Dunes of Ice

Presque Isle State Park is a gem of the state park system in Pennsylvania. The name roughly translates to English (from French) as an “almost” island and, indeed, the peninsula connects to Pennsylvania’s notch and city of Erie by a strip of land barely wide enough for a beach and a few traffic and parking lanes. Without a series of breakwaters and the winter phenomenon of ice dunes it is very likely that Presque Isle would graduate to being an actual island over the next few hundred years.

The bitter cold of winters on the Great Lakes facilitates the development of ice dunes that cover and protect the frigid sand on the western side of the peninsula. As water hits the beach, some of it freezes. Over the span of the winter, the ice accumulates into dunes. My husband and I make annual pilgrimages to Erie just to take in the sight of this natural oddity, even if we can only tolerate about 30 seconds on the beach before the bone-chilling wind and cold is too much (despite dressing appropriately for the weather). In fact, this year the wind was so sharp and cold that it drew blood! After getting into the car to warm up I noticed a spot just below my right eye, blood. Never even knew that to be a hazard of the frigid wind (the temperature itself was not abnormally cold, mid-20s).

If you have not had a chance to visit Presque Isle in the winter, it is a unique kind of wonderland. The frozen harbor on the eastern side of the peninsula is often congested with people ice fishing. While ice-fishing shanties recently made news when an Ohio mayor expressed concerns about prostitution, there was no apparent red-light district off the shores of Erie. It is also always fascinating to see the lake freighters in the harbor, inspiring me to play the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald (did not sink on Lake Erie, but the vibe is about right). Plus, the monuments and memorials on the peninsula are much less crowded and facilitate quiet reflection between gusts of frigid, winter winds.

And when you’re finished at Presque Isle, it’s always fun to do a little bit of shopping and Wegman’s and grab a sandwich at Picasso’s.

Frankfort Mineral Springs Falls

Less than a ten-minute walk off of Pennsylvania State Route 18 in Beaver County is a remarkably beautiful and secluded waterfall that, while currently part of Raccoon Creek State Park, was the focal point of the Frankfort House Hotel and Resort, which enjoyed a heyday from the mid-1800s until it burned down in 1920. The falls, its grotto, and ruins from the hotel are all highlights of a one-mile loop hike.

The water here is enriched with iron, leaving unique orange streaks on the walls of the grottos. On a hot, humid July day, there was little water coming from the spring and over the falls, but the trickle of a stream confirmed we found the right location and as we emerged from our hike the most pronounced ruins were evident. Some have even constructed cairns from the stone of the ruined foundations. While Raccoon Creek State Park boasts many great things to do and see, this one isn’t to be missed.

 

Best of 2014: Auto Art

GCJ8M8 – Auto Art
Hidden by MsKardiac
314 Favorite Points
Found on May 24, 2014

Erie, PA has offered up some really fascinating adventures. Whether I keep falling over in knee-high snow in a desperate effort to look at the ice dunes at Presque Isle or am being attacked a lawn of a nondescript side road by enormous robots constructed out of car parts, there is never a dull moment.

This virtual cache does what virtual caches often do: highlights a particularly unique, scenic, historic, or other relevant superlative in a location one may lack familiarity with. The photographic opportunities here are out of this world, in more ways than one.

Attacked by one of the pieces of "auto art"

Confluence Pumpkinfest 2014

Confluence Pumpkinfest

Jenn eventually made it home from her date. It lasted long enough and she seemed happy enough that we were confident it went well. Given that we’re over a month on and they’re still dating, we’re going to go with yes, things worked out pretty well. We knew she was going to come back because she wanted to join Chris and me for the Confluence Pumpkinfest.

We’d never been here before but had heard about the festival the week previous while we were at the Preston County Buckwheat Festival. Never ones to poo-poo a gyro, deep-fried snack foods, and other obesity-inducing snacks we were all in favor. Besides, we had been wanting to actually stop in and check out the town for some time, as until now it had just been a cute little bit of eye-candy on the back road to Somerset (which is part of the no-interstate route to State College from Morgantown).

