Morton Fox's journal

Good weather on Sunday. Temperature was 70°F to 80°F most of the day. I went to Long Island. This will be one of the last few trips I'll make to LI for a while so I made it count. Went west to east along the southern half of the island. Then turned around and picked up a few geocaches along the northern half. Most of the geocaches were quick but I did find the time for two significant hikes for "South of the Boardwalk" and "The Lakeland Underground". Dinner was at Curry Leaves in Flushing Center. I had curry mee with stuffed vegetables and roti canai. I'll miss this kind of unpretentious ethnic dining.

I'd left my walking stick at Memorial Field in Rutherford on Saturday so on my way back from NYC, I altered my route a bit and swung by Rutherford. The town is a lot quieter at night. I found my walking stick on the grass. Since I was there, I checked the cache hiding spot and was puzzled to not see it there. I hope that's because someone moved it a little and not because it has already gone missing.

Monday is my substitute for that rainy Saturday. I had to go to the post office first thing in the morning to pick up a package that Meritline mailed all the way from China with certified mail. Considering that this is a pair of $3 LED flashlights with free shipping, I doubt Meritline actually made any money after shipping costs. I also had to mail another book that I'd sold in the Amazon marketplace. Considering that I listed that book only the night before, it's a pretty fast sale!

After that, I went to Orange County. Got lots of quick caches but then I ended the day with a 4-mile hike in the Stewart Airport Buffer Zone for the last 6 geocaches. Long walk but that was satisfying!

( The caches... )

Cloudy. 63-70°F. It looked like it was going to rain all day long but it didn't rain until the evening, and even then, the rain didn't last long. I went out to Long Island to find all the new geocaches placed within the last few weeks. I headed out eastwards on the northern half first, turned around, and came back along the southern half. Most of the caches were pretty standard hides. "I lost my marbles" was a little strange because it was less than 100 feet from the final stage of an older cache. I saw the older cache first and it looked like someone signed that log book by mistake.

Someone ran a red light in downtown Oyster Bay. Good thing I was slow to enter the intersection. A collision would've ruined the day, no doubt.

Went to Flushing Center in the evening for dinner. I had curry mee with stuffed vegetables and roti canai with egg at Curry Leaves. I think the former is their best dish. I came to that conclusion after trying most of the items on their menu. It's tough to beat something that has curry, crispy fried bean curd, and fish. On this trip, I also did a bit of shopping on Roosevelt Avenue and got a bulk discount from the sweet bean curd lady.

( The caches... )

This was the first weekend in a while that I hadn't committed to anything. No geocaching events or mascot gigs. Both days had good weather too. On Saturday, I went out to Orange County to do a bunch of new geocaches from Warwick to Middletown to Montgomery. Dinner was at Ruby Tuesday in the Middletown Galleria. I had buffalo chicken minis with salad bar. Clearly, the camera on the phone is not capable of taking pictures in low light. More on this later.

On Sunday, I brought geocache info for both Central Jersey and NYC/Long Island, so after finding one geocache in Fort Lee, I did a last-minute coin flip and went to Queens. I always put off NYC geocaches for long periods of time because of imagined difficulties in driving around, parking, and most of all, finding restrooms. The first two weren't that bad on a Sunday. As for restrooms, one of the geocache sites in Jackson Heights was near a Bed, Bath and Beyond, and they let just about anyone use the restrooms near the employee break area.

Dinner was at Curry Leaves in Flushing Center. I had curry mee with stuffed vegetables and roti canai. The "thumbs up" in the latter picture is the cook's hand. Late Sunday night is a slack time for this restaurant and everyone was hanging out in the dining area watching TV. It's a family-like atmosphere.

I'm still without a fully-functioning camera since the Nikon Coolpix L4 broke last weekend. I'd been taking pictures with the camera on the Razr V3m. This is convenient because I can email pictures from the phone to Brightkite and Flickr without any intermediate downloading/copying stages. However, as you can see from my photo links, picture quality is not good. It has no flash and no macro capability so it's only acceptable for outdoor photography in daylight. I bought a Coolpix L11 from an eBay seller but it turned out to have an undisclosed flaw: the flash doesn't fire. So I'll either return it or accept their offer of a partial refund. I'm leaning towards the latter choice because it wasn't expensive and shipping it back would eat up a big chunk of the refund. This is the test photo I took with the L11 in light-capture mode.

( The caches... )

Saturday was a rainy day and almost consistently 46°F the whole day. I didn't have a solid plan for the day so I started in Elizabeth and kept going to the nearest unfound geocache on the GPS, skipping anything that would require too much walking in the rain. That somehow brought me down through the Amboys and deep into Monmouth County.

wrench001's bad attitude cache was quite an adventure on a rainy day. I knew from the description that the cache was in a swamp but it was less than 800 feet from where I parked so I wondered how bad it could be. Well, aside from having to step over junk in the woods and hop over a few streams, it wasn't that bad until I saw where the cache was. It was on a little island in the swamp. At the closest point, there was still about 15 feet of water between me and that island. So I took off my shoes and socks, rolled up my pants, and waded across. The water was COLD but it was only a few steps to the cache so it wasn't that bad.

