Category Archives: Lancaster

Dec4

Pennsylvania’s only President

Posted on Wednesday, December 4, 2013 by Dianne

Our Christmas adventures begin!

On November 30th, we took a little trip up to Lancaster, PA to tour the Jame Buchanan house. To make the tour special, they had actors playing Clement C. Moore who penned ’twas the Night Before Christmas, his wife, a housekeeper and Mr. North/St. Nick.

We got there thinking we’d get in on the 4 pm tour, but had to wait until 5 pm. They couldn’t add us to the group. We went around the mansion and took photos of it outside to kill time.

We would get to see it in the dark all lit up (just the back). I just love when the sun sets at 4 something these days.

grape arbor

Colonial garden done for the fall

This was the door we would go in to start the tour.

When it was our turn, Brian, Sean and me were the only ones on the tour.

It was kind of interesting! We got to talk to the actors as if they were the actual people. We tried to take photos, but the lighting was bad.

This was Mrs. Moore. The tree behind her was gorgeous. It has a big peacock at the top.

We played 1820 parlor games with them. We were suppose to make someone laugh and I said ‘hello handsome’ to Mr. Moore and made his wife laugh! Then we had to read cards which were aimed at the humor of that time. Like the one card would say ‘when should we drink a cordial’ and the other card say, ‘not a quarter to midnight’. They all chuckled. Ha ha.

The mansion is really a lovely place. They did a nice job decorating it inside and out.

There were torches lit along the back too. We didn’t go around front to see it lit up!

The Lancaster Historic org is on the property and this is where we were waiting for our tour. We watched a short movie about Buchanan first. He was a bachelor and a lawyer.

Buchanan’s carriage

We thought it was different and fun. We headed to look for a few caches in Lancaster and couldn’t put our hands on them. Pizza Hut was calling our names, so we had dinner there. We did find one lone cache in a metal bus stop on Rt. 30. Brian found it on a ledge on the top inside-in the dark with my phone’s flashlight.

I can’t wait to see what Longwood Gardens did this year!

Aug3

Second Chocolate town of Pennsylvania

Posted on Saturday, August 3, 2013 by Dianne

Gallery

This gallery contains 16 photos.

Back on July 24th (I know, I am behind all the time lately), Brian and I took drive up to Lititz, PA. It’s closer than the other chocolate town of Hershey, PA., but to me it smells very delicious right outside of the Wilbur Chocolate Factory. It smells like mom’s kitchen, or my kitchen or […]

Jul13

Day trips can be interesting

Posted on Saturday, July 13, 2013 by Dianne

Standard

Sean is good at taking me places where I show an interest in. I did a google search once on ‘shopping in Lancaster’ and Stoudtburg Village came up. He had off last Saturday and he said we could take a drive up. It was over an hour drive and we saw lovely farms and scenery.

The village itself wasn’t very busy and it was quite warm that day. The shop owners buy the building and live above the stores! I like that idea! So we started to walk around and went by a lady who was about to prop open her door. I advised her against it and then we started to talk. She let us see her ‘courtyard’ or garden which was really pretty with the purple and lime green. She wasn’t going to open until the 19th and let us to see her store. She had awesome antiques and I loved the boater hats like my great grandfather William use to wear (as seen in photos).

This was outside ‘Plum Pludding’ if you ever want to visit.

We looked in a few stores, one being a candy store and I got my mom her favorite ‘Black Jack’ gum and some Violet candies I liked.

We went to the antique mall area there and the lady said she was going close in 5 minutes. There were a few other people in the mall and I think I would have kept it open a little longer so we could enjoy looking around.

I mentioned a multi cache that was located in the village. We found the first one pretty easily. The hint lead us to a sitting area and there were people sitting on their balcony. The lady said she knew what we were poking around for and we looking in the right area. I saw a sprinkler head and it was a big sprinkler for such a small area. Sean pulled on it, but it didn’t budge. Then we looked more and were about to melt when I went over to the sprinkler and turned the top and the coordinates to inside. We just couldn’t find the third one on foot. We even drove around. I do believe we found the north coordinates. We looked a long time for this cache. So I have the numbers written down to look for it in cooler weather. The town is suppose to be an antique mecca, and I’d love to go look around there again.

This was the antique mall with nice murals….

