Category Archives: PA.

Sep23

Geocachers Picnic on the Brandywine

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It turned out to be a nice day here in the low 80s-almost perfect for a picnic! I have been having lower back issues for a few days and it really began bothering me after that 2+ mile walk last weekend. I thought my feet were going to fall off after the trail walk, then we kept going and that final walk up the hill at the Brandywine Battlefield did me in. I did start to house clean my kitchen a few days later, but I have been wearing those ‘walking shoes’ all summer by Dr. S. I think they are throwing me off too much. I plan to get new sneaks soon.

So anyway, after I used the heating pad, we headed to the picnic, not too far away. It was so neat to match those cacher names with faces! We talked to people who work right near my garden cache hide in our town.  Another nice fellow, got a hint from me about that same hide. He had told us about a hide in a sign down the road.

The couple in the green had travel bug shirts on-I logged them. I am up to 14 as I got some off of cars and they had a big bowl of them and I took a couple and left one.

Here’s helpful Tony

I find it amazing how cachers know so much detail about the caches they have found, even when they have found thousands of them-wow! I noticed that a lot of them are left-handed too. We had a bingo game where we had to mingle and ask people if this was ‘their first event’, or ‘they cached in a snowstorm”, etc.-and they added their name to the appropriate box. I was able to say ‘first time at event’, ‘did over 5 challenges’ and ‘have a travel bug on my car’ (that was put on yesterday). When we got all the boxes filled in, they went into a drawing. We didn’t win anything. : (

The park is so pretty! And get this the ‘owner’ is the host of the event as he is a cacher also!

Waiting on the door prizes, etc. Didn’t win, but two of the people in the first photo with me did win. They had a few ammo boxes there too.

Signing in…should be above the last one.

They had burgers, hot dogs, bbq chicken and pulled pork along with mac and cheese, broccoli salad and cole slaw. The soda was out of dispensers, mistake-it was like  yellow jacket heaven.

We could have gone tubing, etc. They had a large chess and checker boards too!

The animals were staying put in their shelter.

Cute sitting area

I got a few travel bugs off of cars

Brian and I came home and changed and decided to go down to California Tortilla for dinner. We looked for a cache behind this area-an evil one….a fishing line hanging off a metal fence that is about 300 feet long. We knew we were expecting rain, and felt drops as we looked and looked-they gave up.

We went in the restaurant and got very yummy fish tacos. So we are watching the now pouring rain (and got stuck in it going in) and I see two ladies come in from the picnic! They order their food and they see us and came and sat behind us. So we found out they were caching in that shopping center and got the ‘evil one’ earlier! I told them we had been looking for it and  they said after they ate, they would help Bri and me. So true to their word, they drove around to the back (one has a white PT Cruiser!) and they had to really look for it again and helped us find it! Crazy hide. I may have some lady buddies to cache with-both in their 50s and live in the Wilmington area. Cool huh?

My nails

Geonails!

On Friday Brian and I did a little local caching down the road (got help from Tony above) a few towns over. The one down the road was so tiny and easy to miss. It was a tube about 1 inch long! I was too short to get it and Bri barely could.

We went to West Grove, PA and the cache was near an ice cream shop. The GPS bounced from one side of the street to the other. It bounced near mailboxes-I didn’t think so. We got some ice cream and was asking the lady if people ever asked her about Geocaches, and she said she really didn’t know what they were when people did ask-so they did! So we told her about it and if I found it, I’d show her. So lo and behold, I walked by this metal tube thing on a telephone pole, but there were cobwebs over the top and I did find the keybox stuck inside-right near our car (right opposite the mailboxes). And I did show the lady at the ice cream parlor. Every piece of paper for the log was rolled in a ball, so I smoothed them all out. Very strange.

We then went to a park where there was shredded rubber tires on the path-wonderful to walk on.

Nano on the fence-Bri has a good eye for them!

Then we went to a Quaker meetinghouse/cemetery. It would have been nice if the CO had put the cache under a step (see in photo), but they stuck it under rocks in a wooded area in the back.

We’ve had a couple of busy days!

Today (now it’s the 23rd) is my mom’s birthday. We’ll be seeing her shortly.

Sep11

Lovely Oakbourne Mansion and park

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There is a little gem of a park on the property of Oakbourne Mansion in West Chester, Pa. I’ve been  to the glorious mansion a few times for a craft sale. It was nice to walk through the big rooms and check out the crafts.

We came to find a cache in this whimsical ‘water tower’. The cache was on the outside, but I really wanted to see this amazing structure.

This was near the back here…Brian spotted it first. His only find of the day. I found the rest-hee hee! They say that bats live up in the eves here. We didn’t see them or their ‘guano’.

Then we walked down a path to find one near a pond. We happen to meet a lady coming out of the woods from a hike and she pointed us to which we thought was the right direction. Well if we had gone straight down a road, we would have avoided a root covered trail. We got some exercise and when I see beautiful natural spots like this:

I am in awe of how pretty it is!

