Still Not Much Going On On Sunday

Just hanging around still trying to get rid of this stinking cold I picked up over the holidays up north.....damn cold weather. Watched a little football and just vegged out. Love you all.

Not Much Going On on Saturday

Just hanging around today recovering from our trip up north for the holidays. Mom went to the hospital to volunteer today and I watched a little football. Love you all.

Finishing Our Trip Back to Myrtle Beach

We got up early this morning to get a early start as we had to go through Richmond and we wanted to miss the traffic. We stopped and got gas , went to Starbucks and got some high test coffee and a bagel and we were on our way. We did stop at Cracker Barrel before they opened and got our first cache of the day at 6:00 am. We stopped at the first rest area on Rt 95 and got the next 2 caches of the day and the second one was our 700th find (see picture). Then we were on the road again and found another 9 caches before we got home. Most of fairly easy finds at rest areas, a Quality Inn, a BP gas station, 1 in Benson, NC, at a church in NC, 1 in a vacant lot where at one time a business was and the last 2 were in Tabor City at a Yogi Bear Campground and at a small lake. We got back about 12:30 and unpacked , went out to dinner with Steve & Gina and had a great time at Damon's Rib. I picked up a cold someplace and was feeling kind of punky so I went to bed and Mom watched some tv. We love you all and thank you everybody for a GREAT Christmas.

Heading Back to Myrtle Beach

Well we left Kim and Sean's at about 7:30 this morning to head back to Myrtle Beach. We stopped at Dunkin Donuts and picked up some caffeine for the ride through NJ and PA. Things went fine until we got almost to the Rt 78 and Rt 81 connection and then we stuck in traffic for about 25 minutes due to a tractor trailer/car accident, and we are pretty sure the car came out second best by the looks of it. The rest of the trip wasn't bad until we got to the Rt 17 and Rt 95 interchange as we sat in a 3 mile traffic jam for 30 minutes due to traffic getting onto Rt 95 S. We stopped in Ashland for the night as we had had enough heavy traffic and traffic jams for the day. Of course we cached along the way and found 8 caches. We found 5 in the rest stops along Rt 81, 1 in an Exxon gas station, 1 in a Quality Inn and 2 other very interesting ones.
The first is Burning and Hangings in Stephens City, VA. The story goes that as the Federal Army attempted to conquer and hold the Valley in 1864, its lines of supply and communication were extended and became susceptible to attacks by bands of Confederate partisans. On May 24, 1864 under orders from Union General David Hunter, three residences in Newtown (now Stephen City) were burned in retaliation for shots fired at a wagon train the night before. Five days later Confederate Major Harry Gilmore's 2nd Maryland Battalion attacked 16 wagons and their guards at the north end of the village and captured the entire train and 40 prisoners. Two wagons were overturned at the crossing of Stephen's Run just south of here. The following day Col. John S. Mosby's Rangers ambushed another heavily guarded Union wagon train just south of Newtown causing a general flight back through the village. One Federal soldier captured during this rout was brought to Newtown and given his final breakfast on horseback and executed. The words "shot for barn burning" were written with a piece of charred wood on the plaster wall above his head. On May 31st, Hunter ordered a detachment of the 1st New York (Lincoln) Cavalry back to Newtown to " burn every house, store and outbuilding in the place". While enroute, Union Major Joesph K. Stearns and his fellow officers discussed whether to carry out the order in light of Gilmour's posted notice at Hull's store in Newtown that prisoners held by him would be hanged if Hunter's orders were followed. Many citizens of the community took the oath of allegiance to the United States hoping to save their homes. Stearns decided not to carry out Hunters order and the town was spared.
The other cache we found very interesting was Mama Zuma's Revenge in Middletown, VA. This town was established in 1794 by the VA General Assembly and the Great Wagon Road ran through here. This road was established in 1735 and ran from Philadelphia, PA to Augusta, GA. Well anyway the cache was located next to a old fashioned potato chip company called Route 11 Chips. It has been there for only 10 years and was sprouted in an old feed store in Middletown. The only purpose they had when they opened was to produce the best potato chip on the planet. Everything they make is hand made and you can go in 6 days a week and watch them as they make the chips and sample them. They make Lightly Salted, BBQ, Dill Pickle, Sour Cream and Chives, Chesapeake Crab, Salt and Vinegar, Garlic and Herb, Sweet Potato, Sweet Potato Cinnamon and Sugar, Mixed Vegetable, Yukon Gold, Hayman Chips, Mama Zumas Revenge Habanero and Mama Zuma's Revenge Green Chile Enchilada Chips hence the name of the cache. If your interested you can visit their website at www.rt11.com. I will post pictures on all our trip as soon as we get back to MB. Well time to close for the day....LOVE to everyone.

