Category Archives: sightseeing

Jul13

Day trips can be interesting

Posted on Saturday, July 13, 2013 by Dianne

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!

Jul5

Brooklyn, it was nice to meet you!

Posted on Friday, July 5, 2013 by Dianne

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We found our hotel in Brooklyn fairly easily, but the parking was limited behind the place. The receptionist said to park anywhere on the streets around it, so after a few times circling, we found a tight spot. Unfortunately there was a broken bottle we had to kick away from the rear of the car.

The room was really tiny with the double beds and bathroom within a foot or so of the one bed.

From the front desk’s recommendation, we walked over to 5th Ave. for dinner. It was a bit of a walk and I was getting fatigued and very warm. We were looking for a ‘diner’ place and did find it. We had the Nathan’s hot dog around 5 or so, but by 8:30, we all had breakfast food! Can’t beat that and the price of dinner was good. We looked in store windows after we ate and saw some interesting things.

She was in the Gremlin movie-lol

We saw high rises galore all around, here and there.

Personally, I need to be able to get out the door quickly, and when needed see green grass.

We wondered where Woody Allen and other famous Brooklyn natives lived too.

The next day we set out for the Brooklyn Museum. Sean read where there was a display or maybe separate building for the Dodgers. We got there and it wasn’t open until 11. We were on a time crush as Brian had to get to work in the late afternoon.

There were ‘jumping’ water fountains out front. Cool.

We started to look for a cache, but in the wrong park. We were looking in the park for the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. Speaking of which, I’d love to go in there sometime too!

We then got in the correct park, called Prospect Park. It was looked like a tree hide, but we just couldn’t put our finger on it. (Sean and I were looking and he drove a bit that day).

We then started for home. Get this, Sean bought two NY lottery tickets and wanted to cash in his $3 winnings. We stopped in Staten Island and he got it and we got a cache in a little park there too! That was a little walking in weeds and loaded with skeeters, but Brian and I got it in about 10 minutes or so.

We stopped for a late lunch and it was raining quite a bit on the way home. Brian was about 1.5 hours late for work, but he stayed later too.

It was a pretty neat trip and we are glad to see other parts of New York.

Jul3

Coney Island was calling to us

Posted on Wednesday, July 3, 2013 by Dianne

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This gallery contains 19 photos.

We had another weekend come up when the guys were both off on a Saturday. We decided to just go somewhere, but where? I was looking at the geocaching map and Ocean City, NJ was going to destination for the next morning. Then I started moving up the coast and landed on Coney Island in […]

Jun20

Figuring out the coordinates and getting the prize!

Posted on Thursday, June 20, 2013 by Dianne

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This gallery contains 15 photos.

Yesterday Brian and I were off to do our bimonthly food run. We have a few stores we like, but we decided to go to the one up in Gap, PA. They had some ‘buy one get one free’ items and I think they alone were worth the trip. But first, we did a little […]

Jun15

Exploring in MD and DE

Posted on Saturday, June 15, 2013 by Dianne

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We got up on the 9th and headed to a crowded Dunkin Donuts for a quick breakfast which was anything but that! Seems everyone wants their beach munchies at the same time. When we passed just a few hours later the place was void of vehicles.

We headed to one of my favorite spots on earth-the inlet of Ocean City, MD. There is so much water around you! There’s the jetty, the view of the boardwalk and amusements and Assateague from across the bay.

We were here a few hours and ventured to around O.C. for a few more geocaches and back to North Park again.

I found a clever birdfeeder cache at OC city hall (looking for photo)

and one in a neat ‘tropical’ garden Dewey Beach, DE too.

We found a cache in the Isle of Wight park across the bridge from Ocean City

We stopped for salad and pizza and then headed to the Old Navy store-can’t go there without buying something. We got on the road and I asked Sean if we could stop in Milford, DE to see a cache that is suppose to be a haunted house. He said why not!

When we drove up, I thought it looked like a movie set! Eek.

That little window must be for decoration only!

So we go around to the back and GZ seems to be an herb garden. I am looking under this silvery herb which I think was Santolina and Sean is starting to get attacked by mosquitoes. I say to him, ‘Can’t you lift one piece of this herb to save my back?’ He comes over like he is ‘guided’ and lifts the section where the cache is! Now that is spooky! I read that paranormal investigators were in this house all night and asked the ‘occupant’ what games did they like to play? (they try and keep to the period of the people who resided there) and they picked up ‘slipper’ as a reply. The investigators researched ‘slipper’ and it was indeed a childhood game of the Civil War era! They learned how to play the game and the electro magnetic fields (I think this is what they are called) were more active when they were doing so!

