Brian and I headed up to the next town where the mushroom festival was in full swing. It was a bit warm, but a breeze was blowing once in a while. This festival grows every year! There were rides for the kids, more than last year and lots of vendors. Not an exciting shot, but so hard to take photos
It was up and down the main drag-that walk is getting longer, but I didn’t mind it as much this year!
Almost every restaurant that lines the town on both sides was represented . Absent again was Longwood Gardens who has the best mushroom soup, hands down. I did purchase soup from another place and it wasn’t as thick and rich as Longwood’s is. We bought this sampling of food-not that cheap. Almost $33 for this:
Two cups of mushroom soup, two beef portabella burgers, mushroom/asparagus risotto (with very little asparagus) and stuffed grape leaves. Ouch right? I wanted one more thing, but we ran out of cash. The food was good, but not wonderful. I want to make that risotto and I will load mine up with mushrooms and asparagus.
Outside the Kennett Inn, Chef Antonia Lafoso was signing her cookbook. She was on ‘Top Chef’ about 4 yrs ago. We didn’t go to talk to her as I wasn’t interested in her cookbook ‘Busy Mom’s Cookbook’. If you remember when we saw Maria Muldaur, I do not care much for ‘celebs’ sitting or standing behind tables. A few years ago at the festival, Food Network star Sunni Anderson was so sweet and put her arm around me for a photo. Standing up greeting people. That says a lot to me.
It’s an event we like to attend, a chance to sample food and maybe see someone interesting.
A few hours later, we had heavy rain, so it was a good thing we went when we did! I may go up again with Sean in the morning. He’s not much on moving fast on days he has to work though.
This evening I worked on some Artist Trading Cards! It’s been a few months and it felt good to be using my papers again.
It’s been kind of a slllllooooowwww week here. When there has been a whirlwind of activity and then you are grounded, days creep by. I went to the doctor, she prescribed very pricey gel rub for my aches and pains. Did she not hear I need to get generic stuff? I got a little discount because of the Key Ring Phone app, but not as much. And my blood pressure reading, the first time they took it was 132/82! That’s the lowest it’s been for a doctor visit in 2 years! I still need to try and lose weight, which has been hard for me, but maybe I have more muscle than fat? My weight varies 2-3 pounds all the time and of course it was higher at the doctor’s visit. The doctor is probably in her mid 30s and was wearing a peasant dress with the tube top under her lab coat. At least she is a relaxed doctor.
It’s been wet too, we aren’t use to wet lately and so I sorted out piles and piles of papers from Brian’s old job which he should have tossed months ago. Speaking of Bri, he’s getting use to his job as a cashier. It’s just part-time and he may have to look for another part-time job in a few months times. The manager said they only hire p-t. It’s something and it’s experience.
My PT Cruiser is in the shop. It needs a few things repaired: rotors, brake pads, transmission cooler hoses and a tire-really all 4 before the winter, but we will go to Wally World for 3 of them. An unexpected surprise. I don’t know why my rotors rusted out like they did. We don’t have a garage, so that didn’t help matters.
Today Brian finally cut the grass after 2 weeks and late in the afternoon (a little too late) we ran out to do a few caches and grab a pizza dinner.
The first place we stopped was a little town with a park. From what I read it was in the gazebo…we went right to it…and I ‘thought’ Brian checked around the ceiling ledge well and he said he didn’t see anything. So we walked around the park thinking it was a bigger box….nothing. We went and sat in the gazebo and I remembered the hint was octagon, so he started looking again and ran across a Altoids box painted white to blend in with the gazebo! What a relief for him to find it! He needs to use more stealth at times. I mean with that phone booth cache, the GPS was awful, but I went back in the booth, saw the chain hanging off a raised spot (probably where the phone book was) and felt around for it (I am scared of bees and keep an eye out for any flying about) and there was a key box painted red to match the booth! (I forget if I shared the photo!)
This had logs dated back to 2008. I didn’t bring my swag and didn’t take anything.
