Here are some of the purchases I made yesterday. This ‘pop-up’ book was from the Metropolitan Museum of art and it was still in it’s plastic bag after 33 yrs!
Did I tell you I paid $1 for this reproduction from the late 1880s?
Pardon my knives, it has been folded up all those years. I think it was waiting for me. I have adored pop up books all my life.
Love the orchestra!
And this is a lovely book I purchased for $2
I have a few books based on Miss Holden, even a kit how to draw and do watercolor like she did. Haven’t tried to replicate her gorgeous work yet.
This is pretty neat. I’ll have to give you an example of the meaning of a word sometime.
I got a number of children books at the HFH resale shop for a quarter each. The covers are pretty worn, but the inside illustrations are lovely.
Is that 1938?
Some of the above will probably be on my etsy shop. I’m getting my shops up and running soon.
Our plans were to go to the Delaware County Community College (where I graduated in 1979) to a flea market. My brother decided to take my mom and I messaged him and he said it was ‘so-so’. Brian and I decided to go south to one of our favorite stomping grounds, New Castle, DE. They also had a flea market going on, so not all was lost in the looking and haggling department.
However-since we found 3 caches last night and were up to 99 in total, we just had to get to #100 today-somewhere. I thought maybe look down the road again. I’ve looked there several times-I just don’t want anyone I know see me look inside a guardrail-lol.
We started to look for one and the parking was in a neighborhood where they didn’t want people really coming in as it said ‘private road’. We then went to a lovely Presbyterian church with a nicely kept cemetery. We had to walk through the cemetery and saw a few Shakespeares in a few different areas. How unusual:
And check this out!
Yay for us!!!
We also looked for one in an old electric box near a Sears store and the door refused to open! We had to walk up a hill above the parking lot-it was narrow and there were stones there to slip on. A bit unsafe and we won’t go for those kind anymore.
We then ventured on to the farmer’s market flea market and there were still vendors there. I saw an ammo box I would have liked to have, but the guy wouldn’t come down from $10. Bummer. I bet in a few weeks, it will still be there. Like something I got my mom today in the actual market. I can’t say what as it’s a gift, but we got it down to $10 from $20! We found a vendor who sold really nice books for $2 each. I will tell you about them later.
Inside we got some produce-has anyone cooked with figs? I also got a floppy hat for the event next week. I wanted one and got one for $3. It’s kind of funky.
So we left and headed home, but something on the geocache page caught my eye-Brandywine Springs Amusment park. The navigator took us to a neighborhood again, but we found the park and were with 400 or so feet of the cache. We started to walk through the leaf covered, bumpy trail- it went down and down 150 feet or so. Then we started to see these nice markers.
There was once a lovely amusement park here!
All that are left in the area where we were looking were markers that an Eagle Scout had put there.
Some old time shots of the park:
A video about the park.
We did see the slab where the book author is kneeling down next to. It use to have a merry go round above it!
The cache was hidden half way up a hill in a fallen tree. Brian climbed up and didn’t see it at first. I was begging him to find it, it had to be there from the hint. The mosquitoes were a bitin’! It needed some maintenance, but I dropped a travel bug in it. I also wrote to the cache owner to make sure we had the right one and told him about the travel bug.
I came home and made pork tenderloins (from an Amish vendor) with mushrooms and fried rice with a side of cauliflower.
We sure had fun on our treasure hunts and finding #100!
As the time ticks down for when Brian will be busier, we are trying to squeeze some more hikes into our days that are left. I will hopefully be busier also as I get a few of my online stores up and running again in a few weeks.
Yesterday we went about 10 miles from here to an area off of Rt. 72 in Delaware called Paper Mill Park. It was basically a patch of woods in between nice housing developments. When we pulled up, we didn’t see anything except lush green. Bri backed up a bit and then I saw a walking path.
It was a narrow path and we saw a pond to our left with about 50 feet or so of trees and brush on both sides. The two caches we found were on the pond side….near trees.
We first had to walk under this ‘gnarly tree’. I felt like I was walking in the woods of the enchanted forest!
I had just gotten those seafoam color shorts the night before. I like them! (Caribbean Joe).
Nice pond we checked out after finding the two caches here.
There were a few of these large boxes-I think they were bat houses! They eat mosquitoes and we should get one as the skeeters are so bad all the time now.
We went to find another smaller cache called ‘the most tacky cache in Delaware’. Yay, curiosity got the best of me. The place was a ‘road’ that lead to fields all around and the grass was really long (tick land). I think the cache was nearer a somewhat quiet road, but when the cars went by, they zoomed by. We would of had to walk a bit through that grass. I think ‘tacky’ meant it was magnetic. I’d like to find it when the grass is cut!
