Morton Fox's journal

My birthday was actually on Wednesday but I decided to take Tuesday off from work as well, with the intention of attending the Triple Tuesday geocaching event in Bridgewater. And the reason why I picked that event is I got birthday and anniversary coupons from the Fuddruckers mailing list. Sometimes, it's all about strategy. :) It was a pretty good trip though. The weather was very mild. I started geocaching in the Lawrenceville area and worked my way up via US-1 to Davidson's Mill Pond Park, where there was a trail with a series of caches. ("FTL" series) In the evening, I headed over to Fuddruckers for the event. It was not a big gathering and we didn't get our own section of the restaurant this time, but it was nice to meet up with the Central Jersey group. As usual, I had the 1/3-lb burger with fries. (before fixings, with fixings)

I used part of Wednesday to take care of heater maintenance and auto maintenance. I still had most of the afternoon free, so I took a short geocaching trip into South Jersey. It ended up being more geocache finds than I expected and I went from Pennsville to Sicklerville before turning around. For dinner, I stopped at the truck stop Denny's in Carneys Point for my free birthday Grand Slam. (It's actually not that great. But this is Denny's, so what do we expect? :) )

Anyway, this is my big four-zero. I've now lived for four decades! I won't recap my past year, since my last birthday, except to say that it has been really good and this coming year has a tough act to follow.

( The caches... )

Sunny, 60-70°F. I woke up early with the intention of doing a truckload of geocaches in Lancaster. That wasn't in the cards because after doing 3 local geocaches in the Pike Creek area, I saw a screw embedded in the front left tire. Getting that fixed took some time out of the day. On the plus side though, I'm glad I caught it before I went out to a rural part of Lancaster County with no services. This also solved the mystery of the noise I kept hearing over the past week. I'd checked the tires at least half a dozen times but somehow, the screw eluded me until this morning.

After that, I headed out to Lancaster County. Warmed up with a few geocaches in the town of Quarryville before hitting the rail trail. This time, I parked near cache #95. Then I did caches #95 to #116. Then I walked back to parking and went the other way to do caches #94 to #61. That walk was a 12.5-mile round trip! I wanted to see how far I could push myself. It turned out to not be as difficult as I thought. I suppose my endurance has improved a bit. I wasn't even tired after the first 7 miles. I did slow down quite a bit in the last 1.5-mile stretch but even then, I think I could've walked more if it wasn't already dark. My legs may be sore tomorrow though.

Also, today's batch of 62 geocaches took me past the 16,000-cache milestone! I thought I was going to get that in Connecticut but I'm a bit early. Dinner was a 1/3-lb burger and fries (before adding fixings, after adding fixings) at Fuddruckers in Lancaster since I had a coupon. I don't think the Lancaster Fuddruckers is as good as the New Brunswick Fuddruckers. (which went out of business recently) The latter had better, or at least more, melted cheese.

( The caches... )

Cloudy with rain sprinkles, 70-75°F. The weather pattern was unstable but I was due for another trip to the countryside so I went to Cecil County, Maryland, and Southern Lancaster County. The first 3 geocaches of the day were in Cecil County, in the Elkton area and a little beyond. Then I headed into Pennsylvania, to Kirkwood, Quarryville, Willow Street, and Millersville. I was all over the place because I was basically hitting the new geocaches, plus a bunch of older ones that I skipped over on previous trips for various reasons.

One might assume that since it might rain at any moment, geocaching out in the countryside would not be the best choice. However, the funny thing is many geocaches out there do not involve a whole lot of hiking. I did the first five caches of the day in sandals. I only switched to shoes on the 6th cache because it looked like I would have to step over large logs into rotting log debris. I took a chance on "CTS in the Park"; it's a 0.8-mile round trip and there was a light sprinkling of rain as I pulled in to the parking area. Fortunately, it didn't start pouring and I had a nice walk on the grassy Conestoga Trail.

Dinner was at Fuddruckers in Lancaster in order to use my Fudd's Club anniversary coupon. I ordered the 1/3-lb burger and fries and dressed it to look like a melted cheese disaster. Now, that's good eating! The strange thing about this Fuddruckers is even though the parking lot was nearly full, there were only a few people in the dining area. Where did everyone else go? Maybe to the Texas Roadhouse next door.