Next we went to one called ’70 Windows’ which was placed less than 2 weeks ago. There is two levels of stores in a ‘u’ shape. The hint was ‘neenah’ which means ‘little’ (or micro, right?) There was a Talbot’s Petite store there and 3 foot lights with shades running along the back of the sidewalk and their shades were metal. However my GPS was bouncy. We got to ’17’ feet and it went up to ’54’ feet, that kind of thing. The other cachers left good hints. We even thought it was on the second floor and there wasn’t anyplace good to put it. But, all was not lost, we ate some awesome pizza at ‘Pizza by Elizabeth’. The menu has the pizzas named after last names of famous Elizabeths-Taylor, Montgomery. I got an artichoke and spinach in fontina with crispy fried onion on top…with wheat crust. I had a spring mix salad with Vinaigrette-just delicious, even the toffee candy the sweet waiter gave us at the end of the meal. Brian had a BBQ chicken pizza named ‘Shue’ for the actress. Mine was ‘Jackson’…Betty, Beth? I don’t know.
We saved some for Sean and headed to a cache in church parking lot. It was way back off the main road and a lovely area. I want to go back and take photos.
This is called Christ Church. Near Wilmington and Greenville, DE. Our Vice President Joe Biden lives around this general area some place. On the way to the church, we saw some huge homes. I did a Google search and his home is on a lake or pond that is more in the open.
So we had the entire parking lot to ourselves. Again bouncy GPS. We checked in the only lamp skirt that we came across that moved and saw a few bundles securely wrapped in plastic bags. Not sure what they were, but we didn’t even touch those as they had been there a while, were wet and guarded by spiders. After 10 minutes and going in a little wooded area where there was mulch, etc., I decided to check out an additional parking sign (think that’s what it said) and looked behind it! Voila! There was a silver bison secured with velcro. Sneaky! My phone camera died so Bri took a blurry photo. I just got that awesome shirt last night at Wally World-camo!
So that was my 2 out of 3 caching day. Up to 110!!!!
Before we went the 10 miles or so to Washington, DC (on the 2nd) We went to find a cache in a neighborhood near National Harbor. You could tell it had been there many more years than 4 years like the town. I’m pretty sure it’s Oxion Hill, MD. We drove by a Cirque du Soleil tent. That would have been fascinating to see. Did I mention it was raining? So we pull up to the area and I see a fence and guardrail. Sometimes I get so excited to find the cache, I forget the hint and things I have read about it! Plus I am getting out of the car in the rain in a strange neighborhood. Brian and Sean stayed in the car. I looked along the fence and turned around-the GPS showed it was close to the road-come on mush brain-it’s the guardrail! And there it was! I brought it back in the car and dumped it out and stuck a travel bug in it, then squeezed everything back in.
Didn’t I get a tick on me from this 5 minute caching! All the times I’m in the woods and I find a tick on me in a neighborhood!
I was checking out the phone for another cache and brain fog set in again! Brian had said he needed gas and drove by a nice gas station looking for another cache. We turned around as we thought we missed the road and as we approached the station again, the numbers went down! He had decided to skip the gas and it was there at that station-rats.
We got to DC in about 20 minutes and the hardest part was finding a place to park, next to the crazy streets there. We had to get ourselves around to the back of Union Station and then we did park on the roof of the garage. We looked around the station a little and the guys got coffee. We headed out to look for the caches (marble brain #3 episode-2 hours sleep just doesn’t cut it for me).
So we walk toward the Capitol. It is quite a sight. Oh, I’ve seen it in 5th grade (been in it also) and seen it many other times, but to see it from other angles is amazing.
Getting close to the Capitol
So here it is in all it’s historic majesty!
The only problem-I forgot it was a ‘virtual’ cache until we looked around a park nearby-that was a waste of time because are they going to let you put a box next to a historic place like this-really? Anyway, when I figured it out, I was suppose to take a photo of the other side, where the Presidents take the oath of office! Grrrr-well, I had seen that area too, and I am sure a kid in my 5th grade class fell down in that general area (I’m talking 1970) and Cam broke his leg! It may have been Arlington, but it was in DC. I told the C.O. what happened on geocaching.com and he didn’t say anything.
The next was also a virtual and within 10 minutes I remembered something about turtle eyes in the questions. This was across the way from the Capitol at the Library of Congress. Another issue was I had forgotten my geocaching bag with the GPS device and my phone’s battery was going. It was making the screen darken up. So I looked at the description again and answered the questions. The turtles were in a fountain near the sidewalk. The ‘authors’ were along the top of the building show below. That was all we did as we were tired and had a 6 block walk back to the car.
