Plans, Caching, and Golf 7/3-5/2008

July already and the summer is flying by. I spent all day Thursday making our reservations for our trip back to Myrtle Beach beginning somewhere around September 1st. The reservations we made start on September 10th at Ocean Waves CG in Waves, NC, then on to Sands of Time CG in Avon, NC and both of these campgrounds are on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Then we will meander down through NC to Myrtle stopping at Green Acres CG in Williamston, NC and Lanier's CG in Surf City, NC after we leave the Outer Banks on our way back. Once we get back to MB we have an apartment rented for 4 months in Cherry Grove across the street from the ocean. As far as the first part of September it will be hit or miss and maybe a few nights at Wally World. It really will be less expensive for us to rent the apartment than stay in a campgrounds after you figure in propane for heat and stove. The apartment is a 2 bedroom, first floor and we have plenty of room so if you would like to visit please let us know. We also wanted to be able to entertain and cook dinners for all our good friends so that is another reason we rented the house.
Friday, Mom and I went caching in Auburn, her old hometown and there really was a lot of nice caches there and we plan on going back on Sunday. On our way to Auburn the first cache was in Elbridge, NY in a small cemetery, second cache was in an fruit and vegetable stand parking lot, third cache was in another small cemetery near Auburn up in a tree in a bird house and I had to climb the tree to get to the cache. Fourth cache was at the old Cayuga County Poor House where in the past those who could not care for themselves (or who had no family to care for them) were placed. Mom actually thought she heard strange noises coming from the building as we looked for the cache. WEIRD!!!!!!!! Fifth cache was at an army/navy supply store, sith cache was at a Rite-Aid drug store, seventh cache was at Lincoln School which used to be an elementary school that is now long gone. Eighth cache was at a fellow cachers house, MaMa Bear and GeoDog Riley. We had a great little geotalk after we found the cache and found out she has 225 caches hidden and has found over 1800. In fact she knew the name Arpino, which was Mom's fathers last name, as she has lived in Auburn all her life and use to do insurance work.
Ninth cache was located at Willard Memorial Chapel which is an extremely rare example of the work of Louis C. Tiffany and Tiffany Glass and Decoration Co. in that it is only complete and unaltered Tiffany chapel known to exist. Included in the Tiffany interior are 14 opalescent windows, a rose window, a large figure window, nine Mooresque styled chandeliers, memorial tablets of glass mosaic tile and gilt bronze, furnishings of oak inlaid with metal and glass mosaic, a ceiling with gold leaf stencils and mosaic flooring. Built in 1892-1894, the interior of the Chapel was designed and handcrafted entirely by Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company of New York City and is the only complete and unaltered Tiffany designed religion interior known to exist in the world. Willard Memorial Chapel and the adjoining Welch Memorial Building are the only remaining buildings which were once part of the Auburn Theological Seminary, an educational facility which prepared thousands of pastors and missionaries to travel near and far to spread the word of God. The seminary had its origin in the great revivals of religion that swept through the new settlements early in the 19th century and the resulting demand for ministers of the gospel. A proposal to establish a seminary in Auburn was made in January, 1818 by Rev. Dirck Cornelius Lansing, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Auburn. The seminary was founded later that year, chartered in 1820 and then admitted its first students in 1821. The original seminary building was erected in 1820–21 and demolished in 1892—the same year in which the cornerstone of the Willard Chapel was laid. In 1872, the Dodge-Morgan Library building was erected and followed by a 76-room dormitory, Morgan Hall, which was completed in 1875. Both of these buildings were demolished by 1959. In 1892–1894, the Willard Chapel was built and furnished in memory of Dr. Sylvester Willard and his wife, Mrs. Jane Frances Case Willard, by their daughters Miss Georgiana and Miss Caroline Willard. The interior of the Chapel was designed and handcrafted entirely by the Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company of New York City. The buildings of the seminary were in continuous use from 1821 until 1939 (except for 1854–55 when the seminary was closed.) The Summer School of Theology was introduced in 1911 and the School of Religious Education was organized in May of 1921 and closed in 1925. The Auburn Collegiate Center was established in 1933; it was first located in the Auburn Senior High School Building then moved to the Auburn Theological Seminary in 1935 and used the campus facilities until 1937. This facility was the beginning of the Cayuga Community College and was funded by Syracuse University until closing in 1937. In 1939, it was with deep regret that the commissioners and trustees of the Auburn Theological Seminary found it necessary to relocate to Manhattan, New York, due to low enrollment and difficulty in funding. They are still located in New York City on the same campus as Union Seminary. During WWII the campus buildings in Auburn were used by the U.S. Navy for training and recruiting officers. After the war, Morgan Hall and the Welch Building were turned into apartments which housed veterans and their families. In January of 1989, when the interior of the building was threatened with dismantlement of the Tiffany treasures within, a fundraising campaign to purchase the Willard Chapel was launched by the Community Preservation Committee (CPC). In March of 1990, CPC purchased Willard Chapel. Currently, the building is on the State and National Registry of Historic Places and was placed there in April 2005. It was a beautiful building and we wished we could have gone inside and seen the lovely Tiffany works but it was only open Tues-Fri.