Parking wasn’t too bad. We were able to park for free along the perimeter of a municipal park and walk about a quarter mile to the town square, which is where most of the vendors were. Unlike the Preston County Buckwheat Festival, which seemed very cohesive and had lots of signs pointing folks toward the different attractions, we had a difficult time way finding. Ultimately, we figured out where the vendors and the entertainment tent were, then accidentally came across a square dancing demonstration in the middle of a closed street.

The food vendors were top-notch. We were particularly inspired to come out because we heard they had a lamb vendor, Country Lane Lambs, who did lamb burgers but also had information on buying lamb products (e.g. ground lamb, which would go wonderfully with my homemade tzatziki sauce). My lamb burger was epic. Chris ended up at a different vendor where he ate one gyro and then had to return for another.

Though one thing seemed to be sorely lacking: there weren’t a lot of pumpkins around. Jenn was so disappointed. It turns out she’s got a pretty severe pumpkin addiction and she wasn’t getting her fix. After taking one more pass through the vendors she spotted a woman selling homemade pumpkin rolls, however. That was the ticket. She carried the log of deliciousness with pride.

But not being able to figure out when and where the rest of the festival was (if there even was more), we instead headed back to the car to find some geocaches along the National Road. On such a fine autumn day, there was nothing better.

We visited the Petersburg Toll House and saw the 16-mile long Youghiogheny Lake. Though it was the first weekend in October, the bite to the air in the Laurel Highlands was a hint of the cooler weather to come.

Cotton Candy High

There isn’t much better or more important in life than having awesome friends. I can’t say I bring a strong numbers game in this area, but I think I bring a strong quality game. So the weekend before last, my best friend from college, Jenn, along with her sister Amanda, picked me up from my place in Morgantown and took me home to Beaver County, Pennsylvania with them (both of them now live in Maryland, sort of flanking the greater DC area to the north and east, respectively). It did not take long to end up in the middle of a musical, fantasies about the upcoming midnight snacks at Sheetz, and what has come to be “normal girl stuff” for us. Frankly, I was aiming for a laid back weekend with my second family and best friend. That’s it. And it was good.

All morning on Saturday we ran errands around Beaver County. I had previously only known one way to get from Beaver Falls, which is down by the river, up to the rest of the county. I learned at least two other ways. When Jenn and I finally had a break, we decided to head to Brady’s Run Regional Park for a break. We had intended to find a geocache or two (this cache has so many of them!) but when we couldn’t figure out how to get to the first one, we settled for playing on some decrepit playground equipment and a stroll to the dam on the small impoundment. Afterward, we made it a priority to stop by the Chippewa location of the Brighton Hot Dog Shoppe for their chili cheese fries and hot dog. Even though we were going to a Pirates game later, PNC Park has so much more to offer other than just hot dogs so we felt we were still striking a very good, reasonable balance.

Later on all of Jenn’s sisters, mother, and myself joined up in Beaver. Despite visiting Jenn’s folks in Chippewa several times over the past several years and just, generally, being in the area I had never been to central Beaver so I was really surprised to see how nice and developed their central business district is. The Starbucks proved to be popular with our whole group, but I also managed to pick up a souvenir for my husband here at a really neat shop Jenn’s mom suggested we visit. There is a rooster on his family crest so he really likes them, the first thing I spotted when I walked in was not one but three large rooster cookie jars. Done. The only thing left was figuring out how to fit five women and a large glass rooster into Jenn’s Nissan Versa Note. Don’t worry. We made it work, with no help from my constant joking around.

This fountain is dedicated to all of the children in Beaver

I was just excited. I was going to a ball game. I hadn’t been to a ball game since the last time Jenn handed me a ticket and said “we’re going to a Pirate’s game!” To clarify, that was our senior year of college and it was the party favor at our spring formal dance (which Jenn basically single-handedly organized, she was a very good person to know on campus).

