Morton Fox's journal

Sunny and clear sky but cold. 21-28°F. I needed only 11 finds to get to the next kilocache milestone. I did that by 2pm, thanks to the many suburban geocaches in western Wilmington, especially at Banning Park, where there are four. That's actually the 2nd milestone I hit this year. #8000 was back in June and #9000 was this afternoon.

After that, I headed over to downtown Wilmington to try some geocaches by the riverfront. For a city on a weekday afternoon, Wilmington was surprisingly quiet. Maybe it was too cold for people to be out and about. The riverfront was very nice. The rest of downtown Wilmington looked a lot like Philadelphia but with easier parking. I didn't have any trouble finding parking near each cache site anyway.

Once I had enough of downtown Wilmington, I took the nearest arterial road back to I-95. Picked up dinner at Wawa on Rt 4 and Harmony Rd. Anyhow, Delaware was great once again. Today was the last day and tomorrow, I'll go back north via the South Jersey I-295 route. Hope things aren't too icebound back home.

( The caches... )

Sunny day. About 80°F. I wanted to get a lot in today because I probably won't be doing much geocaching on Sunday, so I did an arc across Central Jersey, through Western NJ (I-78 corridor), and ending in Lehigh Valley. This time, I got past Easton/Nazareth and finished up in Bethlehem.

Met up with DB2 at "No PAFs Please! VII". I didn't know they were geocachers at first but when I saw the team of two people and three beagles looking around all the usual hiding spots and when I noticed that one of them was holding a GPS receiver, I figured they had to be. I'll probably see them again at the September Lehigh Valley picnic.

Dinner was at Long John Silver's in Easton. I wanted to go to Old Country Buffet in Whitehall but there wasn't enough time and I hadn't gotten to that area yet, so I'll save it for the next trip. On my way home, I saw a new Wawa store in Phillipsburg. I didn't notice that last week but it's not on the main road so it might have slipped by me. That's a good place to refuel because their gas is cheaper than home and I only need to go one block out of my way to get there.

( The caches... )

I got off to a later start than I intended but that was okay. Took a while to get everything down to the car because all the luggage carts were taken. Said goodbye to a few friends and then I headed out. Bagged a few geocaches along Route 28 on my way to lunch. I think the one on Herr's Island is within Pittsburgh city limits.

Lunch was again at Plyler's in Brookville. I like their pecan pie. It's as good as one I made myself a few years ago. (which I realize does not say much because apart from one or two special items, all my cooking is with the microwave oven) I also like that they had several kinds of boiled veggies. Most buffet places only have raw salad. It was a good time. After that, I contined eastward on I-80, stopping for geocaches at towns where I still had some caches on my list. I was racing rain clouds the whole way. I found that I could keep comfortably ahead of the rain as long as I was driving down the interstate but when I stopped for geocaches, the rain caught up with me.

The heavy rain caught up with me for the last time in Bloomsburg. That's when I decided to end the cache-a-thon because of the rain and because it was already a bit past dusk. However, I did pick up one last geocache at an I-80 rest area just a few miles past Mifflinville. Dinner was at Wawa in Blakeslee Corners, the best little Wawa store in the middle of nowhere.

( The caches... )

Rainy day with heavy rain at times, although it was only cloudy when I started so the weather fooled me. Since I was already out in Central Jersey when the rain started, I carried on, picking only geocaches that were short non-muddy walks from parking so that I wouldn't get too wet. Got a little muddy anyway.

There was a classic car show going on in downtown Millburn at and around the first stage of "A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words!" I'll post pictures of those cars (lots of chrome and tail fins) to Flickr when I start working on photos from the weekend. I was surprised that I was still able to retrieve the cache unnoticed, given the level of activity in that area.

Last cache stop was in East Brunswick near several Wawa stores, so I was able to stock up on Wawa green tea iced tea. I hadn't been to a Wawa in months so I was down to my last bottle. Also bought gas there but it was only 6 cents / gallon cheaper than in Northern NJ, so it wasn't that much of a bargain.

( The caches... )

So what do I do after a day with 6 inches of snow? Go geocaching, of course! I chose to go south to the Monmouth County beach area though because I knew they only had 3 inches of snow there. Traffic reports on the radio were a tad scary because of all the accidents and spinouts, but by the time I got going, the temperature was already up to 34°F and the roads were fine. I still had to let the heat go for a few minutes to get the ice off the windshield though.

