Morton Fox's journal

There were a few caches here and there locally that I'd planned to get on Saturday before going to Pottstown. So I got one in Wilmington, and after breakfast, I got two more in Chadds Ford and East Bradford. The open space area in East Bradford had a bit of a slope, which I had no problem going down but on the way back up, I slipped and fell. I must have landed the wrong way because my left shoulder and upper arm was sore and I didn't have as much strength there as usual. So I went to the Penn Medicine Emergency Room in West Chester to get it checked.

Got admitted not long after since the ER wasn't busy. Some things must have changed in the years since I was last in a hospital. They now seem to be required to ask a batch of questions to make sure that any injury was not the result of physical abuse. Anyway, I caught up with some Bruce Willis movies in the patient room while waiting for X-rays and such. Got pushed around in a wheelchair, which was more fun that I would've thought, to the X-ray room. A nurse administered some painkiller via IV although it really didn't do much. It was exactly as a friend described it once: you're still sore but the drug makes you not care as much about the soreness. The doctor was really good though. He moved my arm a bit and the bone went right back in without any pain at all. Then I left the hospital with some instructions and a prescription, although the nurse told me it's really just for some over-the-counter Aleve. I am to take a couple of days off from work and see an orthopedic specialist for a followup but that seems to be about it.

( The caches... )

Saturday was the day I tackled the group of 10 geocaches in Birch Run Preserve in the Coatesville area. The first cache nearest the parking area was "Barkley's First Shed", a Wherigo. I figured the Wherigo cartridge would take me pretty much all over the park, so I kept that running while I found the other caches along the way. Incidentally, "shed" here refers to a cast off deer antler, not a small storage structure. Barkley is a dog so until I got partway through the cartridge and saw that the shed was a deer antler, I was wondering what he wanted with a wooden hut! Anyway, doing both the regular geocaches and the Wherigo at the same time worked beautifully, even if I had to make two big detours for geocaches that were somewhat off from the main trail. All in all, the whole hike took about two hours, leaving plenty of time to get more geocaches around Honey Brook, Narvon, East Earl and New Holland before it got dark.

The last stop of the day and dinner was at Shady Maple Smorgasbord in East Earl. Shady Maple is the biggest buffet hall in the area and I'd always been intrigued by this enormous building, a Mecca of Overeating, that rises above the Amish countryside. I felt that I had to experience it at least once and since I was in the area, I went in. The place was packed! There were lines of people, like at an amusement park, just waiting to check in to the buffet. Past the cash registers, it was an old-time affair with curious dioramas and 3-D paintings. Shady Maple boasts of 200 feet of food but it's actually 100 feet of food repeated twice. The first 100 feet of buffet tables is a mirror image of the other 100 feet. I preferred the grilling stations though. I thought the crab cakes were the best but I sampled the seafood and meats from all the grilling stations. Of course, I saved some room for salad (with bacon dressing!) and dessert, which was ice cream cake! Anyway, I thought it was a worthwhile experience but maybe next time, avoid going there on a Saturday evening. I was told that the crowd isn't as bad on other nights.

Sunday's plan was fairly simple. I went geocaching up the New Jersey side of the Delaware River, through Pennsauken, Riverside, Palmyra, Willingboro, and Burlington, towards Florence, where I would end the day at the "Fall Get Together 2016" geocaching event. There was some good river scenery and a nice visit to the Palmyra Cove Nature Center along the way.

( The caches... )

Saturday was another day to get some geocaches in my area, to the northwest and northeast of home. Went from Newark to Pike Creek, London Britain, Kemblesville, Kennett Square, Concordville, Springfield, Newtown Square, and Lansdowne. Attempted some of the tougher geocaches as well, which meant tackling the overgrowth on some of the less-used trails in DelCo wooded areas. The funny cache of the day was "Class of 3:16", which came with its own action figure.

Sunday's geocaching trip started in Penns Grove and Logan Township, before venturing north to Trenton, Ewing, and Pennington. However, any area that even suggested picnic or swim hole was packed with people and parking areas were jam packed. Moreover, traffic was crazy on the New Jersey side. So, after getting a few geocaches, I decided to head over the river for the relative calm of Bucks County, PA. There were a lot of new geocaches, mostly from Taxman, in Newtown and Bensalem. Also, I was finally able to find some caches with which I had trouble in the past. "Cry Baby #5 * 8 - Newborn" was one such problematic cache. I'd been there before but encountered a vagrant hiding behind the fence, which really discouraged me from returning for a while! Finally found the cache this time and it turned out to not be that difficult, except for having to deal with the overgrowth in that unused slice of land next to the Wawa parking lot.

Couple of interesting geocaches on Sunday. The first was the cow-spotted box, which was furry on the inside! "Shadowy Span" was near an unusual sculpture of an armored horse. What the camera didn't capture very well was a golden heart behind the bars in the center of the horse's body. So that's some neat symbolism. And the last cache before dinner was a gnome, which ties in to the puzzle in "Where's Dog VII - Follow Your Gnome".

