Morton Fox's journal

I had a dream about geocaching last night, which was interesting and annoying at the same time because when I woke up, I realized that I couldn't log it online because it wasn't a real cache. However, I remembered the details and wrote it all down, just in case I actually do see a cache hide like that one day.

While running errands this afternoon, I took a short side trip to Two Away!. This is a two-stage cache and both stages are only a few miles from home. The first stage is on a fishing pier at East 7th Street Park in Wilmington. It's a very tiny container so I'm not sure how I found it in only a minute. I wasn't really thinking about the search when suddenly I saw that I had it. Then I went to the second stage. It's at an interesting rooftop location that I'd been meaning to check out but never got around to it. I've literally gone shopping below the cache site. (Not directly below though because underneath is a truck delivery bay.) Since not thinking worked so well at the first stage, I tried not thinking again and I only needed to put my hand out a few times before I found the second tiny container. Amazing. I can see why people stop thinking. :)

In the evening, I went to Delaware Furbowl 22. The dinner portion was once again at East King Buffet in Wilmington. This time, I didn't get the sushi first because I figured that the sushi was making me bloated too soon on previous visits here. So I did Mongolian BBQ first. I wanted to see what would happen if I piled the ingredients up really high before handing it to the chef. Well, guess what? He got a bigger plate from the back room! I did still get sushi but only on my 3rd plate. Dessert was where the soft-serve ice cream machine apparently went wild. Then I added cherries.

The next stop in DE Furbowl was AMF Price Lanes, down the road from the buffet. I brought Oddbrand Otter. This is a repeat of last month but I think the otter is fun. It was a good round of bowling. We didn't get to finish the second game because of time but the people in my lane were a fun bunch to play with.

Cloudy, 60-65°F. I woke up early Saturday morning for a trip to Long Island. I'd already packed two days before so it was just a matter of loading the stuff (otter fursuit, overnight bag, two boxes with extra clothes and sleeping bag, and that's just for a two-day trip! :) ) onto the car. It sure was cold in the morning! I got two quick geocaches on the way to NY state. Once I got to Elmont though, the serious geocaching began. I'd not been to Long Island in about a year and Nassau County was chock-full of new geocaches. In the short stretch from Elmont to East Meadow, I found 30 geocaches and most of them were rather quick roadside or street corner park-and-grabs.

In the evening, I headed over to jbadger's place, where I would spend the night. We went out for a hibachi dinner at Hotoke in Smithtown. Sometimes I think that living on my own for so long has made my tastes rather out of sync with everyone else's. Hibachi is a good example of that. I do not regret going to Hotoke because that's the only way I could find out that the hibachi experience isn't for me. It's just a bit disappointing when I'm the only one at the table not having a good time. Anyway, here's what I thought. The place is noisy and the locals are loud. A hibachi table seats about two dozen people so unless your group is that big, you'll have to share it with other groups and some people, well many people, don't watch their language and don't use their indoor voices. Also, I wasn't terribly amused by the chef's antics. He dropped a utensil while trying to juggle and some of the food he flung ended up on the floor. I didn't like the prices either. $20 for portions that aren't filling? $2.75 extra charge for fried rice? I didn't order the fried rice but I noticed that charge on other receipts. The only difference between steamed rice (no extra chargee) and fried rice ($2.75) is the chef stirred the latter around on the hibachi for a minute or two. Maybe it picked up $2.75 worth of magic hibachi dust. :) As I mentioned above, I don't regret going the first time but I'm not going again.

The next day, JBadger and I got up early and went to the Wantagh LIRR station to pick up freakylynx and rapidtrabbit for the mascot gig at Walk Now for Autism Speaks in Jones Beach. This was a big event with a crowd of 27,000. We entertained the crowd in the field area and also took a short walk out on the boardwalk and back. Got stopped for hugs and photo-ops probably hundreds of times and I never saw the same family twice. I thought the (still unnamed!) otter fursuit would be appropriate for a beach event. Most people guessed he was some kind of big cat or cougar. A few people did know he's an otter right away. Other guesses I heard were chipmunk, squirrel, and muskrat. I got lots of compliments on the fursuit sandals that I made because those looked like beach flip-flops. One nice thing about this fursuit is the head is large enough for me to wear glasses inside. I had some homemade anti-fog solution. (1% dish detergent solution) There was still some fogging but I only had to wait a bit for the temperature to equalize and then I had crystal-clear vision.

After the mascot gig, we went to East Bay Diner in Seaford. Rather confusingly, there's another East Bay Diner on the same road, two miles to the west in Bellmore. I had bison burger deluxe. Before ordering, I wanted to know whether the bison burger was good. I didn't realize until I checked my online photos later that I'd already tried it myself a year ago! Yes, it's really that unmemorable. :) After lunch, JBadger and I did a little geocaching. Then we went back to his place to hang out a bit and pick up my stuff. And finally, I took the long drive home, bagging one last geocache on the way at a NJ Turnpike rest area.

( The caches... )