We grabbed some pizza and headed home. Well we started to head home and I mentioned that DC Cupcakes was in Georgetown. We tried to find that for almost an hour-Sean’s GPS took us to the incorrect end of ‘M’ St. When we located it, it was 6:30 and it was hopping in that town with limited parking with no place to park in the area of the shop. But the shop was going to close at 7:00 and there was a line going out the door! For cupcakes! I guess because they have a tv show and all. I am going to make my own cupcakes for the fellas after all that running around. And we want to go back to Georgetown-it looks like a nice place, similar to New Hope in PA.
So again we are on the road to home-we are going through downpours every 5 miles or so. I then mention a easy virtual cache in Baltimore-you just get info from a memorial. We get off the exit and run into traffic and roads that we had needed to take being closed. No baseball game, but Sean remembered there was a Nascar show there and they were letting out! We never got near the cache and ended up going through an ‘iffy’ part of town. We were all getting tired of city driving. Did I tell you how awful it is to drive in DC? This was pretty bad too.
I’m glad we stopped, but I would have liked to see the President exhibit at the Madame Tussand Museum, which I didn’t remember about until we got home. Not a good day for remembering anything! I truly do research my cache hunting well and things go smoothly-most times. Big city caching is harder! There aren’t a ton of box caches, but there are a ton of virtual ones to be found-in the future.
Union Station
Seen anything familiar from the roof of the garage?
I finally got permission to place my cache up in historic Kennett Square, PA.! I am pretty sure it’s the first cache in downtown Kennett which is pretty neat in my opinion. It’s been ready to be hidden for about 3 weeks and the assistant borough lady got back to me yesterday. I was not allowed to place it behind the building as there is a strange declining walkway to the basement. Not for handicapped people. Perhaps the previous owner used it for his plumbing supplies.
I had a little trouble with the coordinates as the cache is so near a building. I had to come home and tweak it on Google by plugging in my cords and changing a few of the numbers I had scribbled out which turned out closer than what I ended up with.
This is a good tie-in with the upcoming Mushroom Festival festival on the 8th and 9th too. That’s if geocachers like to go to mushroom festivals. : ) Speaking of geocachers, a local group is having a picnic at the end of next month and we may attend to get to know more people who enjoy this hobby.
Brian was gone all day to his training session. He didn’t take a break for 5 hours-yikes! He says there is a lot to know, but he’ll get use to it. And it’s so close to home too.
PS-I took this photo about 6 years ago and the building and landscaping are much nicer now.
Our plans were to go to the Delaware County Community College (where I graduated in 1979) to a flea market. My brother decided to take my mom and I messaged him and he said it was ‘so-so’. Brian and I decided to go south to one of our favorite stomping grounds, New Castle, DE. They also had a flea market going on, so not all was lost in the looking and haggling department.
However-since we found 3 caches last night and were up to 99 in total, we just had to get to #100 today-somewhere. I thought maybe look down the road again. I’ve looked there several times-I just don’t want anyone I know see me look inside a guardrail-lol.
We started to look for one and the parking was in a neighborhood where they didn’t want people really coming in as it said ‘private road’. We then went to a lovely Presbyterian church with a nicely kept cemetery. We had to walk through the cemetery and saw a few Shakespeares in a few different areas. How unusual:
And check this out!
Yay for us!!!
We also looked for one in an old electric box near a Sears store and the door refused to open! We had to walk up a hill above the parking lot-it was narrow and there were stones there to slip on. A bit unsafe and we won’t go for those kind anymore.
We then ventured on to the farmer’s market flea market and there were still vendors there. I saw an ammo box I would have liked to have, but the guy wouldn’t come down from $10. Bummer. I bet in a few weeks, it will still be there. Like something I got my mom today in the actual market. I can’t say what as it’s a gift, but we got it down to $10 from $20! We found a vendor who sold really nice books for $2 each. I will tell you about them later.
Inside we got some produce-has anyone cooked with figs? I also got a floppy hat for the event next week. I wanted one and got one for $3. It’s kind of funky.
