Category Archives: geocaching

Nov16

It’s been a long week

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I just want to get this kind of post out of the way as I sure don’t want people to think I actually ‘want’ to post about this kind of stuff. I decided to get some testing out of the way this week. Tuesday I went for blood work ordered by the doctor in September for last month. Then I went to the school and will have off until the 28th. I am still trying to get the place in shape for Thanksgiving. I then had my yearly mammogram yesterday. It was an hour wait for that which was crazy. I also called my regular doctor and said I’d really like to get checked out for this hip and back pain. The receptionist said she thought I should just got to a orthopedist and suggested a place across from that office. I was able to go there today. They took an x-ray of my hips, but I had told them I had lumbar (spine) x-rays at the beginning of October. So I have arthritis in my back and hips and they suggest I try physical therapy for a month. I can’t take Advil and anti-inflammatories or a prescription medicine, so I’m stuck with taking Tylenol. If the physical therapy doesn’t work, maybe they will give me something stronger. I really tried to up the exercise this summer and I think it helped me in a lot of ways. But since I have Lyme Disease, it had sped up my other problems. When the PA checked off sciatica on my chart, I wanted to cry. That’s what my mom has been suffering with for about 9 years.  I don’t plan to give up my geocaching, but I sure need help with stuff around that house that requires a lot of leaning over. Getting up from a sitting position or from lying down is like a knife in my back. Not fun in the middle of the night.

I’m not going to talk that much about it, but that’s what’s going on with me. I will give you updates on my physical therapy to let you know if it is helping.

Brian and I took a little drive to try to be ‘first to find’ at a cache near a cave on the PA/DE border. We saw the cave and then had to walk through rocks and leaves to get to the cache location. I did pretty darn good! We get up there and I open the log and two other people had been there (as a couple) before us! They have thousands of caches too. Darn them! I had to use the navigator and my  camera battery ran down, so I couldn’t take many photos except of the caches. Bummer. Streams, waterfalls, a covered bridge-I’ll be back.

We went to a gourmet pizza place next. We were served lukewarm pizza as I think the waitress let it sit there a bit. She took it back and it wasn’t that much warmer when we got it back. We found a few shopping center caches, one we had looked for before and I had gotten a hint on. The next one was a bit trickier as it looked like an abandoned beer cap-but the little container was underneath it. Fun stuff.

Nov11

Cleaning or geocaching?

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Yesterday was a nice day for being outside, but not raking leaves! I can’t do that anyway as my hip is so bad, so I took Brian away from his yard work.  When I go out in the car, it’s hard for me to get in and out all the time and I really hurt by the end of the day. There was a book sale at a nearby school to raise money for the Kindergarten. Oh how I’d love to work there in that centuries old building, but I bet it’s a bit on the chilly side. Just like last year, there weren’t too many people there. I was able to pick up a few books for the school where I work for a few dollars.  They seem to read the same ones all the time, so I found a few cute ones about sharing and Jamie Lee Curtis’s book ‘Tell me again about the night I was born’.  I found a few novels for me and the lady working there helped me find a few for my mom via mom on my phone’s speaker.

I decided to see if the William Penn tree near the parking lot there was a waymark and filled out the form on the website. People need to find the London Grove Friends Meetinghouse and take a photo of themselves in front of the 9 story, 330 yr old white oak!

So then we drove around the immediate area for a few caches. The scenery was so gorgeous-rolling hills, horses, cattle, trees….I’m so glad there is still land like this close by. Where I live, housing developments have popped up all around us.

The first cache was on Tapeworm Road-what a name-it was indeed a wiggly road! It wasn’t too hard to find-Brian used his geosenses and saw a pile of wood near one end of  the fence-bingo! After this find, my phone went wonky. There was one down the same road that we missed! We found one near another horse field but inside a tree. Then there was a covered bridge one. The navigation took us in a big circle when we only needed to go to the end of Tapeworm Road and make a left. Hate to waste gas like that.

We get to the covered bridge and it’s closed-a truck obviously ran into one side as there is crumbled cement and a support beam there. We could tell there had been some flooding in that area as dirt was pushed around near the stream with heavy equipment. We mainly looked inside the bridge and didn’t see anything. I PAF (phoned a friend-actually wrote an email) and he said we should have been underneath. Opps-it was a muck factory under there. Maybe some other time.