Sean wanted to see a preserve near by and we saw the sign, but not much of the preserve, except for the residential area. We did go by the craft warehouse place that recently closed where I enjoyed shopping a few months ago.

We ended up at the Park City Mall in Lancaster and I got a Salads work and Sean a burger. By then I wasn’t feeling that great from the heat and while Sean shopped a bit, I sat down.

So we could record finding a cache, we stopped at a McDonald’s as the cache there was very popular. The cache was a bird house in a holly bush!

We also stopped for this:

I could only eat half!

Jun28

Chadds Ford in 5 minutes

Posted on Friday, June 28, 2013 by Dianne

Standard

Sun setting over Chadds Ford, PA, originally uploaded by DianthusMoon.

On the way back from my mom’s house, I asked Brian to turn down Creek road to where the Chadds Ford Historical society is located so I could get my Instagram shots for the day. I was really pleased with these shots of the beautiful landscape and building.

The side of the Chadds Ford Historical Society

There’s something about the sun raising and setting that adds a special ambiance to a photo.

We did a little caching on the 23rd near the state line in DE. First we went to Mill Creek Meeting house. What a quaint place. The GPS pointed to a group of trees, but the hint was ‘metal on metal’ and we found the bison tube near an old chain link fence.

This is the side facing the road.

The Quakers are a very peace loving group. Brian is a peace loving person too!

We then went down a side road where this place use to be.

There were quaint old homes back here that had been renovated. I’ll have to go down this road some other time to take more photos.

We found a cache in a guard rail- but near the end of it-a pink pencil box and another cache in a guard rail in a magnetic key box. Brian took this photo and I used an Instagram filter.

We get to see such pretty sites on these little excursions!

We’ve had heavy rain late in the afternoon for days. A few days ago we saw this:

Awesome!

Sean went for an interview up in the city of Lancaster yesterday the 27th. We tagged along hoping the big farmer’s market would be open, but it wasn’t. So we looked for a geocache around the corner. It was opposite a convenience store. We started to look for it and the shop guy poked his head out of the door and said ‘you’re cold’…as we were near a phone pole. He said he could see it from up where he was standing and I backed up a bit-there it was under a smelly trash can (the kind with wheels) ugh.

Sean was in with the guy at the LanCo Conservancy for over an hour. It’s only part time work through September. It’s also 45 miles one way from our house. Some things to consider. But maybe the guy knows somebody. It seems it is who you know these days.

I went to see an Orthopedist doctor today. I guess the young lady I was seeing before was an assistant. Seems she got the issue with my back wrong. I have lower left ligament issues. The doctor thinks that my fall last year even shifted my pelvis a bit. And the physical therapy that caused me pain was all wrong for my issue! Now don’t you think they would have figured that out the first time I went there? I am to get an MRI, but in the process of seeing if the insurance will pay for it.

We lost an old apple tree yesterday. Down it went in the direction of the yard, not the bank. We don’t get the previous owner’s reason for planting trees on a bank. You can’t pick the apples without a long tool. They weren’t so great and the deer and wildlife were enjoying them today.

The tree was behind her.

I thought I’d get a break from doctors and have two things to do the week of the 8th, 45 minutes in opposite directions, Monday and Friday. When it rains it pours-literally.

Jun20

Figuring out the coordinates and getting the prize!

Posted on Thursday, June 20, 2013 by Dianne

Gallery

This gallery contains 15 photos.

Yesterday Brian and I were off to do our bimonthly food run. We have a few stores we like, but we decided to go to the one up in Gap, PA. They had some ‘buy one get one free’ items and I think they alone were worth the trip. But first, we did a little […]

May14

Plant Pilgrimage

Posted on Tuesday, May 14, 2013 by Dianne

Standard

Every year we take a drive to the part of Lancaster County that is closest to us, right off of Rt. 1. This year we decided to stop for a geocache first and went up and down some rural roads to end up at a very small cemetery. It was actually across the road from houses similar to ours, so I guess many moons ago, it was way out in the country and provided a permanent resting spot for the local farmers and their families. Well at least a few of them. There were a few interesting ‘plots’ that had chain around them and metal tassels like you’d see holding fancy curtains back. I didn’t venture around much as the grass was thigh high and I already had one bad tick bite this year (just had a Lyme test today too). So I looked for about 5 minutes or so and couldn’t see anything. The cache owner and her mom have a few caches in these parts, but neither take care of them anymore. I even brought a new container and log as I saw where they needed replacing. I think the original is gone now.