We also found a cache near a park where people mostly ride horses. Bri is getting good-he saw a path off a gravel path and the cache was in there! But he looked in the wrong tree, it was actually under a stump that had a hole in it like a fairy house. I dropped a travel coin in there to pass along.
The plastic on this map was really scuffed up!
We are up to 96 finds now! Hope to get 4 over the weekend as we are going to a flea market on Sunday and there are some near this area.
We stopped at a new Cali-Mexican place for dinner and I could only eat half of it as I got full and I was more thirsty then hungry. We grabbed a few groceries and headed to the cache at the dairy we couldn’t find a few nights earlier. This time we saw a woodsy area we ignored the night before. We went in there and found it right away! The cache was very visible, but the log was on the ground in several pieces. We picked it up the best we could and replaced it in a better hiding area. The cache owner emailed me and said it had been ‘muggled’ five times this year. Kids have to be doing it.
We did get to take my mom out to dinner a few nights ago. We picked a classy Asian style restaurant and it was really delicious. Mom enjoyed her meal as did Sean and me.
She had a chicken, shrimp and scallops in a tangerine sauce. Sean and I had Imperial Shrimp. The menu was so fancy, I didn’t know what some of the items were on it!
And Zoey was right, my Persian Shield really came back nicely after it was overwintered in the basement.
I didn’t do much today, though I am about to make dinner. I had terrible indigestion from either the new restaurant’s food or some snack food I was eating. I am better, but I was tossing and turning a lot last night.
Happy ‘Gotcha’ Day and Birthday to our sweet Cosmo kitty who wandered into our yard 10 years ago. I think someone dropped him off all those years ago. We think he’s about 12 though.
I spent a little time outside again yesterday. It wasn’t as breezy and the mosquitoes were testing me as was a chatty Cat bird. The bird was talking to his friend in a nearby tree. The entire time I was lounging about. I did a little work-moved some plants around pulled some weeds near the pond (and waving to the three current residences -two little and one medium size). I got a book in the mail about Christian Sanderson, the man whose museum we had visited on Saturday. It’s a smallish book, but it was just published this year. All the photos looked exactly like the layout of the rooms as they are now. And I saw where Mr. Sanderson passed away on my 7th birthday in 1966.
I also took a few photos:
Happy with these hanging baskets-Chenille and Nasturtiums. There was something else in there with the Nasturtiums, but they over took it.
The Lantana is a hardy plant. Love the Dr. Seuss type balls of flowers:
The petunias are pretty too with their stripes.
And I have a serious gnome invasion-they are coming out of everywhere!
I took these with my camera phone. I think it’s a nice one.
Hope to take my mom out to a hometown event they have during the summer called ‘Dining under the stars’. Brian has his orientation at the store tomorrow-you all know what that is-videos!
Yesterday, I asked Brian if we could check out this cache at a place called Blue Ball Barn. From the website:
This extraordinary barn, built in 1914 by Alfred I. duPont, is named after the Blue Ball Tavern, an inn and meeting house, that was once located near the property. The Blue Ball Barn is the centerpiece of the new Alapocas Run State Park, and an example of the preservation and adaptive reuse of an historic structure.
This was an unusual ‘palm tree’ like sculpture right next to the barn. The cache was near a door. First we went the wrong way and went into a courtyard. We went around the side and figured we needed to be around the other side. When we came back, the gates to the courtyard were closed-like 3 minutes later. Someone must have seen us looking around and closed them.
Before we had gone to the park, we found a small cammoed bison tube in a cemetery. The cemetery ones are almost always in trees (of course). The one here was laying on the ground, so we hung it up again.
We also stopped by Winterthur as one was right off the parking lot.
This was a good cache. Most of the ones we located yesterday were part of the Delaware Geo trail and in medium blue ammo boxes (thus the name of the blog post). This had a number of ‘trackables’ in it, and I hardly have seen any in the caches I find. What I mostly find are too small to hold them. I took out two trackables and another bag with a tiny one had fallen out when I had closed the box up. I took three. These items of varying shapes are to travel from cache to cache. The bear with the travel bug attached that I took was from New Mexico! I also have a nano coin from Sweden to pass along. I go to the website and log as having them and then when we drop them off in another cache, we record that too.
Here’s a pond at Winterthur
Our last stop was Hagley Museum The cache was near the parking lot. Sometimes you have to walk around in circles before the GPS zones in on the cache.
Lovely scenery
I wanted to show the cache as I snagged that Canadian lanyard in honor of my friend Carole who got us interested in geocaching.
