Category Archives: PA.

Apr2

Roadside America-a treasure trove in miniature

Posted on Tuesday, April 2, 2013 by Dianne

When Sean was little, Brian and a pal who also had a young daughter, took a road trip up to see the work of Laurence Gieringer in Shartlesville, PA. I didn’t hear a lot about it, but in my mind’s eye it was more like a train board setup. Since we were about 30 minutes away from it on our day trip last weekend, we decided to go see it again all these years later. I was told it hasn’t changed in years and years.

Here’s the story right from the webpage:

Laurence Gieringer founded Roadside America. The story goes that young Gieringer’s love of miniature models began around 1899, when he was five years old. From his bedroom window, the young Gieringer could see the lights of the Highland Hotel at the crest of nearby Neversink Mountain. From his distant vantage point the building looked like a toy he could snatch from the mountain and add to his toy collection. One day he set out to get that seemingly miniature building, not realizing how far away it really was. Soon he was hopelessly lost in the woods and was not found until the next morning.

Fortunately that experience did not dampen his love for miniatures. In his adult life Mr. Gieringer became a carpenter and painter. Over his sixty-year career Gieringer amassed quite a collection of tiny, detailed buildings and accessories that became one of the worlds most famous and amazing miniature villages. Mr. Gieringer today is one of the world’s most respected builders of miniature models. (he passed away in January of 1963, over 50 yrs ago!)

In the 1930’s word of Mr. Gieringer’s amazing model railroad and miniature villages spread through the local neighborhoods.

What a sweet inspiration for Laurence to think the faraway hotel was a miniature!

Here are some shots from our visit. Brian, my hubby took them all. Most are a bit overexposed so you can see the detail of the layout.

So you can see the sign is in disrepair. So sad!

It’s such a huge layout! See the teens of the right there?

We got to see the light pageant when the lights were dimmed and all the houses were lit up. Then there was a movie on the wall and Kate Smith sang ‘God Bless America’

It would be a shame to see this place close down. I think it’s worthy of the Smithsonian Institute!

Mar27

Daytrippin’ on Brian’s bd

Posted on Wednesday, March 27, 2013 by Dianne

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Sunday was my hubby Brian’s birthday and we decided to go somewhere a few hours away. We headed just above the Reading area to one of Pennsylvania’s ‘nature wonders’ Crystal Cave, Roadside America and the West Reading area.

I happen to turn on my phone (it’s not working anymore….died today) and saw where a geocache was just hidden about 45 minutes earlier. We turned around and headed back to yet another ancient cemetery cache. Sean got out of the car with me and we headed to the far end of the white washed wall. Sean actually had to climb over the wall and there it was, it was nicely camouflaged with fake ivy! So neat to be the ‘first to find’ for the second time.

The GPS took us down a winding road, but we saw lots of scenery too.

After a quick lunch, we got to the Crystal Cave area. There were balls of snow along the roads which we haven’t really seen down this way all winter.

I had to climb a rather steep hill to the entrance of the cave. I’ve been having problems with hills and since using the bike, I can see a little improvement, but I still had to stop a few times. After the tour, I was surprised at actually how steep the hill was!

The cave was found by mistake in the 1871. Two farmers were blasting for limestone (valuable for enriching the soil) and found the cave!

The cave itself was pretty neat. Brian took some great photos. It’s thousands and thousands of years old!

The ‘ball room’….there were actually a few weddings in here-one they had 100 people squeezed in here! That’s the altar to the left.

See Abe Lincoln?

When all the lights go out at the end of the day, 100s of bats fly out of the cave to fly through the night! Eek!

At one point, the guide turned out the lights and it was black as pitch. I felt and retrieved Sean’s hand. : )

They got a few inches of snow here the next day. We actually got more. It’s all gone now.

Next post-Roadside America!

Mar25

Orchids were the only thing ushering in Spring around here

Posted on Monday, March 25, 2013 by Dianne

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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!

Mar18

Trying to hide, better not seek

Posted on Monday, March 18, 2013 by Dianne

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Since the last time I posted, I met a goal by finding my 250th geocache with Brian! We went after church and unfortunately started driving around in the area from the weekend before which is way out in the boonies too much. The first place we went to would have meant ‘maybe’ walking by a stream. It was about 6:20, so we didn’t want to do that one. The next one was also more like a little hike which we got out for thinking it was in a guardrail. The third one was in a little park that I has seen better in the daylight, but not at night. Finally we headed to one and when we approached a guardrail, the compass counted down and I knew we had one! Yay! Someone had put a rock in front of the cache and it hadn’t been found since December. Whew! That took over an hour. We then went on and enjoyed lovely salads for dinner.