Wednesday....Caching & Lunch

Wednesday brought a cool crisp day and I went caching and Mom went out with Sean for lunch and a movie, which they only got as far as lunch seeing as it started to sleet and rain. I left at 9:00 and did some caches in Flemington, Pittstown, Frenchtown and Lambertville. I found 8 caches and 3 of the 8 were virtual finds. The first 4 caches were in Flemington and were all traditional caches. I then went into PA for 3 virtual caches which included 2 covered bridge caches and another history cache. On my way back I picked up 1 more traditional cache as I drove back to Seans.
"Now Put That Back" was a cache at Green Sergeants Covered Bridge near Sergeantsville, NJ. This is the last covered bridge in NJ and was erected in 1872 on abutments dating back to colonial times. Damaged in 1960 the superstructure of the bridge was completely dismantled and removed to make way for a conventional span. However in 1961 as a result of the efforts of an aroused group of citizens the State of NJ, using the materials of the original covered bridge, fully restored this link with the past. (Pics will follow)
Another of the caches was Covered Bridge Tour of Buck County and encompassed a tour of 3 covered bridges. The first was the Cabin Run covered bridge which spans Cabin Run Creek and was built in 1871 and is 82' long. The second was the Loux covered bridge which also spans Cabin Run Creek and was built in 1874. The third was the Van Sandt covered bridge which spans Pidcock Creek which was built in 1875 and is 86' long. This bridge was recently visited by ghost hunters. Rumor has it that horse thieves were once hung from the rafters of the bridge, and it's thought the bridge may be haunted, perhaps by the souls of those who were executed there. Some claim they have seen strange silhouettes and shadows, and even the sounds of rope sliding over wood, like the sound of a tightening noose. This definately was one of our favorite caches as it was so nice to see these covered bridges.
The other virtual was "For History Buffs" and was located in the middle of nowhere on Clay Ridge Rd a one lane paved road that I would have hated to meet another car on and was near Harrow and Revere, PA. It had to do with an old family cemetery with bronze markers showing that family members had served and died in the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. We couldn't get pictures of this site as it was all on Posted land which was a big shame.
We are leaving Seans a day earlier than expected as he has to go to Boston tomorrow so we will be home on Friday. Love to everybody and see you soon.

Merry Christmas One and All

Christmas day was a wonderful quiet one with Mom and I alone as Kim and Sean went to her parents house to celebrate with them and her brother and his wife and son. We watched movies all day and had a delicious prime rib dinner that we cooked which we had bought at Wegmans. We had mashed potatoes and bread with it and let us tell you it was out of this world. How do you like Mom's new mittens, she warmed them in the microwave and put them on to help the arthritis in her hands. We would like to take the opportunity to wish everybody a very Merry Christmas and love to everybody.

Christmas Eve Day & Christmas Eve

We got up fairly early as Scott and his family had to leave around 9:30 to get home as they had some last minute shopping to do and of course get ready for Santa's arrival. Take a look at Anna in her new sneakers and the picture of Mutt & Jeff. Sean went to work for a half day, Kim went to the cemetery with her brother Rob and Mom and I went to Wegman's, the GREATEST grocery store on this planet. We picked up dinner for Christmas Eve which will consist of tossed salad, Italian bread, steamed mussels, shrimp cocktail and classic seafood salad. We also had 4 caches in our GPS which we tried to do but with the traffic it was impossible to drive anywhere so we gave up after searching for one of them unsuccessfully. We went back and watched a movie on HBO and had dinner later in the evening and we to bed early so Santa would be able to arrive for all the good little boys and girls. MERRY CHRISTMAS and love to one and all from your Mom & Dad and Dori & Dick.

