I've been too busy with baseball to update. Sorry. And I wanted to put in this entry, from last Wednesday, on, well, Wednesday, but I obviously never got around to it. So here it is. Hopefully this week I can get back to something more timely.

I've wanted to find Mt. Precipice, the fictional "mountain" near Stuckeyville from my most favorite Ed episode ever, for quite a while now. I found out from Virtual Stuckeyville that the final scenes from the episode were filmed at Ramapo Mountain State Park in northern New Jersey, but I'd never made the time to head up there. So Wednesday, in need of a quiet day to myself somewhere more quiet than Edgewater or Little Silver, I took advantage of the warmer weather and made the drive out to Passaic County.

The park actually straddles Passaic and Bergen counties, the latter now where I live. I took River Road up to the George Washington Bridge (though didn't take the bridge) and got on Route 4 west and took two other highways before pulling into the unpaved parking lot of the park. In the corner of the lot, where the trees stood, the trail began, and it did look like the spot where Ed got out of his truck and started running up the trail.

Knowing that there were probably several trails and more than one peak where the scenes could have been shot, I was content to just find one that looked like it might be it. It wasn't important to me on this trip to find the Mt. Precipice. I started up the trail, following the blue-marked path up through the woods and along a creek, which I had to cross by stepping on dry rocks at one point, but it was only about five feet wide.

Soon I saw just below me down the hill the dam at the lake I'd seen on the maps and heard the voices of a family with several kids. Knowing that the lake wouldn't take me any higher, I decided to follow the paved road I'd come across. I figured that might be how the film crews got the equipment to the top.

Bad idea. I took the road up to the top -- where two houses and private property signs and a cell tower ruined it all. Turning back, I was passed by a Pathfinder (going a little faster than I would've liked, since I was walking on the narrow road) that pulled into one of the driveways.

Back down the paved road, I crossed the dam and followed the dirt road partway around the lake. Not knowing how long it would take to circle the whole lake, I take a few steps off the path down to the shoreline and sit on a rock, my feet dangling over the water.

It is quiet. Calm and comfortable.

I look across the lake at people walking on the other side. I look out at the houses, both those on the hill I'd passed earlier and one along the shore where the woman -- a large one at that -- who lives there is out on her deck in an orange coat, talking on a cordless phone, and I can hear her from where I sit. But other than that, I'm soothed by the calm quiet. I hear only the wind and the water, lapping against the rocks.

I get up and am ready to walk back down to the car, but before I recross the dam I decide to turn up a side trail, one that appears to climb the hill to a peak not far off. It gets steep at times but as I climb higher and reach a point where the trees above me are not as dense as those below, I feel the breeze coming from the windward side of the mountain. I climb faster and soon I am at the exposed rock of the peak and I scramble up one final ridge and onto the mountaintop, as tiny as it is.

Aaahhh -- now this was worth it. It might not be the Mt. Precipice, but it's close enough. My own open granite perch, the hills and trees and the lake below me. I'm higher than I realized and I love it. I have it all to myself. I could spend the entire afternoon up here -- had I not left my sandwich and Gatorade in the car. I can hear the cards in the distance -- probably on I-80, which I think is the highway I see -- but I can block them out. It's the breeze, mostly, and the birds and bugs I hear. If the view faced a different way, if I faced east instead of west, I'd be able to see New York. It's that clear.

I can see the planes in the cloudless blue sky -- those high above and leaving contrails and those lower, on their approach to Newark.

Satisfied with my conquest, I descend, passing a gaggle of high school girls sitting on the dam. One talks on her cell phone, apparently arranging to be picked up at the parking lot. They overtake me on the way down, so I step aside and look at the rushing water of the creek over a rock on the hillside. By the time I reach the lot, they've scrambled into a minivan and are leaving. Rather than return to Edgewater, I head further north and spend a little time walking the grounds of Ringwood Manor, a former homestead and center of an iron-working community. The house is enormous -- and under renovation for the coming summer -- and the grounds are expansive. I pick up a few pamphlets and brochures in the office, along with a map of the park, and wander over to a bench under a tree and sit there reading about New Jersey history while looking out over the grounds.

Soon I'm back in the car, somewhat reluctantly heading back east into the densely populated communities along the Hudson River.