I had a meeting at the church where I work (once a week) this past Sunday. The coordinator also had a delicious lunch for us from mini pulled pork sandwiches to fruit, veggies, soup and chili. We practiced gathering the children (there were none there) to get out for a fire. Then we went in the bathroom-in case we were threatened by an intruder. We were to pull a piece of paper off the wall with ‘red’ on one side and ‘green’ on the other. If someone we knew came in, we were to pass the paper under the door before opening it with the appropriate color up. And with both incidences we need to bring the clipboard in with the signed in kids listed on it. I think we all need an emergency plan like this.

Other than that, I haven’t been able to get that special Silver Linings Playbook cache published as they said that it was too close to a house and I need permission. I appealed a few times to the mother company and the volunteer said she looked at the satellite and it was too close to the house. I decided to look at the satellite photo again and my coords are off for the area where the cache is. It shows it being in the middle of the road, near the incorrect house. I feel a bit stupid as I didn’t see this, but I think once the cache is archived, it’s really hard to get it up again. And the reviewer is a volunteer like the appeal people. I didn’t know that the cache reviewers could also still geocache! I saw where the person who reviews mine goes ahead and looks for the ones he reviews and I saw where he was the ‘first to find’ on one cache. This doesn’t seem fair to me at all like they have an unfair advantage. I told him and the appeal’s person this too. Makes the ‘game’ seem a bit lop-sided especially when the reviewer’s geocache name has over 11k!

So here is where the cache is and where I put down the incorrect coords-marked by the ‘B’. The yellow is correct.

And from that corner there and down about 10 houses is the real SLP house

It’s the house in the middle (pretty sure) as I compared it to the screen shot from the movie.

I have one more day of work and then I have a break for Easter.

Mar15

Tracing some the steps of SLP

Posted on Friday, March 15, 2013 by Dianne

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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.

Mar13

Exploring Philadelphia

Posted on Wednesday, March 13, 2013 by Dianne

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This gallery contains 14 photos.

When Brian, my brother and I went to the Flower Show, Brian and I decided to look for a geocache nearby. Now remember, it was busy and wow, was the GPS bouncy. We walked down the block and there was a beautiful Methodist church shrouded my modern buildings.: Who is that lady with the pigtail? […]

Mar11

Brilliant! A look at the 2013 Philly Flower Show

Posted on Monday, March 11, 2013 by Dianne

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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 […]

Mar7

Colonial cache hunting

Posted on Thursday, March 7, 2013 by Dianne

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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!

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:

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.

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

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

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.

Feb27

Pedaling to turn over a new leaf

Posted on Wednesday, February 27, 2013 by Dianne

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We went to pick up my recumbent exercise bike (it’s a semi-recumbent-alright already) the other day at a Delaware Wally World. Sean had it delivered there to save shipping. I got this awesome shot in the parking lot with the ‘heart’ cloud.

So my new acquisition is all assembled and I gave it a spin already! I think if I take it slow, I will benefit from it.

Brian took me to the supermarket up near Lancaster this afternoon where we’ve been getting wonderful sales after deciding to check it out there a few months back. We stopped first for a cache grab in an old cemetery. It was about 20 feet off telling us it was near a tree instead of the shrubs it was in. Among all the old, old stones was a beautiful one from a few years ago. It was a heart shape with a couple walking in the woods etched into it along with a photo of the couple. The man had passed away.

This is looking from the front to the back.

the cache

I am enjoying my time at the preschool when I am there the one day a week. The children are getting comfortable enough with me to give me little hugs or bumps. You know how 3-4 yrs olds act. I try to bring them a little something each time I go. They got personalized paper bookmarks today thanks to a link I found on Pinterest.

Next week is the Philadelphia Flower Show. I ‘may’ go down with Brian on the train, but it all depends on how much I can walk. They provide plenty of chairs around the perimeter. It’s a British themed show too. I sure hope to go.

Feb18

Walking into the past

Posted on Monday, February 18, 2013 by Dianne

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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.

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.

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

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

Funny to see detailed signs in the middle of the woods

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!

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!

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!