( The caches... )

While at the Cici's Pizza event last night, someone reminded me that there's yet another NJ geocaching event today. So, what the hey? Let's make a 4th trip into NJ for Third Tuesday Beer and Burgers - 2010 Edition. On the way there, I geocached in Deptford, Somerdale, and Stratford. Most of the geocaches I found in Deptford were centered around Deptford Mall. "Eat More Chikin'" is in a wooded area near Chick-Fil-A. There were a bunch of coupons in the cache for free spicy chicken sandwiches so I used one and got myself a sandwich. I'm not fond of this restaurant chain for various reasons but hey, it's free food so I won't quibble.

I lost track of time while geocaching so I arrived at Fuddruckers in New Brunswick rather late for the event but still caught the last hour of it. I had chili nachos. As usual, the group lingered until closing time. After leaving the event, I tried to find one more cache at a nearby pedestrian bridge on Route 18. It was easier than I thought because that whole area was lit up at night. I thought that cache placement on the bridge was rather precarious but it has remained there for half a year so maybe it's not as unstable as I thought.

( The caches... )

Two days of fine weather. Around 70°F both days.

On Saturday, I went to Kingston. It's only halfway up to Albany from my place so it's not that far. I just haven't had time to visit that city in nearly two years. Well, I have time now and so I did. Just a few minutes in Kingston was enough to remind me why going there wasn't a top priority. The layout of uptown Kingston is confusing and annoying. Between the one-way streets and turn restrictions, I found myself making far more U-turns in parking lots than I should have needed. Dinner was at Arby's in Kingston to use another birthday coupon. I had a bacon and bleu roastburger and a jamocha swirl shake.

On Sunday, I went to Central Jersey. No cache marathon here. I was just picking at the odd cache here and there that I'd missed in previous trips. "Comic Book Trade" is a large chest set up behind an apartment complex for trading comic books. It's a great idea for a geocache and I wish I'd remembered to bring some comic books for trading. (or better yet, for leaving in this cache so I won't have to pack and move them!) Dinner was at Fuddruckers in New Brunswick to use... yes, another birthday coupon. (I still have 5 more but may not get around to using them all.) I had nachos with chicken and a cookies 'n cream shake.

( The caches... )

Didn't update for two days so here goes...

Sunday was the Hi-4 mascot gig at the Pompton Day Festival in Pompton Lakes. The venue was a street fair that's about 0.6 of a mile long. On the roster this time were Damian K., jimwolf24, jdpuppy, rapidtrabbit, sunookitsune, antetfa (?), and myself. Our changing area was in the gym locker room at Lakeside Middle School. I did two sets in costume. Walked the entire length of the street fair and back, interacting with people along the way. Didn't think I would go all the way to the end the second time but did it anyway. In between, I took a break to get a gyro and an Italian ice.

Monday was the Labor Day Holiday but that mattered little to me now. :) I went geocaching, mostly at Pyramid Mountain and Allamuchy State Park. Pyramid Mountain was crowded because of the holiday. The trails up to the first hill were full of people. I was lucky to find a parking space in the Boonton Avenue parking area. I hiked up and over the hill, down to the lake, and back to parking, finding 4 geocaches along the way. Allamuchy was a much flatter walk but still lengthy. It was getting close to dusk at that time so I only did 3 of the 4 geocaches I planned there.

I ended the day at the NNJC - "First Monday" Monthly Meet & Greet 2009 geocaching event at Fuddruckers in Parsippany. This was a lightly attended meet (We only used two tables this time.), probably because people had other plans for the Labor Day weekend. I had the turkey burger. (before and after adding fixings)

( The caches... )

Auto service in the morning. Odometer was at 112,367 miles. Also replaced the busted tire. After that, it was raining heavily but I stopped at Please Don't Feed the Wildlife on the way home. I knew it would be quick because it was at the Parkway rest stop near home. Had a leisurely lunch at home while waiting for the rain to stop, which it didn't. Headed out again and found PipsPackage, which was also not that far from home and in a familiar location because there used to be another cache by this part of the Saddle River. I got FTF on this and picked up one of the two FTF prizes, an LED flashlight. Second finder can have the Starbucks card because I don't normally go to that establishment myself.

