Morton Fox's journal

This weekend, I once again made circles to the west and north of Philadelphia to get the newest batch of geocaches. Saturday's trip was to Upper Merion, King of Prussia, Plymouth Meeting, and Northwest Philadelphia. Got some trail hiking in Northwest Philly because of a few series of geocaches going short distances into rugged Wissahickon Park. The most interesting caches of the day were near the Green Goats project in Bob White Park, Upper Merion. This project uses goats to get rid of invasive plants and poison ivy, and the goats are fun to watch because they move around and eat a lot.

Sunday's trip was to Willow Grove, Abington, and Jenkintown, focusing on the area south of the Pennsylvania Turnpike but north of the city. The most interesting cache site of the day was in the sculpture park at Alverthorpe Manor.

( The caches... )

Friday was my birthday so I took the day off and made it a 3-day weekend. I had lots of birthday coupons from restaurant mailing lists, so I picked the geocaching destinations accordingly, of course. Friday morning began with the free birthday Grand Slam at Denny's. Then it was a short trip around to Chester and Springfield, then Kennett Square, then Newark for geocaches. "A nice view" in Kennett Square was a neat location because it was next to an emu. This curious bird walks right up to the fence and makes little grunting noises when it sees any activity at all.

Saturday's trip was to Codorus State Park and Southwest York County, with a few stops in Maryland along the way. There were lots of creative and funny geocaches by Calamity Jane, including an outhouse teddy bear, one where Pooh got stuck, and a soccer bear. I actually got to meet Calamity Jane herself because she was in the area checking up on her caches. I was going for that Pooh cache and she drove in to the same parking lot in her bright red convertible classic car. What a character! She's a very nice lady and it was good to finally see who had been placing all those creative geocaches, both at the state park and near Prettyboy Reservoir.

Sunday's trip was to Northeast Philadelphia and Bensalem. I used to visit this area a lot but not so much recently because traffic delays are more common nowadays and the neverending I-95 construction does not help. It's also more trashy now than I remember because the city doesn't seem to clean up litter and new litter keeps piling up on existing litter. Anyway, the most bizarre geocache I found on Sunday was a raccoon plush toy. Because of all the litter I saw that day, I thought this too was trash at first because it was in a plastic bag next to a rock. It's very unusual but I don't think it's a good idea to keep a plush toy outside because it'll get soaked, dirty, and stinky after a while.

( The caches... )

On Saturday, I went for the SRT Smiley series of geocaches along the Schuylkill River Trail, between Conshohocken and Philadelphia. Once I found all the caches, I ended up with a smiley of smilies geo-art on the geocaching map. The caches weren't actually arranged in the shape of a smiley. Those were all puzzle caches so the map shows the puzzle coordinates but the actual cache sites were arranged linearly along the trail. I think the hike would've been about 4 or 5 miles one way but I changed parking locations midway because of a big half-mile gap between caches. I also took the opportunity to find other puzzle caches, such as "Happy Halloween 2013", "SD³", and "Truncated Icosahedron", since I was in Conshohocken. Those were pretty easy since all the difficulty was in the puzzles instead of the cache hides.

Sunday began with a short detour to Alapocas State Park to tackle "Can You Dig It?" It's near work but I figured I no longer had daylight after work to go for it. So I might as well go for that on the weekend. Well, it was harder than I anticipated. I went to the posted coordinates and saw that the terrain was much higher than the rating. Reasoning that the coordinates were probably incorrect, I went back up the path and checked every spot that matched the description and hint. Finally, I found the cache 1,400 feet from the posted coordinates! It was a hard-won FTF! The cache owner will likely have to resubmit the cache for approval with both Groundspeak and the state park though because it's off by too much. And then there may be proximity issues with other geocaches in the park.