I  mentioned about a nearby ‘gastro-pub’ (refers to a bar and restaurant that serves high-end beer and food) where we went last year called ‘The Whip’, so we went. I got sausage and red pepper quiche and salad. I’m not a big fan of sausage, but this was heavy on the nutmeg and very moist. Brian got a chicken salad wrap. There was a cache around back in a guard rail that took minutes to snag.

Brian near where the cache was with The Whip behind him.

The last cache was in a cemetery way out in the boonies. It was fairly easy to find, so we walked around the cemetery. I wondered what the stones were at the end of the newer part of the cemetery and they were for babies. : (

Near the church were stones for a Collins family and the names were facing the church instead of out. That was a bit strange.

Here’s a  satellite look at the church and cemetery… I was checking out that feature on Geocaching.com last night. It will show you where the cache is! See the smile face!

We even went to church after all this. Today I’m tired, but I have a lot to do. I couldn’t find some of my pants and they were still up in the attic. So now I am sorting through clothes again. I also put away most of my Halloween decorations except for my owls.

Sean’s girlfriend and daughter are coming out for Thanksgiving. I am hoping to get something for my hip pain by then so I can pull that off. It will be nice to meet her 6.5 yr old.

I have some testing this week, so please send me some good vibes.

Nov9

Daylight savings is getting in the way

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I was looking forward to grabbing a few caches late this afternoon as it has been a long time since we’ve gone searching. I’m still feeling pain in my left hip and lower back. I thought a little walking may do me some good. Well by the time we rolled out of the driveway, it way after 4 with a little daylight left. Rats! First I had to wait on Brian as he was leaving work, grabbing a few groceries and hitting the bank. When he got home, his dad called complaining about his car not running. This has been going on for a week. He got a new battery, but it was dead today. The vehicle is almost 24 yrs old now too.  He talked to him a bit and went to hang up the phone and it fell behind the computer desk. He tried to retrieve it, but couldn’t. He’d get back to that.

So we headed near a campground cache. It was suppose to be a fast grab and dash, cache and dash or whatever. We parked across the street near the train track and headed over. The GPS found it right away near an evergreen-had it in no time. But we happen to catch the engine coming in and since they had to cross a street-they pulled the whistle. We were right there and it almost blasted our socks off! Two guys got out of the engine, climbed into a car and took off.

The cache was neat! It was a pet food container with the swag beginning in either bowl. There was a separate log.

The next cache was near an abandoned building and the Brandywine creek area. We scared a few deer, but I believe we were about 200 feet too far away and it was getting dark, so we gave it up.

So we will not go out cache hunting so late this time of year. It’s just scary. I’d love to find a night cache where people use reflectors, etc.. I have yet to find one listed.

Tomorrow is a book sale-we got excellent buys and had almost the entire place to ourselves last year. Wonder if that will change? I got Christmas gifts then too. And I know there are a few caches in that area too!

Oct25

The highest point of Delaware

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Since Sean had a night class on his birthday, I took him out to a late lunch to The Olive Garden, one of his favorite restaurants. I always mention geocaching to him and he doesn’t mind checking out a few of them. His phone works pretty good pinpointing the cache.

First we went to one in a series of shopping center caches. It was near a pretty line of trees and a golf course.

It was a quick 5 minute find next to the fence (on the ground) that separates the shopping area from the golf course.

We then did a little shopping in Marshall’s-they always have good stuff. I got a little ornament display piece with an owl on top and last night hung most of my Halloween balls on it. I got a big box of Susan Branch greeting cards (she does homey watercolor art) for $3.99-there are 40 of them!

So the next stop was Best Buy, but I stayed in the car and browsed Geocaching.com. I saw there was another cache around the corner and it may interest Sean because of his college classes.

We get to the cache which is also the highest elevation in Delaware! A lady drove by and asked if we were ‘high markers’ and I was trying to be inconspicuous and of course said ‘yes’. Well low and behold her mom is into this organization and before we knew it, a 79 yr old lady came walking across the street.

