Category Archives: PA.

Jul31

Not finding caches but spotting Charlie

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This was indeed a weird day of caching for us. We headed out about 2:15 or so and decided to stop off at an unplanned cache retrieval. I don’t like to do that as I then miss hints. Poor Bri is driving back and worth across a busy road. Finally I see the description where it said ‘permission by chiropractor’-so I then went around the back, spread some branches and it was in the nook of a tree. Whew!

Then our trip kind of went downhill. We did find the Stroud Preserve

and it was pretty, but a bit on the warm side and in the middle of nowhere. I think it was 1/2 mile hike in-all flat,but in the sun.  It did get a bit steep in one spot. We saw this:

Well we were so close, but no cigar. We went near a  tiny deck and there was mucky water to cross-but no thanks. We didn’t know where to go then. We saw a strange box which Brian checked out and he said it was an open container. We were looking for a ammo…

Near the parking lot…I was so ready to get in the a/c

So after that we headed down a few roads and ended up in another wooded area near where my cousins lived at one time. We got out and it was at 125m. We walked to about 30m and again didn’t see the ammo box. The GPS was so jumpy.  We spent a great deal of time at both areas and walked about 1.5 miles today.

We went to a local shopping center to look for yet another cache-the CO is one of those kind will set up a decoy. We looked around a guardrail, which happened to also have bushes nearby and gave up.

There’s a nice pizza place in the shopping center called Brother’s. I was a bit bummed by then. I was happy to get the exercise, but it’s discouraging as I had some new swag to add the those big containers. : (

We got to near the door and a young fellow came out-and before he stepped off the sidewalk I said to him, ‘are you on that tv show?’ I mean he could have been anyone…and he said ‘yes’! I was a bit dumbfounded and said ‘oh so nice to see you’ or something like that and he said ‘thanks’. I’m talking about West Chester, PA native Charlie McDermott who is on the popular (and one of my mom’s favorite shows) ‘The Middle’.

Recognize Axil Heck?

Seeing him boosted my spirits, so thanks for wanting Brother’s pizza tonight, Charlie. : )

After dinner we stopped at a park near where Sean goes to grad school. We headed toward a gazebo and we never had luck with them. Then we looked under it where a stream was-nope. I suggested we look ‘on the other side’ and bingo, found it under a stump. Yes! I left some cute swag-an Olympic #1 winner medal and a bracelet.

I reallly wanted to grab a virtual in front of our county courthouse. We got out and parked, walked across the street and found the statue ‘Glory’ and also who sculpted it. I had to send that info to the CO.

I noticed there was an interesting one a few blocks away. It was near a train station. The cache was a huge metal box and from the photos, there were two caches inside. I was excited. We had to put a combo in the two locks-messed the one up (beginning of north for the one and ‘end’ of west for the other-we were also putting in the beginning of the west). People were saying it’s a bugger to get open. It was getting dark, so we’ll bring a screwdriver (!) next time. It hadn’t been open since the end of May. Can’t wait to go back, but I hope the CO looses the lid a bit.

That was our adventure for the day. Hope to go to my mom’s one of these days. : )

Jul19

Goldfinch Lunch Break

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Brian happen to catch this hungry Goldfinch couple munching on the forming Zinnia seeds through the backdoor . I had to grab the camera and was happy with these shots. So sweet….

I’m glad they like these as I like to help wildlife.

I saw that the local school district needed a ‘full-time’ instructional assistant for the elementary where Sean went to school. I’m a bit nervous about working full time, I’d like to get my feet wet with part-time. I haven’t worked around kids for several years, but of course I raised a fine fellow.  They only want you to have a high school diploma. The pay is decent too. I dropped off my resume today.

Jul15

Caching in

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We are so zonked from last week, but on Saturday night, I asked if we could get to church a few minutes earlier as I wanted to place a cache near the parking lot area. It’s way in the front and they have twice the needed space for parking. I had a lamp post in mind, but it had a ton of overgrown bushes in front of it. I tried another post, but it was too much in the open. So I went back to the first one, walked around the corner and it wasn’t hard to reach in and put the key holder on the metal part. There is a wide open space there and what’s funny, the barracks for the township police are in sight. It shouldn’t take long to locate….I hope. I am waiting for it to be approved. I looked at the preview page and the map there has the church in the incorrect area. It’s located a little away from a main intersection-but not according to the map. I hope they just follow what I have as coordinates.