When we left, we were approaching a red light and I said, ‘Sean, you are going to go through a red light!!’ and he didn’t stop! Hope it was because he was just tired or should have taken off his sunglasses. There was a car to the left of the intersection too.

Anyway, we got home in good time and reflecting on the trip, we were glad we headed south.

Jun13

Spur of the minute over night trip to the beach

Posted on Thursday, June 13, 2013 by Dianne

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Sean doesn’t have too many Sundays off working retail. All last week he was saying he wanted to go to the beach and Brian just couldn’t get off (he’s retail also). So Saturday we are looking on the internet and couldn’t find a cheap enough place until Sean called a hotel he’s been to before. They had a room, so the two of us got our act together and were on the road by 1:45, just a little over an hour later. We stopped to cash in a bag of coins and got $67 for them (paid for gas and our dinner). If we had known a grocery store was across the street from the hotel and that we had a microwave, we could have utilized them.

My stipulation was that we could stop if needed and we did a few times for a bathroom break and to geocache! We stopped at a few beach towns in Delaware as we decided to skip Rt. 1 for Rt. 113. First we went to a park in Millsboro. DE near a canal.

The geocache was in crevices of that big tree. There’s Sean in the red shirt.

That’s the Indian River Canal. We really like seeing new areas like this.

The next little town was Selbyville, DE. The cache was at the museum that use to be the train station. Sean posed with the 70s(?) Plymouth police cruiser out front.

Despite stopping a few times, we got to Ocean City, MD in just over 3 hours.

The Carousel is a nice, beachfront hotel with an ice skating rink inside. The whole town was hopping with mostly high school seniors and a girl’s lacrosse tournament! We saw them everywhere!

We ate at a place across the street from the hotel called ‘The Green Turtle’. We had to wait a while. Once seated, a group of young ladies came in for dinner. Sean recognized a few from his Penn State days, but it was a bridal party dinner and he didn’t want to say hi. It really is a small world!

I saw that a geocache was called ‘OC Sunset’ and we decided to get there before the actual event happen. It was a park we have never been and there again, many lacrosse matches were going on.

I got some pretty awesome shots. We worked our way down the pier at North Park-it was 0.16 of a mile to where the cache was stuck under the only bench there. Sean found it!

The pier we walked down to the cache.

And there it goes!

We went for ice cream and a smoothie and a little shopping afterwards. I called it a night and Sean was just getting started. He likes a club there called Seacrets and he was headed in that direction. I was about to fall asleep when my ‘neighbors’ came back and decided to jump on the beds like monkeys (male teens) at 1:30 am. One time the picture moved over head and I jumped a foot. Sean was back by then and at 2:15 I called the front desk and security came up and knocked on their door. Shame on them for acting that way in a family hotel! There are motels just for groups like theirs.

I’m stopping here and will talk about Day 2 soon. We saw a few more nice places and grabbed a total of 10 geocaches! Sean is liking caching much more now. He sees it’s the adventure and the cache/log is just the prize at the end.

Jun7

Skipped some stones

Posted on Friday, June 7, 2013 by Dianne

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Skipped some stones to get this cache in Banning Park, DE, originally uploaded by DianthusMoon.

Brian and I did a little mapped out caching on the 6th (yesterday). I hadn’t been feeling well earlier in the week and had to miss work again. I think I have a food allergy to sweet potatoes. I’m keeping a food dinner diary and I asked Brian if he remembered when my tummy was bothering me another time and I looked it up and we had eaten sweet potato chili. I really liked that chili too! I’ll make it another time to see for sure. Tuesday I even ate Greek food from Wilmington’s festival and that didn’t bother me and it’s very rich.

Speaking of Wilmington, Sean and I drove down to the church to retrieve the take-out. Each sampler is only $15 and I got two meals out of mine. We stopped at a park to find a cache first. We didn’t know where to park, so Sean went to a school lot for about 10 minutes. It didn’t take long to zone into the area and I saw this:

The cache was in the pole behind the sign and difficult to retrieve!

I really liked Cool Springs. We figured out you were only allowed to park on side streets on the other side of the park. When I found the cache, I told Sean to go sit in the car in case someone came along. No one did.

With the first mentioned caching, Brian and I went to Banning Park near Newport, De. There were a number of caches there and I always like finding a new park.

The bridge was the second cache we looked for. The first was in a curved hedge. Now I don’t know about other cachers, but if there is anything I dislike more about caching is sticking my head is bushes. They hold dirt and stuff like a barrier. We looked quite a bit and were right where the cache was suppose to be, but we didn’t see it. Strike one!

So we went over to the bridge. Again we were in the right spot, but a FB caching pal said in her log that she didn’t get too wet or dirty, so I knew what I had to do. Brian didn’t volunteer to walk in the stream. And lo and behold, there was the cache under the bridge! Yes!

