Just a little play on words there. Ha ha!
Happy May Day!
My son Sean and I headed over to Longwood Gardens a few days ago so we could see most of the tulips in their full spring glory. I can pretty much say I felt like I was in Holland as the waves of colors and the varieties of tulips were amazing!
Hi Sean!
There were other pretty flowers like poppies
Pansies and such
Tower of Jewels
Canterbury Bells and Begonias
And many more gorgeous things and plants!
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!
Since Sean didn’t go to Los Angeles, he wanted to see some place different, so he booked a room at the Revel Casino down in Atlantic City and said we could join him. Now it’s nice to see something different, but in April, you are going to miss a lot of the outdoor experience. It figures we did have summer like weather for a few days ‘before’ we went down to the beach, but unfortunately the temps went down 30 degrees and it was also windy and foggy besides chilly. The two places Sean wanted to see were closed on Thursday! Lucky for him and Brian, I wrote down some geocaches I thought would be interesting to find, two being at the places that were closed. They both agreed it would be something to do before heading to Atlantic City. We were in Stone Harbor, NJ and our first stop was at the Wetlands Institute. Sean is doing a research paper about NJ wetlands!
We did get to go in the next day and checked out their indoor exhibits. Sean went up in that look out yesterday as both Brian and I were weary of the circular stairs. We want to visit again when it’s nicer out.
There is a inside joke about every time I am close to the beach, it’s windy! See my hair! This is me with the 1st geocache find in hand. The other hand is holding my custom made stamper with my geocacher name on it. Stamp and go (and I do sign the date too-so it saves a little time, but looks nice with the red ink).
Our next stop was to the Stone Harbor Bird Sanctuary. It’s been here for 66 years and we have never seen it!
I knew the geocache here would be fast and it was. Another place that will be worth a trip back to see when it is green and lush…and full of birds! We had a few Chickadees giving us the business though.
One more look near the beach and it was 3 for 3! The little film canister blew away on me and Brian had to get it with a stick! We went behind a fence to see the beach and ocean and there was about a 10 foot or more drop due to Hurricane Sandy last October 2012.
Foggy and gray!
Sean on Friday at the 88th St. beach where there was a geocache hide(we didn’t find that one as the sand was really piled up)
So we asked the man at the Stone Harbor Museum (where we found another very nicely kept cache-4 for 4) where to eat and he mentioned Fred’s Tavern. We went and had the best burgers! I haven’t raved about food in a while, but these were on brioche rolls, so extra delicious.
We looked for one more cache near an ice cream parlor. It was a nano-Sean and me looked everywhere. Brian stayed in the car and generally if you tell him to find a nano, he can. After I logged it as a DNF (4 for 5), the CO emailed me and told me exactly where it was. The next day we went back and this time Brian found it.
Photo credits mostly go to Brian!
Next post Atlantic City!
On the 23rd, Brian and I met my mom and brother over at Longwood Gardens. I bite the bullet and renewed my yearly pass. I say this as I was wondering if I could do the walking there after the past few months. Actually this is bazaar thinking on my part. I ‘need’ to go there for my gardening, flowers and photo fixes. My brother just bought a pass too! He will be bringing my mom out here now. That’s pretty neat.
Brian went along too. As we were walking in, a lady ‘waved’ a ticket in front of his face and said ‘do you want a ‘free’ ticket? Before I could say anything, he said ‘no’! He said he figured I will get a free pass for him via my membership, but still, you have to pay attention to what someone is offering. 😉
It was a nice display and mom said she liked it better than the flower show.
(Brian took a lot of photos too, I can’t remember which he did and I did, so we both will take credit for these).
This was so pretty to walk in to see from the blustery, but sunshiny day:
Yellow is one of my favorite flower colors.
I mean ‘wow’!
I’m a big fan of true blue flowers too! Who doesn’t love these Blue Poppies?
I think these are African Daisies or mums?
Did I mention I like Chartreuse too? Maybe this is a bit more lime color.
Warm colors are nice too.
I like this one for the demo effect-look at the gardeners’ hands. LOL
And what they were making:
Oh I could show you 80 more photos or more! I will be uploading them to Flickr. You will see them in my sidebar there.
A nice man took this on Brian, my mom and me.
Mom has been a bit worn out from her long walk and standing a lot, so I hope brother will push her around in a wheel chair sometimes. Can’t wait for them to see the rest of the gardens!
