Just a little play on words there. Ha ha!
Happy May Day!
My son Sean and I headed over to Longwood Gardens a few days ago so we could see most of the tulips in their full spring glory. I can pretty much say I felt like I was in Holland as the waves of colors and the varieties of tulips were amazing!
Hi Sean!
There were other pretty flowers like poppies
Pansies and such
Tower of Jewels
Canterbury Bells and Begonias
And many more gorgeous things and plants!
I realized it’s been a while since I did a blog post. I’m going to keep this blog as long as possible as it’s a good record for me. I now upload my camera photos right to Flickr and Instagram, so it will be semi-updated there on the sidebar. They won’t have details like my blog, but you can kind of see what I am up to.
So what have I been up to? LOL Well. for one thing, we are climbing up to 300 geocache finds. This is pretty good for someone like me with my issues, but when we go out looking, I tend to forget I hurt sometimes.
Last Friday we went down to historic New Castle, Delaware to look for a few caches. First I wanted to stop near Wilmington to see ‘the biggest cache’ some people have ever seen, this of course is according to the logs for it. Well we found the location and the van-yes, it was the back of a van, like one used for a/c or heating which was near the business where it was parked. We were confused to where the key was to open the cache, feeling around under the bottom of the vehicle for a ‘MKH’-you all know what that is. All we did was knock off rust down there. I finally went into the business and they told me where to look and within a a few minutes we had it! So then we unlocked the back of the van instead of the side-it said to unlock where a certain number was located-duh. I guess we were too excited to see it after all the hype.
Here’s what we found:
This was facing the back. I guess that’s a seat for photo ops! The lights even went on!
Right under this was a big notebook for the log book! There was a travel bug hotel (I was hoping for a bug, but it was empty) and lots of swag.
It was way cool!!!!
We then headed to New Castle and were stumped with a few caches on where to park for them. We had to resort to just picking and choosing off the phone. We did find one near a piling after a bit of a search. The piling was in water and we didn’t feel like falling in. So we took a photo. The cache owner said you have to sign the log, but we can’t be running down to New Castle hoping that the water receded. Finding it was hard enough!
See what I mean? It was mucky all around this area too. You’d need some of those thigh high boots, ‘just in case’.
We snagged a few others and headed to the farmer’s market. We were looking for something to bring home for dinner and found a half of rotisserie chicken and two sides, so bought 3. We had enough chicken for a sandwich the next day! Wow!
Pretty mural near the walkway of the Delaware River
Battery Park coastline near the walk.
The next day was Saturday. We were sitting around and I remembered that a big craft warehouse place in Lancaster County was closing. The discount was up to 60% off and we decided to take a drive there-it would take about an hour. Of course I was again itchy to grab a few caches. We stopped at one called ‘Ghost Train’. It was on an old wooden train bridge. Brian made the find! So proud he saw that one as I was going away from the structure.
We didn’t get to the sale until 4:30 and the place closed at 6:00. I did power shopping. I picked up mostly some Christmas decor and a few Christmas gifts. I got a few things I want to embellish too.
We were going to a smorgasbord, but about 5 lines had 30 people each waiting to get in. And they all will get in and touch all the serving spoons, you get my drift. We ended up retrieving a few caches, one at a tiny cemetery and the other in the parking lot of the restaurant. We had to leave and come back as a full tour bus was right near where we needed to look! They would have wondered why those people were messing with the lamp skirt. Ha ha!
There is a smaller restaurant under the smorgasbord and we ate there. The cheesesteak was a mess! They cut all the way through the bun and piled all this marinara sauce on it. I had to cut it up to eat it as I couldn’t pick it up.
There is a 40k square foot gift shop-it goes on and on! I found an owl wind chime and some Burt’s Bee facial cleanser I needed.
I asked Brian to stop one more time for a cache as I have always wanted to see it. It was an old grist mill in the heart of Amish country. It was getting dark, so I turned on the handy phone light app and although it was 20 feet off, we did find the ammo can.
We had a pretty fun day and found 10 caches in two days!
I think Longwood Gardens will be my next blog post. Sean and I went on Sunday. I have never seen such a variety of tulips in such an array of colors. Here’s a sneak peak!
Well it certainly was a week from hell. We will never know what those two brothers were thinking up in Boston, but I will not give them more thought than they deserve. I know 4 innocent people are gone and almost 200 injured. When the younger one got captured, we had a storm going through, and then sat in the dark for 3 hours. That was really strange.
I was thinking just this past Wednesday how lucky I have been with not getting a cold for a few months. I was sitting in the car on the way to the preschool. A few nights before I had been in a crowded room with up to 30 people at one time. I watched the thermostat go from 67 to about 71! So on Thursday I woke up with my second really red left eye in a few weeks. Yesterday I went down and took my mom to a book sale, so I was around old books and pollen. Today I was walking around outside a little when the pollen count was 10.3 out of 12. I’m asking for trouble! I got it-post nasal drip, congestion and sneezing. Ugh.
