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Last year, we ventured to Charleston, SC in December. This year we decided to stay a little closer to home as we didn’t save up as much money as we did for that trip. We have never been to Ohio, so a great place to see there is The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. […]
I am still attempting to update my blog. I have the laptop open now to upload a few photos, so there is no better time then the present! This event happened the 3rd weekend in May.
So you may know that one of my hobbies is geocaching. People hide caches that are all shapes and sizes and get them published on http://www.geocaching.com. We then take our phones or GPSr devices and try to find them. Brian and I have a joint account and have close to 950 finds in a little over 3 years. Sean has gotten more into caching in the last year and has about 650 finds. There are things you do other than just find caches. You get to go to events and meet other people with a passion for geocaching like you! The mega event of the year is Geo Woodstock and it was held in Boonsboro, Maryland this year, so we went! It’s about 2.5 hours and we got to see a bit of West Virginia too. In fact, we went right to Harper’s Ferry, WV so we could look around and grab the West Virginia souvenir. It’s pretty neat to get state souvenirs. We have about 12 out of 50, but hope to add at least Ohio by the end of the year.
The first cache we located in Harper’s Ferry had this scenery to enjoy! I thought of the John Denver song ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads’. This must have been what he saw too!
Signing the log.
We drove around this town on the hill a bit and found a pizza joint to have dinner in.
We then went to the meet and greet in Boonsboro. We saw a few local cachers who we knew, then we saw Joshua Johnston from Minnesota who is a energetic, fun video blogger who takes us to caches that he finds! He took a selfie (click to see) of the two of us.
. But that is Joshua in the middle. A married dad of three with a cool. Vlog.
Sean and I are in this video…about at 33 seconds near the big satellite dish!
We stayed at a nice hotel thanks to Sean. On our way back to the event, we looked for a cache near the hotel.
We ran into more pals and went looking for a few lab caches. They we listened to a local cacher from Rehoboth Beach talk about how to do puzzle caches. We were waiting to hear West Virginia Tim who does fun gadget caches in his retirement. He is pretty funny and presents himself like Jeff Foxworthy.
We ate a light lunch which happened to be catered by the guy who owns the Brandywine Picnic Park. He is also a cacher!
We went back to West Virginia to look for a few of WVTim’s gadget caches. We found one at a rest stop and at a Chick-Fil-a one. The one at the rest stop had a whole bunch of people trying to open it. A guy who had opened it came along and helped us. We then went driving around and stopped at Antietam Battlefield. We were about to grab a cache in the visitor center and they had just closed.
We headed home and stopped first at an Olive Garden and had a little trouble with our meal. I complained and got a discount on my meal.
Here are a few more photos.
We posed with the geocaching mascot Signal the first night we were there.
Sean and me posing near the direction signs.
Wendy’s geocaching car! Everyone was signing it!
Antietam cannons
All in all, we had a fun time seeing a new state, gorgeous scenery, a few strange people, but mostly friendly folks with the same interest. I would recommend caching to anyone! It’s a fun family activity too.
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All trips come and go too quickly. We really did see a lot on our trip to Chicago. I have about 4 friends who live nearby, but alas didn’t meet up with any of them. One the last day, we ate breakfast at a quiet place where we had a coupon. We waited a bit […]
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I know, it’s a funny title, but in truth that is the name the Indians called Chicago way back when. We learned this on the boat tour we took. It’s been a while since a blog update! I spent a lot of the month of May cleaning up the yard, working at the child care, […]
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Sometimes there are cool places to visit that are in your own backyard. The way the winter has been going, when we got a break in the weather, and on the weekend, we would take a drive someplace. A few weeks back, Sean and I went to Phoenixville, PA. This is on the other side […]
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We had plenty of time after our tour of Middleton Place Plantation to explore the city. We found a place to park and walked down to the Brown Dog Deli on Board St. The young lady who waited on us happened to be from the Chesapeake area of Maryland. Later a young man who waited […]
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There was a few plantations to visit and we had to pick just one as it is an expensive day trip. The lady at the hotel said she liked Middleton the best, so we decided to use our big gift card to get in. We had to travel about 15 minutes or so from our […]
Tuesday afternoon we arrived in Charleston. I was kind of expecting more old buildings and more sights of the seaport. I guess its’s the road we came in on. Then within a few minutes, we started to see more grandeur, practically our hotel, The French Quarter Inn. We pulled up to the side door and almost right away, a handsome, nicely dressed gentleman in his 30s, came over and welcomed us. He also started to help us get our bags on the cart. We found out later it was the general manager Brent who had helped. Brian gave him a tip too.