We went on to find another bridge one that was kind of out in the open and not hidden well. We then looked a bit for one near a pond. It was along a fence, but also near train tracks so the GPS went wonky a few times. I finally walked away and then approached more slowly and it stopped at correct spot and I saw a cammoed sack which was the cache!

We went on to a pavilion hide. When we first arrived, some school was having their picnic or field day and there were at least 200 kids in bright red t-shirts wondering around and in the area of the pavilion. They were all gone by 3 pm, but alas, I think they had to find the cache there or it was in the bush we stuck our heads in several times. People have to remember that birds will make nests in shrubs too. I told the cache owners it may be gone. I’ll be curious to see if anyone finds it after us.

We went on to find a few caches along Rt. 4 on our way to dinner and the grocery store. One was a gunner in a memorial park. Brian found that one.

I had my ‘cheat’ dinner last night which was a ‘baby’ cheesesteak on an Italian roll. It was so skimpy, I am sure a real baby could eat it and still be hungry. Maybe it wasn’t much of a cheat. I’ve been trying to stick to whole grain bread.

There was a cache near the restaurant at a restaurant. We walked over knowing it was one of the light fixtures on the side. Pretty sure the shades were down in the restaurant, but didn’t a waiter come out and in poor English want to know what we were doing! I showed him the app, he didn’t get it and wouldn’t leave until we did. At least we tried to find it.

We are having lots of rain today. Brian didn’t have to work, but he had to clean up water in the basement. I decided to tidy up the pantry closet as stuff was just hedged in there and falling out. It took a little while, but I got rid of old food and almost empty cereal boxes.

Sean has off Sunday, so thinking about doing a day trip. I know he isn’t into driving a lot, but Brian doesn’t have off. I hope we can see something different not too far away!

Apr15

Atlantic City in April

Posted on Monday, April 15, 2013 by Dianne

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This gallery contains 10 photos.

We headed over to Atlantic City late Thursday afternoon and Sean checked in. First we went up to the 4th floor and it was suppose to be the 41st floor! This room had one king bed. So down we went, Sean got out his confirmation paper that said ‘two queen beds’ and up we went […]

Apr13

Exploring some, researching and fun!

Posted on Saturday, April 13, 2013 by Dianne

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Since Sean didn’t go to Los Angeles, he wanted to see some place different, so he booked a room at the Revel Casino down in Atlantic City and said we could join him. Now it’s nice to see something different, but in April, you are going to miss a lot of the outdoor experience. It figures we did have summer like weather for a few days ‘before’ we went down to the beach, but unfortunately the temps went down 30 degrees and it was also windy and foggy besides chilly. The two places Sean wanted to see were closed on Thursday! Lucky for him and Brian, I wrote down some geocaches I thought would be interesting to find, two being at the places that were closed. They both agreed it would be something to do before heading to Atlantic City. We were in Stone Harbor, NJ and our first stop was at the Wetlands Institute. Sean is doing a research paper about NJ wetlands!

We did get to go in the next day and checked out their indoor exhibits. Sean went up in that look out yesterday as both Brian and I were weary of the circular stairs. We want to visit again when it’s nicer out.

There is a inside joke about every time I am close to the beach, it’s windy! See my hair! This is me with the 1st geocache find in hand. The other hand is holding my custom made stamper with my geocacher name on it. Stamp and go (and I do sign the date too-so it saves a little time, but looks nice with the red ink).

Our next stop was to the Stone Harbor Bird Sanctuary. It’s been here for 66 years and we have never seen it!

I knew the geocache here would be fast and it was. Another place that will be worth a trip back to see when it is green and lush…and full of birds! We had a few Chickadees giving us the business though.

One more look near the beach and it was 3 for 3! The little film canister blew away on me and Brian had to get it with a stick! We went behind a fence to see the beach and ocean and there was about a 10 foot or more drop due to Hurricane Sandy last October 2012.

Foggy and gray!

Sean on Friday at the 88th St. beach where there was a geocache hide(we didn’t find that one as the sand was really piled up)

So we asked the man at the Stone Harbor Museum (where we found another very nicely kept cache-4 for 4) where to eat and he mentioned Fred’s Tavern. We went and had the best burgers! I haven’t raved about food in a while, but these were on brioche rolls, so extra delicious.

We looked for one more cache near an ice cream parlor. It was a nano-Sean and me looked everywhere. Brian stayed in the car and generally if you tell him to find a nano, he can. After I logged it as a DNF (4 for 5), the CO emailed me and told me exactly where it was. The next day we went back and this time Brian found it.

Photo credits mostly go to Brian!

Next post Atlantic City!

Apr2

Roadside America-a treasure trove in miniature

Posted on Tuesday, April 2, 2013 by Dianne

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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’