Taken by Miss Doreen (her photo is halfway down-in pink).

Doreen gave Sean articles about the high mark society. The founder is suppose to have his ashes at each marker! Down the road is a big tower that was used for communication between DE and NY.

So that was an interesting stop to say the least! Sean said he could certainly use the info for some research.

And the cache was a nano on a bench-no problem finding that one-different than Sunday!

Oct13

Geocaching trio

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Today Sean, our adult son, (he is a grad student studying GIS-mapping) joined us for a little geocaching outing back to Southern Chester County. I got an email notice that a Halloween themed cache was out there and fairly new, so we decided to see it. (First we stopped at Saladworks for lunch). We got there and it was a very small cemetery and where the remnants of small church had been. Sean had his phone and I had mine….the GPS was a little jumpy but I saw both a big tree and a trio of bushes-hmmmm….so I peeked under the bushes and there was something all covered up-kind of weird as it was in a cemetery! Brian got under and pulled it out and uncovered it-yikes!

 

The ‘little guy’ sat up when the lid was opened! The most clever cache we have seen! Thanks!

Of course I needed to look for a few more caches. The area is getting swamped with housing developments, but this was a pretty area near the Little Elk Creek, that flows into Maryland.

So we encounter this bridge…again the GPS is jumping between both sides of the bridge. We get within a few feet and it goes up. So I look at the hint and it says ‘near the plaque’. Then it’s a piece of cake.

We all posed here-lol

I like that the ‘guy’ above me said  ‘construction, found by accident’

We then ventured to an Old Meeting house from about 1862. The place was in bad shape, and we tried as we might, even inside, we didn’t spot the cache. I think it was missing. We took more photos and the two inside the meeting house came out a bit out of focus-from the phone camera and the Canon. Spooky!

All the windows are shuttered and the foundation must not be good as there are huge cracks and the windows aren’t straight.

See how blurry this one and the one of Sean and me are?

We then went toward the town of Oxford and I remembered there was one near a florist shop. We stopped and I found it quickly as I had seen photos of where it was, though I think it was changed.

We drove down past where I thought my pal from high school lived and we saw his house! There were a lot of cars in the drive, but I know they have a few. When we got home, Brian read where John’s mom had passed away today. : (   It’s like we were drawn to that area as something was going on. Deepest sympathies pal.

We went and I got the yummy pretzels from the Amish place, but the place in general was going to close in 15 minutes. We also went in the new Walmart and got a few things we needed (and Sean gets a discount). There was a Chinese buffet and we got take-out and brought it home.

So it was a nice day. I am a bit achy from changing out my summer clothes to winter clothes. I am still working on that. Plus I brought in plants. I am not sure if I am going to save the coleus, maybe I’ll take cuttings. I also got a flu shot a few days ago, and that may be a side effect. I went down to take my mom and she had a runny nose and got one anyway. She woke up yesterday feeling crummy and she has a full fledged cold. : (

I may do yard clean up tomorrow!

Got email about a Best Buy needing a person to demonstrate the Keurig coffee maker for 4 weekends before Christmas…thinking about it. But that’s 8 hours on my feet and my back is still bad. I have to go back to the chiropractor to find out about my x-rays and what treatment I may need.

Oct10

Adjusting to changes

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It was the third Wednesday in a row I got up at 7 am-boo hoo right? It’s really hard for Ms Hoot here!

The first day was the magazine job and of course now it’s the preschool ‘assistant’ job. I am not the main teacher, but I seem to be the floater-go where they need me. I’ve been in with a lovely lady named Charlene who leads the 3 yr olds. I said my son was turning 26 and she said she had a 42 yr old son! Wow! I thought she was younger than me! She also has a granddaughter. She was concerned about getting a flu shot and I said it’s not a bad idea. I will probably get one along with my mom. The children are cuties, some boisterous boys of course. : )  You can tell their little minds are going faster than they can move their lips! Today one of the assistants came in and showed them sign language for a number of farm animals. They were all fascinated! They paid attention for almost 15 minutes. The  rainy weather has held them in a lot this week, so I could tell by just seeing them the one day a week I do that they have pent up energy. I suggested rugs for them to sit on for story time and they have plastic dots of different colors to use instead. That worked a bit. I think I would have put the circles down first and then let them just sit down on one instead of pick one. That caused a little commotion. I’m surely learning about children all over again!

