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We didn’t have a lot of time to see big attractions in Tampa, Florida when we were there in April. We decided to skip Busch Gardens and the Big Cat Rescue and check out mostly free attractions. (The first day is always a travel day and we were delayed an hour leaving as it was). […]
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Wow, it’s been a while since I posted on my blog! With the short time between Thanksgiving and Christmas, life moved pretty quickly! I was making cookies right up to Christmas eve. Sean and I went to visit my mom on Christmas eve, came home and ate shrimp and ravioli with Brian and headed to […]
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I am definitely behind in my posts. October has proven to be super busy with us getting back from our travels, going back to work, cleaning up the yard (not finished) and changing out my summer to winter clothes. And Sean got a job in his field! He will be starting his GIS job with […]
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The next day in Niagara Falls, Sean wanted to use the water park at the hotel since they gave us access to it. He’s not a big pool person, but he enjoyed it for a little bit, even going down the super fast slide. Brian forgot his suit, so the two of us just watched […]
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Back on July 24th (I know, I am behind all the time lately), Brian and I took drive up to Lititz, PA. It’s closer than the other chocolate town of Hershey, PA., but to me it smells very delicious right outside of the Wilbur Chocolate Factory. It smells like mom’s kitchen, or my kitchen or […]
Sean is good at taking me places where I show an interest in. I did a google search once on ‘shopping in Lancaster’ and Stoudtburg Village came up. He had off last Saturday and he said we could take a drive up. It was over an hour drive and we saw lovely farms and scenery.
The village itself wasn’t very busy and it was quite warm that day. The shop owners buy the building and live above the stores! I like that idea! So we started to walk around and went by a lady who was about to prop open her door. I advised her against it and then we started to talk. She let us see her ‘courtyard’ or garden which was really pretty with the purple and lime green. She wasn’t going to open until the 19th and let us to see her store. She had awesome antiques and I loved the boater hats like my great grandfather William use to wear (as seen in photos).
This was outside ‘Plum Pludding’ if you ever want to visit.
We looked in a few stores, one being a candy store and I got my mom her favorite ‘Black Jack’ gum and some Violet candies I liked.
We went to the antique mall area there and the lady said she was going close in 5 minutes. There were a few other people in the mall and I think I would have kept it open a little longer so we could enjoy looking around.
I mentioned a multi cache that was located in the village. We found the first one pretty easily. The hint lead us to a sitting area and there were people sitting on their balcony. The lady said she knew what we were poking around for and we looking in the right area. I saw a sprinkler head and it was a big sprinkler for such a small area. Sean pulled on it, but it didn’t budge. Then we looked more and were about to melt when I went over to the sprinkler and turned the top and the coordinates to inside. We just couldn’t find the third one on foot. We even drove around. I do believe we found the north coordinates. We looked a long time for this cache. So I have the numbers written down to look for it in cooler weather. The town is suppose to be an antique mecca, and I’d love to go look around there again.
This was the antique mall with nice murals….
Sean wanted to see a preserve near by and we saw the sign, but not much of the preserve, except for the residential area. We did go by the craft warehouse place that recently closed where I enjoyed shopping a few months ago.
We ended up at the Park City Mall in Lancaster and I got a Salads work and Sean a burger. By then I wasn’t feeling that great from the heat and while Sean shopped a bit, I sat down.
So we could record finding a cache, we stopped at a McDonald’s as the cache there was very popular. The cache was a bird house in a holly bush!
We also stopped for this:
I could only eat half!
I realized it’s been a while since I did a blog post. I’m going to keep this blog as long as possible as it’s a good record for me. I now upload my camera photos right to Flickr and Instagram, so it will be semi-updated there on the sidebar. They won’t have details like my blog, but you can kind of see what I am up to.
So what have I been up to? LOL Well. for one thing, we are climbing up to 300 geocache finds. This is pretty good for someone like me with my issues, but when we go out looking, I tend to forget I hurt sometimes.
Last Friday we went down to historic New Castle, Delaware to look for a few caches. First I wanted to stop near Wilmington to see ‘the biggest cache’ some people have ever seen, this of course is according to the logs for it. Well we found the location and the van-yes, it was the back of a van, like one used for a/c or heating which was near the business where it was parked. We were confused to where the key was to open the cache, feeling around under the bottom of the vehicle for a ‘MKH’-you all know what that is. All we did was knock off rust down there. I finally went into the business and they told me where to look and within a a few minutes we had it! So then we unlocked the back of the van instead of the side-it said to unlock where a certain number was located-duh. I guess we were too excited to see it after all the hype.
Here’s what we found:
This was facing the back. I guess that’s a seat for photo ops! The lights even went on!
Right under this was a big notebook for the log book! There was a travel bug hotel (I was hoping for a bug, but it was empty) and lots of swag.
It was way cool!!!!
We then headed to New Castle and were stumped with a few caches on where to park for them. We had to resort to just picking and choosing off the phone. We did find one near a piling after a bit of a search. The piling was in water and we didn’t feel like falling in. So we took a photo. The cache owner said you have to sign the log, but we can’t be running down to New Castle hoping that the water receded. Finding it was hard enough!
See what I mean? It was mucky all around this area too. You’d need some of those thigh high boots, ‘just in case’.
We snagged a few others and headed to the farmer’s market. We were looking for something to bring home for dinner and found a half of rotisserie chicken and two sides, so bought 3. We had enough chicken for a sandwich the next day! Wow!
Pretty mural near the walkway of the Delaware River
Battery Park coastline near the walk.
