New Jersey Gas Lines Stretch for Miles and Miles

More than 1,000 New Jersey gas stations are unable to sell fuel due to power outages and delivery problems, according to the head of one of the state's gas station associations.

Sal Risalvato, executive director of the New Jersey Gasoline-Convenience-Automotive Association, which represents 1,500 stations, told us by phone that 75 percent of his members have shut down fueling.

"There's difficulty getting supply from the pipeline, to distribution centers, to the trucks, to the gas stations, and then the final hurdle, getting it into car. So there [are] difficulties along every point."

Many stations don't have power to pump gas. Those with power are pumping fuel until they run out.

Although some refineries remain shut down, they still have fuel in storage. But trucks are having trouble making it to the stations because roads remain blocked by trees and flooding.

Additionally, there are more cars on the road since many bus and train lines remain suspended.

Risalvato said none of his clients are gouging.

"There's nobody rationing. When a retailer has gas, he's pumping until he has no more."

Two separate people we talked to today, who otherwise have power, said that gasoline was their main concern, in part because it's fueling generators.

Facebook is filling up with questions about where gas can be found. On Twitter, resourceful NJ residents are using the #njgas tag to find out what gas stations are open and how long the lines are.

Gas lines over a mile long, with more than 150 cars, are now a common sight across the state. Waits are up to three hours.

Josh Brown at the Reformed Broker perfectly captures the mood:

And this morning at 6 am I got on one, sat for an hour and then saw all the cars ahead of me start to pull away. I thought I was in luck! Turns out the guy ran out of gas and was closing the station. Hilarious!

I'm not sure how much longer this can go on for...the novelty is wearing off.

On This Day in History

 Nov 2, 1947:
Spruce Goose flies



The Hughes Flying Boat—the largest aircraft ever built—is piloted by designer Howard Hughes on its first and only flight. Built with laminated birch and spruce, the massive wooden aircraft had a wingspan longer than a football field and was designed to carry more than 700 men to battle.

Howard Hughes was a successful Hollywood movie producer when he founded the Hughes Aircraft Company in 1932. He personally tested cutting-edge aircraft of his own design and in 1937 broke the transcontinental flight-time record. In 1938, he flew around the world in a record three days, 19 hours, and 14 minutes.

Following the U.S. entrance into World War II in 1941, the U.S. government commissioned the Hughes Aircraft Company to build a large flying boat capable of carrying men and materials over long distances. The concept for what would become the "Spruce Goose" was originally conceived by the industrialist Henry Kaiser, but Kaiser dropped out of the project early, leaving Hughes and his small team to make the H-4 a reality. Because of wartime restrictions on steel, Hughes decided to build his aircraft out of wood laminated with plastic and covered with fabric. Although it was constructed mainly of birch, the use of spruce (along with its white-gray color) would later earn the aircraft the nickname Spruce Goose. It had a wingspan of 320 feet and was powered by eight giant propeller engines.

Development of the Spruce Goose cost a phenomenal $23 million and took so long that the war had ended by the time of its completion in 1946. The aircraft had many detractors, and Congress demanded that Hughes prove the plane airworthy. On November 2, 1947, Hughes obliged, taking the H-4 prototype out into Long Beach Harbor, CA for an unannounced flight test. Thousands of onlookers had come to watch the aircraft taxi on the water and were surprised when Hughes lifted his wooden behemoth 70 feet above the water and flew for a mile before landing.

Despite its successful maiden flight, the Spruce Goose never went into production, primarily because critics alleged that its wooden framework was insufficient to support its weight during long flights. Nevertheless, Howard Hughes, who became increasingly eccentric and withdrawn after 1950, refused to neglect what he saw as his greatest achievement in the aviation field. From 1947 until his death in 1976, he kept the Spruce Goose prototype ready for flight in an enormous, climate-controlled hangar at a cost of $1 million per year. Today, the Spruce Goose is housed at the Evergreen Aviation Museum in McMinnville, Oregon.

