Category Archives: history

Mar7

Colonial cache hunting

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On Tuesday I went to the rheumatologist, a young lady doctor. I brought all the past papers I had from blood work to a CD with x-rays. She asked a lot of questions, looked at my hands and knee and said that I had osteoarthritis. This was causing me to be so fatigued after doing tasks that were just part of my everyday routine only a short time ago. She prescribed a medicine which I tried for the first time last night. I slept 4 straight hours which is a record for me lately. But I have been very foggy today and my eyes are bothering me. I am to try it 4 nights in a row to see if I can tolerate it for the daytime. I love doctors that give you $90 medicine ‘to try’. We are lucky to have the keyring app on my phone and we only paid $17, but still that isn’t cheap. I did do 3 miles on the bike today! That helped perk me up a bit.

Brian had gone with me to the doctor and we went and grabbed a sandwich to split before going on a bit of a cache hunt out near where Brian grew up.

I’m not crazy about caching in high traffic areas. People wonder what you are doing, especially the security guards driving around the shopping centers!

The first cache was in a little park near where a railroad use to go through. We had a little climbing to do and we saw a few old wooden rails. Brian finally saw the little box under a fake rail!

RRcache

The next cache was an area where an old tavern once stood. We were to park near one of those big electrical towers. Now in the summer time this will be all overgrown. We went to where the cache was suppose to be and saw some trash ‘and’ a discarded VHS tape. I thought Brian had checked it, but alas he hadn’t. If we can’t find a cache, I come home and look on the site at the location via satellite where the cache was and we were right there. Maybe it was the tape!

The next one had us driving in circles around a shopping center. The Colonial buildings were sitting right near the road and we were driving past them-we had seen them many, many times before and never stopped to look at them. We saw the Whitford Lodge when we got out of the car:

WhitfordL

I believe there is a printing firm on 1st floor now.

The cache was a walk through the parking lot to a gully, up the gully and under a tree-pretty easy compared to the last one!

We then went to the next shopping center where another cache was. This is the Zook house as you can see. I read up on it (couldn’t find info on the place above) and the Zook family lived there for a number of decades. It had to be moved so they could build the mall! I really like this photo with the sign and shadow of the tree showing on the house.

ZookH

The cache here was near a stream, but down the hill. But we didn’t see it.  Actually Brian didn’t see it as I didn’t go down the hill. With the mall traffic, I think this one probably goes missing a lot.

We use to go to the next place when we were kids. I use to live out this way until we moved to Delaware County when I was 4. Brian grew up out this way, but down the road from me. We never met until we grew up!

Right near the Zook house was the building that use to be The Guernsey Cow. We use to stop here and get the creamiest ice cream ever! Now it’s a DNB Bank

This is the back

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This is the front-appears to be about 1959 or so from the cars…

GuernseyC1

We then went to another shopping center and found a few caches and had tacos at ‘On the Border’.

I wanted to look for ‘just one more’ near a bus stop at the shopping center for a magnetic cache, but I couldn’t find it in the dark.

There are a few more Colonial caches to find, but we ran out of light…some other time.

I’m pretty sure I’ll be going to the Phila. Flower show after all! I just can’t take one of those pills or I won’t appreciate it.

Feb18

Walking into the past

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My son Sean was nice enough to drive me to my hair appointment today. Afterwards my mom wasn’t up for company, so Sean and I headed for SaladWorks. I got the same salad I had a few days ago, not as good as the way the first place made it. Funny how that happens. This one was heavy on the lettuce. The tuna nicoise is a good one though.

So lo and behold, there was a geocache around the back of the shopping center. Brian and I had stopped there last month and it was to dark to look. Within a few minutes we had it as it was hanging in a bare Weeping Willow.

weepingwcache

Someone else commented that there were praying mantis nests and we saw a few.

There was a cache in a historic area at the sight of the Frazer farm. All that is standing is the big fireplace, some foundation and an oven.

To begin with, we had to find the entrance in a nice neighborhood. It was a 1/8 mile hike down somewhat of a hill. This is one of the first hikes I have done for a while. It’s about 5 miles from the Brandywine Battlefield.

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I can’t believe this has been standing going on 300 years!

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I believe this is the oven area. It was used until 1920!

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Funny to see detailed signs in the middle of the woods

Frazersign

MaryTFrazer

ThornburyCspot

The hint was to look behind the big rock with the split in it. There’s the tell tale wood stuck there and a peek of the ammo box! It’s been here since 2001!

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I took that big mug there in the background as it had a travel bug on it! It’s traveled 1,400 miles so far!

DiRuinsTBmug

Nice to see this amazing place and picturing Mrs. Frazer giving the soldiers a hard time! She must have been feisty! There is a Frazer, PA near where Brian grew up!

Feb12

Just plugging along

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Since last I updated, we have all had colds, Sean getting the worse of it. I missed work as I was just too achy to even try go. A week makes a big difference!

The three of us went out last night (Monday) which doesn’t happen often. Sean drove in the rental car. His car is ‘still’ in the shop as there is a suspension issue they are trying to get the insurance to check out. Sean is pretty sure he hit a curb as the jeep took out the entire left side of his car. We drove by the restoration place last night and Sean’s car was sitting outside. It’s been 3 weeks. The guy who did this had hardly anything happen to his vehicle-someone who made an illegal u-turn didn’t have to go through all this!

