Morton Fox's journal

In this lazy summer, if it were not for geocaching, I wouldn't have gone out anywhere this evening. Shopping would be left undone. Local economies would languish. (Well, not really.) A new geocache provided the perfect excuse. I went to Mills Reservation in Montclair for Old Entrance to Mills. The old entrance is a walk-in entrance flanked by stone walls and stone pillars. It's no longer in use because there is now a new entrance 400 feet down the road with a parking area. The park must cater to the motoring public, after all. Anyway, this was an easy cache with a minimal amount of climbing. (This cache hider is notorious for placing geocaches that require either rock or tree climbing.) I got FTF and signed the first page in the log.

On my way back, I stopped at Micro Center in Paterson. I've been looking for two accessories for the netbook. It doesn't have a built-in CD drive so it would be nice to have an external USB DVD/CD drive. Also, the netbook has bluetooth capability so it would be good to have a bluetooth mouse to free up one of the USB ports. Well, I found both items on sale today. There was a special on the external drive and I came across a bluetooth mouse while rummaging through a pile of mice on the clearance rack. Spent a little more than I'd planned but those were good finds.

I was running a little late after that, so I settled for a spicy Italian footlong dinner from Subway in Paramus Park Mall. The food court was shutting down for the night at the time so I took what I could get.

Sunny and 90°F. It's another in a series of hot days. Nevertheless, since it wasn't raining, I headed out in the evening to Long Pond Ironworks in West Milford for two geocaches. The first of the two was Sparrow Nest 1. There was a small pullout on the side of the road near the cache but it didn't look like a good place to park. Then I saw the state park police shooing away people who were parked there. Nuts to that! So I drove on and parked at a proper parking area half a mile up the road. Then I took a walk back along the road until I got close enough to cut through the woods to the cache site. This is a historic early industrial site. I saw ruins and waterwheels.

From Sparrow Nest 1, it was only about 0.1 mile to the Long Pond Ironworks geocache but that's as the crow flies. The latter was actually on the other side of the river, so I had to hike downstream a bit to get to a footbridge and then hike back upstream for a quarter of a mile to the cache site. After all that, I hiked back out to the road and took a walk along the road for half a mile to the parking area. Then I went to Paramus Park Mall to use some Sunday newspaper coupons. I had a super cheeseburger from Nathan's and two donuts from Dunkin Donuts. Not terribly healthy so I had some fruit (fresh cantaloupe) once I got home.

Columbia Sportswear sent me the replacement boots, two pairs of the same kind, and they were delivered on Monday. These are to replace a pair of boots I sent in for warranty repair back in January and another pair I sent in February with the same problem. I'm glad. I'll try these soon and I hope they last longer. I also received free samples of breakfast cereal and toothpaste in the mail. I requested the samples through links posted at Wise Bread but I didn't think I would get these because free stuff offered through the web typically runs out within a very short time. So this too is a surprise.

Just did one geocache this evening but I was curious about the location because it was rather isolated. Even though it was less than 20 miles from home, it took me 50 minutes to get there because there was no direct road and because quite a bit of the drive after leaving I-287 was along winding roads through areas that were mostly woods. Finally, I arrived at the Pow-Wow geocache site. It was by a creek. I climbed down the steep rocky slope from the road and found the geocache after searching for a bit.

After that, I went home a different way so that I could stop at Paramus Park Mall for dinner. Still had a bunch of coupons to use. This time, I got two hot dogs from Nathan's and a 6" sweet onion chicken teriyaki sub from Subway. My order at Subway was for a Fresh Value Meal, which includes a drink and chips. However, the duplicitous fellow behind the counter only handed me the sandwich and drink, hoping that I would just walk away without the chips. I called him on his "oversight" and then he did give me the chips, but I really wish people would be straightforward and not try to get me in some way. That would make it much easier to do business with them. Having to be wary all the time makes it harder to spend money.