There were suppose to be turtles around, but we didn’t see any. : (

The cache was behind the pond. We went down the wrong path at first. I am so going to write stuff down after I read the posts. We did have to bushwhack a bit and I spotted the cache almost out in the open.  It didn’t have much in it, so I added a nano travel coin and swag.

So we went after cache three in this location and it was opposite of where we had just been. We could have driven around to a different entrance, but walked down another road. I am pretty sure we walked by a half way house. There were some guys there with shaved heads standing around outside, just hanging around. I was a little nervous. There we were at that pretty place and then come across this group. They didn’t say anything…right away. We heard one say ‘walkin’ in the woods’. So we looked around a basketball court area and noticed an old stone wall. The cache was a ‘pole’ and we didn’t see any pole except for the basketball hoop. Brian saw a path and we went down it. Then we saw a pole which happened to be the ‘the pole’. I saw some wood piled up around the bottom of it-yep, that’s a sure sign it’s hiding a cache. There was a little bison tube hanging there! I didn’t take a photo of it as my battery was going.

We walked by ‘those guys’ again and headed to a cache near where my late uncle lived. It was placed by a big new electronic billboard. I got out and looked first, but there was a fence up with narrow planks and I couldn’t see on the other side of it too well. There was a long silver nail hammered near one fence post and I swore that was where the cache was suppose to be-think it was a decoy! When I got home I saw where people were dodging sprinklers, so it must have been on the other side of the fence!

We were heading home thinking Sean needed me to make dinner, but he was going to the town where his school is to meet up with his girlfriend. So I said I wanted to see this:

I needed to frolic in them!

I saw a local artist on Facebook who had a photo of himself painting these. Spectacular!

Since we were in that area, I saw a cache that looked fun and cute. We drove a few miles and we found it quickly. I like creative caches!

The cache was the egg! Ha ha!

Traveling down the road we did a cemetery cache that’s been on my list for a while. Gee cache owner, thanks for putting that one way on the other side-near the road. It was neat to read the different stones, some very old.

Look at this marker! I was in the car and saw this and jumped out to get a shot of it!

Actress Linda Darnell is in this cemetery. She passed away in 1965, being a fire victim.

We went and grabbed a roast beef sub and headed to ‘just one more’ even though it was 7 pm.

Thanks to the previous logs, I knew the bees were gone from a cache, but it took 3 lamp post skirts before we found the pill bottle cache.

The night wasn’t over though. I had a cache to hide. I went down near where we go to the doctor and dentist as I saw a great area to find one. We get there and a guy was snoozing in his car. My GPS wasn’t coming up, so we drove around to an upper parking lot.  We went down to the first lot and the guy had left. I guess we scared him! I went for a guardrail instead of the lamp skirt.  I came home and put up the cache for review. Within a few hours it was up and someone had found it already!

So we surely had a fun afternoon finding 6 out of 7 caches!

Brian is still learning at his job. He had someone call about stocking stores with magazines. He said he’d think about it, but I went online and applied right afterwards. Why not?  A pal said she did it before and enjoyed it.

Such a sad day of remembrance  for our nation. It’s hard to believe that 11 years ago, our lives were changed forever. Seeing the memorial back in February made the events of that day real and surreal. 

Aug29

Cache #4

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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.

Aug22

Nice bloomers

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Happy ‘Gotcha’ Day and Birthday to our sweet Cosmo kitty who wandered into our yard 10 years ago. I think someone dropped him off all those years ago. We think he’s about 12 though.

I spent a little time outside again yesterday. It wasn’t as breezy and the mosquitoes were testing me as was a chatty Cat bird. The bird was talking to his friend in a nearby tree. The entire time I was lounging about. I did a little work-moved some plants around pulled some weeds near the pond (and waving to the three current residences -two little and one medium size). I got a book in the mail about Christian Sanderson, the man whose museum we had visited on Saturday. It’s a smallish book, but it was just published this year. All the photos looked exactly like the layout of the rooms as they are now. And I saw where Mr. Sanderson passed away on my 7th birthday in 1966.

I also took a few photos:

Happy with these hanging baskets-Chenille and Nasturtiums. There was something else in there with the Nasturtiums, but they over took it.

The Lantana is a hardy plant. Love the Dr. Seuss type balls of flowers:

The petunias are pretty too with their stripes.

And I  have a serious gnome invasion-they are coming out of everywhere!

I took these with my camera phone. I think it’s a nice one.

Hope to take my mom out to a hometown event they have during the summer called ‘Dining under the stars’. Brian has his orientation at the store tomorrow-you all know what that is-videos!

