So aside from the poison ivy rashes (which reared its ugly head once I came home), I had a nice time in Pennsylvania for a few days.

I stayed at the Fulton Steamboat Inn, probably THE place to stay at if you’re ever visiting this area (and I don’t merely say that because of the sweet hotel girl I met here.) As soon as you come near you can hear folksy music playing in the background, and the hotel is especially a treat to the eyes at night:

Look at all the purdy lights!

Awesome rooms too:

LOVE

After catching a bluegrass show the first night, it was off to go geocaching for the remainder of my trip there. One of the things that I should have realized about this pastime is that when you go outdoors, you expose yourself to unpleasant, outdoorsy things. Like say, poison ivy.

And course, only me, would catch a BAD case of poison ivy by looking around for a geocache at a Walmart parking lot. Yes, seriously. A week later the rashes have left me weeping in a corner for several days now, while wishing death and destruction on the idiot douche monkey cache owner for hiding this thing in a jungle of this VILE, EVIL WEED. Seriously, who expects to run into poison ivy at WALMART? Oy.

I did fare better on future cache hunts though, the most rewarding of which was hidden at a covered bridge here:

Wow... it really covers!

You would thinking finding a cache here would be easy right? Well, aside from almost getting mowed down by passing cars who liked to drive 300 miles an hour over the bridge, when I realized where I had to look…

Errmm...

Are you kidding me?

Oh boy. There was a tiny ledge underneath the bridge, but the only way to get to it was to swing under by holding one of the wooden beams. I’m telling you, I came THISCLOSE to falling into the water. I was sure the wood was going to give way and I would wind up spending the night at a hospital with splinters and pneumonia. Somehow though I pulled it off, grabbed the cache while holding on to one of the beams, and swung out. Behold:

Who does your Daddy work for now, punk?

Inside were several items known as swag (trade items geocachers leave behind) and a geocoin that came from British Columbia, which I took as my reward. Due to their nature though I can’t hold on to it, so I’ll need to drop the coin off at another cache soon, where it will continue its worldwide journey.

After that near brush with death and swimming with the fishes, I decided to avoid the more riskier caches and opt for those that took me to various areas around Lancaster, preferably those places that didn’t require bushwhacking my way through the forests where evil, dangerous things like groundhogs lurked. Filtering those out, I ended up finding one near a game farm:

What are YOU lookin' at?

And one near an Amish store, where I bought a homemade sausage pretzel from a pretty Amish babe. Mmmmmm, mmmmmm, MMMM! She can do Rumspringa with me anytime.

But anyhoo, *ahem*, I have to say, geocaching is definitely providing some helpful fodder for my blogging, primarily because it leads me to places I normally wouldn’t go on my own. Usually I’m just driving around aimlessly when I’m unsure of what to do, (which is pretty much the case for me 90 percent of the time,) so it’s nice to finally come across a hobby that can provide some much needed focus to my otherwise meandering and boring life.

I have more pictures from the trip by the way, so if you’d like to see them you can check them out at my gallery or on Flickr. Enjoy!

Tags: Amish, blogging, bluegrass, country, covered bridge, geocache, geocaching, hobby, hotel, Pennsylvania, photo, Photos, poison ivy, walmart
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So I got up early this morning for a 3 day trip to Lancaster County in Pennsylvania, where I would meet up with a few relatives to celebrate a birthday at a bluegrass show. The next few days though would be all about meeeeeeeeeee, as I go off to do some geocaching deep in the heart of Amish Country.

So I have my GPS all set up, and I take off, first with a stop at 7-11 for some coffee.

And yep, I knew things were going to go south the minute I poured Half and Half into my coffee and the cap fell out and landed right into my cup.

“Ow, ouch, ow, ouch!” My fingers burned as I tried to pick the cap out of the sizzling coffee. Finally I wised up and used a pair of stirrers to get it out. The coffee of course tasted flat too.

Afterwards, I start heading south and already my spirits were beginning to improve, knowing I would be out of New York and breathing a bit easier over the next few days from being away from this accursed place. Then I see a road sign:

“Verrazano Bridge Closed.”

Nah, that can’t be right. Who completely closes a major metropolitan bridge anyway? Refusing to accept the warning, I pressed on, thinking the sign meant they only closed a few lanes.