The rain stopped at around 4pm, so I went for a walk in Huber Woods in Middletown. That turned into a 2-mile hike to finish off all the geocaches in that park. Then I finished the day with a beach walk and a few more easy geocaches on my way to dinner at Ruby Tuesday in East Brunswick. I had the broccoli and cheese quiche combo with salad bar, of course.

( Sunday and Monday )

( The caches... )

According to the weather forecast, there was a 90% chance of rain on Saturday. So I planned on doing a bunch of easy geocaches in Westchester. Well, surprise! The day was sunny and 60°F. I still did those easy geocaches but I threw in some bike trail walks and a few hikes in the woods. Park and grabs are fine for quick gratification but those don't really nourish the soul. I had a $5 coupon from my last visit to Johnny Rockets, so I returned to Palisades Center in the evening to have dinner at Johnny Rockets again. This time, I had #12 and fries and a chocolate peanut butter shake. Also had a refill of the fries. I think if they had unlimited garlic fries, that would make them an even match to Red Robin.

Sunday was a rainy day. It was 46°F to 54°F most of the day. There was a geocaching event in Manhattan in the morning, but I decided to skip it because I started a little late and I'd have to rush over to make it in time. One thing about driving in Manhattan is you can't be in a hurry. There is too much traffic and too many traffic lights, and I would think the rain makes it worse. So I just skipped ahead to the Long Island part of my plans for the day. Didn't get to do too many caches after all. I tackled a few walks in the woods, as far as I could go before getting too wet. Of course, there were a few quick ones too.

For dinner, I went to Flushing Chinatown and had nasi lemak and stuffed vegetables Malaysian style. I think this is a repeat of what I had the first time I went to Curry Leaves but these dishes are worth repeating. The curry really hit the spot. This restaurant is family owned and operated, and I still think it is interesting the way they use the dining area as their family living room. They watch TV there, the kids play there, and this evening, they disciplined their kids there. Okay, perhaps doing that in front of customers was a bit over the line. Another observation: Because the sun sets later now and because I tend to geocache all the way to sunset and because it takes an hour and a half to go from East Moriches to Queens, I arrived at Flushing Chinatown at around 9pm. I noticed that many restaurants and stores close at 9pm on Sunday so that will cut down on my choices until Daylight Saving Time ends in the Fall. Two of my usual places are open after 9pm but I'm going to miss the sweet bean curd.

( The caches... )

40°F. Rained most of the day. Found geocaches in 3 distinct areas. First, I did 2 geocaches that I didn't have time for during the week in the eastern part of Bergen County. Then I went for 4 geocaches in the northern part of Nassau County. 3 of those involved a bit of a hike so I probably should not have done those in the rain. "Shu Swamp Seed" was in a swamp but the trail wasn't too waterlogged in spite of the rain. Finally, I got 6 geocaches in Mastic and Shirley.

Ran into one of Tha Twinz at "Osprey Park". She was checking on the cache after someone noted that it might be missing. Nope. It's just hidden very well. I also had the wrong idea on the type of cache hide so it's a good thing the cache owner was there to provide some guidance.

Decided to forgo a side trip in Queens for one more cache so I went directly to Flushing Chinatown for dinner and shopping. I had kueh teow thong (flat rice noodles in soup) and squid with watercress. The former was obviously not authentic because back in the old country, it doesn't come with so many ingredients. (Sometimes, the non-authentic version is an improvement.) The latter dish was also somewhat different from the what I had back in the old country. However, memory is failing me so I'll have to check with my parents on what the original ingredients were. The complimentary dessert this time was sweet potato and ginger soup.

( The caches... )

45-62°F. Sunny with a short period of rain. Because of today's unseasonably warm weather, I went to Long Island to tackle some geocaches that I'd put off because it was too cold on previous trips. In the case of "Nicoll Point", that was because the walk was too long to do in subfreezing temperatures. In the case of "HKB-2 Hundreds to Find", that was because it sounded like something that would take too long. I finished both today. Later in the day, I headed further east to Shirley and Mastic. I hadn't been to that area for a long time so there were lots of geocaches to do and enough left over for another trip. Maybe next week.

My only disappointment today was that the Green area parking lot geocache had already gone missing. It was in my usual parking area in Flushing Chinatown so I figured it would be convenient to get that just before dinner, but alas, that was not to be. This one had been out for only two weeks and probably didn't survive long beyond its first week. Flushing Chinatown has a track record of devouring geocaches. I remember another one at the busy Main-Roosevelt intersection that didn't last long either.