Tenth cache was a multi cache with the final location being at the Auburn Diner. The Auburn Diner is a 1920s vintage model built by the Bixler Company, a premier diner car manufacturer. According to diner historian Daniel Zilka, only ten such Bixlers are still in existence. The Auburn Diner was brought by rail to its original site in the 1930s by proprietor Timothy Flood. The painted signs on the buildings exterior advertised a standard diner tradition --- customary all night service. Damaged by fire in 1994, the Auburn Diner stopped serving meals. In October 2000, the abandoned diner was moved to an old railroad bed on Columbus Street. Even in the face of adversity, somehow life goes on. In May 2001 Steve and Toni Bianco purchased the diner and the land it now sits on from the Cayuga County Industrial Development Authority. On January 20, 2003, the completely renovated Auburn Diner opened its doors. The favorite menu item appears to be the "diner burger". We found the first coords and went to the diner itself and got the answers to the questions needed to log the cache.
Eleventh cache was located at Auburn High Scool in the woods behind the football field, twelveth cache was along the Cayuga County Nature Trail in the woods in a tree trunk, thirteenth cache was also in the nature park under a small wooden bridge.
Our last cache was a multi and had to do with the Auburn Correctional Facility and is classified as a maximum security prison. It was the first state prison in New York, the site of the first execution via electric chair in 1890, and the namesake of the "Auburn System," a correctional system believed to rehabilitate prisoners. Some of the notable inmates were William Kemmler, first person executed via the electric chair, Robert Chambers, the "preppy murderer", Anarchist Leon Czolgosz, assassin of President William McKinley, electrocuted in Auburn October 29, 1901, Lucchese crime family mob associate Jimmy Burke and Colombo crime family capo Joe Gallo. We got the info we needed on a marker in front of the prison and went to the final stage and found it under a railroad trestle bridge.
We drove back to the RV and I showered and Mom did our logs. We decided to go out and get a pizza at Twin Trees Too and then go to the fireworks at the State Fairgrounds. Well we got the pizza but never went to the fairgrounds as Mom wanted to go back and watch the fireworks shows on TV.
Saturday I played golf with George at Liverpool CC and did quite well after the fiasco on Tuesday. I shot a 86 with 4 double bogeys and one birdie. George and I are playing in the SDGA Senior Best Ball on Monday at Dutch Hollow so we needed the practice. After golf I came back and cleaned my clubs, Mom went to Wally World and Carousel Mall and I am doing the blog. We took Melissa and Tim to Quaker Steak & Lube for dinner as a tyhank you for putting up with us for all these past few weeks. We got back and I am finishing the blog and Mom is watching TV. We will close now and until next time we love you all.


Picture List:1,2,3-Willard Memorial Chapel, 4-Mt Pleasant Cemetery sign, 5-Historical Marker in front of the cemetery, 6-Cannon in the cemetery, 7,8-Old maple tree in back of the cemetery notice the root system, 9,10-Some of the old graves in the cemetery, 11,12-Cayuga County Poor House.