Back in the early 2000's, I had a pretty large group of friends that would head off to different Weird NJ hot spots. There were 7 of us including me, and we traversed the NJ countryside in a big red Volkswagen hippie van that we called the Shaggin' Wagon, although no shagging ever took place in it.
Anyway, one night we decide to hit Clinton Road on my own suggestion. We had been meaning to go for a while, and we had all read the special issue WNJ released on the road. So we pile in the van and head off to what we hoped would be an adventure.
It had taken us about an hour and a half to get there, and I believe we passed it a few times, but eventually we made our way onto the then dirt road that would take us miles into darkness.
Now we weren't content to merely drive on this road, so at some point we rounded a bend and pulled off onto the dirt shoulder to park the van and get out for some exploring. Would we find victims left behind by the Iceman? A gathering of hooded klansmen or satanists making sacrifice? It was all so exciting.
We each take a flashlight and start walking down the road for a bit. That's when we get blasted with headlights coming from the opposite direction. In seconds a state trooper is parked right near us, shining his spotlight.
"What the hell you guys think you're doing?"
"Sorry officer, we're just taking a look around, just walking."
"What do you expect to find out here?" And at this point he's over by us and asking us for IDs.
"We read about it in Weird New Jersey, just wanted to come see if we ran into anything."
Then he seemed to get kind of angry, shone his flashlight on my friend who had spoken, "There's not a god damn thing out here." We all got quiet until he handed us our IDs back. We ended up talking to him a little, he was friendly enough, but acting a bit sketchy the whole time, like he was trying to straddle the line between being a hard ass and making small talk with a bunch of 17 year olds. Somehow we got on the topic of his recent divorce, I don't even remember how the conversation lead there. Anyway finally he says, "Alright, get back to your car, and don't let me catch you down this road again."
And that was that. The end of our Clinton road trip where nothing was really weird except for the trooper.