PNC Park is a wonderful place. Compared to similar venues I’ve visited it seems cleaner, easier to navigate, offers more food choices, and is just nicer. After establishing where our seats were, Jenn and I very urgently acquired pierogies that were just smothered in butter and sour cream. It was amazing. This is exactly why it was completely fine to have hot dogs earlier, because you can get pierogies at PNC Park! But for as good as the food was and as much as the pierogie races still rock my world (Saurkraut Sal won, just in case anyone was wondering), the Pirates lost to the Cubs. I was not too bothered by the end of the game, for a losing game it seemed to go on forever and Jenn’s youngest sister and I had just gobbled up a very large bag of cotton candy which was artificially propping up my deliriously tired self for the impending Lynyrd Skynyrd concert.

I was super pumped about the Lynyrd Skynyrd concert after the game and it was clear a lot of other people were too. Despite the game running long, the park remained packed. I know the venue isn’t exactly what they’re used to playing so I didn’t have the highest hopes about sound quality or being able to see them from right field, but I still had a ridiculously good time watching them. Though good grief, time has not treated most of them as kindly as it has to the Eagles, Jackson Browne, and the like. Most of the band members actually did look like reanimated corpses of Robert E. Lee (it has actually been brought to my attention that many of the band members attended a Lee High School) that could really tear it up on a guitar. It was also pretty amazing to be in a situation where it was totally appropriate to yell “Freebird!” and in fact even expect that if you did it enough you might actually get what you asked for. I was also extremely impressed with the duration of the concert, it wasn’t three songs and gone it was a legitimate concert. This is a band, in partnership with PNC Park, who were committed to providing a great fan experience and that sometimes seems so rare!

Jenn’s dad is a pro at PNC Park and once everything was over, guided us out of the park so quickly and even as we got out onto the streets the situation seemed intense but well-controlled. Jenn’s dad also works in this part of Pittsburgh so he had the best parking advice, the garage we chose has an exit that effectively puts you directly onto the HOV lanes of I-279, and with a carload of us we definitely qualified. Traffic was truly a non-issue and we hit the Pennsylvania Turnpike in Cranberry to go over to Beaver before I knew it, though part of that may have been my inability to keep my eyes open. The cotton candy had worn off.

Fayette County Fun

Fayette County, Pennsylvania often fails to get credit where it is due. It typically hangs out at the bottom of a lot of the lists it is better to be near the top of, sometimes gets referred to as the “West Virginia” of Pennsylvania, has the mystifying “Fayette-Cong” nickname that I would love for someone to explain the etiology of to me, and in general is considered to be pure hillbilly country. But that’s enough of the disparaging stuff because Fayette County actually rocks in a lot of ways. So much so, that when my mother visited from western Canada, of course we visited!

I actually really struggled to decide what to show off. I had actually wanted to make two trips (sadly, due to medical reasons, the second trip did not happen). Ohiopyle is always a top choice, and this is a great time of year to check out the Yough because there are so many rafters and kayakers. But I am also really partial to Laurel Caverns, Fallingwater, Kentuck Knob, the Summit Inn, and basically the entire National Road (U. S. Route 40) Corridor. Uniontown also has some neat shops, including an awesome hobby shop, Get a Hobby. I’ve also been meaning to explore more of where the Great Allegheny Passage Trail travels through the county, what little I have seen has been wonderful.

We settled on finding a very popular geocache on the eastern face of the mountain that both the Summit Inn and Laurel Caverns call home, picnic under the pines. This geocache had, at the time of our finding, 19 favorite points. It is a nano container hidden in an area rich with hiding places: a roadside park with multiple picnic tables, trees, and rocks. This cache, while miniscule, is housed by a much larger host, and when I laid down on part of it and turned my head just the right way, the itty-bitty cache could have bit me. After nearly 30 minutes of searching, high-fives were in order, as was lunch!

We sought the geocache in the shadow of this very, very comforting sign

Given the uncertainty of the weather, outdoor dining at Ohiopyle seemed like a questionable choice. However, Fox’s Pizza Den in Chalkhill seemed like a wonderful choice. My BLT wedgie was phenomenal. It was also great to talk to the franchise owner, especially with my mom there so she could meet a true Fayette County native. The franchise owner is not only one heck of a pizza-maker, but a sheriff’s deputy who takes great pride in the place he calls home—as he should! Indeed, Pennsylvanian and British Columbian rural folk do have a lot in common.