( The caches... )

Saturday morning, I went to the "Sofiecat Memorial Hike" geocaching event at Connie Batdorf Park in Pottstown. It's an event for a geocacher who passed away recently and also a group hike on the nearby Horseshoe Trail. Our group had a few vans and large vehicles, so we decided to shuttle everyone to the trailhead at the far end. Then those vehicles were parked at the other end of the trail so the rest of the group would only have to hike one way. It was only about a 3-mile hike but the Horseshoe Trail was hilly with lots of ups and downs, so it's still a workout. With a large group searching though, none of the 17 geocaches along the trail took very long to find. After the event and hike, I continued onwards to Morgantown and Reading for more geocaches, with an eye to finishing off any puzzle caches I had already solved. There were some neat caches, such as the reindeer, the teeth and a Marsha figurine.

Sunday's trip was to Maryland to get the latest collection of geocaches in the Hunt Valley area. It snowed in the afternoon but not enough to cover anything. I also took the opportunity to take a loop hike around Meadowood Park for the 4 caches there. I'd visited that park earlier in the year but it was too hot in the Summer. Wintertime, on the other hand, was just right, especially since the plant growth had died back enough to make those caches easily visible.

Monday was Martin Luther King Day, a Federal holiday. I had the day off but it was a cold day, so I decided not to travel out too far. Still, there was plenty to do around Pike Creek, Hockessin, Kennett Square, West Goshen, Frazer, and King of Prussia. There was a frog geocache. ("My name is not Kermit!") Also took a hike into McKaig Nature Center and saw an old furnace. And at the end of the day, I saw the 9/11 memorial near the King of Prussia Mall.

( The caches... )

Mostly hung around my home region on this four-day weekend because unlike last year, I didn't see a reason to travel out. One thing this allowed me to do was snag a few choice deals on Black Friday, although for the sake of sanity, I did avoid the shopping areas late Thursday evening and Friday morning. It seems to be the one time of the year the mall parking lot is packed all the way to the edges!

Thursday's and Friday's trips were a return to South Jersey, around Greenwich, Woodbury, Mantua, Sicklerville, Erial, Haddonfield, and Berlin. The Riverfront Trail was very quiet Thanksgiving morning. There was a dragonfly geocache and an alligator geocache, and Haddonfield had some cute tile art.

Saturday's trip was to Lancaster. Route 41 was still closed for bridge repair but this time, the detour route had new geocaches. One interesting thing is of the day's cache list, 6 caches had titles in Ukrainian and 1 cache was Chinese. The area has gone mutlicultural! :) The only issue was my automotive GPS couldn't render those characters, but I could still search for those by GC code.

Sunday's trip was mostly close to home, around Chester County and parts of northwest Philadelphia. Best view of the day was from the top of a cliff down to a lake in East Whiteland, at "Acapulco, No Diving". I also wondered why the Willistown seal, which I saw at a park entrance, had a fox head, but an old news article has the answer.

( The caches... )

It was a 3-day weekend for the Independence Day holiday. On Friday, we first went to finish some local series of geocaches that I hadn't had time to get to during the week. First, there was the set of 4 that was placed for last Monday's geocaching event. Then there was a set of 7 caches placed by West Whiteland Township for their 250th anniversary. It's also a nice way for the township to promote their parks. Stopped for lunch at the Exton Square Mall and ran into the Chick-Fil-A cow. The rest of the day was a round-up of various smaller batches of caches around Phoenixville, Trappe, Collegeville, and Limerick.

Saturday was a geocaching spree in downtown York, Southern York, and Spring Grove. The downtown York area was not my preference but a slightly rainy day was actually perfect for that. Urban areas that would normally be busy were free and clear because of the drizzle, so there was no trouble getting those caches. The one scenic area of the day was Indian Rock Dam. It is used for flood control, so it is normally dry unless there is heavy rain. On the way home, there were 4th of July fireworks visible from the US-30 bridge over the Susquehanna River. It seemed like every town along the way had a display like that too.

I wanted to go to the LVG G.E.M. geocaching event on Sunday afternoon, so we geocached in Quakertown, Coopersburg, Bethlehem, and Easton, before heading to Wegman's in Bethlehem for the event. There were some new geocaches in the area but also a bunch that I couldn't find on my previous visits because of ice and snow. It's surprising how easy those caches are, now that they aren't under a foot of refrozen snow.