After church we went to the little park where my first cache is. I wanted to add a mini pencil, plastic bag for the log and pencil and a travel bug. A little down the road, a policeman was in his car shooting the breeze with a local. I don’t think he even saw me get out of the car, look and retrieve my cache and sit and put the stuff in it-lol.

I took a few shots of this sweet area-

We headed to Perkins as we all felt like having breakfast for dinner. I am still waiting to get a really good meal here. We don’t eat here often. Oh, before we went in, I thought it would be fun to hide a cache behind the place. It’s between a kid’s recreational place (kind of like a Chucky Cheese), so I went under some pines and hid it behind the furthest one. It shouldn’t be disturbed-I hope. That has a travel bug in it also.

So after dinner, I said-let’s go out to the next town and look for a cache. The guys both said yes, but I put the incorrect cache on the phone and we headed down a few back roads. Opps! Funny thing, we were driving down this road, and there was the former dental receptionist pulling a grandbaby down the road in a wagon! Wow, small world. And down another road, Brian had to swerve a fallen tree-just got the antenna with that one. The three of us got out and it didn’t take long to find it off the road. Sean wasn’t crazy about sticking his head in the brush. Brian and I said that was nothing! I am bringing my Oriental Trading stuff with me to restock these caches-most are so empty. For $15, I got big bags of plastic bracelets and coins.

That’s what I added underneath-even the pirate map!

It’s funny, you live in an area for over 25 yrs and you don’t see how pretty some of it is. Thanks to Geocaching we are seeing lots of ‘hidden’ beauty.

We then went down the road to a research area. It was called ‘Pony Express’ as some ponies are fenced nearby. They must have been in for the night. Sean and I got out and found it rather quickly under a tree. Again, I stocked it with some more swag.

I felt I was on a roll, so I went to the one near my house and gave it a good look-small area, but so many hiding places-trees, bushes, fence, guard rail. I just can’t see it! I emailed the CO for a hint-nothing. His was the first one we went to last night. Meanie-lol

More hot weather this week. I haven’t shown much of my gardens as there isn’t much to see except for dried up flowers and lots of weeds. The coleus do look pretty and I will photograph it.  I may go see if I can pull some out-but they were saying how thick the air is-think that was my problem at the park a few weeks ago.

Jul14

Lights and Music pt 2

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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. : (

Jul9

Hid my first geocache!

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I asked Brian if we could go look for some caches on Sunday as I wanted to prove to myself that I could do this again after the way I felt on the 3rd. Looking back, a lot of that was the heat and the steepness of the hills and stairs (still out of shape in dealing with that stuff). I had gone on other hikes without all that uphill terrain and I fared much better. I also had put together a little plastic box, added a log, filled it with ‘swag’ (goodies) and had camouflaged it with tape that was ready to hide.  I wanted to go to the park where I walk all the time but then something happened. We headed over to our town. It’s further away than Kennett Square with a town in the middle.  We go to the first area and park near this sweet garden there. We had to walk a bit to the one we were looking for and then it’s  a ‘let’s go….no just look once more…let’s go’ kind of thing.

Leave it to Brian to run his hand along the top of this abandoned announcement board and find this most unusual cache log!

We were feeling pretty good. The cache owner said people could email him for additional hints. I am so sure we can now find that elusive one down the road-hee hee!

Going back to the car I told Brian I wanted to check out this little memorial garden for a man  named Fred.  I thought Bri was taking more photos than he did as the landscaping and everything was just perfect. There was a stone in the middle of the ‘patio’ area and it said ‘I love you to the moon, I love you to the stars, I love you beyond, beyond’. There was also a moon and star whirligig. I found the perfect cache location! We are told on the website to put a cache where you want people to visit and this certainly was deserving of more people seeing it.

I said it could be a night search with all those solar lights there.

