Morton Fox's journal

Went to Western NJ on Saturday. In just a few weeks since my last visit, lots of new geocaches have been listed around Hackettstown, Blairstown, Hope, and Hainesburg so I did those. I also visited the Mohican Outdoor Center at the Delaware Water Gap briefly to seek 4 geocaches in a row along their access road. That's a pretty scenic area and the cabins look nicer than home! I ran into Chris58 at "65 million years in the making" and we went and did "In remebrance[sic]" together since this cache was next on both our lists.

Dinner was at Arby's in Hackettstown. I noticed that there are now lots of new restaurants (both fast food and sit-down) just south of Hackettstown on Routes 517 and 57. It's like a food court out there now and this solves the problem of where to eat in Western NJ after geocaching. Anyway, I had a coupon for a bacon and cheese roastburger so I got that. This Arby's was also offering a 5 for $5 deal. End result: 6 sandwiches! I brought 3 home. Such a deal.

On Sunday, I went to Queens. NYC has traffic problems now because of the closure of the ramp from Cross Island Parkway to the Throgs Neck Bridge. Some traffic got diverted to the Clearview Expressway and some got diverted to the Whitestone Bridge, causing even more delays there. I didn't experience any delays going to Queens but coming home, I got stuck in traffic until I thought of an interesting alternate route to get around the mess. I didn't have quite as much of a problem on city streets, which is a good thing because I used those most of the day going from cache site to cache site.

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( The caches... )

Sunny and 57°F. Not as windy as the day before. I went geocaching on Long Island but I started a bit to the west so the first few geocaches were in the Far Rockaway section of Queens. "By the sea" was in a particularly strange area of the Rockaways. There was a set of abandoned roads with potholes and dangerous open manholes. The buildings had long since been torn down. I was surprised to find unused land like this in New York City because if developed, this could turn into some pretty expensive waterfront property. I asked an old-timer what this area was and he told me there used to be houses. Of course, just because the land is abandoned, it doesn't mean that no one is using it. People were walking around. There was a group of people training beagles in the vicinity. (They hadn't gotten the "trained" part down yet so the beagles were running around all the bushes.)

Then I headed over to Suffolk County. Hiked and cached at Hedges Creek, Post Morrow, and Terrell River. In the evening, I went to Flushing Chinatown. Since I went geocaching right up to dusk, it was past 9pm by the time I got back to Flushing. I've been going to Flushing on Sundays because parking is free on that day, but I think from now until the fall, I don't need to be concerned about that. They only charge for parking until 10pm, so if I get there at 9pm or later, it won't cost more than a dollar. For dinner, I went to Curry Leaves and had asam laksa and rojak. Asam laksa is noodles, onions, and pineapple in a hot and sour fish soup. It packs a punch but I'm somewhat used to it so I don't find it terribly hot or sour any more. Rojak is a mix of stuff (mango, jicama, crackers, squid, cucumber, crushed peanuts) in a special sweet sauce. The menu says it is a spicy dish but it didn't seem hot at all to me.

( The caches... )

Sunday: Sunny, warm day. 72 - 80°F. Headed out to Long Island because there were a bunch of geocaches I didn't get to on my previous trip 2 weeks ago and also a bunch of new ones. I was surprised that all the electronic signs were saying that the Meadowbrook Parkway was closed at exit 9. (last exit before Jones Beach) In addition, when I got to Levy Preserve, traffic was all snarled up there and the parking area inside the park was full. So I checked Google News on my cell phone and found out that it's because of the air show. Fortunately, I was still able to get to the "It's Not So Stinky Anymore" geocache by parking at the first parking lot and walking in. (The story behind the cache name? Levy Preserve is an artificial hill built over landfill garbage.)

I continued geocaching on Long Island until sundown. Then I visited one more geocache in Queens on my way to dinner in Flushing. At Sentosa in Flushing, I had asam laksa and shrimp puffs. Asam laksa is noodles with fish flakes in a sourish soup. It's quite different from anything else at that restaurant and something for adventurous taste buds. Shrimp puffs, on the other hand, are dollops of minced shrimp wrapped in bacon and fried in batter. I never saw that back in the old country.

