Category Archives: Brian

Jul9

Hid my first geocache!

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I asked Brian if we could go look for some caches on Sunday as I wanted to prove to myself that I could do this again after the way I felt on the 3rd. Looking back, a lot of that was the heat and the steepness of the hills and stairs (still out of shape in dealing with that stuff). I had gone on other hikes without all that uphill terrain and I fared much better. I also had put together a little plastic box, added a log, filled it with ‘swag’ (goodies) and had camouflaged it with tape that was ready to hide.  I wanted to go to the park where I walk all the time but then something happened. We headed over to our town. It’s further away than Kennett Square with a town in the middle.  We go to the first area and park near this sweet garden there. We had to walk a bit to the one we were looking for and then it’s  a ‘let’s go….no just look once more…let’s go’ kind of thing.

Leave it to Brian to run his hand along the top of this abandoned announcement board and find this most unusual cache log!

We were feeling pretty good. The cache owner said people could email him for additional hints. I am so sure we can now find that elusive one down the road-hee hee!

Going back to the car I told Brian I wanted to check out this little memorial garden for a man  named Fred.  I thought Bri was taking more photos than he did as the landscaping and everything was just perfect. There was a stone in the middle of the ‘patio’ area and it said ‘I love you to the moon, I love you to the stars, I love you beyond, beyond’. There was also a moon and star whirligig. I found the perfect cache location! We are told on the website to put a cache where you want people to visit and this certainly was deserving of more people seeing it.

I said it could be a night search with all those solar lights there.

So when I got home, I saw that this man was a borough council member for our town. He passed away last year at only age 59. He has two little grandsons. They would love my cache!

I got approved right away and then people found it already today!

A group of us actually work within walking distance to this cache. Got the notification last night and considered making an early morning work trip to GZ but decided against it. Gave this cache a look with two other cachers at our morning break to no avail. At lunch I returned with ‘Y’ and we made the find very quickly. Not sure how we missed it in the morning. I actually eyed this spot before to place a cache, nicely done. SL, TFTC

Very cool.

The trains down from here have graffiti all over them

See how the grass is dying? It’s dry beyond dry.

 People will see this too-right near the garden where my cache is.

We went on to find a few more and not find one. The one we couldn’t find was another one of those cammoed film canisters that we walked through a field to find. We each found a tick on us. There was a road right near the cache. Bri doesn’t have much driving stealth yet. Of course last night, I found yet another tick on me! I had changed and showered twice. I think the critter was in the pile of  dirty clothes in the bathroom that I picked up and put in a basket.

Being a bit lazy today. Tomorrow night is the Bacon Brothers (Kevin Bacon) at Longwood Gardens!

One for the road…our little harvest…hand watering helped a bit!

Jul6

Nature’s hidden gems

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Some views from new areas (and a couple of already visited) we have just discovered:

Valley Garden Park, Wilmington, DE (above and below) Never been.

Newlin Grist Mill Park, Glen Mills, PA …We were here for a company picnic, Sean and I stopped here for a picnic lunch a few times and Ken and Colleen had their wedding photos taken here.

Harbor area, Atlantic City, NJ (never been-aquarium here and some caches. We also found a great harbor side restaurant). Never been.

Arboretum at Swarthmore College (Penna.) Never been.

Nottingham Park. Been here once and not in this area for fireworks years ago.

Now go and discover some of your own!

Jul3

Heat and hiking

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I was all gung ho to score a few caches today over in Delaware. This ‘first state’ is so close to us and we enjoy it’s tax free shopping too. We went out about 2:30 and it was quite warm by then. We headed down to the Delaware Museum of History and this was pretty easy to find. No problem-o.

We headed a few miles down the road (near Joe Biden country) and found a lovely park there. Geocaching takes you to places like this!

There were about three caches in there. I had a big bag with me-water, the fan/mister bottle, Off!, etc. Brian forgot his water!

Look at those steps. I knew I was going to have climb them again.

