[Journal entry for May 16, 2015; Batsto River, Wharton State Forest, New Jersey] My friend Lee Reiser organized a kayak trip down the Batsto River. A group of us, numbering about sixteen, met at Batsto Village, a historic restoration in Batsto (from the Swedish Bad Stad, meaning bath town) New Jersey, on the southern edge of Wharton State Forest in the Pine Barrens. We took a tour of the site, first watching a film and then taking a tour of the mansion led by John, a historian on their staff. We then wandered around the village, inspecting the mill, stables and general store. We sighted a bullfrog and a turtle in the millpond. We passed a pile of bog iron ore, limonite that was mined from the river bottoms and smelted into metal in the long-defunct furnaces that marked the start of the industrial era in southern New Jersey. We then dropped some cars off at the Lake Batsto canoe launch and headed north to our launch point at Quaker Bridge. Dallas and I had volunteered to wait at Atsion (pronounced at-sign) Ranger Station for one of our party who had been delayed by having gotten stuck in sand. I walked around the area, taking a quick look at Atsion Lake and its spillway, an old mansion, ruins of a concrete building, and a burned-out section of forest. We then drove several miles down the unpaved and sandy Quaker Bridge Road to the launch by the bridge and met the rest of our party. I launched the Otter that Lee had lent me and Dallas launched her new Pelican Trailblazer, a nine-foot long fishing kayak. The river was flowing moderately strongly. Its level was a least two feet lower than when Lee and I paddled it in the fall. The afternoon was warm and partly sunny. We had a good time paddling down this narrow, meandering stream and dodging the occasional snag. The trees in the Pine Barrens include evergreens such as Pitch Pine and Atlantic White Cedar and deciduous trees including Red Maple. The maples were completely leafed out and sported clusters of polynoses. Small white flowers bloomed on the riverbank. I mostly paddled in the rear, together with Bob Anderson, who was paddling a Folbot folding kayak. We had lunch on the same sandbank where Lee and I had stopped in the fall. A family with small children had driven there on one of the woods roads and their kids swam in the river. I switched boats with Bob after lunch. The Folbot handled well, but I could feel the extra drag of its fabric hull when I went fast. We arrived at the Batsto Lake canoe launch about five and a half hours after leaving Quaker Bridge. After retrieving our cars from Quaker Bridge, some of us had dinner at Pic-A-Lilli Inn, ooff Route 206 in Shamong NJ. It was a fun day but a long one. Dallas and I had left our Tappan NY home at 6AM and did not return until about 1AM.