Tropical Storm Hanna.....A Big Flop & Caching Around Felton, DE 9/6/2008

Well we got up this morning and it wasn't raining and it wasn't windy at all so we decided to eat some breakfast and go do some caching around Felton. Felton, DE was one of several “whistle stops” laid out in 1856 when the Delaware Railroad line was extended to central and southern Delaware. Other “whistle stops” in Murderkill Hundred include: Wyoming (formerly known as West Camden or Camden Station), Willow Grove, Woodside, Viola (formerly known as Canterbury Station) and Plymouth. By 1920, Felton was a booming community with a population of 771. The railroad played an integral part, providing a shipping method for lumber, baskets, canned goods and peaches. In 1930, a fire devastated the business district causing $80,000 in damage. Within a few years, the population dropped to 463. Passenger rail service to Felton ended in the early 1950s The Felton Railroad Station still stands in the center of town. Our first cache was located in the woods off the RT 13 that goes past Felton, next was a cache located in a truck stop along the same road. Our third cache was a multi cache in the historic district of Felton where we had to go to the Felton RR Station and get 2 dates from a plaque located on the station. After we got the dates we figured the coords for the final stage and we were able to find it quickly. The 4th cache was located under a tree along RT 12 out of Felton. The fifth was a nano cache hidden on a guardrail on the outskirts of Felton and it was hidden in the top of a bolt attached to the guardrail. Our last cache was also a very nice hide in the woods near Felton. You had to go into the woods and find a huge rock with a hole through it, you had to look through the hole and it was like a gun sight and it pointed you to where the cache was located.....very clever too. After we were done the last cache we went back into Felton and drove around and looked at some of the older sites in the town. We saw an old church, an old auto repair garage, and a lot of old farm machinery. Actually the town was dead with absolutely no traffic at all up and down the streets. We drove back to the coach to prepare for the storm that they said was still on its way. About 11:00 the wind did start to blow quite hard and it was raining some so we decided to get out of the woods and move to the parking lot. After moving it did rain quite hard at times for about 6 hours and we did have a few strong wind gusts but it wasn't anywhere near what we had expected from the weather reports. So about 6:00 we decided to move back to our site so we had electricity and we had to go back on Sunday and hook the dolly up anyway. After moving back we ate dinner and played Scrabble as we had no TV reception at all. We watched a few episodes of Two and a Half Men on DVD and went to bed about 9:30. Well time to say until tomorrow from VA we love you all. Mom & Dad


Picture List:1,2-Felton Railroad Station, 3-Benchmark at the RR Station, 4-Edie Hemphill Felton's best Friend plaque, 5-Felton RR Station, 6-Old Texaco gas pumps, 7-Old steam engine, 8-Old tractor, 9-Old carriage, 10-Old John Deere farm equipment, 11,12,13,14-Paskey Farm Store in Felton, 11-South Shore RR caboose, 12,13,14-Rescue House of Prayer and Temple of Deliverance which is on the National Register of Historic Places, 15,16-Two old houses in Felton, 17,18-"Rock On" cache site.