I was joking around near the parking lot…ha ha for the time being…

Yahoo-here’s the one in the woods

I had had a baseball cap and and was starting to feel kind of funny after this was taken. As we walked back, I brought up another cache on the GPS and we headed for that. We saw it was way up a steep path and Brian went up it first. I went down a bit and found another less steep path. But after I went up, there were more stone steps and I got myself winded and started feeling sick. There was a cool stone bench and I sat there for a while, but Brian was suppose to find this one and he had no luck. If I had felt better, I know it was within 30-40 feet somewhere down a path, but I was feeling too yucky to look. I want to go back here in the cooler weather as I now know where to look.

Oh well…should be gorgeous in the autumn!

Back to those stairs up there. I had to sit down on them twice and I was feeling crummy. An old man walked by me too! Gee, he must go there for a daily walk! I practically crawled to the car.

So we stopped for gas and a cool drink. Oh, we went to the Winterthur parking lot, but I got out and went right back in the car again. I had Brian looking under trees, no luck. He needs to develop better stealth!! : )

I knew about one at Chadds Ford Winery and we stopped there-easy peasy. We would have bought a bottle of wine, but they were closed.

I bought some trinkets from The Oriental Trading Company for these caches as many don’t have that many goodies in them. I got those rubber bracelets, Pirate maps and ‘Kindness coins’. I added a bunch of these to the above boxes today.

Then we were near a Quaker Friends Meeting and there was a micro in there. I walked down the road near the cemetery and the GZ was a big evergreen tree-huge son of a gun. I looked and looked for the cammo film canister and then Brian looked. We couldn’t find it! Rats.

Saw this-what’s up with this?

And this little lamb…

Didn’t catch the name, but I think it’s on the Geocaching site, so I’ll go look again.

We went through Wendy’s and I got their salad with chicken and fruit-not bad. I mentioned to Bri that there was a cache directly across the highway. First I thought it was near the supermarket (which is changing hands), but it was behind the Walgreen’s! So cute.

First log of this kind! I had trouble getting it out-used a wire from a little flower I had!

So….no more hiking for me in this kind of weather! A nice shower helped, but I’ve had back issues from sitting on the floor (too long) to sort through things. I never learn.

Making a bundt cake tomorrow and some yummy foods for the 4th!

Jun27

20 Finds!

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A few days ago, Brian and I were ‘hiking’ in a lovely park near my hometown. As with most geocaching adventures, the coords took us into a pretty wooded area. I’ve been to Rose Tree Park many times, yet not that far into it. We actually found two caches that day! The first was an aspirin type bottle just lying under a tree. I think it was ‘muggled’, meaning non-geocachers got their paws on it. I signed the log and hide it in the tree a bit better.

Here is Brian with the larger cache. I am going to find some more goodies to add to these containers as most are kind of pathetic. I just hope whoever finds it, leaves stuff for the next seeker.

I think this was a challenge to take your photo near the old lifesaving station in Virginia Beach. Easy enough.

This was my first micro-film canister size I found Saturday. It was lying on the ground like the one from the other day! I didn’t have a pen to sign it! I know where I put it, but alas, someone came along and may have moved it! That would mean I have to hunt for it again to sign it.

The above was found in a park near an old 1700 Grist Mill. It’s so pretty there. My brother Ken and Colleen had some of their wedding photos taken here. I also went looking for a ammo box all by myself. I felt safe as I saw other people walking the paths, but the hide was up a hill on a 45 degree angle. I should have had someone with me or at least a walking stick! I really was huffing and puffing when I got up to the fallen tree! I guess the ticker is working good. ; ) Getting down was a bit harder-no not again will I go solo in the woods.

This is near cache and the path is way down-I was crazy!