We went up to the lobby to check in. There was a dark wood spiral staircase up the center and also a fireplace, chairs and tables and the area where the food and beverages were served. We were served a glass of champagne! So elegant. Then we went to our room and it was so lovely! There was a huge armoire/entertainment center-about 10 feet or more long. There were two queen beds with lots of pillows. We were given two gift cards and a brass Christmas ornament of the hotel. We freshened up to get ready for the wine and cheese reception. We settled on a restaurant in a hotel within walking distance.
We enjoyed the cheese and wine with the other guests before venturing out for dinner.
There weren’t a ton of holiday decorations in Charleston. The hotel had some, including a pretty tree with wrapped packages underneath. We actually saw more decorations driving around and heading over to a park the next night.
We ate at the Renaissance Hotel and were the only ones there. We were a little punchy sitting there, but we had a nice dinner. Brian and I had rib eye and Sean a seafood pasta. The waitress disappeared for close to 15 minutes and we wanted to go. Here she was also doing room service!
We headed back to the hotel just in time for milk, hot chocolate and cookies. The beds were turned down and we had chocolates and a weather report for tomorrow.
I can’t even tell you how gorgeous the bathroom was. All white and black marble. The shower was glass. Wow.
The next day we headed for Middleton Place, a plantation in northern Charleston. Always wanted to see a plantation since reading ‘Gone with the Wind’.
Next-Middleton Place
Since we are a family of ‘grown-ups’, we decided to save up for a trip at Christmastime. I thought it may require much hustling and bustling at that time of year, but we would find out it wasn’t bad to travel the week before Christmas at all. I started to look through online Christmas packages for the southern states and Charleston, SC popped up. I narrowed it down to The French Quarter Inn and bought the package for the middle of the week of December 15th. This was back in August. I had no idea if my knee would cooperate by then. We had been saving up all year and had to only pay with cash or credit card for a few things. We were very pleased about this. It also helped that I read ‘Rhett Butler’s People’ that mostly centered in Charleston. I was anxious to try a sampling of some southern charm.
We got our Christmas decorations up early. Sean helped with the bay window and outside decor. I did the mantel and trees. Choosing clothes to take was difficult, but we ended up taking layers. I wore my long sweater most of the time we were there and my coat up in Williamsburg. We were going to let the cat stay in the kitchen and found the old baby gate. We put it up a few nights before we left and our almost 15 year old cat climbed over it. We had to leave him in the fairly heated basement with lots of covers and pillows.
We left about 6:45-7 am on the 15th and made pretty good time enough to stop a few times. The welcome center for North Carolina had a geocache, so we grabbed that for our NC state souvenir. We would also get SC the next day. The guys love getting those books and brochures anyway.
The first night we stopped in Raleigh, NC. Sean paid for two hotel nights for us. We went out to grab a bite where I had a coupon and decided to head over to the mall across the street as my cellphone wasn’t working properly. The mall was really nice! Turns out I did have a issue as I had recently changed my plan on the phone. We did a little Christmas shopping too. We then drove around the city which was fairly quiet. We looked at the state capital building and tree and even snooped for a few geocaches.
First Presbyterian Church of Raleigh
The streets were practically empty. We did enjoy some nicely decorated homes on the way over from the mall.
We couldn’t find the caches in the dark.
The next morning we headed to Charleston. We had been on the road the day before over 7 hours and were anxious to get to our destination. It was another long day in the car, but we did stop at a place that I hadn’t been to for 37 years-South of the Border!
It sure had expanded as I remember us sitting in the middle of a big parking lot back in 1977. Many of the expansions made over the years were closed down. There were a few caches here and we did look for them. Three of us couldn’t find the one one over the highway walk way. We did find Sean’s #400 there!
Next post-Charleston!!
The tomatoes! They are getting ripe now. Thank goodness we moved the garden as they are as big as softballs (some of them). The Romas are very chunky and meaty.
The color is off-these are certainly more red than orangish yellow.
Sean and I were driving around the other end of the county and found a Big Lots tonight! I happen to find some Crocs for only $15 and they are comfy!
This was Cosmo wanting to get up on my lap-nothing new!
I got the voucher info for the Beatlemania trip and I had to call the hotel to make arrangements. I could pick any day I wanted, so I picked a Saturday! Sean can come! He may not hear any of the bands, but how can you not even if you were standing near the gate? We can take turns anyway. He may take the Metro to DC or he could certainly go to Alexandria. The hotel looks like it has enough to it to keep anyone busy. Can’t wait!
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Tip from Pinterest ‘pinner’-when you get strawberries, add them to diluted vinegar (white or apple) and you can rinse them or not. Suppose to get the bacteria off them and make them last longer. I’m trying it, but I’m also making some strawberry pops today.
Collages & Creative Goodness 