A Day in God's Country

When I got up on Saturday morning, I have to admit to a feeling of shock that there was no snow, rain or sleet coming down, there was no wind, the temps were chilly but not frigid and the stars were shining brightly. What's wrong with this picture? It was the beginning of the weekend and it was nice outside! We haven't seen that in quite a while! And little did I know that I would soon be visiting some of the most beautiful parks that I have seen in quite a while.

My first stop was to visit Landis Woods, a park I have been to a couple of times before. This time I was searching for Lost in Landis Woods and I was also visiting a section of the park where I had never been before. What a pretty park this is. I located the box fairly easily, the clues really spell out exact directions to it and decided that this might be a good place for one of my Empty Basket boxes. So as I was moseying my way around the park in search of a good hiding spot, I accidentally came across a geocache called Another One at Landis Woods . The amazing thing about this cache is that it has been in existence since 2003 and was on its second logbook which was full. And it was basically right along a busy trail. I logged in to the cache and continued a search for my perfect spot, which I soon found and I placed The Empty Basket Series - Whoopee Doo . It saddened me to leave this little stamp somewhere other than where it was intended but I have been carrying it around for a couple of years now and never have been able to put it in its rightful place. Hopefully now whoever finds this box will take a few minutes to reflect on the tragedy that changed our lives in so many ways on 9/11/2001.





On a brighter note, while I was walking, the signs of spring began to appear all around me beginning with the flock of wild geese pictured above and then the may apples, skunk cabbages, wild daffodils and lilies of the valley that were scattered all around me. Spring is taking forever to get here this year. In fact, as I am sitting here writing this, our rain gauge has just registered 2.7 inches of rain since yesterday morning and the wind gusts are between 24 and 40 mph and now as I look out the window, I actually see snow. The Immobile One has told me that he doesn't mind if I go boxing for local boxes after work and since he told me this, we have had nothing but nasty weather so I have just been scurrying home each day, dreaming of being out on the prowl!

From the lovely Landis Woods, I traveled a bit further west to another of my favorite parks - the Lake Grubb Nature Preserve. It always amazes me that such a yucky name could be attached to such a beautiful little park. This park offers a lot for the size of it. The trail is only about a mile long but it does present a small aerobic challenge if you take it clockwise around the lake. There is a great scenic overlook, fishing, picnicking, several letterboxes, and a playground for the kids (I always notice the playgrounds these days - not sure why!). But this day, I was in search of Snapper's Paradise . This box was in a really precarious hiding spot, a hole in a tree at eye level right on the trail. In fact, it was actually hanging out of the tree when I found it but the several fishermen that I had passed seemed oblivious to it. And it has been visited a lot! It always makes me stop and go "Hmmmmm" when I see situations like this. Well hidden boxes disappear and those in the open remain safe and sound!

I left Lancaster county and began my way towards southeastern York county on my way to finally tackle JBZfarm's Terrapin box. Somewhere along the way, though, I stopped to hide another box that I have carried around for two years. This time the box was placed in the park for which it was created. I Heart Joe was created to honor the memory of an old love and friend. As a teenager, I was fortunate to hang out with a group of about ten friends. We did everything together. Went to dances together, to basketball and football games together, hung around during the summers together. Joe was a member of this group so we spent a lot of time together but rarely spent time alone. His sister, Lyn, who now lives in Miami, told me that as an adult, Joe was a teacher and worked with teens a lot. The teacher bit really threw me at first because Joe was certainly never an exemplary student but for some reason, after the initial shock, I could see him working with kids. Lyn told me that when he got sick, it didn't take long for the cancer to kill him. His only son was in the service, preparing to leave for Iraq, and had to come home for the funeral. It was all so sad for me to hear. I had created this simple little stamp in Joe's honor shortly after our reunion brunch at Lyn's mother's house and just never made it back to the park to hide it. But Saturday was the day to do it and it now rests comfortably there.

My next destination was Otter Creek for Terrapin. But as I was whizzing down the road to southern York, I passed a sign for Apollo County Park and after I was about a mile down the road from this sign, I made a decision to go back and see what this park was all about. I had never heard of it before and figured it was worth a look. This was probably one of the best decisions I made all day. At first glance, it didn't appear to be my kind of park. I immediately saw elevation - not one of my hiking strong points. But I was feeling adventurous that morning and I knew that I wanted to place my kaleidoscope series in special places and I had a feeling that this park might just pass that criteria. So I grabbed a kaleidoscope box and my GPS and walked till I caught site of the mighty Susquehanna River. Many people know that I don't have a lot of respect for the Schuylkill River which is right down the road from our home because I grew up hanging out along the Susquehanna which makes the Schuylkill look like a stream. Even though the view which I had from this park was not stupendous, it still took my breath away as I crossed onto the trail which took me closer to the water. And I did find just the right spot for my Kaleidoscope #1 box. The really ironic thing when I was hiding this box was that I was the only one in the park which is out in the middle of nowhere and just as I was placing this box into its hiding spot, a farmer brought a load of feed to dump right on the other side of the trail. Weird! His timing was flawless.

OK, back on the road to Terrapin. Got there and was really disappointed to see "NO" signs everywhere I looked. No Parking, No Trespassing, No Admittance, No Blocking the Gates....NO, NO, NO. I went into the campground office to see if there were trail maps available and received one but was told that the only trail which remained closed was the red trail. Guess which trail Terrapin was on! I decided to try to walk it anyway since I saw this box had been found in January but there was no where to park. Everything was gated. So I parked in front of one of the NO signs and started across the street only to be confronted by the lady from the park office who said that she had told me that the trail was closed. Boo hisss....enough of this...I headed on down the road in search of other boxes.

I was on my way to find the Pumpkin box located in Quarryville when I noticed that I seemed to be surrounded with signs pointing to parks - everywhere. Darn, I didn't have any more boxes with me to hide but I know that I will be back in this area soon to go on a planting frenzy. In fact, the next day, Sunday, turned out to be a monsoon day so I spent it assembling boxes for all of the stamps that I have laying around. I now have about 20 boxes ready to go and hope to place several of them in southern York and Lancaster counties. I have to admit to failure this day with the Pumpkin box. I found the road that is in the clue in Quarryville and drove up and down it several times trying to find the reference points but something was just eluding me so I decided to leave it for another day. Instead I headed for another beautiful park, the Theodore A. Parker Nature Center which is the home of The Lion King - Scar's Lair . When I pulled into the parking lot and was greeted with an absolute wall of rock, I was a little apprehensive but behind the wall was the perfect ending to my day - a nice level trail through an absolutely gorgeous setting.


In my mind, this day was perfect in so many ways. I found three boxes, I hid three boxes, I found one geocache and I traveled through some very beautiful Pennsylvania countryside. Before I headed for home though, I made a detour to check on one of my other boxes in another beautiful park, The Threshing Festival. This happens to be one of my favorite boxes and Indigo Vulture had told me a few weeks ago that it seemed to be missing due to construction. It broke my heart to verify that it is indeed missing, a victim of bulldozing for a new road being placed through the park. I am already preparing the new stamp for carving and hope to replace this one very soon.