Pretty park

We had my mom here from Saturday to Monday. We took her to my father-in-law’s on Saturday. You read what happened there. We went to Carraba’s for dinner. The next day, we went up to Lancaster county. There’s a place up there called Flower & Craft Warehouse and everything in the store was 50% off, even marked down things. It was a bit overwhelming. The previously marked down things were outside in a red and white tent without proper lighting. I mean I could see enough to buy a few items. I got a big metal watering can for $5 and spray paint in a pretty green for $2-so I painted the watering can! It was white with ‘brush strokes’ of tan-kind of ugly. I wanted to get some summer like flowers for a big antique blue Ball jar I bought in Chincoteague. I got exactly what I wanted and will share the arrangement when I put it together.

After we went shopping we went to a diner a few miles down the road. It was shipped on three tractor trailers from Texas a few years ago. They did a great job restoring it! The food was good, could have been a little better. I got a turkey club and it was ‘half’ the size of the one I got in Atlantic City for about the same price!

So on the way home I mentioned geocaching. My mom got all excited as I’ve been telling her about it. I got my phone out and lo and behold, there was one in a town nearby. We had a little run-around until I looked at the map and there was the church. I found it within a few minutes and took the box over to her. It had decent ‘swag’ (goodies) in it and we took two things and left a few. Mom snagged a pen.

The next one was in a Lowes parking lot. That was closed and the GPS lead us near a cart return area. Now how could it be there? It had to be around the lamp post. Now from the help of another cacher for a  ‘not find’ near a lamp post, I learned you can lift those ‘skirts’ at the bottom. I mentioned this to Brian and he went over, pulled it up and there was the cache container! : )

So knowing this…there are a few I (we) have looked for and someone did tell me that one was indeed inside the skirt area (near wires) and then one near a grocery store was probably in the same kind of  location. It sure is a learning experience.

So we went back to one of the first areas we tried to find one as now I had clues from the logs and another geocacher that a stick was indeed a sign of where the cache was. There was a big electric box and Bri took the stick and stuck it under the box and felt something-a cache! Yay!

This was a bit damp.

We had looked near a lamp post in our town and it was full of old wasp nests! When I got home and read the logs and people seemed to say it was near there, but there was also one of the big metal electric boxes again-so thinking it’s under that.

Thinking I was on a roll, we stopped near the one near our house. I got out briefly and looked around. I’m not sure what I’m looking for. People said it was easy, but now I’m thinking it’s across the  street inside a guard rail. I think I’ll message the cache owner to see what it is.  That’s the most frustrating one so far!

I am at the stage of this hobby where I want to now hide some caches. I thought I had the perfect spot and called the Land Conservancy of my area. Seems of all the areas they sponsor and fund, the spot I picked is private land. The woman was so nice and said next month, they are making a trail a bit further down the road from the ‘mystery cache’ and I can surely hid one there-yay!

Yesterday and today are perfect, low humidity days. I did a fair amount of weeding, but I so need to mulch. My herbs look awful. Maybe we will do a run to Lowes after I do grocery shopping! : )

Tomorrow-summer blooms around the yard.

Jun26

One of my favorite beaches on earth

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After we went to the aquarium (on the 20th), we headed to the island of Chincoteague. We had gone last year and loved the hotel (alas it was booked solid this year) and the beach in the park. We stayed in America’s Best which had the door that opened right up to the outside. This isn’t good in Chincoteague as it is known for it’s mosquitoes. The room was a bit tight also. We went right to the beach at around 6 pm.

You drive a few miles through the park, a national preserve where the wild horses and other wildlife live. We saw lots of herons and a few turtles too.

Got to love that a gorgeous beach is at the other end. Of course when you are driving to the island, there are stretches and stretches of marsh and wet land.

I think Sean got a few shots of the ponies, but it takes him a while to upload his pictures….I’ll share if it’s good.

Look at this sunset-that’s their library

Here’s Misty!

The next morning we got on the road to Ocean City, MD and ended up in a little town called Pocamoke City, MD. We went into the museum there and it was like $10 each, so we passed on that. Little did I know there was a big cache right in the lobby! I use my phone a lot for caching and saw this several miles later.