So when I got home, I saw that this man was a borough council member for our town. He passed away last year at only age 59. He has two little grandsons. They would love my cache!

I got approved right away and then people found it already today!

A group of us actually work within walking distance to this cache. Got the notification last night and considered making an early morning work trip to GZ but decided against it. Gave this cache a look with two other cachers at our morning break to no avail. At lunch I returned with ‘Y’ and we made the find very quickly. Not sure how we missed it in the morning. I actually eyed this spot before to place a cache, nicely done. SL, TFTC

Very cool.

The trains down from here have graffiti all over them

See how the grass is dying? It’s dry beyond dry.

 People will see this too-right near the garden where my cache is.

We went on to find a few more and not find one. The one we couldn’t find was another one of those cammoed film canisters that we walked through a field to find. We each found a tick on us. There was a road right near the cache. Bri doesn’t have much driving stealth yet. Of course last night, I found yet another tick on me! I had changed and showered twice. I think the critter was in the pile of  dirty clothes in the bathroom that I picked up and put in a basket.

Being a bit lazy today. Tomorrow night is the Bacon Brothers (Kevin Bacon) at Longwood Gardens!

One for the road…our little harvest…hand watering helped a bit!

Jul6

Nature’s hidden gems

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Some views from new areas (and a couple of already visited) we have just discovered:

Valley Garden Park, Wilmington, DE (above and below) Never been.

Newlin Grist Mill Park, Glen Mills, PA …We were here for a company picnic, Sean and I stopped here for a picnic lunch a few times and Ken and Colleen had their wedding photos taken here.

Harbor area, Atlantic City, NJ (never been-aquarium here and some caches. We also found a great harbor side restaurant). Never been.

Arboretum at Swarthmore College (Penna.) Never been.

Nottingham Park. Been here once and not in this area for fireworks years ago.

Now go and discover some of your own!

Jul3

Heat and hiking

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I was all gung ho to score a few caches today over in Delaware. This ‘first state’ is so close to us and we enjoy it’s tax free shopping too. We went out about 2:30 and it was quite warm by then. We headed down to the Delaware Museum of History and this was pretty easy to find. No problem-o.

We headed a few miles down the road (near Joe Biden country) and found a lovely park there. Geocaching takes you to places like this!

There were about three caches in there. I had a big bag with me-water, the fan/mister bottle, Off!, etc. Brian forgot his water!

Look at those steps. I knew I was going to have climb them again.

I was joking around near the parking lot…ha ha for the time being…

Yahoo-here’s the one in the woods

I had had a baseball cap and and was starting to feel kind of funny after this was taken. As we walked back, I brought up another cache on the GPS and we headed for that. We saw it was way up a steep path and Brian went up it first. I went down a bit and found another less steep path. But after I went up, there were more stone steps and I got myself winded and started feeling sick. There was a cool stone bench and I sat there for a while, but Brian was suppose to find this one and he had no luck. If I had felt better, I know it was within 30-40 feet somewhere down a path, but I was feeling too yucky to look. I want to go back here in the cooler weather as I now know where to look.

Oh well…should be gorgeous in the autumn!

Back to those stairs up there. I had to sit down on them twice and I was feeling crummy. An old man walked by me too! Gee, he must go there for a daily walk! I practically crawled to the car.

So we stopped for gas and a cool drink. Oh, we went to the Winterthur parking lot, but I got out and went right back in the car again. I had Brian looking under trees, no luck. He needs to develop better stealth!! : )

I knew about one at Chadds Ford Winery and we stopped there-easy peasy. We would have bought a bottle of wine, but they were closed.

I bought some trinkets from The Oriental Trading Company for these caches as many don’t have that many goodies in them. I got those rubber bracelets, Pirate maps and ‘Kindness coins’. I added a bunch of these to the above boxes today.

Then we were near a Quaker Friends Meeting and there was a micro in there. I walked down the road near the cemetery and the GZ was a big evergreen tree-huge son of a gun. I looked and looked for the cammo film canister and then Brian looked. We couldn’t find it! Rats.

Saw this-what’s up with this?

And this little lamb…

Didn’t catch the name, but I think it’s on the Geocaching site, so I’ll go look again.