So we left and headed home, but something on the geocache page caught my eye-Brandywine Springs Amusment park. The navigator took us to a neighborhood again, but we found the park and were with 400 or so feet of the cache. We started to walk through the leaf covered, bumpy trail- it went down and down 150 feet or so. Then we started to see these nice markers.
There was once a lovely amusement park here!
All that are left in the area where we were looking were markers that an Eagle Scout had put there.
Some old time shots of the park:
A video about the park.
We did see the slab where the book author is kneeling down next to. It use to have a merry go round above it!
The cache was hidden half way up a hill in a fallen tree. Brian climbed up and didn’t see it at first. I was begging him to find it, it had to be there from the hint. The mosquitoes were a bitin’! It needed some maintenance, but I dropped a travel bug in it. I also wrote to the cache owner to make sure we had the right one and told him about the travel bug.
I came home and made pork tenderloins (from an Amish vendor) with mushrooms and fried rice with a side of cauliflower.
We sure had fun on our treasure hunts and finding #100!
Last night Brian and I headed to Philadelphia for a tour featuring vampires, ghosts and sex. Believe me, I am not shocked by anything as I grew up with three brothers. Rain was threatening all afternoon, and on the way in it did rain about 10 minutes. We went in a little early to geocache. There were not a bunch of them in the vivacity of Independence Hall, but we saw there was one on Sansom Street where jeweler’s row was. Oh, I had printed out a coupon for a parking garage and we went into the incorrect one…bummer. Also saw where my cousin’s store was and will have to go there sometime. The family has owned a Danish furniture store for years-it’s called ‘Dane Decor’.
So we walk down to Sansom. Almost 30 years ago, we walked around there looking for my engagement ring. Because Princess Diana had a sapphire, I wanted an emerald with diamonds around it. We went to a few stores and settled on Sydney Rosen & Co. The salesman talked me out of the emerald as a main stone, so I got a .33 diamond with two emeralds on each side. Years later, I got my ring cleaned and sized again and not sure if all the emeralds had cracked, but some had to be replaced.
Back to yesterday-so we start looking for a nice size cache and the GPS is bouncing back and forth. We look down stairwells and in planters. We did this for 30 minutes. I thought it best to tell the policeman we were looking for something hidden since we are in the diamond district. So a man walks by me and says ‘8 ft. 6 ft…..’ I asked him if he knew we were looking for something and he said yes and if I wanted to know where it was. I said…well I think it’s in a planter. He said look for one just with dirt…and then pointed to a restaurant! I think I could of found it without him telling me about the restaurant part. Within a few minutes we found the empty planter (the hint was on the earth). It was almost buried with a tile over top of it. It had a lot of stuff in it too, which I found the ones around here usually don’t.
Here I am with the cache with Sydney Rosen behind me!
Next we went to the Bourse Building as we didn’t have time to locate a Cheese steak place I read about. We had 15 minutes to grab a slice of pizza (we had the kind with a top crust). A shop was still open and I went in and grabbed a few little things for Sean, Mom and me.
Then we headed on over to the Liberty Bell pavillion. We had both seen the Liberty Bell a few times, but not here. We had to get our belongings examined like at the Mrs. Obama event!
It was really humid and I had to pull my hair back-whew!
For Zoey-look at this gorgeous Sweet Potato vine!
We then headed for the tour across the street at the visitor center. We first looked around a gift shop there-wow stuff is expensive!
We had a young guy about Sean’s age and he didn’t want his photo taken. I guess maybe it’s because of what he is talking about. We stood at the visitor’s center for 10-15 minutes as he told us about the infidelities of our founding fathers. I knew about Jefferson and the slaves. Something about John Hancock that I didn’t buy.
Then the part, which must have been this guy’s favorite part was talked about down the ways. It was about hookers in Philly in the colonial days. I knew it was a tour that was ‘R’ rated, but why not show us maybe where a brothel was?
We went over to Washington Square. That was used as a mass burial yard. Very creepy. He said a guy he knows was digging in his basement nearby and bones fell out of the wall. Okay, maybe after over 200 years? Thanks to standing there all that time I got at least half a dozen mosquito bites.