We also went to Snow Hill, MD. We  actually back tracked! Sean knew I wanted to see the buildings and look for a cache there.

We ate lunch here-very nice.

Snow Hill it one of the only intact Victorian towns left (I think that is what the brochure said).

We went to this little museum to find a nano cache. It was kind of funny seeing three adults looking in crevices and tapping bolts to see if they were fake. We had no luck. A nice side story is that the cache owner (part of a family of 8 who geocaches) answered my email to where it may be. She told me exactly where it was (I had logged it as a didn’t find already) and she said to message her anytime if I am stuck on a cache. Cool.

After we got to Ocean City, I did a virtual cache (photo), a small cache (near the old life saving station) and a web cam one-that last one was too hard to do as it was really bright and you were suppose to save the shot of you to show the person who did the challenge. We walked several blocks in the heat and I think we at least tried to do it! : )

We then headed to Rehoboth and grabbed a hotdog at Nathan’s and tried to do a web cam challenge there-not easy again. We weren’t there long as it’s a pain with the 30 minute parking meters you have to run back to again and again.

That was about the extent of our trip and now it’s time to weed the gardens and get that bathroom finished.

We are going to see the Bacon Brothers (Kevin) on July 10th at Longwood Gardens. We also want to see the night light display there, but we have until September. I’d rather wait a few weeks as the crowds there have been crazy. I made Sean drive past there a few night ago and they were parking in the grass near the parking lot as overflow.

Tomorrow-cache collecting-up to 20!

Jun25

Blog neglect, vacation stuff

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Since my whirlwind of activity is dying down, I can get down to brass tacks again with blogging. I went and got my mom on Saturday for a two day visit. We all went over to the father-in-law’s house to wish him a Happy 89th Birthday. From the get go, I felt pops was uncomfortable having my mom and me there. Brian and Sean were installing his new a/c (birthday gift) in his room and it was a messy job. Well Bri’s dad starts up about something ‘we need for the house’. I’d rather not say exactly what it is (send me a note if you want to know) and I said we didn’t really need it right now. Well he wouldn’t let it go and got mad at me and left the living room to sit in the family room. He’s living in a 4 bedroom split level. Mom and I were shook up and I took the car down to a local shopping center so pops would simmer down. We never did go back in the house again and never sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to him. I sure was hoping it would make him happy to have a house full of people (well almost), but that didn’t happen. It was going on 6:30 and we had to go out to eat. Too bad pops wasn’t along, but he got so grumpy that it ruined our visit.

So….we were away from early Monday to late Thursday. Our trip didn’t quite go as planned. Monday and Tuesday we were in Virginia Beach and had a nice time.  We got on the road Wednesday to head to Williamsburg, but got in traffic as the tunnel there had a disabled vehicle. We got off at an exit, tried to go another way, but of course they weren’t letting anyone in. We heard it was a 5-9 mile backup, so we decided to go to Norfolk, VA for an hour and see if that changed. We tried to see the historic society, but that was closed and they were painting. We got to see the nice garden and only a few of the buildings there. We passed by the General Douglas MacArthur statue.

Here are a few Norfolk shots:

The city in the late 1880s

The backup never got better, and we had to go to Chincoteague later, so we headed to the Virginia Aquarium in Virginia Beach. It’s a neat one!

Turtles sunning themselves in the entrance area-it was very warm here.

Wow, a Komodo Dragon. He was checking everyone out!

 I like this shot

Menacing sharks

Lion fish

Jelly fish-amazing!

A few more shots from Virginia Beach

The King Neptune statue was amazing and had a cache hidden under it-shhhhhh!

Sean and me under him!

Tuesday I got to met Rachael who I know from cross stitching and Facebook. She is from CA, but lived in Germany for a while, now is in VB as her hubby is working out of Norfolk. We went to the Contemporary Art Museum to see an Andy Warhol exhibit. We couldn’t take photos of the Warhol art, but I did think this glass chandelier was fascinating.