I did a little Halloween home decorating for a few days on Monday and Tuesday. I’m not finished, but I have an ‘owl theme’ going on here. I didn’t realize I had so many! I need to take more photos, but I tried some without a flash. I am still having hip/back issues and need to see what’s up with the x-rays.

Brian took me out for a Jake’s burger tonight and asked if I wanted to find a geocache or two. I never turn that down-lol. I looked at the phone app and there’s a cute farm series around this area and there was an orchard we hadn’t hit, so we went. First we bought apples and a ‘ghost’ pumpkin. I mentioned the geocache to the lady and she knew where it was and I said not to tell me. I wanted to mention this to her as it was closing time. The cache was in a tree from the 1860s under a bunch of ivy!

We found the dairy we visited a week or so ago and got some toasted coconut ice cream and butter-all on the honor system. It was after dark and the door was open. I am sure they have a camera on the place-I wrote down what I bought, put the money in the cash box and got my change. The ice cream is delicious too!

Hope to see my mom tomorrow!

Oct7

Caching 3 days in a row

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I’m counting my solo trip to Tweed’s Tavern in the trio.  Brian had off on Friday, so we headed south to the Oxford, PA area. Brian use to work out of an office there, but we didn’t go near the town, but another town, Lincoln University which has a college and upper Oxford, more in […]

Oct4

A visit to Tweed’s Tavern

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Today I decided to get my lumbar x-rays and then  go over to Hockessin, DE to a cache with the Tweed’s Tavern in the title. Well I get there and my phone is acting wonky. I am just waiting to get an iPhone now that I’ve had the iPad for 9 months as they are better! I finally got the GPS loaded and went over to the tavern. I thought it was an easy find, like in the bushes….boy was I wrong!

I looked around the outside of the  tavern a bit and read it’s only one of 50 log cabins  left in the area and from the 1790s. I believe it was moved up so they could expand the road. I didn’t go inside, but could see a long table and Windsor style chairs inside.

Once covered by additions and stucco, hand-hewn logs now can be seen in the side and front of restored Tweed’s Tavern, which was spared from demolition and moved from its original spot along Limestone Road less than a mile north. The building — where the cellar had housed Delaware’s earliest-known brewery — temporarily was “parked” on a small lot owned by the Department of Transportation before plans were worked out to make the restored inn the centerpiece of a new state park that bears its name.

It’s quite a place.

So I walked down this one trail, no…the map was showing it was ‘behind’ the large fitness center. I walked back and forth on that trail like four times. I am sure the people on the treadmills were watching. Plenty people passed me on the trail. I then decided it had to be in a wooded area-it figures I wasn’t really dressed to look. I should have read the hint as it said ‘you aren’t getting tired’ or something like that. Lo and behold I saw an old tire with a cider block on it-went and looked and it was under half a cider block! Yay!

See the tire underneath? I didn’t have my traveling bag, so I just signed the log.

So I was pretty proud of myself as my geo buddy Bri was at work and I was solo. I headed to another cache and it was easier to find in a big tree stump. I had gone by it, went back and looked closer and there it was!

This had a bunch of charger cords in it for swag…I thought that was different. I didn’t take any as I have one in both cars.

I looked for another one, got with 175 feet of it and no way was I going in the woods where it pointed without a trail. I read where another cacher walked along the road. I didn’t want to do that by myself. I  get a big pricker scratch-ouch! I went in the fitness center to wash it off.

I came home and made Sean his dinner. Ever try the Kraft creme sauce? I browned up chicken and red peppers and stirred that in-yummy! Had a side of asparagus and a rice trio.

Brian is off tomorrow and we may go caching down the pike near where my pal John and his family live. Bri also worked there at one time. I feel like I’m in a competition with this lady I met at the picnic. I have 139 and she’s at 130-lol. I could get about 5-10 tomorrow (or more) if I really tried. I have to see how my back is. It was hurting while I was making dinner. Guess I walked a mile or so today.