With full bellies, we took the scenic drive over to Ohiopyle. On the way, the weather cleared up, enabling a wonderfully pleasant walk around the developed area by the falls that has also very recently seen some great upgrading. From here, we could also see piles of people beginning their journey on the Youghiogheny River on rafting adventures. Surprisingly, mom had more trouble with “Ohiopyle” than she did with “Youghiogheny” in terms of pronunciation.

What we had wanted to on the second trip was visit Uniontown and Laurel Caverns, but there will be a next time for her in the next few months. For me, I give it less than a month until I’m at least in Point Marion again!

Dine and Cache

In January I moved away from State College and down to West Virginia. It has been absolutely wonderful to live under the same roof as my husband after three and a half years of living apart (besides trying to get all of the cats to agree with each other), but we do miss a few things about State College: the restaurants, the awesome public transit, and the stunning places to hike, bike, and soak in the beauty of nature. So we planned a weekend trip entirely focused on eating with a little bit of geocaching worked in to make good on some old DNFs and clean up at least a few of the lower terrain rated new geocaches. 

Our first stop was Olde New York. Don’t let the name fool you, this restaurant has some of the finest German food you will find. The gem of the menu, in our opinion, is the jaegerschnitzel. The breaded cutlet is crisp on the outside and moist on the inside over a bed of pickled cabbage and my favorite spatzle, with an utterly divine gravy to top it all off. Impressed by the fact we drove three hours just to eat there, the proprietor offered us complementary dessert—that we just did not have any room for!

Our second stop was Brody’s Diner. State College has a lot of wonderful breakfast spots, the quintessential being the Waffle Shop. I cannot dispute the greatness of the Waffle Shop, but if you’re willing to drive just a little ways out of town, Brody’s Diner in Centre Hall will serve you the best French toast you will ever find (except maybe from your mama’s griddle). Made with their house-baked cinnamon swirl bread, the French toast is sweet, fluffy, and purely addictive. Alongside a hearty “Brody’s Breakfast” of bacon, eggs, toast, and perfect home fries it is fuel for a day of adventure!

After two enormous meals and a third one planned, we sought out some geocaches. Like in most places, after you’ve lived there a few months the low hanging fruit is mostly snapped up. But, with the benefit of a few months, we had some options (anything too strenuous may have meant losing my breakfast). The highlight of this new batch of caches was Combat Vet Cache, where after a pleasant walk in a field we came across the cache and met the cache owner and had a talk about the beautiful day, the beautiful location, and how great it was that caching can bring people together.

The other types of geocaches we sought were the past failures seeking redemption. In this category were two well-celebrated finds: At Witt’s End (appropriately titled) and (CYOA) First to Find.

At Witt’s End is in a picturesque area with easy parking, which came in handy after the five attempts it took to locate it. We sought this traditional cache during warm weather, during frigid weather (when the grass and weeds are down) and we were so sure we had looked everywhere within 100 feet of the coordinates. But apparently, after five rounds, there was one place we had not looked… and there it was. After ensuring there were no spiders present on the husband, high-fives abounded.

The other great victory was (CYOA) First to Find. This may be one of the most uniquely set up caches around. It is similar to the Create Your Own Adventure, CYOA, books you probably read or at least heard about in grade school where you’d read a chapter and at the end of the chapter you could choose one of multiple next chapters, and each choice would tell the story a little differently. Of course, with geocaching there can only be one final location so the trick here was the follow the clues until either you found the cache or found a dead-end. If you found a dead-end, you then had to figure out where you made your mistake. On a very cold day, we set out to complete this cache. However, on the day we tried, the very last clue that would send us to the final coordinates was missing! The wonderful and crafty CO was kind enough to offer us the final coordinates but until today, we were never able to “find” this cache and award it the favorite point it deserved.