After that, I went to Berks County to do what I'd planned for the day: the ESRT series of caches along the Exeter Rail Trail. That 3.5-mile round trip hike didn't take too long, so I went onwards for more geocaches in Exeter, Mt. Penn, and Reading. "These are a few of my favorite things.." in Reading was a treat because it's near the Pagoda. I always wanted to see that but it just wasn't on the way to anything else in Reading, so I didn't get around to it on previous trips. I think it's the most interesting landmark in that city.

( The caches... )

This afternoon, I went to the USCIS field office in Center City Philadelphia to take the oath of allegiance and become a US citizen. I've been remiss in not writing about the naturalization process as it happened but generally, I don't like to write about something until it is done, in case it didn't work. Here's the rest of the story...

( Read more... )

It was a sunny, hot weekend, 90-98°F, that ended in a thunderstorm. On Saturday, I went geocaching around Lancaster, going west from Ronks all the way to around Mountville. I hadn't been there in over two months so it was just a visit to do any new geocaches in that area. I didn't specifically target any series of caches, although there was a set of "Irish" geocaches in downtown Lancaster that was apparently placed for one of the monthly events. I also did a bunch more "Old Souls" geocaches, which were all in cemeteries.

I'd originally planned to go to Lehigh Valley on Sunday but I saw the approaching storm clouds in the weather radar and decided it would be better to remain local. So I went for some puzzle geocaches, near Plymouth Meeting and Conshohocken, for which I had the solution coordinates. Then I geocached in Roxborough the rest of the day. The "URR" series of geocaches are all along the trail around the Upper Roxborough Reservoir, which is just a dry basin now that it is no longer in use. The thunderstorm began in the early evening, so I went home at that time. We don't play around when there's lightning!

( The caches... )

Sunny, 90°F. First day of the three-day weekend. It was a hot day but I decided to revisited the PPT series of geocaches on the Pennypack Trail in Holmesburg/Philadelphia to see how many more I could do. However, I started at Pennypack Park on the Delaware first to do the 5 geocaches in that park. "Pennypack on the Delaware Part 1" was a significant challenge because I had to wade through weeds that were almost as tall as I but I eventually made it to the cache site. When I read the cache logs, I noticed that others had taken the approach of climbing over a wall and walking through the abandoned industrial area outside of the park in order to avoid the tall weeds. I'm not sure that's a good thing.

After I was done with Pennypack Park, I started walking up the Pennypack Trail. Most of the PPT caches were easy and there were a few other caches, "A walk in the park", "Ssssss", "Cecil", and "Little City Overlook", along the same trail. There was also an earthcache "Fall Line at Holmesburg".

I stopped the hike early in order to make it to Old Country Buffet in Bensalem before they closed. (to use a July 4th weekend dinner coupon) Of course, there had to be two geocaches near the restaurant. Good thing I allowed a bit of extra time for those! :) Anyway, I had the usual plates and dessert.

( The caches... )

Cloudy, 35-40°F. I decided to do more of the SRT series of geocaches today, starting from the Philadelphia end of the trail. There are some parking areas along Kelly Drive in Fairmount Park. I parked in each parking lot, went and did the geocaches in one direction and then the other direction before moving on to the next parking lot. I also did a few non-SRT geocaches along the way, since those are near the trail. After dusk, I continued onwards to Manayunk, since I knew the trail was pretty much an urban sidewalk there. Parking in Manayunk can be difficult but someone pulled out and left a parking meter with nearly an hour of time on it! So I parked there and walked to the last 3 geocaches of the night. After that, I went straight home because Manayunk is right next to the highway. (Green Lane exit on I-76) Also, well, I figured I ought to make dinner for a change instead of getting something on the way back.

( The caches... )

Sunny and 90-95°F, although much cooler in the evening. On this trip, I started with a geocache in King of Prussia and proceeded through Wayne, Radnor, Villanova, Gladwyne, Manayunk, and Roxborough.