I wish I could meet all of you!

I’ll talk about the last few days of our trip tomorrow.

Jun17

NJ day two

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I should add that for dinner the first night we were in Atlantic City we went to a restaurant that has been in business since 1912! I was picturing ladies in their bustled skirts and big hats coming to the ‘Fork and Knife Inn’ for dinner.

I had a lobster egg roll before dinner. If I had known I was going to have enough dinner for three people, I would have ordered a few appetizers! I had braised boneless ribs and Yukon potatoes. I brought what I couldn’t eat back to the room as we had a frig. I stored it on ice, but it was just a bit cool to touch after 7 hours in the car (and not in a cooler), so I tossed it. Brian had a nicely presented flounder dish.

We walked up and down that the boardwalk, but it was so windy, we headed back to the room. We did see some famous celebrities hand prints in cement-Cher, Joan Rivers, Frank Sinatra, Dom Deluise, to name a few.

The next day we got a light breakfast and walked along the beach for about 15 minutes. The sand was blowing sideways. They are finishing up a new hotel/casino called Revel-wow it’s spectacular!

Not sure how many stories it is. That’s a golf ball in the daytime and a globe at night on the top . You go up these long escalators to the different floors. At 10 in the morning , there weren’t that many people playing the slots. I have a $5 rule, if I put in $20 and lose $5,  I cash out. I sat down at a few penny slots and used a few dollars. I had a $20 left and we started winning and got up to $54! I cashed out. I used the money for a few souvenirs for Sean.

We decided to drive down to Margate, a lovely town with immaculate homes. You can’t believe you are a few miles away from Atlantic City as the main drag there is very seedy. I wanted to do a virtual cache at ‘Lucy the Elephant’ landmark. We decided to take the tour of the inside of Lucy and climbed up narrow, winding wood stairs.

Lucy looks like this on the outside

And like this on the inside:

 One of Lucy’s eyes shows a view of the ocean

The tour guide took our photo in the howda

Crazy windy and hair!

A view of Margate

See Lucy on the water tower? The original Lucy was from 1881 and fixed up both in 1970 after she was moved a few block and in the 2000s

We then headed 40 more miles south to one of my favorite places around Cape May, NJ. Brian says I should have a place there. : )  Not a ton of people because of the wind.

I’ll have to take a horse and carriage ride next time!

The Virginia where my grandparents honeymooned back in 1921.

This is so sweet.

I thought this was cool of my reflection-

From the hotel-not bad at all 35 floors up.

Better hit the hay, we are getting up really early tomorrow-250 miles!! That’s the longest drive we’ve done in a while (at least Brian and me).

Jun5

Cache #5 found!

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So this was the third time we went looking for this cache, and some nice people or critters made a trail through the weeds, so it was easy as pie this time to spot. An animal had left a ‘gift’ right at GZ (ground zero) and I am so glad I didn’t touch it, but I came close to it! Can’t get away from animal poo. At my mom’s we walked into her house finding her trying to clean her fairly new vacuum as she rolled over some from the older dog-he’s getting old and can’t hold it anymore. We ended up taking the machine outside and using the hose on it-ugh!

So anyway…here I am with the cache. There wasn’t much in it, so I will bring back a few buttons and things for the next time I take a walk in the park.

Notice I am wearing my camouflage shirt too! And make-up (we were going to the grocery store later).

Thinking we were on a roll, we headed out to an ‘open area’ find. It was off an housing development (gorgeous homes) and I thought, oh how far could it be down there? Well the compass started at 600 and a lot of the trail had mulch, but it was really steep too! We walked along the White Clay Creek, so pretty. We read that a train use to go by near here from Newark, De to PA.

I sure wish I had my Canon  with me so I could have shown you more awesome nature shots.

Brian took some photos on his phone too!