But all of this caching did nothing but make us hungry. Last but not least, we returned to Centre Hall to fill up on some perfect prime rib at the Whistle Stop. The Whistle Stop is located in the old Centre Hall train station and, while the food is always delicious, on Saturday they serve prime rib and it is just the absolute best. It is so tender and flavorful that I have never needed to use steak or any other type of sauce on it. It pairs well with their garden salad topped with the house oil and garlic dressing (it is about as addicting as Brody’s French toast). The owner of this restaurant is also a native West Virginia and all around super lady. We never leave hungry or dissatisfied!

With tummies full and feet tired, we started on the long trip back home to West Virginia, though we were wishing we could just go on back to my old townhouse for a nap first. Life goes on, thankfully we can still return for great, local food!

Fourth of July, Family, and Friends

The beginning of July marks a lot of important things in my life. July 1 and July 4 each memorialize the founding of the two countries I proudly call my home (Canada and the United States, respectively). July 3 is my wedding anniversary. July 6 is my mother’s birthday. The latter is difficult to celebrate due to 2700 intervening miles, but it is still worth noting. Because of the first two items mentioned, it also guarantees at least one long weekend. So on July 4^th, we hit the road. We decided to be spontaneous and follow our geocaching Most Wanted list. We identified the nearest cache to us and made that our starting point.

The first stop of the day would be Caterpillar Tracks near Stoystown, PA. This is a tank cache. Tank caches can be some of the trickiest to find because there are seemingly infinite places to hide a geocache. Furthermore, lots of people who place tank caches love placing nanos or micros. Unfortunately, there’s no sure-fire way to make finding a tank cache easy, but reading the description, hint, and past logs carefully can help. In the case of this specific tank cache, the key was to note the size of the container. Once I realized that it was a regular sized cache, I could rule out a lot of places (yay, wouldn’t have to stick my hand some place too gross!). But the lawn of an American Legion is a very appropriate place to be on July 4^th and we took in all of the military equipment they had outside for the public to look at. But, for what it’s worth, the most challenging tank cache I have ever encountered is on the grounds of the Pennsylvania Military Museum in Boalsburg, PA: Tanks Again.

Hey, look out behind you!

From Stoystown, I really was unsure if following from nearest cache to nearest cache on the list would shoot me toward Breezewood, PA or back west. To our surprise, it pointed us toward Ford City, north of Pittsburgh on the Allegheny River. This cache, generically titled Not another one-n-a-half, one-n-a-half, was not only a unique cache, but had a difficulty and terrain combination we had not yet found (difficulty of 4.5 out of 5 and terrain of 1 out of 5). A common challenge in the geocaching community is to find all 81 difficulty and terrain combinations. I’m not aggressively working on it, but I would eventually like to get there. Though the odds are pretty good it’ll take years to clear out all of the terrain level 5 difficulty combinations. That’s not how I like to play, though others love doing those ones almost exclusively.

Getting a better sense of the trajectory we would take, I called up my best friend from college, Jenn. To let her know we were on our way to Harmony and Zelienople, which wasn’t really all that far from her parent’s home in Beaver County, PA. She invited us to her parent’s house to celebrate the 4^th, just to let them know when we had a more solid idea of when we would arrive. 

From Ford City, we drove the scenic back roads to Harmony. Harmony is where the Harmony Society, a religious order that escaped persecution from the Lutherans in Germany first established themselves in the United States. One of the remaining historical sites related to their lives in Harmony, which is now little more than a quiet exit off of I-79, is the cemetery. Their cemetery is unique. There are no headstones. The cemetery is just a rectangle of land with a perimeter marked by a thick stone wall. Entry to the cemetery is through a heavy stone door beneath an arch. When we arrived we thought about entering, but standing at the entrance and peering through the entrance, we felt like we ought to let the spirits rest. Like the name of the geocache that brought us here, don’t wake the dead.

