Labor Day Weekend - Lehigh Valley, Four-State Challenge, Lancaster XXXXX

[mortonfox]

It was a 3-day weekend with Labor Day on Monday. I went up to Lehigh Valley to finish off more geocaches in that area. First, I took the opportunity to mail my passport renewal application since I noticed there's a UPS store conveniently just off one of the exits in Allentown. No reason why I can't get things done on geocaching excursions. This time, I spent most of the day around Bethlehem and Fountain Hill. I saw the stacks of the old Bethlehem Steel Plant at "A view of the Stacks". I also met up with Frostbiter at "Shell Micro" because the cache was right outside where he works. I hadn't seen him in over 3 years so we took a few minutes to catch up. I learnt that the geocaching community in Lehigh Valley is not what it used to be; some folks had significantly cut down on their geocaching activity due to health or other reasons. In addition, one of them is moving out of state and archived all his caches just prior to the weekend, although I was still able to find "W - 3". Maybe he hadn't gotten around to picking up that one yet. :)

Sunday was a rainy day, so I decided to do the Four States in One Day Challenge It is literally what the name says: I had to find geocaches in 4 states in a single day to log that challenge cache. In the Philly area, it's easy because New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Maryland are quite close together. The reason why I wanted to do this on a rainy day is because I figured I'd be doing more driving around than walking and searching. This challenge turned out to be a bit harder than I thought because I'd already found nearly all the easy caches in the area. So I was basically just hitting the new caches. First, I did a cache in Newark on the Mason-Dixon Trail. Then I headed over to Conowingo, MD, where thankfully there was a new cache. From there, I headed northeast to Oxford, PA, for a few countryside caches. (I only needed one but I might as well do them all since they were quick!) Next, I stopped at the challenge cache in DE to sign in so I wouldn't have to double back after crossing over to NJ. And then I completed the challenge by doing a cache in Gibbstown, NJ. After that, I continued geocaching in South Jersey until dinnertime since I was already there. It was a soggy time because of the light rain.

Monday was another rainy day. However, I had an Old Country Buffet breakfast coupon, so I had a leisurely breakfast while waiting for the rain to go away. Then I took a long drive out to Lancaster to hopefully give the rain enough time to stop. That almost worked. It was still raining lightly when I got to the first geocache site but it stopped soon enough. This time, I geocached mostly in Lititz, East Petersburg, and Manheim, all to the north of Lancaster City.



Saturday:

Luxury Cache (Pennsylvania)
Pigs in Space - Alkaid (Pennsylvania)
Laser Light Show (Pennsylvania)
AquariAnne’s ZodiaCache Sagittaruis (Pennsylvania)
Lord Byron's Hide (Pennsylvania)
JOE - Schoenersville Road (Pennsylvania)
Wise Guys - Spys (Pennsylvania)
W - 3 (Pennsylvania)
Shell Micro (Pennsylvania)
HAC Cache (Pennsylvania)
A view of the Stacks (Pennsylvania)
AquariAnne’s ZodiaCache Gemini (Pennsylvania)
Apeman.... UNLEASHED!!! (Pennsylvania)
Squirrelly cache (Pennsylvania)
On the Green (Pennsylvania)
Scooby's Chinese Fortune Kooky Caper (Pennsylvania)
Kinder #3... the BIGGEST (Pennsylvania)
JOE - RT 512 (Pennsylvania)
Life is a highway (Pennsylvania)
Weg Weg Wam Wam (Pennsylvania)
JOE - RT 191 (Pennsylvania)
Saluting CITO Participants (Pennsylvania)
Olive My Crows (nobody GETS me) (Pennsylvania)

Sunday:

Mixon Dason (Delaware)
A Royaly Great Cache (Maryland)
Brandon's Bug House Photo Cache (Maryland)
Four States in One Day Challenge (Delaware)
Quiet Place (Pennsylvania)
Carey J bridge (Pennsylvania)
country bridge (Pennsylvania)
Upper Oxford yellow box cache. (Pennsylvania)
Geocache Nesting Habits (New Jersey)
This Geocache is for the birds (New Jersey)
Which one is it? (New Jersey)
Close Enough To Parking Coordinates (New Jersey)
Dinosaur Park (New Jersey)

Monday:

Girls Rule (Delaware)
The Pretender (Pennsylvania)
Even I don't need this much honey. (Pennsylvania)
Cooling the South side (Pennsylvania)
HH Who? (Pennsylvania)
Twas the Hide before Christmas (Pennsylvania)
We are Created to Praise! (Pennsylvania)
Coffee Cache (Pennsylvania)
No FTF for You! (Pennsylvania)
Going Coconuts (Pennsylvania)
How Do You Keep Them Down on the Farm (Pennsylvania)
It's a GIRL! (Pennsylvania)
First Time for everything (Pennsylvania)
Community Park Cache (Pennsylvania)
MTSC-CB (Pennsylvania)
Mos Espa (Pennsylvania)
Old Souls - Reidenbach "No Souls?" (Pennsylvania)
Follow the Numbers! (Pennsylvania)
Sileo In Pacis #5 (Pennsylvania)
BSA t-154 1st cache (Pennsylvania)
Bison Stampede #8 (Pennsylvania)
Down and Dirty (Pennsylvania)
Clue Me In: Gamepiece #5 (Pennsylvania)
Trunked (Pennsylvania)
Battleship - H3 (Pennsylvania)
Lake View? (Pennsylvania)