So we were a little perplexed about what Street Road to go on and we turned way to soon! There is one before the reservoir and one after it! We’ve been here at least 3-4 times now, think we’d remember by now. Of course it turned out to be a blustery, cool day…again. And it didn’t take me long to go through the four different greenhouses and fill up a wagon and then some.

I will have to take photos of the different kinds of petunias I got from almost black, to yellow with a black edge, to the peachy yellow, the chartreuse with pink and pale lavender. All the plants came in last night as we had cool temps. Not tonight though. I gave them a drink and they are safe under the big evergreen out front.

This is the scene after we left with a skinny purse:

They have quite a long drive! They even had a tour bus come up with a group of older ladies. The owner said she’s only seen that one other time.

So we were trying to decide what to do. We always tend to get out after 2 pm and it was 4:30. We stopped at a local church to look for another geocache and came up dry. Wind blown, but dry.

We went down more back roads to one that was suppose to be a quick grab. We had to go in woods, no luck except for a tick crawling up the driver’s seat.

We decided to go to a little town where Brian use to work from and eat in a family restaurant. I can’t believe club sandwiches cost almost $9 each! Wow!

We stopped at a park on the way home and could not locate yet another cache. I was getting bummed! Today I emailed a husband and wife cacher as they found it the same day! They said it was in a grate in the middle of a parking lot hanging off a fishing line! What? I happen to see the grate, peeked in and didn’t see anything. They said you almost had to kneel down to see it. More seasoned cachers know about this stuff. We almost have 300, but haven’t seen a grate one before. We’ve seen one hanging off a wall with fishing line though, but people helped us find it.

To get one blasted cache, we stopped at a Wallie World on the way home. I thought for sure we’d find the lamp skirt one, but there was nothing there! We drove to another cache, didn’t want to go in a wooded area and then I saw where the Wallie World guy had another one. Went back there and I finally found one! One out of six is terrible.

Come on 300!

Waiting on some blood work I had done today to check my Vitamin D level and my parathryoids.

Apr29

Caching, history and tulips

Posted on Monday, April 29, 2013 by Dianne

Standard

I realized it’s been a while since I did a blog post. I’m going to keep this blog as long as possible as it’s a good record for me. I now upload my camera photos right to Flickr and Instagram, so it will be semi-updated there on the sidebar. They won’t have details like my blog, but you can kind of see what I am up to.

So what have I been up to? LOL Well. for one thing, we are climbing up to 300 geocache finds. This is pretty good for someone like me with my issues, but when we go out looking, I tend to forget I hurt sometimes.

Last Friday we went down to historic New Castle, Delaware to look for a few caches. First I wanted to stop near Wilmington to see ‘the biggest cache’ some people have ever seen, this of course is according to the logs for it. Well we found the location and the van-yes, it was the back of a van, like one used for a/c or heating which was near the business where it was parked. We were confused to where the key was to open the cache, feeling around under the bottom of the vehicle for a ‘MKH’-you all know what that is. All we did was knock off rust down there. I finally went into the business and they told me where to look and within a a few minutes we had it! So then we unlocked the back of the van instead of the side-it said to unlock where a certain number was located-duh. I guess we were too excited to see it after all the hype.

Here’s what we found:

This was facing the back. I guess that’s a seat for photo ops! The lights even went on!

Right under this was a big notebook for the log book! There was a travel bug hotel (I was hoping for a bug, but it was empty) and lots of swag.

It was way cool!!!!

We then headed to New Castle and were stumped with a few caches on where to park for them. We had to resort to just picking and choosing off the phone. We did find one near a piling after a bit of a search. The piling was in water and we didn’t feel like falling in. So we took a photo. The cache owner said you have to sign the log, but we can’t be running down to New Castle hoping that the water receded. Finding it was hard enough!

See what I mean? It was mucky all around this area too. You’d need some of those thigh high boots, ‘just in case’.

We snagged a few others and headed to the farmer’s market. We were looking for something to bring home for dinner and found a half of rotisserie chicken and two sides, so bought 3. We had enough chicken for a sandwich the next day! Wow!

