Sourland Mountain Preserve

 

As when I lived in Ossining I sometimes take walks in nearby parks on weekends weather permitting.  In general I liked the trails in the Ossining area better than the ones around Princeton.  One problem with New Jersey is that the trails can get muddy.  However I have found some satisfactory places to walk near my new home.  Recently I have been venturing a bit further afield including to the Sourland Mountain Preserve which according to google maps is 23 minutes from my house.  A trail map can be found here.

I have mixed feelings about this park.  The trails have a lot of rocks and exposed roots which can make hiking unpleasant.  In addition while you are walking up a mountain (or what in New Jersey passes for a mountain) with several hundred feet of elevation gain the area is heavily wooded so for the most part the views aren't very good.  There is one exception, a natural gas pipeline cuts through the park and the right of way has been cleared of trees.  This leads to some good views including one on a clear day of the New York City skyline which is about 40 miles away.

Referring to the trail map linked above starting from right-hand-side of the parking lot the skyline view can reached by following the trails through the points labelled 1,2,3,C,4,5.  Then looking downhill on a clear day the NYC skyline can be seen from the right-hand-side of the cleared area where the bench is.  It is on the horizon beyond the nearby white domed building.  It is then an easy albeit a little steep in places walk down the pipeline cut back to the parking lot (through locations labelled C,13,TH). 

I took photo Sunday, May 7, from near the bench.   I used a cheap Canon camera which does however have a telephoto lens.  Photos taken using my phone or my camera without using the telephoto feature didn't show the skyline very well.  The photo is about what you can see with the naked eye.  I also had a pair of binoculars which gave a better view.  The big tall building above the center of the white dome is One World Trade Center (aka the Freedom Tower).  This was a relatively clear day, I have been there on two other days when the skyline was just an indistinct smudge on the horizon although still visible if you knew exactly where to look.

2022 Taxes

Hopefully I am now done with my 2022 state and federal income taxes.  I received a refund check from New Jersey last Wednesday, May 17, and deposited it Friday.  As usual I did my taxes using the TurboTax Deluxe program.   Intuit (publisher of the TurboTax programs) tries to upsell more expensive versions of the program but I have always found the Deluxe version to be sufficient.  I filed the returns a few days early on April 12.  I submitted the federal return electronically shortly after midnight and mailed the NJ return on the way to work.  TurboTax tells you to expect to wait 24-48 hours to receive conformation that your return was accepted but in recent years I have gotten a federal confirmation in just a few minutes.  38 minutes this year.  I always mail my New Jersey return because TurboTax charges a fee to file it electronically.

I owed a considerable amount on the federal return.  This was largely because I had some US savings bonds come due (reach final maturity after 30 years) last year.  Tax on savings bond interest is deferred until the bonds are redeemed which is nice but means a big bill when they finally come due.  And the income is considered ordinary and doesn't receive the favorable tax treatment capital gains and dividends do.  Of course I knew the bonds were going to come due and had increased my estimated tax payments but not as it turned out by enough.  I still got a New Jersey refund because savings bond interest (like all interest paid by the federal government) is exempt from state taxes.

I didn't have any major issues with the program.  The handling of state income refunds is no longer a problem as Trump's changes to the tax laws mean I now take the standard deduction and don't deduct state income tax.  Although I live in a blue state the essential elimination of the deduction for state income tax hasn't hurt me because I had been paying the alternative minimum tax which didn't allow this deduction.