I found "Main Continental Army" and was going back to where I parked when I noticed someone standing by the monument, looking at the GPS app on his phone. He told me it was the first geocache he was trying to find. Boy, he sure didn't pick a simple one to start with. I needed to explain that this is a mystery cache and he had to calculate part of the coordinates using information from the monument. (He'd been searching the area around the monument.) Geocaching activity has developed to such an extent that there is now a standard repertoire of techniques, tricks, and also pitfalls to watch out for. As I saw today, someone who's new to the game may not grasp all its subtleties right away.

The most challenging cache of the day was "Only Half Extreme". This one is on a rusty iron structure next to a bike path. This cache is halfway up the structure so some climbing is required. Actually, climbing wasn't an issue here. The real problem was the structure was overgrown with prickly vines. Fortunately, I had all the tools I needed in the car because you never know when you have to do some gardening! I cut all the vines I could reach and pulled as many of the vines down from above as I could. Once I cleared away enough vines, it was a quick climb up on the rungs to get the cache.

Sunset arrived but I still had a few hours to kill before the free parking period in Philly Chinatown. I knew the Manayunk/Roxborough area had some geocaches that could be done at night so I drove around the narrow streets there and looked for caches in the dark. Remarkably, I was 100% successful there. When it got late enough, I headed over to Chinatown, which was only 6 miles away from Manayunk. This time, I had Thai basil noodles at Banana Leaf. The consensus among Yelp reviewers is that this is the spiciest dish on the menu. Yes, it was indeed hot but not intolerably so.

( The caches... )

Sunny/Cloudy and 90°F. It was yet another in a series of days with rain in the forecast that ended up not being rainy at all. I went geocaching up along I-95 through Chester and Eddystone. Ended up at the doorstep of Philadelphia in the late afternoon. Instead of turning around, I figured I would try my luck at parking in the city and geocache my way towards Philly Chinatown for dinner. That was a good plan. My last stop was at Franklin Square, just a few blocks outside of Chinatown.

Saw some wildlife today beyond the usual geese. There was a water snake in the stream I crossed to get to "KB Cache". I watched it for a little while as it appeared to gobble up small fish in the stream. Then I saw a large mouse by the tall grass at another cache site later in the day. I thought someone's hamster had gotten loose at first but it was indeed a wild rodent. Of course, there was a bunch of cows, sheep, and dogs at "L.U.R.E. 2: A Day In The Pasture" but that menagerie was one of Philadelphia's many outdoor sculpture projects.

( The caches... )

Ran some errands this afternoon. After today's shopping trip, I've decided against paying up for a BJ's Wholesale membership once my trial membership expires. The only thing I'm saving money on there is gas and there are days, like today, when the difference is only 1 cent per gallon. Groceries and produce at BJ's are disappointing. I've shopped there a number of times and have yet to find anything other than milk where the unit price is significantly lower than what I find elsewhere. Save-A-Lot and Pathmark (for certain items) are on par with BJ's. I suppose paying the BJ's membership fee saves you from having to memorize prices and shop around because you know you'll get an acceptable deal on a giant bag of oranges or half a dozen bottles of ketchup tied together. But what's the fun in that? :)

Also, I've noticed that the shopping experience at BJ's is bad. Of course, it's bad at Save-A-Lot too but I don't have to pay an annual fee for that privilege. No one knows how to handle those big BJ's shopping carts so, especially when the store is busy, everyone blocks everyone else. This afternoon, one lady left a shopping cart in the middle of the lane by the cash registers to go and use the restroom. Gee, no one else needed to leave the store or anything, right? Then there's BJ's final touch: receipt checking. I don't think that is necessary as other stores somehow keep prices low without having people stand by the doorway punching holes in every receipt. I wouldn't mind, except that they just hired a young kid for receipt checking who isn't going about this in a polite manner.

In the evening, I went to IKEA in Philadelphia for the first of this weekend's geocaching events: 10 Years! South Philly. There were about 30 geocachers there. It was a nice time. I had Swedish meatballs. After the event, I shopped IKEA a bit to see their unusual toys and plush cushions but didn't buy anything.