THEY CLOSED THE ENTIRE @#$%^ VERRAZANO BRIDGE WHAT THE @*&$%^ GAAAAYEEARRGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

I furiously started tapping the detour button on my GPS, but it kept telling me to take the same route that was now completely BLOCKED by barriers and cops. Livid and ready to mow people down, I turned around and made my way back uptown again. The GPS finally wised up to my location and rerouted me through the Battery tunnel and the Holland. Thank God the traffic was light or I probably never would have made it out of New York alive. Eventually I did make it out and before I knew it I was zipping along on the New Jersey Turnpike at high speed.

I didn’t drive slower than 80-90… (ok maybe 100 at times) until I was finally in Pennsylvania. Breathing a bit easier now that I was out of the craphole that was New York and New Jersey, I noticed there was a geocache right by the rest area, so I decided to take a quick look so I could log this one as a find too.

Unfortunately I didn’t find it, although I did manage to muddy up my shoes and cut my hands too from the blades of the grass I was pulling up to find this bloody stupid cache. Oy! Plus for some reason my cell phone was not cooperating, so I could not access the Internet to get more info either so I could locate it.

I gave up and eventually continued deeper into Pennsylvania, then stopped by a Walmart to pick up a few things. I noticed there was yet another cache nearby the parking lot, so it was off I went. (Yep, I am in fact hooked to this.) This time I managed to find it, though not before stepping around in what I’m pretty sure now was poison ivy. I am really, really hoping that’s not the case, or this mini-vacation is going to take a very miserable turn for the worse in a hurry.

I arrived at the hotel around 3PM and checked in, dragged my suitcase up to my room and tried to open the door. After jiggling around for a minute, the door suddenly swung open and the guy whose room that DID belong to stared curiously at me.

“Whoops, sorry, wrong room.” He had just about scared the living crapola out of me too. Yeesh. I quickly moved away, only to move back again when I realized my room was directly across from his. A few minutes later, after I went out into the parking lot to grab more stuff, I saw the same guy again heading out and waving at me. I happened to notice a sticker on his car too, and it was an emblem that had become all too familiar to me. The guy actually worked for the same agency I did. We were, in fact, coworkers.

200 miles I travel and I still can’t get away from my job.

As soon as I realized it I ran to see if I could catch up to him to find out more, but his car had already left the parking lot. Are these people watching me or something??

Regardless, the whirly day finally began to simmer down as I met up with my folks again and we went off to the bluegrass show. I had a nice time, came back to the hotel, and somehow concluded the evening by having a pretty, sweetheart of a girl stop by my room so she could help light my fire.

But that’s another story.

Anyhoo, that’s it for the day. It’s 1AM, I’m exhausted and I need to get some sleep. Plus I’m starting to itch a little here…

Tags: Amish, coworkers, geocache, geocaching, girl, gps, lancaster county, new york, Pennsylvania, sweetheart, traffic, travel, vacation, verrazano bridge, walmart
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So what started out as a $20 oil change eventually turned into a $1500 job to fix my car.

I stumbled out of the dealership, pale white and in a daze, wondering if this is what it must have felt like to have the life force vacu-sucked out of you by The Mummy, right before he tosses you aside like so much smelly garbage.

There was no avoiding it though. My brakes needed replacement or they wouldn’t pass inspection, and I had to deal with a power steering leakage that cost over $500 to fix. The rest were jobs I had been planning to get done anyway (like a battery replacement), and since my wallet was pretty much getting molested enough as it is, I figured I might as well get it over with now.

But gees.

Well on the upside, I totally have a legitimate excuse now not to get anyone Christmas presents this year.

After I spent the morning AND afternoon at Chuck E. Cheese (don’t judge me), my car was finally ready to go, and I made out of there like a bat out of hell. I seriously did not want to be out and about on Halloween, because people have been acting bonkos crazy nuts lately, especially out on the roads. Who’s cutting me off, who’s blocking my exit, and one guy in front of me who STEPS on the fricking brakes in the MIDDLE of the interstate where everyone is going 70 at least, and then just continues on la lee da?? You know, I bet that’s why I needed new brakes too. Mother pus bucket…

Yep, I think I am just about ready to leave New York for a few days. I’d make it forever, of course, but the umbilical cord that is my job would eventually reel me in sooner or later. Sigh.

Ah well, hanging out with the Amish might be just what the doctor ordered. It should be a therapeutic experience, especially now that I”l have a chance to go and laugh at them for riding horse carriages and not owning iPods. Who knows, maybe I’ll even pick up a hot Amish babe currently going through Rumspringa along the way.

Tags: Amish, car, chuck e cheese, crazy, dealership, halloween, job, new york, Pennsylvania
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