Aug18

Eagle eyed helper

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Yesterday before I went to see my friends, I had a little time to kill, so I stopped to look for a cache at the Brandywine River Museum. It was near this lady:

That’s Helen, the bronze 400 pd pig that was stolen a number of years ago and then returned.

The cache was called ‘Gaging Station’ and there were stairs to climb which I didn’t want to yesterday as I wasn’t wearing the proper shoes. I only looked about 10 minutes and didn’t see it. Today I planned to at least find one cache to get a souvenir for International Geocaching Day. Again I stopped, but I had Brian along this time. I climbed a bit up the stairs that I avoided yesterday and Bri followed. Right away he saw the little camouflaged box. It was stuck on the metal trussle. Wow-eagle eyes!

I was so happy we found this one! Such a pretty area too.

Their gardens have suffered from the heat we had. The Black-eyed Susans sure look better than mine.

So then we went to a ‘legendary’ hot dog place nearby called Jimmy John’s. It’s been around since about 1940. The place had a big fire a few years ago, but it’s up and running again.

This is a cute train set up they have inside.

First time I was there…not really impressed, but I’d go back for the soft serve ice cream!

We found a few caches along Rt. 202 and were up to 3-3 for the day. There was one left, across the  the road and around the corner from our starting point. It was at The Christian Sanderson Museum. It took us a few minutes to spot and then we decided to check out the museum. The lady on the porch kind of guided us in and they said, that will be $10. Oh well….but… The place was the home of Christian Sanderson or ‘Chris’. He was the hoarder of Chadds Ford of his day. They had before and after shots of how the place looked when he passed away-wow-he had a ton of stuff! It’s a farm house with those curved steps too.  The people that cleaned it up had lots to chose from, let me tell you. I took a few photos, but they need to be uploaded. There are vintage Valentines, autographs, the poster from the Charles Lindbergh kidnapping, a hyena head, Easter eggs from the 1880s, etc.  My mom said her grandfather knew Mr. Sanderson. I’m sure if was her grandfather who was the sign painter. Interesting. If you love ephemera and antiques, you have to stop by here when you go to Chadds Ford.

1926 card made with butterfly wings

Mrs. Sanderson collected these advertising cards. I have a few of my own.

Vintage Christmas ornaments

They got electricity for the 1st time in July 1928!

So this was a bit of an unexpected stop, but I really enjoyed seeing everything here. And I got my virtual souvenir for the day!

Aug17

Connecting with pals

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Today a few of my pals with their adorable children met up with me at a local cross stitch shop. Jennifer has a little fellow who will be three in a couple of months. He’s a doll and I’ve met him when he as a baby and as a two year old. He really notices everything around him, a detail guy. My other pal Rachel brought her 2.5 yr old son and 5 month old daughter. The boys hit it off well and took to running around the shop a bit. I think if we do that again, I’ll bring some paper and crayons or something so their moms can look around better. I sure needed the inspiration to stitch seeing all the shop’s lovely pieces. Jennifer found a Chincoteague sampler-had to get that one. I should make that ‘next on my list’ to do as J and R can be my stitchy cheerleaders. Rachel’s children were so adorable. I was so happy to meet them for the first time. The little girl was a bit fussy as she is use to a routine and likes to nap after she eats. Both J and I got to hold her and we got some smiles too!

I am blessed to have pals like this. Jennifer helped me through some hard times lately when I  had some personal issues. Rachel is a family counselor and you feel good being around her. Both sweet ladies and great moms. I hope I can share some of my experiences as a mom of a boy to them. Being around kids takes me back many years when Sean was little and when I was an assistant teacher at a daycare. Everything is so new to them at this age and they so want to learn.

Very nice day-thanks gals!

 

Aug16

No we weren’t casing out the place, we swear!

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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.

Aug14

May be hanging up the bushwacking stick

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We still want to  go geocaching, but if all goes well with Brian’s job interview later, we will only do it a few times a month. Not to say that I can’t go and find some in towns by myself. But after coming up empty handed a few times in parks, we are thinking that we don’t want to slide down a hill or break anything in parks that aren’t well maintained. Yesterday wasn’t really fun like the search should be. We went to my hometown and for some reason I thought finding a few caches there would be a piece of cake. Boy were we wrong! Glen Providence Park was designated a park back in 1936.

When I was a kid, they use to set off fireworks there and we all sat on the hill and watched. So we walked down that hill which looked a lot smaller to me now (that seems to be the case when we grow up) and headed for this one cache. We had parked at the main entrance as we started looking for a multi-cache and here the coords listed were for the parking! Duh! Not an Einstein day for either of us. To get to ‘real’ coords, you had to figure them out in this puzzle, but it really wasn’t  a puzzle, but a list of things about Denmark. Didn’t get that and didn’t have the time to figure it out.

So we trudged on down the firework hill (thinking in the back of our minds about climbing up it again) and saw this neat sight of Scroggie Pond. It was all green as if paint had been spilled on it and it lay on top of the water.