We went to our second geocaching event in a year Thursday, a get-together in a Chinese restaurant. We chatted with a few people, but you could tell which people knew each other better. We were given coords for new caches, but I didn’t have my device to plug them into it, and I don’t know how yet. We did go and find about 3 of them that were just in the area-easy ones!
So when I went to mom’s, we went up to my hometown and we ate lunch in a place called Sligo’s. There was some amazing Celtic stencil work in there, so I took some photos of it.
Today we went to church and after we grabbed a few hoagies at Wawa, I asked if we could find a geocache down the road (Delaware). We were lead near a big sign and it was magnetic. Lo and behold it was yet another cool reflector cache stuck to one of the metal supports of the the sign! It looked rather new and it was!
Then we went to find one in a neighborhood park. At first we couldn’t find the entrance and we finally did! It was deserted, so we had the place to look for ourselves. We went right instead of going left and when we got close to ground zero, I saw a weird piece of wood and flipped it over and the box was attached via magnet! Under the wood and under the lid of the box! It hadn’t been found for 7 months. Here is a cool tree we saw near the cache:
I made a nice pork loin dinner tonight. The guys were both working late. Hate eating along, but Brian got in after 7.
We have tickets to go to New York on Thursday to see the Rachael Ray show. I confirmed it-for the third time, but doubt we will go. They made it earlier to check in, so a friend who has seen it said to get there 2 hours before that! So we’d have to get up around 6 am, leave 8 or so, grab the 10 o’clock train and go stand and wait until 1:30 when they let us in the studio! And you are not guaranteed to get in after all that! Sean and I went to see a Philly show, got there late, were last in line and made it to the second row and on tv a few times! We got to see Phillies pitcher Cliff Lee and comedian Kevin Hart. We have no idea who will be on RR. Plus driving there (gas money to a train station in NJ) and the train round trip for two is $60. If we feel good, we may good. It’s really hard to get tickets to shows! I really miss NYC too.
This gallery contains 10 photos.
We headed over to Atlantic City late Thursday afternoon and Sean checked in. First we went up to the 4th floor and it was suppose to be the 41st floor! This room had one king bed. So down we went, Sean got out his confirmation paper that said ‘two queen beds’ and up we went […]
Since Sean didn’t go to Los Angeles, he wanted to see some place different, so he booked a room at the Revel Casino down in Atlantic City and said we could join him. Now it’s nice to see something different, but in April, you are going to miss a lot of the outdoor experience. It figures we did have summer like weather for a few days ‘before’ we went down to the beach, but unfortunately the temps went down 30 degrees and it was also windy and foggy besides chilly. The two places Sean wanted to see were closed on Thursday! Lucky for him and Brian, I wrote down some geocaches I thought would be interesting to find, two being at the places that were closed. They both agreed it would be something to do before heading to Atlantic City. We were in Stone Harbor, NJ and our first stop was at the Wetlands Institute. Sean is doing a research paper about NJ wetlands!
We did get to go in the next day and checked out their indoor exhibits. Sean went up in that look out yesterday as both Brian and I were weary of the circular stairs. We want to visit again when it’s nicer out.
There is a inside joke about every time I am close to the beach, it’s windy! See my hair! This is me with the 1st geocache find in hand. The other hand is holding my custom made stamper with my geocacher name on it. Stamp and go (and I do sign the date too-so it saves a little time, but looks nice with the red ink).
Our next stop was to the Stone Harbor Bird Sanctuary. It’s been here for 66 years and we have never seen it!
I knew the geocache here would be fast and it was. Another place that will be worth a trip back to see when it is green and lush…and full of birds! We had a few Chickadees giving us the business though.
One more look near the beach and it was 3 for 3! The little film canister blew away on me and Brian had to get it with a stick! We went behind a fence to see the beach and ocean and there was about a 10 foot or more drop due to Hurricane Sandy last October 2012.
Foggy and gray!
Sean on Friday at the 88th St. beach where there was a geocache hide(we didn’t find that one as the sand was really piled up)
So we asked the man at the Stone Harbor Museum (where we found another very nicely kept cache-4 for 4) where to eat and he mentioned Fred’s Tavern. We went and had the best burgers! I haven’t raved about food in a while, but these were on brioche rolls, so extra delicious.
We looked for one more cache near an ice cream parlor. It was a nano-Sean and me looked everywhere. Brian stayed in the car and generally if you tell him to find a nano, he can. After I logged it as a DNF (4 for 5), the CO emailed me and told me exactly where it was. The next day we went back and this time Brian found it.
Photo credits mostly go to Brian!
Next post Atlantic City!