Gateway into the Harmony Society cemetery

We love the small towns in Pennsylvania. Even the hardworking, unremarkable places that have little more to say for them that they’re “a great place to grow up” seem well-maintained and pleasant to pass through. I often wonder why similar towns in West Virginia can’t seem so nice. Leaving Zelienople we had to wait for a train to cross the road. If you closed your eyes, you could imagine how the town must have been a century earlier. On the road out of town we slowly edged past the train that was taking a more direct route than the road that wound around and above the tracks. The drive to Beaver Falls and past to Jenn’s parent’s home was nothing short of relaxing, before we knew it we were pulling in the driveway.

Jenn is one of those friends who is amazing to see every day (we lived together in college), yet if we don’t see each other for months it is like no time has passed the next time we do see each other. Chris and I also love her parents and siblings. We couldn’t imagine a more pleasant end to our 4^th of July than with such a wonderful family.

Memorial Day 2014: Monumental Geocaches

The remaining two caches in Erie were virtual geocaches. Heading back into town, our first stop was on a non-descript residential street to visit Auto Art. These are my absolute favorite types of caches, especially when I am a guest in an area. Without the cache, there would be no reason for us to be on this residential street, yet we would have definitely missed out on Pennsylvania’s own version of the Cadillac Ranch. The sculptures here are varied but have a common real-transportation-meets-science-fiction theme.

Erie sure has some big Beetles!

Our final stop in Erie took us right to the shore of Lake Erie. Some may argue that it seems as if the Civil War ended yesterday in the South, well on Presque Isle you could say the same about the War of 1812. To be fair, it was a nice change of pace. The area around the Perry Monument was nothing short of picturesque. A quiet inlet off the lake enabled an organization to host an event to teach children how to fish and tour groups on foot and bicycle were everywhere. Despite the cold water, we even saw folks swimming in the lake. “Don’t Give Up the Ship” is dedicated to the Perry Monument and the critical roles in the Battle of Lake Erie of both Erie and Commodore Perry.

Perry Monument on Presque Isle

After successfully finding the three geocaches in Erie, we headed west to Ohio. We hopped on I-90 and only a few miles down the road we were passed by a car with Washington State plates, we couldn’t help but wonder if they were going all the way. I-90’s western terminus is in downtown Seattle, after all.

We stopped for lunch in the Cleveland suburb of Mentor, Ohio to try out Melt Bar and Grilled. Melt is the evolution (revolution?) of grilled cheese sandwiches. We ordered the Melt Pierogi to start, it was golden delicious. Then I ordered the Chorizo and Potato, fresh ground spicy sausage and potato hash, sharp cheddar. It was delicious! Though shortly after finishing up one of my friends espoused the greatness of the Peanut Butter & Banana (caramelized banana, house made peanut butter, sweet cream cheese, candied peanuts, mixed berry preserves) and I’m a little bummed that I didn’t go that route. 

After filling our bellies and the tank of the car (it sipped fuel, getting 26 to 30 mpg all weekend), we headed to Twinsburg, OH to seek Twin Pirates Treasure Hunt. This multi-cache took us to scenic Center Valley Park on Tinkers Creek. Each stage of this multi cache introduced us to a different trail in a different part of the park. The hike was not particularly strenuous, it was just about right. The use of field puzzles and unique containers at each of the stages added an extra layer of fun to the cache. The whole time we sought the cache (total of about 90 minutes) we couldn’t stop commending the cache owner on an excellent cache design. Much to our surprise, the final stage of the cache was even better: a real treasure chest and a talking skull. While heading back to the car, Chris and I were trying to figure out where this cache falls in our top 5 caches found. It was worth every single mosquito bite on my back!

Yo ho, yo ho the final stage of the Twin Pirates Treasure Hunt

Once we wrapped up in Twinsburg the afternoon was wearing on. We decided to check out another cache in the Cleveland suburbs, but it was in the cache owner’s front yard. Front yard caches are hit and miss for me. In this case we had to walk up to the house to obtain a tool to retrieve the cache. The door to the house was open and it felt like a hundred eyes were on us. We decided to skip this one and make a bee-line for Columbus. Besides, I needed some quality time with my phone to arrange lodging for the night once we arrived there.