That’s the unknown soldier…the guy said they pulled some guy out of the mass grave in a uniform.
He told us a lot of stuff, but didn’t show us many sights. This building (not sure if it’s the original) was a prison and where the first balloon sailed all the way over to Deptford, NJ (really not that far).
I really liked seeing the Old City Tavern up close. The ghost story is that a bride was getting ready for her wedding and her bridesmaid knocked into an oil lamp and set her on fire and she met her demise.
Here’s a local tv program and the head chef and a clairvoyant are talking about ghosts in the tavern.
Entrance way of the Old City Tavern-look at all the famous people chef Walter Staib has met.
The guide left us across the street from here at a grid pattern that was set up the way the original city streets were laid out. And that was it. He even had the nerve to ask for a tip. This wasn’t a cheap tour, even with the discount. I was a bit peeved as they took a registration fee on top of the Living Social deal. And the other tour took you in a circle. This one, we had to find our way back to 6th and Market.
More sights:
Souvenirs!
The Declaration House where Thomas Jefferson wrote the Constitution
Independence Hall at night. We heard the clock chime three times.
This was unique. What’s in the remnants of I think the Beale house. There are three videos going and places to sit. This one looks like it’s above a fireplace. There are windowless window frames also.
I think we enjoyed walking around on our own more than going on the tour! I’d love to eat at the Old City Tavern sometime and visit a few more places and look for a few more caches. 40 miles isn’t that far away.
What an exciting day we had up in Montgomery County, PA yesterday! I got an email, said to pick up the tickets and come on up to see First Lady Michelle Obama. Brian literally held the camera over the heads of other people (zoom lens). We arrived late, got our purses searched and walked through a metal detector. We had to stand almost an hour to wait for Mrs. Obama. The school (Upper Dublin high school, about an hour from here) only had the one side of bleachers open. Thank goodness my mom had a fold up chair, but that little lady had to walk from a field.
Not too bad right? We only got a few clear ones. We took my almost 82 yr old mom along as none of us has ever seen a First Lady before…just their inaugural gowns in the American History museum. Sean has seen both Barack Obama at a Penn State rally and Bill Clinton.
The First Lady is a very thoughtful, intelligent speaker. People tend to forget that both she and her husband come from humble backgrounds. Barack was raised by a single mother and his grandparents (I was raised by my mom and grandmom). I know she probably repeats this speech a lot, but it was interesting to the 1,800 people there. We all had to go pick up the tickets to be able to go in.
The school band
The people on the bleachers
Send some good vibes as the hubby got a phone call yesterday while we were out for a job interview!
We are trying to take a little trip a week until the job gods send Brian something. It sure helps us to have something to think about. In ‘the old days’ you ‘most likely’ at least would get a phone call or letter in the mail if they were/weren’t interested in you. Nowadays, if you get an email you are lucky. When I got the store job, I went in and got an application and filled it out, ‘the old-fashioned way’.
Anyway, I thought it would be a great day to go to a pretty park for a picnic. We had been to Lum’s Pond Park many years ago for a company picnic where Brian worked when we first got married. We were trying to remember which area we were in back then and think it was near the entrance.
So we stopped for gas and shorties (hoagies/subs) and headed about 25 miles to the park. We had a few people around, but mostly had the place to ourselves. We sat near the pond and saw so many white herons:
I found this ‘yucky’ cache-it has been there 10 years (Something is eating the tree and it was all over the cache). The lid is broken where the pin goes in and there wasn’t anything good in it…I left some good stuff. We had found one other one (Brian spotted it first) called ‘Wham-o’ as it was near a field where you could use a Frisbee with your pooch.
Like my pigtails-need to keep my neck cool-lol. I thought I looked like ‘Hot Lips’ from M*A*S*H, my favorite show in the 1970s. I appreciated dry humor. : )
So after I got home I noticed that another part of the park had quite a few caches…live and learn. This park will be gorgeous in the fall…we will be back!
After we left here I wanted to do a few along the C&D canal…there’s a ton of them!
I did find 12! I don’t like ‘robot’ caching-they were behind a telephone pole every 500 feet. Helped me to get to 75!
First of 12!