Mystic, Connecticut

Mystic is a village and census-designated place in New London County, Connecticut, in the United States. The population was 4,205 at the 2010 census. A historic locality, Mystic has no independent government because it is not a legally recognized municipality in the state of Connecticut. Rather, Mystic is located within the towns of Groton (west of the Mystic River, and also known as West Mystic) and Stonington (east of the Mystic River).

Historically a leading seaport of the area, the story of Mystic's nautical connection is told at Mystic Seaport, the nation's largest maritime museum, which has preserved a number of sailing ships (most notably the whaleship Charles W. Morgan) and seaport buildings. The village is located on the Mystic River, which flows into Long Island Sound, providing access to the sea. The Mystic River Bascule Bridge crosses the river in the center of the village.Before the 17th century, the Pequot people had established an empire across southeastern Connecticut. For many years, historians believed that they migrated in the 16th century from eastern New York. Archaeological evidence showing the presence of a people who lived in an area called Gungywump, somewhat northwest of the Mystic River, now suggests that the Pequot were indigenous to southeastern Connecticut.

The Pequot built their first village overlooking the western bank of the Mystic River, called Siccanemos, in the year 1665. By that time, the Pequot were in control of a considerable amount of territory, extending toward the Pawcatuck River to the east and the Connecticut River to the west, providing them with full access to the waters. They also had supremacy over some of the most strategically located terrain. To the northwest, the Five Nations of the Iroquois dominated the land linked by the Great Lakes and the Hudson River, allowing for trading to occur between the Iroquois Nations and the Dutch. The Pequot were settled just distant enough to be secure from any danger that the Iroquois posed.


As the Europeans came closer in contact with the natives, along the coast of Cape Cod to Nova Scotia, they brought along with them diseases, such as smallpox, plague, measles and other illnesses that depopulated entire villages, killing between 55 to 95 percent of coastal people.The Narragansett tribe, who lived a considerable distance from the coast, were able to develop some resistance to European diseases, or the diseases evolved lower virulence as they were transmitted inland.

The Pequot were located between the English and the Dutch. To the east of the Pequot, the English had begun to gain bits and pieces along Massachusetts Bay during the 1620s. Relations between the Native Americans and the English remained ambiguous and rather hostile at times as Separatists from the Church of England settled on the Plymouth Plantation. Their relations, however, allowed the establishment of trade with the Plymouth colonists as far west as Narragansett Bay, if not with the Narragansett nation itself. The English eventually began to trade with the Dutch as well. Today Mystic is A major New England tourist destination, the village is home to the Mystic Aquarium & Institute for Exploration, known for its research department, concern with marine life rehabilitation, and its popular beluga whales. The business district on either side of the bascule bridge where U.S. Route 1 crosses the Mystic River contains many restaurants. Local sailing cruises are available on the traditional sailing ship Argia. Short day tours and longer evening cruises are available on the 1908 steamer Sabino departing Mystic Seaport.

The Most Haunted Place

Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Sleepy Hollow, New York, USA

Ghosts and goblins … haunted bridges … a Headless Horseman, these tales and more create the Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Washington Irving’s fact-based tale that put this Hudson Valley village on the map.

Dating back to the 1640s, Sleepy Hollow is one of the most famous haunted towns in the world. The Old Dutch Burying Ground is one of the oldest cemeteries in America and houses the graves of Irving’s models for Ichabod Crane, Brom Bones and Katrina Van Tassel.

There have been reported sightings of the Headless Horseman both at this cemetery and Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, where Irving is buried. Patriot’s Park between Sleepy Hollow and Tarrytown is said to be haunted by Major Andre, Irving’s model for the headless Hessian solider. Tours of the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery cost $15.00 and should be scheduled in advance.

Number One Creepiest Castle

Dunluce Castle in Northern Ireland

Built precariously on the edge of a cliff on the north Antrim Coast, this Norman castle has been remodeled numerous times over the ages, but former residents can’t seem to let go.

In 1586, a royal feud ensued for the castle and ended with the unfortunate hanging of the previous castle constable. This ghostly figure, dressed in a purple cloak and a ponytail wanders the Dunluce Castle tower from which he was killed.