Anyway, we had a gift card for Bertucci’s and went to one near Wilmington, DE. Earlier in the day, here had just been a shooting just miles away at the courthouse-the gunman shot his estranged wife and another woman to death and the police got him. It was a custody issue and two lovely ladies were killed. Crazy!

We  also went through a 5 Below store which has cuter and cuter things each time I go there.

I mentioned that a geocaching friend had a hide near a British pub, so we went like 1/2 mile down the road. The cache was said to be decorated for the local Philly ice hockey team the Flyers-in orange and black. We looked at benches, near pipes, behind signs, etc. with no luck.  This was all in a dimly lit area. I think we didn’t look low enough! We may go back on Thursday for dinner as it’s a nice place to eat and we had eaten there before.  We headed down to a big ‘cement city’ shopping area and after sinking in mud, found a little camouflaged box (fake leaves glued to the top). We looked for one more and again we didn’t see the travel  mug holder. We shopped in Trader Joe’s for healthy goodies and came home.

A&TLincoln

Remembering President Lincoln on his birthday

When I got home I decided to look at the satellite for a number of geocaches along the route where we just were and wrote down info for 10 of them, one being south bound and the rest north.

I had some insurance issues with blood work I had done in November. Brian and I went over to the doctor yesterday to pick up blood work and ask why they haven’t submitted info to the insurance. Boy did they hustle! The office manager was very nice. Asked me if I was stressed out, yes I am! My blood pressure has been a little high lately. I know stress can make you feel a lot worse than you are!  My blood work wasn’t too bad. I do have a bit of a Vitamin D deficiency so I will be taking mega doses of it once a week for 3 months to get my numbers up. People are usually deficient in the winter, but I may have trouble  absorbing it. I sure hope it helps. Maybe my joints will feel better too!

Dec29

Oh the places we’ve seen!

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Yay, I kind of borrowed that title from my new pal Jodie as this is like the name of her Facebook album defining the same thing-geocache adventures! The thing is, Jodie and her hubby have found over 2k each! I’m not sure if I’ll ever even get close to that or my other pal Carole’s almost 600 with all my arthritis issues that crept up this year. I can surely pace myself and it’s great exercise and many caches involve enjoying the beauty of nature.

So what have we seen? Many Quaker Meeting houses/old cemeteries, my goodness at least a dozen or more different ones with their ancient grave stones and faded out names.

Hosannach

Hosanna in Lincoln University, PA

ArchiesC5 Chadds Ford, PA

RedCCreekP2

Red Clay Creek Church, DE Found #100 here

StDcross

St. David’s Church, PA

Let me make it clear that you aren’t allowed to hide caches around graves. They are usually in a fence, old tree stump or similar. The one above was a ‘virtual’ one where we found the grave of  General Anthony Wayne and took a photo.

So if these places weren’t interesting enough, we found places like Historic New Castle, DE and

NCBattPark

NCchDi

NewCasCobble

Brandywine Springs Picnic park (what was left of this place)

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Great views!

Beyond

Where my cache is hidden in my hometown

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Wilmington, DE

DiBlueBallB

Blue Ball Barn in Delaware

Did I mention Cannon finds?

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Part II-Nature caches soon

Dec20

Bringing in the spirit

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Well of course it’s been a rough week, but after I left the lights off Friday for the CT school, they did come back on again the next night. As my dear pal Carole said, each light represents a bright shining face of a child that use to be with us. : )

I have been doing better, but I am definitely feeling achy in my hips now. It’s better than stabbing pain. Had some insurance woes, but got one at least straightened out. That was some what of a relief.

Brian and I were in Big Lots and I saw a pink tinsel tree for $10. Pre-lit with pink lights too. The next day he went back and got it for me and I decorated with the children from CT in mind with cupcakes and cookie type ornaments.

pinktree

That’s  my Amaryllis that is blooming sweetly also! It’s on my work table. I had to find a place for it and my house is a little crowded with the big tree too.

I did finish my window scene. Because it has children (my sweet dolls like Zuzu) it is extra special.

Cmasdecorw

My little sofa table had favorite houses on it plus a terrarium with an ice skating gnome inside. His wife is watching him.

I wanted Brian to get his old sled out of the shed for our outside decor. No easy task when the chairs are put away already for the winter, but he managed.  I wasn’t sure if I still had ice skates. One time, years ago, I ordered an ice skating rink kit and although it was set up, it never got cold enough to use it. It got stuffed in a bag and forgotten. We all had brand new skates and never used them, ever! So Bri again rummaged and I still had my skates, one wasn’t even laced up. Don’t think I’ll be using them, so they look nice hanging over the sled.

CmasDecor

I finished wrapping gifts and need to continue to tidy up.

Haven’t made one cookie, but have my brisket for Christmas dinner- bought from the same place where we bought it last year. I really want to make a sticky toffee cake too.

And here’s the ornament I just finished tonight:

Owlxs

It was a free chart…just the owl. I added the branch, hat and moon and of course date.

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.

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.

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.