Monday: Memorial Day. Sunny. Hotter and more humid than the day before. It had been a long time since I visited the Pocono region, so I took a trip there. There were lots of new geocaches and also a few that I skipped last year for lack of time. One of the new geocaches was near Great Wolf Lodge in Scotrun. I was curious about the place so I went in to take a look. It's a kid-oriented water park / theme park inside of a hotel. Lots of wolf (of course), bear, raccoon, and moose imagery in the hotel decor. There are animatronics in the lobby. They have a mascot character -- likely more than one but I only saw their bear mascot. I didn't stick around for story time because I had one more geocache to visit before dinner... and also, well, because I wasn't a guest. :) (Later that night, I read some online reviews of the lodge. It's very expensive! Rooms go for $200 - $500 per night and a day pass for use of the pool and water slides is $79, so I was surprised at how packed the place was.)

Dinner was at Long John Silver's in Mt. Pocono because it happened to be just across the road from the 2nd last geocache of the day. After that, I hopped onto I-380 and I-80 but found the interstate clogged with traffic because people were returning home from the Memorial Day weekend. So I took the next exit, found one last geocache near the Crossings Outlet Mall, and took local roads to a Wawa store in Stroudsburg (the one I found a few trips ago by accident when I took a wrong turn) to stock up on green tea iced tea and chocolate milk. Chocolate milk in Eastern Pennsylvania is cheaper than regular milk back home.

( The caches... )

Cloudy and 50°F on Sunday. Went out to Long Island with the intention of ending the trip in Flushing. It was one of the best trips in recent memory. Lots of new geocaches. Very little traffic. I also started geocaching in a section of the North Shore to which I haven't been in a long time. I got 5 geocaches in a 2-mile loop hike (1.5 miles in the park and 0.5 miles along the road) at David Weld Sanctuary and that was incredible!

At sunset, I turned around and headed back west to Flushing. Picked up two more geocaches in Queens along the way. I was surprised that it wasn't hard at all to drive around in Queens. There doesn't appear to be as much traffic there on Sunday night. Indeed, if I didn't have to sleep and if I wasn't worried about crime, I could just geocache all night long there.

Dinner was once again at Sentosa in Flushing. I had curry chicken rice and curry young tofu. I've had these before so I've started cycling through the curry dishes to see which ones I like the best.

( The caches... )

It was raining so I didn't go out this morning. Instead, I caught up with some Where's George stuff. Then I headed over to the Greenpoint area in Brooklyn. Traffic was very light because of the New Year's Day holiday. Just like I did two days ago, I got a taco and chicken nachos from Fresco Tortillas. I don't know why but I just like the quirky taco place that looks like a Chinese takeout and they were one of the few places open on this holiday.

Then I met up with earlyadopter_j and went to the art studio for the second portrait-painting session. I think the end result from this session looks nearly complete. We'll do another session next weekend to add the finishing touches.

( Work in progress )

After that, Jay and I went to Teddy's Bar on 8th and Berry for dinner. Jay's girlfriend joined us there. We shared a seafood appetizer and I got the sausage sampler platter.

I figured driving around and parking wouldn't be as much of a problem as usual because of the holiday. So after dinner, I hopped over to Woodside, Queens, to do these two geocaches: Woodside, The Center of it All! and WRR3K "Loneliest Park in Queens". Both were findable at night. There were more geocaches not far away that were potentially doable at night but I saved them for the next trip.

I hadn't been geocaching in Brooklyn for over a year. I had a bit of Brooklyn-phobia, although after today, I'm not sure why. I imagined it was a congested place with narrow streets and a lot of traffic. That's true in some parts of Brooklyn, but I spent most of the day near the Belt Parkway and the shore area, which wasn't that bad. Anyway, since I hadn't been to Brooklyn in a while, there were many geocaches waiting to be found and I did quite a number of them before sunset.

Squeezed in one last geocache at night near Forest Park in Queens. Then I headed over to Johnny Rockets in Forest Hills to join up with the group celebrating freakylynx's birthday. Also there were Damian, jbadger, skyfirefox, cubbi, and several others. After dinner, we headed over to freakylynx's place nearby for cake and cider. Had to leave before midnight before my car turned into a pumpkin before I lost all ability to navigate my way out of Queens, but it was an enjoyable gathering and I had a good time.

( Candle-blowing action! )

( The caches... )