PA I’d been meaning to get to for a while – Indian Echo Caverns and the Shoe House.

Will have things from new areas in the forthcoming months, including the Carolinas and… Ontario?

May 31, 2011:

Hi, folks.  Still on vacation.  Just sharing the fact that my newest Patch article is up – The Mystery of Ten Mile Hollow.

May 28, 2011:

On vacation in NC & SC for 10 days or so.  Update coming when we get back.  Should hopefully have another Patch article out fairly soon as well.

April 27, 2011:

Final projects and exams are simultaneously bombarding me, so here is a quick little update – Hopewell Furnace in PA.  Went there this past August but never got around to posting it.  Next update will be more substantial.

March 21, 2011:

I made a small road trip to a few places in New Jersey I’ve been meaning to get to for quite some time now.  Haven’t added anything from NJ for a long time, so I figured I’d take a break from Pennsylvania this update.  We have the Alexander Hamilton/Aaron Burr duel site and Henry Hudson Springs this month.  With this update, every county in NJ is now represented.  Only took 10 years…

In addition, my latest Patch article, The Battle of Toms River, is also hot off the press.

And once again, there is a Facebook fan page for the site.  If you have a Facebook (and really, who doesn’t, my great-grand aunt has one), be sure to add it.

January 24, 2011:

Mentioned something about a news column in my last update.  Today the first article went up.  The column is on Patch, a nationwide news source.  For now, I’ll be doing a few articles for Toms River but am hoping to write some for other parts of Ocean County and possibly even the rest of New Jersey as well.  Unfortunately, Patch isn’t set up in northeastern PA yet, but when it is I’ll hopefully be contributing to that.
First article can be found here.

January 18, 2011:

Wow, another update!  I figured I’d post this before I become too involved with spring semester and forget to update for 4 months again.  This month we’re going underground with both Crystal Cave and Lost River Caverns.

I have somewhat of an online news column; I’ll mention more about that later.

In the off chance an editor or publisher who deals with Pennsylvania happens to read this and is interested in the site content, please feel free to contact me regarding my next book.  I’d like to avoid the tedious “sending out proposals and waiting to be rejected over and over” thing if possible.  I doubt it.

December 27, 2010:

Over 4 months later, an update.  Updated the Cape May WWII Watchtower page.  The tower’s now open to the public.

In PA, we have another mine disaster, Avondale.

August 12, 2010:

Stayed local for this update.

Who is Beth Doe?  30 years later, nobody knows.
And yet another abandoned building in Hazleton.

July 13, 2010:

Roadside silliness in Wilkes-Barre.  Giant mugs and cows!

May 13, 2010:

With the semester over and vacation a week away, I figured I’d finally post a place I’ve been putting off for almost a year – Fort Mifflin in Philadelphia.  I went there last August, I believe, but for whatever reason kept delaying posting it.

April 16, 2010:

Small and admittedly rushed update.  Been fairly busy with the semester and working 2 jobs.  Figured 2 1/2 months was long enough without anything new.

Glen Onoko “Turn Hole” Tunnel, PA

Upcoming updates will be more involved.  I have some good stuff lined up.

Til next time.

February 1, 2010:

New England Part 2.  All Rhode Island:

Block Island Indian Cemetery
Mohegan Bluffs on Block Island
Newport’s Cliff Walk

I’ve noticed the Pennsylvania pages lately have been the most popular.  Fret not, more PA stuff will be on the way.

Spring semester is in full force, and I’m also in the process of attempting to get my (hopefully) upcoming book out to publishers, so updates might be slow for a bit.  In the meantime, feel free to add the site’s Facebook fan page.
Because lots of fans is a great measure of self-worth.

December 28, 2009:

This is Part 1 of our New England trip.  This batch is all from Massachusetts; next time is Rhode Island.

Ghost town of Dogtown
Mayflower II
Plymouth Rock
Pine Ridge Pet Cemetery

November 6, 2009:

And here you are.  An update.  Really.  Not as big as I had planned, but that just means there’ll be more for next month.

Rock Garden of America, NC – hokey roadside stop
And the Old Jail Museum in Jim Thorpe, PA

October 1, 2009:

Well, I was going to try and have an update for September done yesterday, but with midterms, observation hours, and other college goodness, it wasn’t meant to be.  Plus I felt an update would have been rushed and half-assed, so I’m just going to hold off until I have more time and not try to stick to imaginary update schedules.

This upcoming week we’re going on vacation, so perhaps after that I’ll have some new things posted.

August 26, 2009:

Back in May, I took a 2-day trip to Rhode Island.  I toured a mansion in Newport and took the ferry to Block Island, where I rode a tandem bike for the first time ever.  During all that, I came across a few noteworthy places:

Touro Park’s “Viking Tower”
Ocean View Hotel Ruins on Block Island
Old Stone House Ruins in Scarborough State Park

July 10, 2009:

This update is all PA.  A ghost town, an abandoned amusement park, and ruins surrounded by local legends this time around:

Rausch Gap
Angela Park
Devil’s Hole Ruins

June 18, 2009:

Got this up quicker than I imagined.  Since I have things from as far back as February that still haven’t been posted, I’m posting 3 new places this month:

Duffy’s Cut
Stockton Mine Disaster
Knox Mine Disaster

I’m also posting somewhat of a photo tour of the Seaside Heights boardwalk, pre-Memorial Day.  This was kind of a trip down Memory Lane for me as well as proof that one of the most popular Jersey Shore destinations is pretty dead for most of the year.

June 15th, 2009:

Well, here is the site revamp.  Took over a month and a half and we had to rebuild every page.  Hope everyone likes it and sees it as an improvement; we sure do.  So go browse, comment, explore.

Will be posting a few new places later this month; I have quite a bit in queue.

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