Dinner was at Curry Leaves in Flushing. I had satay tofu and ginger duck noodles. The duck noodles at Curry Leaves, while inexpensive, aren't as good as the duck noodles at Penang in Edison. The herbs make all the difference. I also thought it was annoying the way they chopped up the duck so that bone fragments got into the soup. In a way, it's a relief to find something where Curry Leaves falls short of the standard because I was starting to think that I could never go anywhere else again. So I'll still go to Penang for duck noodles.

After that, I did my usual shopping along Roosevelt Avenue. I noticed that the vendors at Roosevelt Food Court had posted food pictures and English translations of their menus. My guess is they got tired of explaining to people like me who can't read Chinese because it's so damn hard.

( The caches... )

Sunny and 37°F or so. I went out to Long Island again to finish what I started on Thursday. I was planning on taking a long walk in Edgewood Preserve to visit all the new geocaches but I got there so late in the afternoon that I only got 3 of the 4 geocaches via the shortcut entrance. No matter. I'll get that last one another time.

It was also a day for running into people. I met Doug and Amanda at "Industrial cache #1" and that was lucky because they provided just enough of a hint to get me back on the right track. I was in the correct location but I'd been looking at the wrong object. Then later, at "Twisted All Over Again 'Twist and Shout'", I met up with Boola and family. Then in Edgewood, I ran into a forest ranger who was apparently patrolling the far edge of the preserve. (The shortcut entrance brought me to this side instead of the Commack Road side.) Here too, it was a good thing I ran into him because he pointed out some trails I'd missed that went to two of the cache sites.

Dinner was at Curry Leaves in Flushing Chinatown. This time, I had satay tofu and cheong fun. The latter came with a serving of stuffed vegetables in curry. At the end of dinner, the restaurant provided a complimentary bowl of sweet soup with longan and nuts. I thought their rendition of satay tofu was interesting. The tofu was crisp and they were generous with the topping and sauce. As for the cheong fun, I haven't actually seen that on the menu at any other Malaysian restaurant so I can't compare it that way but it's not too bad compared to what I've had in the old country. The stuffed vegetables in curry was a treat because they have good curry. After dinner, I did a bit of shopping on Roosevelt Avenue to restock my pantry (My pantry apparently needed a lot of Asian pears and sweet bean curd. :) ) and went home.

( The caches... )

I checked the NYC parking calendar and Christmas Day is a free parking day. Also, I figured most of the restaurants in Flushing Chinatown would be open for business as usual so a trip to NYC seemed like a winning plan for the day.

There were lots of new geocaches in the Bronx in the East Tremont and Throgs Neck sections so that's where I started. I solved the restroom problem on the first drive through by noting that there were porta-toilets at Ferry Point Park next to the Whitestone Bridge toll plaza. All of those geocaches were fairly easy and located at or near sidewalks. Parking spaces were easier to find than usual too. So I was done with the first 12 geocaches before 2pm. Then I went to Queens and found a few more. Then I got a new geocache in New Hyde Park before heading to Flushing.

As I expected, Flushing Chinatown was mostly open for business on Christmas Day. Only a few restaurants were closed. I went to Curry Leaves again to try two more items from their menu. Then I went shopping on Roosevelt Avenue. Got some dumplings for breakfast tomorrow and some Asian pears. All in all, it was a good day.

( The caches... )

Sunny and cold, but not as cold as the day before. 30 - 37°F. Went out to Long Island. Ran into Mmacgown and Sakiman at the first cache site of the day but didn't see any other geocachers the rest of the day. Three of the geocaches were in the Mount Misery area in West Hills Park. I was only going for "Haunted Trails", but I noticed that "Misery's End" and "Misery Loves Company" weren't too much further into the woods so I did those too, making for a nice walk despite rumors of paranormal activity there.

The Major Deegan Expressway was closed this morning but all I saw was a bunch of NYPD officers standing around a black bag of something on the road. Couldn't figure out what that was. Fortunately, I was traveling in the other direction and didn't get caught in the traffic blockage.

Dinner and shopping was in Flushing Chinatown once again. Revisited Curry Leaves. This time, I had Chow Fun Combo and Vegetable Rolls. I don't know why they called it "Chow Fun Combo" on their menu when it is quite obviously Chow Kuey Teow, which is also in their menu. Maybe this is the non-spicy variant. Also, the vegetable rolls are likely their invention as I don't remember having that in the old country. After dinner, I took a walk along Roosevelt Avenue and picked up some snacks to take home. I'd scouted out the food vendors last week so I knew which ones I wanted to try. I got the pink tortoises and steamed pork buns.

( The caches... )