Pretty mural near the walkway of the Delaware River

Battery Park coastline near the walk.

The next day was Saturday. We were sitting around and I remembered that a big craft warehouse place in Lancaster County was closing. The discount was up to 60% off and we decided to take a drive there-it would take about an hour. Of course I was again itchy to grab a few caches. We stopped at one called ‘Ghost Train’. It was on an old wooden train bridge. Brian made the find! So proud he saw that one as I was going away from the structure.

We didn’t get to the sale until 4:30 and the place closed at 6:00. I did power shopping. I picked up mostly some Christmas decor and a few Christmas gifts. I got a few things I want to embellish too.

We were going to a smorgasbord, but about 5 lines had 30 people each waiting to get in. And they all will get in and touch all the serving spoons, you get my drift. We ended up retrieving a few caches, one at a tiny cemetery and the other in the parking lot of the restaurant. We had to leave and come back as a full tour bus was right near where we needed to look! They would have wondered why those people were messing with the lamp skirt. Ha ha!

There is a smaller restaurant under the smorgasbord and we ate there. The cheesesteak was a mess! They cut all the way through the bun and piled all this marinara sauce on it. I had to cut it up to eat it as I couldn’t pick it up.

There is a 40k square foot gift shop-it goes on and on! I found an owl wind chime and some Burt’s Bee facial cleanser I needed.

I asked Brian to stop one more time for a cache as I have always wanted to see it. It was an old grist mill in the heart of Amish country. It was getting dark, so I turned on the handy phone light app and although it was 20 feet off, we did find the ammo can.

We had a pretty fun day and found 10 caches in two days!

I think Longwood Gardens will be my next blog post. Sean and I went on Sunday. I have never seen such a variety of tulips in such an array of colors. Here’s a sneak peak!

Jan12

Day tripping again to Lancaster Co.

Posted on Saturday, January 12, 2013 by Dianne

Standard

I’m not going to let the wintertime stop me(us) from taking daytrips up to the Lancaster area. There are many unclaimed geocaches in the rolling hills of this county! Plus I am loving the little market about 16 miles or so away. Brian is usually off on Fridays now. He got a flu shot Thursday and decided to get the oil changed the next day. He would be in for a rude awakening! We usually go to the same place and I located a coupon for a repair shop offering the deal for much cheaper. Well the man came out and told Brian he had 1 quart of oil left in the SUV that usually holds 6. The previous place put in the incorrect filter…it’s been slowly leaking for almost 8 months. Brian hasn’t checked it lately. I don’t understand why the previous place would risk hurting our vehicle.

Anyway, we headed out a little too late…2:45 pm. It then started to rain, when I thought it was going to be an evening rain. We need to get moving sooner! We were going to Intercourse, the town where part of the movie Witness was filmed. I had wanted to find about 4-5 geocaches. We ended up walking a little in the rain for the first one. It was a big ammo box right next to a fabric store! I dropped off the little gingerbread man tb and took a couple to pass on. This guy was watching us:

The cache was to the left of him a few feet away under another bush.

I was tickled to see that a few stores over was The Old Candle Barn. Sean and I had been in this area back in March of last year. They have the cutest things. I got a little wrought iron fairy holding a bird, a nest and a little ceramic bird. Oh I could have done retail damage!

Cute display!

If you recall last year I took a photo of the bunny made out of the pearl buttons and made my own. It’s hanging in the family room.

By 4:15, it didn’t look like many places were still open for business! On a Friday? We went to one cache that was easy to locate quickly. We then headed down the road to Leacock Presbyterian church about 4:45 pm. We had to park across the street. I got smart and put a hat on, but Brian was getting drenched. We were ‘this close’, but we didn’t want to go inside the stone wall. I will bring my camera next time when we get the geocache.

We headed to the farmer’s market for their buffet dinner. There aren’t many places you get dinner for $13.99 (and all you can eat)! We enjoyed prime rib, ham, sides and dessert. I mainly tasted a lot of things like the pineapple bread, butter beans, etc. All starchy!

Afterwards, we went in the grocery store and got some great deals. We had a terrible drive home. Today it was warmer and sunnier. I have to watch the weather better. I did do a few things around the house and in the basement, but I do have to downsize. I did find some things for Valentine’s Day!