Christmas With Sean, Chris & Scott's Families

Sunday was a great day with Sean, Kim, Scott, Cheryl, Cory, Rachel, Anna, Chris, Corinna, Tyler and Alexis. Thet straggled out of bed one by one and Kim and Sean were ready with the pancakes, enough to feed an army, and we had an army. All kinds of pancakes chocolate chip, blueberry and plain with your choice of blueberry jam, regular maple syrup or real maple syrup, just like Cracker Barrel. We ate and retired to the living room to open presents and of course the little kids and the bigger kids were first. Anna, Tyler & Alexis all seemed to enjoy there gifts as it was over in a matter of, seemed like seconds. Then it was Rachel and Cory's turn. After them the older kids did there gifts and lastly it was Mom & Dad's turn. I know we enjoyed our gifts very much and we both hope our kids and our grandchildren enjoyed theres. Chris's family had to get ready to leave as he had to work on Monday, so they left about 1:30. It was then time to watch a little football for the guys, the girls sat and talked about anything and everything and the smaller kids played with there gifts. Later in the day a few of them went to a movie and picked up pizza for dinner. It was a wonderful time and we enjoyed having all of them together in one place again at the same time. We both love them very much and want to say thank you.

On To Kim and Seans For Christmas

We left early Sat. to drive to Kim and Sean's to meet the rest of the family there for Christmas. We stopped at SU and did a virtual cache first and it was nice as all the students were off on vacation so it was deserted and we were able to dive right to the location. Tried to do a few more caches in NY and PA on the way but again "accessible in winter" doesn't mean the same to the people here as it does to us. We did get a few in NJ after we got out of snow country and did a neat cache in Gladstone/Peapack called The Limestone Kiln. Here is a brief history of the site: The limestone kilns were active from 1794 to 1945. Before the year 1800 the farmers began to notice that crops in many of there fields were not growing well. This was because the soil had not been used for so many years that the soil had a high level of acid. When powered lime is spread on the ground it dissolves in rain water and is absorbed by the soil. That neutralizes some of the acid in the soil and produces better growing conditions. So to sum it up these kilns were used to burn limestone into powders which helped grow crops by lowering the levels of acid. We got to Sean's about 1:30 and had lunch, Scott's family arrived shortly after that and right now dinner is on and Chris will be here about 8:00. See you all soon and we love you all.

Christmas at Tim's

We got up early and ate breakfast and Judy came over to visit and seeing as we had a lunch date with Mark, Ceil and Sandy we asked her to go along. Had a great lunch and good chatter at Nestico's and went back to Tim's and spent the afternoon with him. We celebrated Christmas when everybody arrived home and it was really great. We got some wonderful gifts and we hope all Tim's family liked what we had gotten them. We ate dinner and went to Cody's indoor soccer game and came home and it was off to bed for the trip to Sean's on Sat. For some unexplained reason most of the pictures I took at Tim's were lost as I think the battery was low and I didn't realize it. So so sorry everybody and all I have are the ones of Tim and our great grandsons Cody & Luke. Love to one and all.

On The Road To Grandma's House Again

We left the motel early Friday and were at our first cache before sunrise. We waited a little till we could see a little something as this cache was back in the woods in a WV rest stop. We were able to find it quickly even though it was light yet. We found 7 other caches during the ride but once we got into PA we had to curtail the caching because of the snow, even though most of the caches we were after said "available in winter", yeah if you bring your snowshoes and snow shovel. We found several Park & Ride caches, a cache at a Harley Davidson showroom, several at PA rest stops and one that was very cute that consisted of a large film canister that had 20 small film canisters in and you had to search them all to find the log. We stopped in Binghamton to go to Anna's Xmas party she had at her school that afternoon. That went fine until we got ready to leave and she, as usual didn't want us to, so we felt kind of bad about that but we knew we would see her in another few days. We got to Tim's late afternoon and had supper with his family and then retired. Love to everybody.