( The caches... )

Saturday was a busy day. It was Pi Day (3/14/15), so there were lots of geocaching events taking place. I picked three that didn't conflict and were all within 30 miles from home. So at breakfast time, I went to "A Breakfast Pi? S.T.R.A.N.G.E.!" at Wegman's in Downingtown. Then at lunchtime, I went to "Almost St. Patty's Day" at Charcoal Pit in Wilmington. Then at dinnertime, I went to "2015 NJ PI Event 3.1415" at East Garden Buffet in Sicklerville. Of course, there were other geocaches and some event bonus caches along the way. So all in all, it was quite a day. The funniest part was a group of geocachers from Chester County picked the same events that I did. So I kept seeing them every couple of hours!

Sunday was a comparatively laid-back trip to Lancaster County. I hit Lancaster and then worked my way north/northeast to Lititz, West Earl, Ephrata, Reamstown, and Denver. I love the humorous and creative caches that folks in this area place. "Spiders and Rats and Zombies, Oh My!" actually had a spider, a rat, and a zombie hand. Then, there was the toilet geocache. The story is that's the site of a hotel that was torn down but they left toilets all over the place. Later in the afternoon, I went for the "Sticky Situation" series in Ephrata, which had a bunch of neat fake food props. Among those were a spilled ice cream geocache and a donut geocache. I love these because it's obvious they're having fun with humorous and themed geocaches.

( The caches... )

There was a snowstorm predicted for Saturday but I wanted to see how many geocaches in Willisbrook Preserve I could finish before it started snowing. The snow started at around noon, a bit earlier than forecast, but I had already finished one of the two trail loops by then. I got out of there quickly because I knew secondary roads would get bad. For the rest of the day, I attended to accounting, taxes, and household chores that I'd been saving for a snowy day. (Cleaning the bathroom on a weekend? It's madness!)

After shoveling snow to clear my sidewalk and driveway on Sunday morning, I went to Coopersmith Park in West Goshen. I'd passed by those caches previously but this time, I brought the required equipment. "Smackwater Jack" is one of those caches where you need to bring water to float the cache container up a PVC tube. I really only needed the bucket and duct tape though because the nearby stream was flowing. The other cache in Coopersmith Park was also pretty neat. "Heard It Through the Grape Vine" was a bunch of grapes.

Then I returned to Willisbrook Preserve to finish what I started the previous day. There was another layer of slushy wet snow everywhere so walking around was a bit more difficult, but most of the caches were still findable. After that, I picked and chose geocaches around Malvern and Phoenixville. These varied in difficulty and some hill slopes were slippery.

( The caches... )

Saturday was about attacking some cache series to the north and northwest in Pennsylvania. First, I did the "Take A Walk" series in East Goshen Township Park. I found some of those caches earlier but the series was extended recently. It's not actually as much walking as the name implies because the park is chock full of parking areas, but I cut it into three small loop hikes. Then I headed over to Temple, a bit north of Reading, for the Chinese zodiac series. It's a series of 12 caches along the Muhlenberg Rail Trail in which every animal "is the BEST!" (BEST stands for Berks Explorers Seeking Tupperware, the Berks County geocaching group, so it's a clever way to name those caches.) After the two series and a few more caches, it was night. So I went to "Where Santa Threw Up (Night Cache)" in Audubon. It's an easy street corner cache but its actual purpose is to bring people to the most festively decorated yard in the neighborhood.

I had no concrete plans for Sunday, so I just headed a bit into South Jersey to find caches here and there in Gloucester County. I gave priority to some caches that I knew would be affected by the impending NJ state parks policy but also threw some urban and suburban caches into the mix. There were some interesting spots, like the tile flag sculpture and the Wenonah tea house.

( The caches... )

On Saturday, I only went for geocaches around Newark, Hockessin, and Cecil County because I was planning to attend DE Furbowl 55 that evening. Actually, there were quite a number of local geocaches by this time because I hadn't been going geocaching on weekdays after work because of the earlier sunsets. I also noticed that some new geocachers have been busy placing caches around North East and Rising Sun, which is good because it keeps the Cecil County area fresh.

In the evening, I had an early dinner and then went to AMF Prices Corner for Furbowl. The place was busy! It'd been 11 months since my last Furbowl and my understanding is attendance is regularly in the triple digits now. I wore the Rakket Raccoon fursuit this time. It was a fun time, although I didn't stay all the way to the end because I had to prepare for the next day.

On Sunday, my first destination was Uwchlan to get more of the "13 Superstitions" series. It was a bummer though that the final 13th cache was under repair, but at least I got the required codes from the first 12 of those. There were some rather creative caches in this series, among them, the black cat and the clump of clover. Thank goodness the latter wasn't too deep in the bush or it may have been tough to find! After that, I went farther north to Nantmeal and Douglassville. Monocacy Hill was surprisingly packed. I wasn't able to get a proper parking space in the main area so I only got the two closest geocaches that I could access from roadside parking near a side entrance. And finally, I went way north to Bally for the "Stove Road" series of caches. The "road" here is an old woods road that's rocky, somewhat overgrown, and barely discernible in some spots, but the 4 caches were pretty good and worth negotiating the terrain to get to.

( The caches... )