Memorial Day 2014: All Roads Lead North

I’ve had a rough time since my birthday, having been an inpatient at Ruby Memorial Hospital for a total of 12 days across two separate stays. While my 7 East family were excellent caregivers, we all agreed that we’d rather run into each other at the mall or in the park. Despite the fact the month has been pretty tough on me medically, Memorial Day weekend was one to remember. We looked at our list of Most Wanted geocaches and a map of the places we don’t get to as much and developed a plan that would take us to Pennsylvania’s only Great Lake port, the Capital of Ohio, and North Bend State Park in West Virginia—a perfect example of how West Virginia lives up to the slogan: Wild and Wonderful.

We kicked off the weekend by renting a Kia Sportage from the Enterprise Rent-a-Car in Morgantown. We decided that for a road trip, which would include some gravel roads, a small SUV would be more comfortable and utilitarian than a Chevy Cavalier or a Honda Civic. Plus, I’m in the very early stages of new car shopping and, frankly, I’m not sure what I want so it’s fun to try all manners of vehicles.

Last summer we also discovered the pleasures of “cooler living.” So I was sure to load up a cooler and book bag with snacks and drinks to keep us sated on the road. We’ve found that it saves money and gives us more freedom while on the road. No need to make stops for food unless they’re wanted. Plus, when we do eat out, we don’t have to toss our leftovers in the trash by default. By packing a few extra takeaway containers from the house, we can put them in the cooler and reheat them in the hotel room or even back at home.

We left Morgantown a little later than anticipated and north of Pittsburgh got stuck in a miles long traffic jam that foiled our effort to seek out one of Pennsylvania’s oldest geocaches, Stone Wall Stash. We typically avoid geocaching after dark unless it is specifically a night cache or an area we are very familiar with. We typically find that the added risks of injury, getting lost, or having any type of run in with police (friendly or unfriendly) take the fun away.

Because of the rapidly approaching night and cancelling the plans to find the first cache, we stopped in Grove City for dinner. There weren’t very many options that didn’t involve entering the Thunderdom—I mean parking lot for the Grove City Premium Outlets. So we figured we’d give Hoss’s a shot. They seem to be everywhere in Pennsylvania and we’d never tried one before. The service was enthusiastic and the salad bar was pretty good, though they could’ve backed off on the pepper a little bit on my steak.

On the road, I struggled to arrange lodging for the night in Erie, Pennsylvania. The holiday weekend seemed to attract a lot of folks to Erie so there were few rooms available. Normally we like to stay at mid-range hotels (some of our favorite chains include Best Western and Holiday Inn Express) but what rooms were available at this tier of hotels were all smoking rooms. This is an issue I can’t remember having since trying to find a hotel in Nashville in 1996. But Erie is a blast from the past in so many ways; I call it a 1960’s vision of a modern, mobile, middle-class America. We ended up at the Red Roof Inn.

The Red Roof Inn here has several unique characteristics that stick out to me. First, it is all non-smoking! Second, it has free nationwide long distance included in the room rate. Third, they did not lie about being right off of I-80. The noise from the interstate was hard to miss in the hotel room. Thankfully, Erie is very flat so there were no trucks engine-braking past. Once we were asleep, neither of us noticed any of this noise. It certainly didn’t wake us up.  And, finally, their grab-and-go breakfast concept is an awesome evolution of the continental breakfast. In their lobby they had a table of lunch bags and each had an apple, a blueberry muffin, and a bottle of water. So perfect!

Our first goal of the day was to find the oldest geocache in Pennsylvania: State Game Lands #109. Geocaching is a young hobby, only about 14 years old, and caches placed in 2000 and 2001 are getting harder and harder to find, especially those with a physical container. Finding the parking area was a little challenging, as was resisting the temptation to get my feet wet by seeking the cache in the shortest, most direct route. We were treated with a pleasant walk in the woods on a beautiful morning, and we did find the cache!

A tranquil place in State Game Lands 109 near Erie, PA