We only got within  130-150  feet of the two caches we were looking for and the GPS either stopped or jumped to a lower or higher number. We ventured up hill sides and came up empty handed. When and if we go to smallish park, we will now note if a trail is named and when the CO placed the cache. The one was placed in December. Although many people found the 1st one, they were looking in the colder months of the year.

The second cache was even harder. Seems after reading post logs, that we should have parked on the other side of the park where my school bus would let people off. Thinking back, I don’t know why they would get off there as they had big hills to climb…oh yeah, they were teenagers!

The trail was full of roots and rocks. I thought we could cross a stream, but my sneaker sunk into the muck.  Later I have to hose my sneaks down.

After all this, I went and got my hair done. We were sweaty messes, especially Brian. I had just given him a haircut this morning and his entire head was soaked.

Even though we had to pay to get in the Lums Pond Park last week, it was worth it-named trails, clean…we had fun there.

I am definitely the queen of lamp skirts and can zone in on one in less than 5 minutes most of the time. We found two of those on the way home! Got all the caches for the hometown mall now.

Delaware Geocaching Trail has the larger caches I enjoy, so I will stick with what they have placed.

I got permission to place a cache up in Kennett Square near the borough building. I missed the email before the lady there went on vacation and now have to wait until the end of the month to place it.

We got to meet Maggie at my brother’s house. She’s 5 months old and learning not to jump on people though she licked the Off! off my leg. Ugh.

Wednesday-Grim Ghost Tour in Philly!

Aug12

Witness Movie setting in scenic Lancaster County

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Brian and I went out early this afternoon to do some caching in Lancaster county. We stopped at the little town of Atglen, PA as there were a few on the way to the one I was truly wanting to find.  So we stop at this World II Memorial. It was on this narrow strip of land with a flag pole at one end and the memorial and benches and trees. We almost gave up until I saw the hint that said ‘at eye level’. You are so going to crack up. Brian saw a bird’s nest in one of the little trees and I told him it could be a fake one with a cache inside. He gingerly parted the branches only to see a little beak pop up from the nest-yes it was the real deal! Ha! Finally we were standing  next to an outlet box and I touched this thing that looked like a metal cover (light switch cover size) and it moved! I pulled on it and it was indeed the cache! Surprise! The first one it’s kind for us.

We went down the road a bit and found one in a parking lot. Bri lifted this lamp skirt twice-I got out and lifted it and saw a animal skin camouflaged container-bingo! He didn’t look hard enough.

Then the frustration began. I printed out the directions to the movie cache for ‘Witness’ and we didn’t get the signal for it until we stopped in a town and waited for it to load. Both the phone and GPS were wonky. The cache was down this road next to these ‘ladies’ cooling themselves off:

We saw lots and lots of the rolling hills of corn and other crops for miles and miles

See the hot air balloon in the middle. Took this out of the car window.

So we found the cache in a guard rail across from the cows. Brian had climbed over the guardrail and all of the sudden he started going ‘ouch!’, ‘that hurts!’  I thought he stepped on a wasp nest, when in fact it was the plant stinging nettle. A lady and her hubby came along  to fish on the little bridge and she I.D.ed the plant. She asked what we were looking for and we told her. Think she was mildly interested. We asked the guy about the Witness farm and it was down the road going the other way. I remembered to look on the GPS as the cache owner mentioned the address and after a little driving, we found it. A man was  plowing along the corn and Brian said he wanted me to see the farm (being the big Harrison Ford fan). I took this out of the windshield:

Can you picture Danny Glover walking down here when they figured out where John Book (Ford) was hiding out? I read that Sylvester Stallone was offered this role and he turned it down, regretting it.

The Amish guy actually waved to us as we left.

This was actually as we turned in the road to the house.

We then went to a nearby town where Brian worked for a few years and got club sandwiches for either a late lunch or early dinner (4 o’clock).

We went down the road and snagged a large (but wet cache) in someone’s yard and tried to find a well hidden one in a park-nada.

We saw where the Robert Fulton House (who invented the Steamboat) was about 6 miles away, so we went there. It was closed (we peeked in the windows) and walked around their garden. Thank goodness there was a bathroom in the middle of no where! That came in handy.

Where is that blasted cache?

I really wanted to go back to Strasburg, so we did and got some ice cream. One minute is was sunny and 10 minutes later the heaven’s opened up.

Girls in the ice cream shop

We had to wait a bit. A cache was down the road, but after looking around just a bit, I couldn’t find it. I’ll have to go back because I was the only one who couldn’t find it.

Sky over a Dutch market where we stopped for some things

We drove home in pouring rain, yet when we got home it wasn’t really doing anything.

Wednesday is our trip to Philadelphia for the ghost tour. We want to go in early to avoid work traffic and maybe cache a bit! Historic caching. : )