After that, I went down the Parkway and endured the traffic delays to get to Laurence Harbor. There, I did all the geocaches that had been placed for the geocaching event on Sunday that I opted not to attend. The 7 geocaches took only 2 hours and at least I got the flavor of the area even if I didn't go to the event. Wish it wasn't raining the whole time though.

It was 8pm by the time I finished those geocaches but I thought I would swing by the Third Tuesday Beer and Burgers - 2009 Edition geocaching event at Fuddruckers in New Brunswick. There was a reporter at the event interviewing everyone for an article on geocaching in the Asbury Park Press. I don't have that newspaper up here so I'll just check their website in a week or so. I had nachos with chicken.

I left the event just before 11pm. While traveling up the Parkway, I had an idea. T_apeworm (New Jersey) is located in Newark and I hadn't been to this cache because I thought parking would be difficult there. However, I figured it wouldn't be a problem late at night and that turned out to be correct. A quick detour from the Parkway later, I saw that I had the whole block of parking spaces at my disposal and the cache was a quick find. It's on the Rutgers University campus, not an especially dangerous part of Newark. The Tapeworm project mentioned in the cache description is interesting too. Their goal is to tag unused/dead urban spaces with stickers. However, I don't like the idea because if it gets out of control, it would be as bad as graffiti.

( The caches... )

Went geocaching in Western NJ on Saturday. Found 20 geocaches in Montville, Ledgewood, Stanhope, and Allamuchy State Park. The weather was okay. The temperature topped out at a bit below 80°F. For dinner, I met up with d4b at Fuddruckers in Parsippany. We ordered together because it was my one chance to use a Fuddruckers coupon for two. I had nachos with chili and made a Fuddruckers "salad" from the fixings bar afterwards.

On Sunday, I went to Western NJ again. This time, I went further out to Blairstown, Columbia, the Columbia WMA, and the White Lake WMA. In the WMA locations, there was too much tall grass and trails going through tall grass for comfort during tick season. I didn't get one this time though. Dinner was once again at Fuddruckers in Parsippany in order to use my last coupon, which was expiring that night. I had nachos with beef and another Fuddruckers "salad".

I'm going to hit my 10K milestone soon. I'm currently at 9,914 geocaches found. I won't get there this weekend though because there'll be a mascot gig, but we'll see.

( The caches... )

Took another day off today to go geocaching in Central Jersey and attend the Third Tuesday Beer and Burgers - 2009 Edition monthly geocaching event. I thought it was a bit cold in the morning but it turned out to be a nice day -- sunny and 60 - 65°F. I started a little late but still finished 22 geocaches, including the new Sue & Barry caches, the new Sparrow's Gold caches in Roselle Park and Elizabeth, all of Blacrex's caches, and the remainder of the Dalmatians series. I also found my pen, which I misplaced earlier in the day, because the last cache of the day took me back to the same park where I had dropped it.

In the evening, I went to Fuddruckers in New Brunswick for the event. I had nachos but without meat this time. I added all those jalapenos from the fixings bar because I'm crazy like that. There was also cake because it was TwistedLemon's daughter's birthday.

( The caches... )

This wasn't my first day of work for the year since I was in on Friday, but it still seemed like a lot of things started today.

In the afternoon, I went for the Rebellious Girls geocache. It was near the Daughters of the Revolution monument in Hillburn, NY.

Then, in the evening, I went to the NNJC - "First Monday" Monthly Meet & Greet 2009 geocaching event at Fuddruckers in Parsippany. A few new faces but mostly the same people as last month. Traded lots of travel bugs since I brought a bagful. I got a $3 coupon from the Fuddruckers mailing list just this afternoon so I brought it with me to use at the meet. The coupon was for a fresh garden salad. I asked the cashier if I could use it on a chicken taco salad. He said no, but gave me a chicken taco salad anyway. Go figure. After finishing the taco salad, I went to the fixings bar and made myself some tomatoes and cheese.