Most of geocaches I did today weren't affected by the snow. A number of them were up in trees or hidden above ground level in some fashion. A few more were so obvious that the pile of sticks just showed through the snow. And the rest had hints specific enough that I could find the caches with a minimum of poking at the snow. In spite of the shallow snow cover, I still got my feet wet. I think my shoes are leaky.

Had a chili on rice hot-to-go bowl at Wawa in Matawan. That really hit the spot after a day of walking around in the snow. That Wawa store wasn't doing so well this evening. Their gas pumps had shut down for reasons unknown. After that, I went to Woodbridge Center Mall to pay a bill at the Sprint store. Because of where I parked, I walked through Lord & Taylor to enter the mall. Would you believe that this department store is now pricing shirts at $98? That's for just one dress shirt! Insane! In comparison, the handheld GPS receiver I'm using costs only about two Lord & Taylor shirts. Try navigating to a geocache using two shirts. Can't be done! :)

( The caches... )

Friday was my last day in northern Delaware. After having the complimentary breakfast and checking out of the hotel, I went for one last round of geocaching. Since the weather was good, I threw in a bunch of geocaches that involved a bit of a walk. Nothing terribly unusual except for the bright pink ammo can at "Pretty In Pink". After the 12th cache of the day, I started getting tired so I finished up with a few easy ones and then headed over to the Arby's in Wilmington that I saw on my first evening here to have a Pick 5 before the long drive home. Also made a stop at Wawa in Swedesboro to stock up on chocolate milk.

The next day was a trip to Connecticut for a fursuit bowling event put together by wally_wabbit. I'd already packed what I needed for that trip before heading out to Delaware, so it was just a matter of swapping one set of luggage in the car for another set. Did a bunch of geocaches along the way, of course. While I was in Delaware, the northeast apparently got some snow. A few inches to half a foot maybe. However, I did get lucky poking at the snow with my hiking pole. I found two caches right away even though they were completed covered by snow. I also took a brief look at Holy Land, an abandoned tourist attraction that I missed on my previous visit to Waterbury. There is now a cache just downhill from that place, so I figured why not take a few minutes to see what it looks like? I didn't think it was legal to enter though so I only went up to the gate.

After that, I went to Highland Bowl in Cheshire. I was actually the first one there, so I waited inside for the group. Our bowling time was scheduled for 3pm, so we had time for a brief visit to the Barker Cartoon Museum, just across the road. Of the items on display, I thought the jelly glasses were interesting because I collected those myself and still have them. Also good to know they're worth a few dollars each, which, while not much, is better than the zero I thought they were worth.

Went back to the bowling alley and it was time to change into costume. That was when I discovered that our changing area was the restroom, which presented some difficulties because it was a tight space. After thinking it over for a bit, my solution was to drive to the rear parking lot, change there, leave my stuff in the car, and walk back to the front in costume. Changing in 30-degree weather was certainly a novel experience! (and cold too!)

Returned to the bowling alley and got into the game. Also playing were wally_wabbit, foxwell, rapidtrabbit, coyoty, wildw0lf, and a few others. My bowling ability is lousy, worse still in costume, although I did get all 10 pins once. Still, it was fun to do whether or not I hit anything. We had pizza and soda from the bowling alley's cafe. During the game, we got roped into a kid's birthday party at the other end of the bowling alley for pictures and giggles. It was a neat surprise for them because they thought it was just going to be a regular bowling alley birthday party. :)

After the bowling event, I took a walk back to the rear parking lot and changed there. (COLD!) The rest of the group had after-event plans, but I opted not to follow them. Instead, I went for a few geocaches in Wallingford and then had dinner at American Steakhouse in West Haven. (a quiet evening with their super salad bar :) )

( Some photos from the bowling event )

( The caches... )

Cooler day. Temperature was around 60°F to 65°F. Even so, I didn't need a jacket for most of the day. Went to Central Jersey, focusing in Piscataway, where a whole bunch of new caches had popped up. There was quite a bit of geocaching activity going on there this weekend but I only ran into rstefano52 and TheMadRussian.

Lunch was at White Castle in Edison, where I noticed that there was only a 3-cent discount for ordering the combo meal compared to ordering the burgers, onion rings, etc. individually. So maybe I should've gone the non-meal route so that I could order the exact number of burgers I needed.

Dinner was at the Sayreville Wawa because the last geocache was just a mile or two down the road from there.

( The caches... )