We hadn’t been caching for a week and I was itchy to go look for a few over this past weekend. I hadn’t been feeling good, so was ready for some fresh air too! Saturday I had missed a big Geocaching event and was a bit bummed by that.
We drove over to the Landenberg, PA area to find the ‘Ticking Tomb’. Here is the write up about it on the geocaching page:
Back in 1764 when Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon were surveying this area in order to figure out the border of Pennsylvania with that of Delaware and Maryland, the English King held a contest to see who could develop the best device to measure longitude. Charles Mason developed this device, a chronometer, but legend has it that it was swallowed before it could be submitted for review by Fithian Minuet, who was an infant at the time. He grew up to be a successful clock maker and he and his wife Martha lead a happy life and had many friends. It is said that you could hear the chronometer ticking in him his whole life and that it STILL ticks in him to this day. Many people have put their ears to his tombstone and heard the ticking. Edgar Allen Poe heard the ticking and was supposedly inspired to write “The Tell Tale Heart.” George Alfred Townsend told the story in “Tales of the Chesapeake.” And most recently, Ed Okonowicz included the tale in his book “Up the Back Stairway (Spirits Between the Bays).”
Interesting right? But alas, the ticking sound people thought they were hearing was probably from underground springs and something like rocks and dripping water has shifted as no one is hearing that sound anymore. Anyway, I enjoy visiting the old meeting houses and seeing interesting markers like this:
This was the heart shaped stone that we were suppose to look for-the tomb was to the left of this.
What’s really neat is that we had to figure out the coords for the cache by looking at surrounding markers and to plug in the numbers we got to get the new numbers for the final location. At first we were walking all around the cemetery, in the tall grass too. I looked at the description again and the ending coords were very close to the ‘suggested’ parking. We had parked down the road a bit. So we walked passed the parking lot and the numbers went down. I saw an old stump and looked closer and saw a tell tale pile of sticks and there was the cache! Not that close to the cemetery!
I never found of cache before! I was pretty proud of myself!
This is a neat old place and is used for a nature center. Lots of taxidermy showing thorough the windows.
We then went a little bit down the road to a nice trail with two nicely made bridges and found the cache in a handmade wooden container under the second bridge.
We did go get some pizza after our excursion which wasn’t as good as it usually is. Someone over salted the ingredients in it. Then we looked for one more cache and approached it from the incorrect direction. It was on the other side of a stream we were near. When I got home and read the logs, we were the only ones who didn’t find it! It shows that you have to read the logs carefully. A new geo pal said she’d show me where it is since she found it ‘first’ several years ago. She’s got many thousands of finds.
On a personal note, had a few days bad last week from overdoing it. Climbing in and out of the SUV is rough. I have noticed the bottom of my legs are red, almost like razor burn! And I can’ hardly button my jeans. I decided to ask pharmacist and when I mentioned my legs, he said to call the doctor. She called within a few hours and said I am retaining water and to stop the medicine I have been taking about 5 weeks. I have to wait a week to see if my legs get better and then I will call her back.
Collages & Creative Goodness 