That was a fun two hour activity. When we got back we made steak on the grill, but alas the charcoal was heavy with the lighting fluid taste though Brian didn’t add any and the meat tasted like it.
Today we pulled weeds out front. I did the flowerbeds and Brian did the brick sidewalk and the driveway. He wants to black top it in the fall and it’s loaded with cracks and grass. We need to have it resurfaced, but that isn’t in the budget.
For a reward, we went to a brick oven pizza place down in Delaware. I got half broccoli rabe and half mini meatballs and ricotta. I loved the meatballs!
We looked for a few caches after dinner and found one in a lamp skirt where there is an over-sized stuff bear in a dentist chair peeking from an office window. That’ been there for years! One was full of prickers and we didn’t want to deal with that. The other was at an ice cream place, and it was getting too dark to make the grab. I can certainly go back there.
I uploaded some more Sanderson Museum photos:
Gorgeous Vintage Valentines
A turn of the last century performing family
I may have to do these for myself! Christmas decorations from 1873.
Yesterday before I went to see my friends, I had a little time to kill, so I stopped to look for a cache at the Brandywine River Museum. It was near this lady:
That’s Helen, the bronze 400 pd pig that was stolen a number of years ago and then returned.
The cache was called ‘Gaging Station’ and there were stairs to climb which I didn’t want to yesterday as I wasn’t wearing the proper shoes. I only looked about 10 minutes and didn’t see it. Today I planned to at least find one cache to get a souvenir for International Geocaching Day. Again I stopped, but I had Brian along this time. I climbed a bit up the stairs that I avoided yesterday and Bri followed. Right away he saw the little camouflaged box. It was stuck on the metal trussle. Wow-eagle eyes!
I was so happy we found this one! Such a pretty area too.
Their gardens have suffered from the heat we had. The Black-eyed Susans sure look better than mine.
So then we went to a ‘legendary’ hot dog place nearby called Jimmy John’s. It’s been around since about 1940. The place had a big fire a few years ago, but it’s up and running again.
This is a cute train set up they have inside.
First time I was there…not really impressed, but I’d go back for the soft serve ice cream!
We found a few caches along Rt. 202 and were up to 3-3 for the day. There was one left, across the the road and around the corner from our starting point. It was at The Christian Sanderson Museum. It took us a few minutes to spot and then we decided to check out the museum. The lady on the porch kind of guided us in and they said, that will be $10. Oh well….but… The place was the home of Christian Sanderson or ‘Chris’. He was the hoarder of Chadds Ford of his day. They had before and after shots of how the place looked when he passed away-wow-he had a ton of stuff! It’s a farm house with those curved steps too. The people that cleaned it up had lots to chose from, let me tell you. I took a few photos, but they need to be uploaded. There are vintage Valentines, autographs, the poster from the Charles Lindbergh kidnapping, a hyena head, Easter eggs from the 1880s, etc. My mom said her grandfather knew Mr. Sanderson. I’m sure if was her grandfather who was the sign painter. Interesting. If you love ephemera and antiques, you have to stop by here when you go to Chadds Ford.
1926 card made with butterfly wings
Mrs. Sanderson collected these advertising cards. I have a few of my own.
Vintage Christmas ornaments
They got electricity for the 1st time in July 1928!
So this was a bit of an unexpected stop, but I really enjoyed seeing everything here. And I got my virtual souvenir for the day!
Today a few of my pals with their adorable children met up with me at a local cross stitch shop. Jennifer has a little fellow who will be three in a couple of months. He’s a doll and I’ve met him when he as a baby and as a two year old. He really notices everything around him, a detail guy. My other pal Rachel brought her 2.5 yr old son and 5 month old daughter. The boys hit it off well and took to running around the shop a bit. I think if we do that again, I’ll bring some paper and crayons or something so their moms can look around better. I sure needed the inspiration to stitch seeing all the shop’s lovely pieces. Jennifer found a Chincoteague sampler-had to get that one. I should make that ‘next on my list’ to do as J and R can be my stitchy cheerleaders. Rachel’s children were so adorable. I was so happy to meet them for the first time. The little girl was a bit fussy as she is use to a routine and likes to nap after she eats. Both J and I got to hold her and we got some smiles too!
I am blessed to have pals like this. Jennifer helped me through some hard times lately when I had some personal issues. Rachel is a family counselor and you feel good being around her. Both sweet ladies and great moms. I hope I can share some of my experiences as a mom of a boy to them. Being around kids takes me back many years when Sean was little and when I was an assistant teacher at a daycare. Everything is so new to them at this age and they so want to learn.