I’m really having issues with using the bigger vehicle-it’s hard for me to climb in and out of it. I have been terribly achy today, especially my knee. I can hardly go up and down the basement steps.

Jan5

Christmas Revisited!

Posted on Saturday, January 5, 2013 by Dianne

Standard

I happen to see that it was my pal’s 25th wedding anniversary on Facebook (I gave her a thumb’s up) and clicked through to her sister’s wall. Her sister was up from the south visiting and went to the National Christmas Center and a photo she showed piqued my interested in going to a place we have passed dozens of time going to the Lancaster, PA area. It’s right in Paradise, about 20 miles from here. We had until this Sunday to go as they would have weird hours until this Christmas.

Ma, you going bye byes again?

Brian was off (unfortunately, his hours have been cut at the store), so I had even mapped out a few geocaches in the area-most were those ‘lifting the skirt’ kind, but we just couldn’t find one in a tree on a short road. We stopped at a thrift store where I had consigned things in 2011. They were having a sale, but we didn’t linger. I got an adorable gingerbread man wreath for $2.50.

The center was a lot bigger than we thought. We read that the owner started out with 3 displays and grew to 10 or so.

This guy greeted us, though he looks a bit frumpy.

This is perfectly decorated.

We took over 100 photos!

The Norwegians use to wrap their trees with cotton batting to make it look like snow!

The Woolworth store display! This is the photo Olivia’s sister showed on her page.

This was the German Santa, the ultimate ‘toy maker’ The room had a number of wax Santas-they looked so real! I didn’t care for the children or the elves-creepy!

This was part of Tudor Towne, an animated story with different animals/creatures telling the story about how they almost didn’t have Christmas. We took Sean to his display, but in Delaware when he was a little boy!

There was a display about the time Jesus was born, down to cobblestones…most of it was very dark, but this was very beautifully done

Here’s Virginia, the little girl who wrote a letter about the existence of Santa (I think her face looks old). Be glad you can’t see the father’s face. But it was interesting to see how the turn of the last century looked (when my grandmom Ruth was born) and they had a loop on the monitor of the real Virginia reading her letter and reply from the newspaper editor.

The workshop where Santa greets the children was special too. Not sure if the owner of the center does that job, but he sure looks like him as we saw him go to the phone and talk to someone about a music box for the center. He turned them down.

Creepy elves

Brian loved the trains. We heard they will be redoing this, it looked pretty nice to us!

I will be unloading all the photos to Flickr sooner or later, so I will add the link here when I do.

Makes me want to not take down the tree, but it’s been up a month now, so I’m thinking dust factory.

I hope you enjoyed these.

Found 4 out of 5 geocaches! Ate at Pizza Hut-it’s been a long time and it was just as greasy good as I remember it. ; ) Got some 60% off goodies at The Christmas Tree Shoppe (store) and because I signed up for email, I got $10 off my total .

We also stopped at a Dutch market. The prices of their meat and lunch meat cant’ be beat!

Good day!

In closing-the neatest ‘cache’ of the day!

Oh I wish I was an Oscar Meyer weiner-lol! Those Lancaster caches had over 200 logs!

May4

First flower buying trip of the year

Posted on Friday, May 4, 2012 by Dianne

Standard

That maybe the only flower buying trip of the year! We had a few extra bucks from a winning scratch off ticket that Bri’s dad gave us ($40!), but spent lots more. I decided I’d better propagate the huge petunia plant I got with a mixture of pink lemonade and Picasso something petunias. I had Brian with me and he was loading up on green peppers and tomatoes plus the ones I got.
Anyway, we were there 1.5 hours and I am ready to get digging, though my left elbow is giving me a hard time (I have a stretchy thing on it in the photo).

That’s an example of the Pink Lemonade petunias near my head there! We filled up the Mariner.

We then went to a family restaurant close by near where Brian worked a few years back. I got at least 3 helpings of mashed potatoes and turkey in one! I brought half of it home. Then we went to a little 5 and 10 style store and I got some fat quarters of fabric, a little flag and seeds.

The landscape is gorgeous in Lancaster as I have told you before. I didn’t bring my camera with me, but wish I did. We really saw a lot of Amish people and buggies yesterday!

It was a nice outing with my hubby.