In the next few days, I’ll share with you our daytrip to Crystal Cave and Roadside America!
After seeing ‘Silver Linings Playbook’, I was itchy to go down to that area to eat in the Llanerch Diner where the characters Pat and Tiffany kinda had a date and then to see the house where the movie was filmed. And then if I was really lucky to hide a geocache along that particular street there.
I went to my hometown which is about 5-6 miles from where I was headed. I got my mom and we stopped off at the cemetery where a geocache was. It’s also where my maternal family is resting. The cache was around the bend from that area and I got out of the geomobile and left my mom there. It was an area with a few evergreens and bushes. I got to 17 feet away and I swung around to see a tree that probably had broken off. I looked in and low and behold, I saw a film canister! Yay, less than 5 minutes of looking. I hustled back to the car and told my mom since we were here, I was going to walk over to the family plot. It took me a few minutes to find it, but I did and was sad to see it faded a lot from the sun-it was a pink marble.
Got back in the car and headed for the diner. I was taking some shots with the phone camera of the sign:
and when we were being seated, the lady lead us right to the booth where Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence sat! I didn’t even ask her where it was. But this told the tale:
My mom looked cute when she poised:
She had a little trouble taking a photo of me-this was the best of 4
I liked the asparagus/Swiss Cheese Omelet I had, but mom said her pork chop was a little tough (I think overcooked-I never order pork chops out as I have trouble enough cooking them myself).
The next stop was the avenue where the house used in the movie was located. At first I went the wrong way, but it was right down from the diner. Then I wasn’t sure which house it was. I remembered them all walking up to the front door and it had pillars made of stone with the thick cement in between. Mom thought a lot of the homes were built in the 1930s. I think I saw the house when we drove by after looking at a newspaper article online and the opening credits of the trailer.
So it was fun to see all this and I also hide a ‘premium’ geocache as I didn’t want too many people coming here at once and it was just a little nano with a tiny log. I’m waiting for approval.
Update-The reviewer won’t grant me permission to place the cache as he says I need approval from the people living near it. What? It’s not on private property and not near the SLP house.
This gallery contains 22 photos.
My brother asked if I wanted to go to the Flower Show down in Philly this year and I said fine, but I wanted Brian to come along too. We were going to take the train down from my hometown, but we would have a half hour wait and it would be 2 pm by […]
Today before Brian and I hit the Dutch-way Grocery store, we looked for a few caches. It was in the 20s, but felt colder. Luckily, we found them in 5 minutes or less. The first place was off a parking lot of this lovely church in Cochranville, Pa. Some man was sitting in a delivery van almost parallel to the cache-wonder if he was a cacher too? When we got out, he left! Anyway, I narrowed my search to a tree trunk and there was the cache.
So we had a little time to kill, so we went down another country road and looked for a cache we tried to find at night a few months back. But then we were in the right area, but you just can’t find a fence ‘nano’ in the dark. Again, Brian spotted it with his eagle eyes.
Across the street was this lovely church in Parkesburg, PA. Love the bell!
I have a small set of other churches on Flickr.
So we went food shopping and were happy to get some good ‘buy 1 get 1 free’ items. I had run out of canned or frozen veggies. Last night I looked and all I could find were a few sweet potatoes which we had with our dinner.
I’ve been doing a little cross stitching at night. I finally finished a Christmas ornament and started one for another holiday coming up soon!
I have gotten a little rusty. I do have a nice floor lamp I bought to shine on the project (thanks Habitat for Humanity). Next I want to get to my paper crafts again!
We may be getting some snow tomorrow, up to 2 inches! Wow! ; )
Update-Sean’s car has been at a local restoration place for a few days now. The appraiser said it can be repaired and gave us a check. He didn’t count the steering issue. Sean got a loaner car in the meantime. So we are hoping the restoration place doesn’t want more than what’s on the check.
This Friday and again today, I headed down to the neighboring town’s yearly huge book sale. They advertise that there is over 70K books and I do believe them! Being the book lover I am, I can’t pass up a sale. There was even a geocache in the parking lot to look for. Too bad it was so cold yesterday. I had looked at it via the satellite shot a month or so ago and didn’t I sit down ‘across’ from where it really was at the end of a bridge. The problem is I couldn’t reach right for it. I actually wondered up and down the bridge for about 15 minutes. I went back on the website and emailed a guy who had found it after 3 tries. He sent me back a detailed explanation. Today I had Brian. I swore it was the ‘right’ on my side, but it was on the other side! Then I couldn’t find my pen, so had to use a pencil in the SUV.