Last night Brian and I headed to Philadelphia for a tour featuring vampires, ghosts and sex. Believe me, I am not shocked by anything as I grew up with three brothers. Rain was threatening all afternoon, and on the way in it did rain about 10 minutes. We went in a little early to geocache. There were not a bunch of them in the vivacity of Independence Hall, but we saw there was one on Sansom Street where jeweler’s row was. Oh, I had printed out a coupon for a parking garage and we went into the incorrect one…bummer. Also saw where my cousin’s store was and will have to go there sometime. The family has owned a Danish furniture store for years-it’s called ‘Dane Decor’.
So we walk down to Sansom. Almost 30 years ago, we walked around there looking for my engagement ring. Because Princess Diana had a sapphire, I wanted an emerald with diamonds around it. We went to a few stores and settled on Sydney Rosen & Co. The salesman talked me out of the emerald as a main stone, so I got a .33 diamond with two emeralds on each side. Years later, I got my ring cleaned and sized again and not sure if all the emeralds had cracked, but some had to be replaced.
Back to yesterday-so we start looking for a nice size cache and the GPS is bouncing back and forth. We look down stairwells and in planters. We did this for 30 minutes. I thought it best to tell the policeman we were looking for something hidden since we are in the diamond district. So a man walks by me and says ‘8 ft. 6 ft…..’ I asked him if he knew we were looking for something and he said yes and if I wanted to know where it was. I said…well I think it’s in a planter. He said look for one just with dirt…and then pointed to a restaurant! I think I could of found it without him telling me about the restaurant part. Within a few minutes we found the empty planter (the hint was on the earth). It was almost buried with a tile over top of it. It had a lot of stuff in it too, which I found the ones around here usually don’t.
Here I am with the cache with Sydney Rosen behind me!
Next we went to the Bourse Building as we didn’t have time to locate a Cheese steak place I read about. We had 15 minutes to grab a slice of pizza (we had the kind with a top crust). A shop was still open and I went in and grabbed a few little things for Sean, Mom and me.
Then we headed on over to the Liberty Bell pavillion. We had both seen the Liberty Bell a few times, but not here. We had to get our belongings examined like at the Mrs. Obama event!
It was really humid and I had to pull my hair back-whew!
For Zoey-look at this gorgeous Sweet Potato vine!
We then headed for the tour across the street at the visitor center. We first looked around a gift shop there-wow stuff is expensive!
We had a young guy about Sean’s age and he didn’t want his photo taken. I guess maybe it’s because of what he is talking about. We stood at the visitor’s center for 10-15 minutes as he told us about the infidelities of our founding fathers. I knew about Jefferson and the slaves. Something about John Hancock that I didn’t buy.
Then the part, which must have been this guy’s favorite part was talked about down the ways. It was about hookers in Philly in the colonial days. I knew it was a tour that was ‘R’ rated, but why not show us maybe where a brothel was?
We went over to Washington Square. That was used as a mass burial yard. Very creepy. He said a guy he knows was digging in his basement nearby and bones fell out of the wall. Okay, maybe after over 200 years? Thanks to standing there all that time I got at least half a dozen mosquito bites.
That’s the unknown soldier…the guy said they pulled some guy out of the mass grave in a uniform.
He told us a lot of stuff, but didn’t show us many sights. This building (not sure if it’s the original) was a prison and where the first balloon sailed all the way over to Deptford, NJ (really not that far).
I really liked seeing the Old City Tavern up close. The ghost story is that a bride was getting ready for her wedding and her bridesmaid knocked into an oil lamp and set her on fire and she met her demise.
Here’s a local tv program and the head chef and a clairvoyant are talking about ghosts in the tavern.
Entrance way of the Old City Tavern-look at all the famous people chef Walter Staib has met.
The guide left us across the street from here at a grid pattern that was set up the way the original city streets were laid out. And that was it. He even had the nerve to ask for a tip. This wasn’t a cheap tour, even with the discount. I was a bit peeved as they took a registration fee on top of the Living Social deal. And the other tour took you in a circle. This one, we had to find our way back to 6th and Market.
More sights:
Souvenirs!
The Declaration House where Thomas Jefferson wrote the Constitution
Independence Hall at night. We heard the clock chime three times.
This was unique. What’s in the remnants of I think the Beale house. There are three videos going and places to sit. This one looks like it’s above a fireplace. There are windowless window frames also.
I think we enjoyed walking around on our own more than going on the tour! I’d love to eat at the Old City Tavern sometime and visit a few more places and look for a few more caches. 40 miles isn’t that far away.
Love the orchestra!
Collages & Creative Goodness 