On The Road For Christmas

We left Wednesday morning about 7:00 am to head for Camillus for Xmas. We like to cache along the way as it really breaks up the trip and doesn't make it seem so long and tedious. We found 12 caches and only had to post 2 DNF's. Most of the caches were either guardrail, lamp post skirt or sign post hides. We did one puzzle cache which was a math puzzle based on a sign along a road, we got it right the first time and found that cache easily. The one really interesting cache we did find was in a small, and I mean small, town in VA called Carson. It was hidden at the Carson Depot Library which was an old railroad depot made into a library. It had an old caboose along side it and the cache was hidden on that. It really was interesting looking around the town, which didn't take long at all, seeing the Bank of Carson established in the early 1900's, a lot of the older houses in the town and a little park decorated for the holidays. Ate at Cracker Barrel last night and turned in early. Love to everybody and we will see you soon.

Caching With Liz and Bob

Tuesday we went caching with Liz and Bob the "Interlopers from Canada". We headed for Georgetown and did 8 caches ourselves and took them to a few that we had found previously so I think their total was 12 or so. "Dark Shadows-The Gray Man" was one of the caches we found and the story is one of the oldest ghost stories in SC history. There are several versions of the story but the one most accepted tells of a young woman mourning the death of her childhood sweetheart. He had been gone from the area for several months. After returning, he was so anxious to get back to her, that instead of taking the safe route back to his home, he took a short cut through the marsh. Accompanied by his manservant riding a short distance behind, he and his horse came to a sudden stop and began rapidly sinking deeper, and deeper into a patch of deadly quicksand. His manservant was not able to help, and watched the horrific scene of his master and his horse disappearing into the mire. When the young woman heard of her finance's tragic death, she was heartbroken. After he was buried the young woman endlessly walked the same beach that she and her beau had walked. One day, windier than most, with the ocean crashing on the shore more violently than usual, a figure appeared ahead. As the young woman walked toward the figure she swore it was her fiance. He warned her to leave the island; she and her family were in danger.. Then he disappeared. The young woman hurried home and told her parents of the strange experience. Because the young woman was usually sensible and not prone to flights of fancy, the parents heeded the warning and left the island early the next morning. That night a hurricane destroyed most of the homes on the Island but the home of young woman's family was undamaged. According to numerous accounts The Gray Man appears on the beach of Pawleys Island prior to hurricanes and warns the residents of the impending storm and urges them to vacate the island. Those who heed his warning return to find their homes undamaged. Encounters with the Gray Man have occured before every major hurricane that has struck the island for more than 100 years.
Another of the caches took us to an old Baptist cemetery in Georgetown (see pics) and it was very interesting reading the history and looking at the old grave markers which dated back to the middle 1700"s. One of the grave markers was for Elisha Screven who planned and founded Georgetown in 1730-35. There was also another grave marker for a L G Palmer from SC a Pvt in Co B 7 Rect SC Cav Confederate States Army.
All in all it was a great day and tonight we are going out to eat with Gina and Steve to Goobers 52 and leaving early tomorrow for the great snow country although the temperature in Camillus was the same this morning as it was here in MB. Love you all and see you soon.

Getting Ready to Leave

Monday was a day to do the last odds and ends to get ready for our trip north for Xmas. Mom got her haircut and we went and had blood work done for our doctor appointments when we get back. Stopped at K & W for breakfast and we each had an order of bacon in memory of Nan. Returned to the coach and put some caches into the GPS for Tuesday when we are going caching with Liz and Bob. Thought you might like to see some more pics of the Grand Strand cachers meeting on Saturday night. Love to you all.