We went through Wendy’s and I got their salad with chicken and fruit-not bad. I mentioned to Bri that there was a cache directly across the highway. First I thought it was near the supermarket (which is changing hands), but it was behind the Walgreen’s! So cute.

First log of this kind! I had trouble getting it out-used a wire from a little flower I had!

So….no more hiking for me in this kind of weather! A nice shower helped, but I’ve had back issues from sitting on the floor (too long) to sort through things. I never learn.

Making a bundt cake tomorrow and some yummy foods for the 4th!

Jun8

Photo Hunt-Clean

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Cos cleaning, originally uploaded by DianthusMoon.

I don’t have many photos associated with ‘clean’, though all my photos are ‘clean’. : )
I love Cosmo’s little tongue showing here. I may tack on cleaned up gardens if I run across any photos.

Brian and I were out in the yard all afternoon today. He was trimming the forsythia along the road and hedges along the house-this took 3 hours. I was planting more seeds and a few polka dot plants I had gotten. There is a pretty shade of pink in that plant this year. I needed to fill in bare spots. I also stuck more nasturtiums around different gardens. We are enjoying low humidity all week, so not many posts as I want to be outside.
My brother had tickets to a Phillies baseball game for yesterday at 1:00. The guys decided to go at the last minute and by a small miracle got there around 2:45 after having to go to my mom’s to get the tickets. The Phillies didn’t play well at all and got swept at home by the Dodgers. That hadn’t happened since the 1940s! The guys enjoyed being in the stadium and that gave them their baseball fix for the year. Tonight the team is playing awesome in Baltimore and so far are winning. Crossing fingers (they won).

Here’s Sean at Citizen’s Bank Park with the statue commemorating Phillies announcer Harry Kalas who passed away suddenly a few years ago. Coincidentally, a pal of Sean’s dated Harry’s son for a few years.

While the guys were gone, I cleaned out a yucca and Red Hot Poker garden near the road and planted yellow Lantana, yellow Marigolds and different colors of Celosia there. I also added nasturtiums and a few moonflower seeds there too.

Jun5

Cache #5 found!

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So this was the third time we went looking for this cache, and some nice people or critters made a trail through the weeds, so it was easy as pie this time to spot. An animal had left a ‘gift’ right at GZ (ground zero) and I am so glad I didn’t touch it, but I came close to it! Can’t get away from animal poo. At my mom’s we walked into her house finding her trying to clean her fairly new vacuum as she rolled over some from the older dog-he’s getting old and can’t hold it anymore. We ended up taking the machine outside and using the hose on it-ugh!

So anyway…here I am with the cache. There wasn’t much in it, so I will bring back a few buttons and things for the next time I take a walk in the park.

Notice I am wearing my camouflage shirt too! And make-up (we were going to the grocery store later).

Thinking we were on a roll, we headed out to an ‘open area’ find. It was off an housing development (gorgeous homes) and I thought, oh how far could it be down there? Well the compass started at 600 and a lot of the trail had mulch, but it was really steep too! We walked along the White Clay Creek, so pretty. We read that a train use to go by near here from Newark, De to PA.

I sure wish I had my Canon  with me so I could have shown you more awesome nature shots.

Brian took some photos on his phone too!

We get to the middle of these woods and both my phone and GPS device decide to quit on us! Rats. I sent Bri down to a ‘beach’ area near the water as it seems that other cachers saw that beavers had chewed on wood in that area. It was just too wild to see anything with the naked eye and there weren’t any good hints to help us. I think the people who live in this area donated nice benches along the trail. Of course we saw other animal gifts, but no animals. Brian mentioned snakes and I crossed my fingers. As more people find this one, there will be more hints. It was a good hike. I think between the two areas, we walked at least 2-2.5 miles today! Woo hoo! Good exercise. We have to remember to use OFF! on us or I need to mix up a tick deterrent formula when I get some tea tree oil. You mix that with water and spray on your clothes. I should be more weary as I have had Lyme disease or still have it. I don’t know if you ever really get over it fully.  We rewarded ourselves with some steak, corn on the cob and baked beans for dinner. : )