We get to the middle of these woods and both my phone and GPS device decide to quit on us! Rats. I sent Bri down to a ‘beach’ area near the water as it seems that other cachers saw that beavers had chewed on wood in that area. It was just too wild to see anything with the naked eye and there weren’t any good hints to help us. I think the people who live in this area donated nice benches along the trail. Of course we saw other animal gifts, but no animals. Brian mentioned snakes and I crossed my fingers. As more people find this one, there will be more hints. It was a good hike. I think between the two areas, we walked at least 2-2.5 miles today! Woo hoo! Good exercise. We have to remember to use OFF! on us or I need to mix up a tick deterrent formula when I get some tea tree oil. You mix that with water and spray on your clothes. I should be more weary as I have had Lyme disease or still have it. I don’t know if you ever really get over it fully.  We rewarded ourselves with some steak, corn on the cob and baked beans for dinner. : )

May31

Scored two geocaches!

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I had to get Brian away from the sink for one day. He needed some other pipework, but he is having trouble with the plumbing part. I wanted to go to a park where Brian use to take Sean fishing many moons ago. It’s so pretty there! We walked around a pond, went down to a lower level and through the woods, past runners and a couple smooching. : )  The ‘key’ to finding these seems to be reading over past logs. When the clue said look for a ‘beech’, well I knew I’d have to go to the one identified by the marker about 10 feet or so off the trail. There were old tree limbs leaning against the tree-very unnatural! I moved them and lo and behold, I found cache #3!

I think I’m getting the hang of finding the larger caches, though the second one was in a sandwich sized box, so the micros have to be easier to find soon…I hope!  This one hardly had anything in it and the log book was soggy! I had won some geocaching buttons from eBay and left one. It was suppose to be a music CD share, but there were none in there. This ones been around for 10.5 yrs!

We were very close to another cache in a cemetery. We pulled in and didn’t I get out to a fairly new grave next to me-dirt piled high and just a paper name tagged at the end. Luckily, you aren’t allowed to put caches right in the graved area, so we walked to the back of the cemetery where the hint said to go. There was a pile of old gravemarkers in one area and vault covers in another. We were thinking the spouse passed and they got a larger marker-maybe, right? So the clue was it was under a tree and a white stone. I sent Bri in to look….and he looked. I decided to come in the weeds and right in between some old markers was the next cache! Yay!

I was glad to get out of there. I saw later there was a micro in there-some other time, but I don’t think in the same area where we were.

We walked at least 2 miles at a the park There’s another one in there and we’ll go another day-it’s only 3 miles away. I still need to find the one in my other walking park. So glad we went as I like ponds, etc. and this is a nice place to walk. BTW, I used both my phone’s GPS and the Magellan-still getting the hang of the later one.

We later went out to dinner with Sean to Friendly’s. A lady next to use gave use a $5 off coupon! We went to Kirkland’s, like a Pier One kind of store, and I got a pretty ‘collage’ picture for the bathroom ($10-marked down from $25) and some jeweled shower curtain holders for $5. I got a shower curtain yesterday. I have a striped plastic one and got a solid Wedgewood blue. The jewels are green like the sink. I figure my accent colors will be sea glass green, blue and white.

We stopped off at Whole Food Market that just opened in April. It was nice, though pricey. I prefer Trader Joe’s and Fresh Market more. There was a ‘micro’ cache right near the store, but though we were in the right spot, it was dusky and the security guy decided to park near there. I should have read the log better as a guy said exactly what it was and where. At least we know now. ; )

 

May30

Slowly but surely

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Brian found the floor tiles that were left from this job and installed them. He had to make a Lowes run for some wall adhesive for the tiles around the bottom. When the toilet paper holder was, our patch job is mainly hidden by the vanity. I put in two tan ones I had saved for the 6 missing above (where you can’t see). I’m waiting on the mosaic samples now. Brian cut the hole for that lovely drain pipe in the vanity last night. He ran into a snag getting the marble top screwed on, so called it a day a  little after 9:30. He’ll get that and the sink in place and work on the plumbing. It will look pretty. It’s tight in there, but can’t help that.