In 1639, the kitchen collapsed into the sea, taking several servants to their grave. Today, visitors report feeling a cold chill in certain parts of the castle and staff arrives at the gift shop to find books relocated and radios blaring.

Although no one has sensed a malicious spirit among these ghosts, the idea of playful residents returning to entertain the living is downright creepy.

The Top Choice of Best Places to go for Halloween

Today being Halloween 2012 it is time to unveil the Number 1 Creepy Castle , Worlds most Haunted Place and the Best Place to Go for Halloween!! I hope you enjoyed reading these over the last few days
As much as I enjoyed Researching them and I wish You all a Happy Halloween!!!!!!!!!!

1. Mummy Museum, Guanajuato, Mexico

Their haunting faces and hollowed eye sockets will make you quake in your boots. Teeth exposed from open mouths, fingers stiffly crooked for eternity, grey skin clinging to protruding hip bones and ribs, shoes still laced on unmoving, shriveled feet… The Mummy Museum in Guanajuato will haunt you long after your return from this picturesque Mexican colonial town nestled in the hills of the highlands in Mexico. However, these mummified remains are still a mystery to this day.

The mummies were originally exhumed when families were unable to pay a burial tax due each year for deceased relatives. When a family was unable to pay the tax, the body of their relative was exhumed and put on display in the mummy museum. The puzzling part? Rather than decomposing the way bodies usually do after being buried, these corpses were naturally mummified, leaving clothes, skin and sometimes hair preserved and intact. The reason? Some hypothesize it has something to do with the mixture of minerals in the soil, some think there is something a little more paranormal going on.

Either way, after an afternoon in this creepy museum full of mummies of all shapes and sizes (there are even baby mummies that look creepily like little dolls), you are guaranteed to have the heebie jeebies.

Five things to know about Sandy

People walk through water on the beach near high tide Monday as Sandy approaches Atlantic City. 

At least five people had been killed in storm-related incidents in New York state, including three killed by trees falling on homes in Queens and in the town of New Salem, near Albany, city and state officials said. Falling trees were also blamed for three deaths reported in New Jersey and one in Connecticut, authorities there told CNN.

In West Virginia, a woman was killed in a car accident after the storm dumped 5 inches of snow on the town of Davis, said Amy Shuler Goodwin, a spokeswoman for Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin's office.

And before hitting land, it overwhelmed the sailing ship HMS Bounty, a replica of the historic British vessel, off North Carolina. Fourteen of the ship's crew of 16 were rescued, but the body of one deckhand was found Monday evening and the ship's captain was still missing Monday night, the Coast Guard said.

Sandy had already claimed at least 67 lives in the Caribbean, including 51 in Haiti.

Sandy's storm surges were boosted by a full moon, which already brings the highest tides of the month. And forecasters said the storm was likely to collide with a cold front and spawn a superstorm that could generate flash floods and snowstorms.

"It could be bad," said U.S. Coast Guard Rear Adm. Steven Rattior, "or it could be devastation."

Mass transit shut down across the densely populated Northeast, landmarks stood empty and schools and government offices were closed. The National Grid, which provides power to millions of customers, said 60 million people could be affected before it's over.

On Fire Island, off Long Island, the water rose above promenades and docks on Monday afternoon, homeowner Karen Boss said. Boss stayed on the island with her husband despite a mandatory evacuation order. She said they own several properties and a business there and had weathered previous storms.

"I'm concerned that it might come into the first floor," she said. "If that's the case, I'll just move into another house that's higher up."

Based on pressure readings, it's likely to be the strongest storm to make landfall north of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, CNN senior meteorologist Dave Hennen said. The benchmark storm, the 1938 "Long Island Express" Hurricane, contained a low pressure reading of 946 millibars; Sandy had a minimum pressure of 943 millibars. Generally speaking, the lower the pressure, the stronger the storm.

In Sea Bright, New Jersey, Yvette Cafaro scrawled a plea on the plywood that covered her burger restaurant: "Be kind to us Sandy." The seaside area largely dodged last year's Hurricane Irene, but Cafaro was not optimistic that Sea Bright would be spared Sandy.