This was my first taste of this very scrumptious cake at a little place called ‘Whip Tavern’. I ran across a recipe for something similar to it and made it this past Christmas. Just as fab! Buttery, sweet, dense with dates….amazing!
Twisted tree truck, originally uploaded by DianthusMoon.
Wow, this was a difficult hunt. I had to use other words to find quirky-like twisted. This tree looks like it came right out of a fairy tale! Think someone was turned into a tree or one grew around someone naughty? This is very quirky to me!
You know when you have lots of leftover meat and you want to make something that doesn’t taste, well, ‘leftover’? I was joking about the ham I had left-ham croquettes, ham omelets, ham salad, fried ham and then what I did make ‘Ham and Bean’ soup. I have to say I found the recipe in my email inbox, thanks Food & Wine. This link will take you right to the recipe!
What was really yummy were the croutons made out of baguettes! You cut them in slices then cubes and drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with paprika. (They would be nice in salads too).
But it was a good, hearty soup. We ate it before going to the tax office. I had some after work for lunch the next day too.
Not too much new, except my phone! Got another Samsung Galaxy-but a Blaze. It’s really nice! The voice recognition works much better than the older phone, as does the GPS. That’s one of the reasons why I picked it out. It took the above photo too.
We have some plans for an overnighter coming up. We were originally going to try and go LA, but Sean decided not to go and we couldn’t really afford it.
When Sean was little, Brian and a pal who also had a young daughter, took a road trip up to see the work of Laurence Gieringer in Shartlesville, PA. I didn’t hear a lot about it, but in my mind’s eye it was more like a train board setup. Since we were about 30 minutes away from it on our day trip last weekend, we decided to go see it again all these years later. I was told it hasn’t changed in years and years.
Here’s the story right from the webpage:
Laurence Gieringer founded Roadside America. The story goes that young Gieringer’s love of miniature models began around 1899, when he was five years old. From his bedroom window, the young Gieringer could see the lights of the Highland Hotel at the crest of nearby Neversink Mountain. From his distant vantage point the building looked like a toy he could snatch from the mountain and add to his toy collection. One day he set out to get that seemingly miniature building, not realizing how far away it really was. Soon he was hopelessly lost in the woods and was not found until the next morning.
Fortunately that experience did not dampen his love for miniatures. In his adult life Mr. Gieringer became a carpenter and painter. Over his sixty-year career Gieringer amassed quite a collection of tiny, detailed buildings and accessories that became one of the worlds most famous and amazing miniature villages. Mr. Gieringer today is one of the world’s most respected builders of miniature models. (he passed away in January of 1963, over 50 yrs ago!)
In the 1930’s word of Mr. Gieringer’s amazing model railroad and miniature villages spread through the local neighborhoods.
What a sweet inspiration for Laurence to think the faraway hotel was a miniature!
Here are some shots from our visit. Brian, my hubby took them all. Most are a bit overexposed so you can see the detail of the layout.
So you can see the sign is in disrepair. So sad!
It’s such a huge layout! See the teens of the right there?
We got to see the light pageant when the lights were dimmed and all the houses were lit up. Then there was a movie on the wall and Kate Smith sang ‘God Bless America’
It would be a shame to see this place close down. I think it’s worthy of the Smithsonian Institute!
Sunday was my hubby Brian’s birthday and we decided to go somewhere a few hours away. We headed just above the Reading area to one of Pennsylvania’s ‘nature wonders’ Crystal Cave, Roadside America and the West Reading area.
I happen to turn on my phone (it’s not working anymore….died today) and saw where a geocache was just hidden about 45 minutes earlier. We turned around and headed back to yet another ancient cemetery cache. Sean got out of the car with me and we headed to the far end of the white washed wall. Sean actually had to climb over the wall and there it was, it was nicely camouflaged with fake ivy! So neat to be the ‘first to find’ for the second time.
The GPS took us down a winding road, but we saw lots of scenery too.
After a quick lunch, we got to the Crystal Cave area. There were balls of snow along the roads which we haven’t really seen down this way all winter.
I had to climb a rather steep hill to the entrance of the cave. I’ve been having problems with hills and since using the bike, I can see a little improvement, but I still had to stop a few times. After the tour, I was surprised at actually how steep the hill was!
The cave was found by mistake in the 1871. Two farmers were blasting for limestone (valuable for enriching the soil) and found the cave!
The cave itself was pretty neat. Brian took some great photos. It’s thousands and thousands of years old!
The ‘ball room’….there were actually a few weddings in here-one they had 100 people squeezed in here! That’s the altar to the left.
See Abe Lincoln?
When all the lights go out at the end of the day, 100s of bats fly out of the cave to fly through the night! Eek!
At one point, the guide turned out the lights and it was black as pitch. I felt and retrieved Sean’s hand. : )
They got a few inches of snow here the next day. We actually got more. It’s all gone now.
Next post-Roadside America!
Collages & Creative Goodness 