So a guy passed us (it was hard to do on this narrow gravel road) and he looked disgruntled about something. I think he had been in and out of his van 54 times to get these. And he complained about it on geocaching.com. Because of him I wrote it was the 8th instead of the 7th. Why do these and complain?
So next we headed to Delaware City just to check it out a bit. It’s nice there if you can ignore the smoke stacks right before you hit the town. It was a little Victorian style water port at one time. Some of the homes are sweet. Need to go back to check them out closer.
We did see this:
And Fort Delaware…like to go over there sometime as I heard there is a cache there too!
Must take a ferry there
We ate at a place called ‘Crabby Dick’s’. Can’t beat $6.99 Shrimp Poboys and fries. It was one the first floor here. That’s our trusty white Mariner parked there.
And a few parting shots of yours truly and the hubs
This is a spooky looking tree located in Longwood Gardens. In my head I can see little creations or nymphs in those crevices. In fact, this would be so neat lit with the Bruce Munro
exhibit at the gardens right now. Longwood should so do a Halloween display!
I got my mom on Wednesday and wanted to treat her to dinner at Texas Roadhouse. I’ve been to the one in Lancaster and found some of the sides a bit salty. This one is halfway between mom and me, so we stopped. Lucky for us we got the ‘early bird’ special for $7.99 each. We got a 6 oz piece of sirloin, two sides and roll for that. We also got onions and mushrooms-$2 more (each). Very good steak. We like deals like that. I think it’s Monday-Wednesday, but double check. And were the sides salty-the green beans had ham in them and they certainly were.
Yesterday I took mom down to the Habitat resale store and she enjoyed looking at the books for 10 cents each or 10 for $1.00. I only bought 3 books, a stainless steel serving bowl and a Birthday bear. I will buy a bear once in a while if it’s really cute-and it was $1.
We went over to Longwood Gardens around 6:15 or so and Brian came too. We got mom a chair and we headed over to the little cafe. She couldn’t decide what she wanted. I knew I wanted the cream of mushroom soup and I got some cold lo mein which I didn’t care for. Bri got half a large ham and cheese and mom finally got mac and cheese and a hot dog (from the kid’s menu). I didn’t know she had eaten a Hershey bar until I found the paper left on the sofa! She had eaten it beforehand and I think it killed her already weak appetite. We all nibbled a chocolate pecan tart.
We then went over to the main Conservatory and saw this:
Well that’s the lovely Conservatory
Part of the Bruce Monro light show exhibit…I’ll have to come back to see the Conservatory when it’s darker outside
They like Proven Winners plants here-that’s a big thumbs up!
The lake lights were starting to look pretty-we saw them a few days ago when it was pitch dark, so neat.
The Italian Water Gardens looked neat at night-sat this on a wall.
They also had CDs made in water lily shapes
I sat this on the side of a life preserver case as the shutter was getting so slow
It was a hike to ‘The Meadows’ to see this display:
These are plastic water bottles!
The last part was really hard to photograph without a tripod-it was the woods to a tree house dotted with lights similar to the lake lights. Someone said it looked like ‘The Wizard of Oz’
I think my mom enjoyed being pushed around! It was about a 2 mile walk.
Brian and I took mom home and we headed to a few geocaches on the 13th. This was after hitting Chick-fil-a. We didn’t know it was free sandwich day if you wore a cow costume! So… I knew where one was as a fellow cacher told me. We got to it and it was basically out in the open. The other one, which we tried to find a few months ago was right were I thought it was. We then went to a ‘new’ one and that was so neat! We were near trash bins-ugh!! A cache would never be on one of them. There was a fence there and I leaned over and saw a wooden thing in the extreme corner. I touched it and it moved-it was so cool-
I was so pleased with myself!
We skipped dinner and headed to the Maria Muldaur concert up in Kennett Square. She is a spunky, sassy and bluesy 68 yr old now. I don’t think she enjoys singing ‘Midnight at the Oasis’ that much, though I think it was her biggest hit. Afterwards she went to a counter to sign her CDs and didn’t act too thrilled with having to do so. I have seen a few other artists smile and thank people-not her. I didn’t buy one. We went for some pizza and had the place to ourselves.
We had a busy week! More heat expected too. My flowers are just shriveling up. : (
Collages & Creative Goodness 