We didn’t go hog wild book wise. In fact Sean didn’t buy anything.
We decided to go to the New Castle (Delaware) Farmer’s market, but took a detour so Sean could see the old area of the town. Brian and I had been there a few times. I got out and took a few photos, this being my favorite:
See the trio of tree and fence tops?
We then headed to the farmer’s market. I was having major hurt issues with my knee down to the back of my calf. Think I did something Friday night getting out to retrieve a cache. (That’s an entirely different story!)
At the market, we found young Amish people selling donuts. They were much more in cost than the ‘DD’, but they are larger and fluffier. Best I ever had! Have to be careful eating those!
We also went to ‘The Hut’ and when we pulled in the parking lot, we saw Sean’s old Taurus that he traded in 1.5 yrs ago! Someone who works there owned it. I think Sean was super surprised. He took good care of that car (his 1st car) and when he saw it, he said ‘that car took me back and forth to Penn State many times’. Where he traded it in for his newer Taurus is about a 1/4 mile away. But the chances of us seeing it again, just wow.
We went to get gas, found another guardrail cache at the station next to it (drove in circles a bit, guess the attendant wondered what we were doing) and then hit the Goodwill where I found a few bird tchotchkes, one of which is a Marjolein Bastin for Hallmark.
I mainly bought crafting books at the sale earlier, ribbon embroidery and drawing for my mom and a few historic fictions along with crafts for me.
It was nice to have Sean along. He was a little depressed at first, some job issues going on in the family and I guess he feels that his time in the sun isn’t coming along fast enough in the job field. The economy is still not great and I think Sean will have to move away from here when he is done with his schooling.
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.
I went back to the preschool this morning. It was rough getting up that early, but I was pretty much ready to go by 8:15, so I have a little time to myself.
The kids arrived mostly late, and a few of the little boys were misbehaving today. I brought some rewards stickers with me. I asked them to answer me ‘fine, thanks’, to the question, how are you? A few wouldn’t answer me. The one little stinker ‘A’ tore his sticker in half and threw it away! He did everything he could think of to misbehave (he had time out), but when I rewarded a few of the boys extra stickers, the little stinker ‘A’ thought he better tell his mom he was really good today! The other teacher said he was! I don’t believe in not telling the truth. I mean think of one good thing ‘A’ did, but tell his mom he wasn’t listening well at all. The other little boy ‘L’, wow, what a change in him! I gave his mom a thumbs up. I think ‘A’ was taking all that in. There is a little guy who reminds me of Brian at that age from the photos I’ve seen. Because I was doling out stickers, he may have kept giving me big smiles. Gotta love that.
I took down all the trees, but left a few decorations in my bay window for a few more weeks. I haven’t used my dolls that much, and I enjoy seeing them. If you go to the Brandywine River Museum at Christmas, you will get the pleasure of seeing Anne Wyeth McCoy’s vast antique collection.
Definitely because I am a little stronger, but still achy, I do want to do spring cleaning a bit earlier this year. The first thing I want to do is clear off my ‘eBay’ table. Actually the first thing I have to do is tidy up the Christmas storage boxes.
I have to share a funny geocaching experience. Brian and I had been down to my hometown to take my mom on a few shopping errands. When we were on our way home, I noticed a geocache in my hometown was up again! We were heading in the right direction, so turned down State Street. The GPS zoned in on a black bench and two chairs. Remember it’s night time and it’s a nano. It was mostly deserted…and then I saw Mr. Policeman heading down the middle of town. I quickly sat down and put the phone to my ear! Brian was going to give up, but I said, hold on, I want to look where people’s hand won’t normally hit, the back and on the bottom . Yay!
Unfortunately, earlier that evening, my mom got knocked off balance by a step up display’s corner at Old Navy. She was grabbing the coats she was looking at while I was grabbing her to save her from hitting the step too hard. For some reason she ended up laying flat on the display! The manager of the store was in a department close by and he didn’t even come over to see what was going on and if mom was okay! She was alright, but very sore. She did shop for a few items for my brother’s birthday yesterday. I wrote customer service about the above. I got a phone call yesterday from HQ and they are sending mom a $50 gift card! It sure pays to speak up!
The orchid show is coming up at Longwood soon! Here’s a few from their orchid room.
Collages & Creative Goodness 