The next day was Saturday. We were sitting around and I remembered that a big craft warehouse place in Lancaster County was closing. The discount was up to 60% off and we decided to take a drive there-it would take about an hour. Of course I was again itchy to grab a few caches. We stopped at one called ‘Ghost Train’. It was on an old wooden train bridge. Brian made the find! So proud he saw that one as I was going away from the structure.
We didn’t get to the sale until 4:30 and the place closed at 6:00. I did power shopping. I picked up mostly some Christmas decor and a few Christmas gifts. I got a few things I want to embellish too.
We were going to a smorgasbord, but about 5 lines had 30 people each waiting to get in. And they all will get in and touch all the serving spoons, you get my drift. We ended up retrieving a few caches, one at a tiny cemetery and the other in the parking lot of the restaurant. We had to leave and come back as a full tour bus was right near where we needed to look! They would have wondered why those people were messing with the lamp skirt. Ha ha!
There is a smaller restaurant under the smorgasbord and we ate there. The cheesesteak was a mess! They cut all the way through the bun and piled all this marinara sauce on it. I had to cut it up to eat it as I couldn’t pick it up.
There is a 40k square foot gift shop-it goes on and on! I found an owl wind chime and some Burt’s Bee facial cleanser I needed.
I asked Brian to stop one more time for a cache as I have always wanted to see it. It was an old grist mill in the heart of Amish country. It was getting dark, so I turned on the handy phone light app and although it was 20 feet off, we did find the ammo can.
We had a pretty fun day and found 10 caches in two days!
I think Longwood Gardens will be my next blog post. Sean and I went on Sunday. I have never seen such a variety of tulips in such an array of colors. Here’s a sneak peak!
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.
Since last I updated, we have all had colds, Sean getting the worse of it. I missed work as I was just too achy to even try go. A week makes a big difference!
The three of us went out last night (Monday) which doesn’t happen often. Sean drove in the rental car. His car is ‘still’ in the shop as there is a suspension issue they are trying to get the insurance to check out. Sean is pretty sure he hit a curb as the jeep took out the entire left side of his car. We drove by the restoration place last night and Sean’s car was sitting outside. It’s been 3 weeks. The guy who did this had hardly anything happen to his vehicle-someone who made an illegal u-turn didn’t have to go through all this!
Anyway, we had a gift card for Bertucci’s and went to one near Wilmington, DE. Earlier in the day, here had just been a shooting just miles away at the courthouse-the gunman shot his estranged wife and another woman to death and the police got him. It was a custody issue and two lovely ladies were killed. Crazy!
We also went through a 5 Below store which has cuter and cuter things each time I go there.
I mentioned that a geocaching friend had a hide near a British pub, so we went like 1/2 mile down the road. The cache was said to be decorated for the local Philly ice hockey team the Flyers-in orange and black. We looked at benches, near pipes, behind signs, etc. with no luck. This was all in a dimly lit area. I think we didn’t look low enough! We may go back on Thursday for dinner as it’s a nice place to eat and we had eaten there before. We headed down to a big ‘cement city’ shopping area and after sinking in mud, found a little camouflaged box (fake leaves glued to the top). We looked for one more and again we didn’t see the travel mug holder. We shopped in Trader Joe’s for healthy goodies and came home.
Remembering President Lincoln on his birthday
When I got home I decided to look at the satellite for a number of geocaches along the route where we just were and wrote down info for 10 of them, one being south bound and the rest north.
I had some insurance issues with blood work I had done in November. Brian and I went over to the doctor yesterday to pick up blood work and ask why they haven’t submitted info to the insurance. Boy did they hustle! The office manager was very nice. Asked me if I was stressed out, yes I am! My blood pressure has been a little high lately. I know stress can make you feel a lot worse than you are! My blood work wasn’t too bad. I do have a bit of a Vitamin D deficiency so I will be taking mega doses of it once a week for 3 months to get my numbers up. People are usually deficient in the winter, but I may have trouble absorbing it. I sure hope it helps. Maybe my joints will feel better too!
Today before Brian and I hit the Dutch-way Grocery store, we looked for a few caches. It was in the 20s, but felt colder. Luckily, we found them in 5 minutes or less. The first place was off a parking lot of this lovely church in Cochranville, Pa. Some man was sitting in a delivery van almost parallel to the cache-wonder if he was a cacher too? When we got out, he left! Anyway, I narrowed my search to a tree trunk and there was the cache.
So we had a little time to kill, so we went down another country road and looked for a cache we tried to find at night a few months back. But then we were in the right area, but you just can’t find a fence ‘nano’ in the dark. Again, Brian spotted it with his eagle eyes.
Across the street was this lovely church in Parkesburg, PA. Love the bell!
I have a small set of other churches on Flickr.
So we went food shopping and were happy to get some good ‘buy 1 get 1 free’ items. I had run out of canned or frozen veggies. Last night I looked and all I could find were a few sweet potatoes which we had with our dinner.
I’ve been doing a little cross stitching at night. I finally finished a Christmas ornament and started one for another holiday coming up soon!
I have gotten a little rusty. I do have a nice floor lamp I bought to shine on the project (thanks Habitat for Humanity). Next I want to get to my paper crafts again!
We may be getting some snow tomorrow, up to 2 inches! Wow! ; )
Update-Sean’s car has been at a local restoration place for a few days now. The appraiser said it can be repaired and gave us a check. He didn’t count the steering issue. Sean got a loaner car in the meantime. So we are hoping the restoration place doesn’t want more than what’s on the check.
Collages & Creative Goodness 