Monday, October 8, 2018

Our "Sunday Drive" (ROADTRIP!) In Northeastern PA

The Original Plan:
(At the end of this post I include a revised, recommended plan - for those who want to make this basic trip)

  • Down Under Geocache (a geocache, and also a roadside oddity!)
  • Columcille Megalith Park
  • Avenge a DNF - Little Library Geocache
  • Slateford Creek Waterfalls 
  •     (two short hikes, 3 waterfalls)
  • Geocache - Hazen Creek Church yard
  • Geocache - Bison Nightmare
  • Ringing Rocks Park
  • Pyramids
  • Giant Barbell
  • Sculpture Garden
  • (skipped) Silo Lighthouse
  • Stintson the Dinosaur
We added an impromptu long lunch at Thai Thani, and had a bit of trouble finding the Slateford Falls (we had the wrong parking coords), and made another impromptu stop at a fun farm market -   so it was getting dark by the time we made it to the Sculpture garden.  We skipped the Silo Lighthouse, which was always just an "optional" on my plan.  We added a few quick geocaches too - we always check for nearby caches whenever we stop.  It's actually how we ended up at Thai Thani's!

We left the house at 10:30am.  Very late for us.  If we had left by 8:30, we could have seen everything before it got dark, even with our detours and long lunch.  :-)  We arrived home around 9:30 pm - so all in all, it was an 11 our trip.  Except for the hour out, and the hour and a half home, it was mostly 10-30 minutes between locations.

There were a few spots where we did not have cell signal here - but not frequent.  We did not download anything ahead of time, and we were just fine. 

The Trip As It Actually Happened
A recap of our trip, with the unplanned stops added in

This year I have managed to get Dan hooked on audio books for road trips.  We had an hour drive to our first stop on this trip, and it went much faster while listening to The Martian by Andy Weir.  I don't love all audio books - and I listen to them at pretty high speeds - I think they are all recorded ridiculously slow. (this one we listened to at 1.4 - often I listen at 1.7...) THIS was an awesome audio book.  Great narrator, great story!  (It does use the F word somewhat frequently.  Not just randomly though, it feels like a rather appropriate word when he uses it, and I am not a fan of that kind of language.  Just a warning for those of you listening with young children)




Down Under
Roadside Attraction & A Geocache


 
I wonder if that sign once gave a clue about what this is?  My best guess is old cold cellar - although it reminds me more of the bunkers (for ammunition during the war) in Alvira.

I say roadside attraction, but you would never know this was here if you aren't looking for it... It's on the corner across from the Saylorsburg post office.  I don't know what it is exactly.  And old root cellar maybe?  There do not appear to be any homes nearby - but maybe 100 years ago?  I'd love to know more about this.



This is a another unique place that has been on my list for awhile.  It's the "mini stonhenge" of PA.  

We visited on a Sunday, and unfortunately it was full of unsupervised young children climbing over the rocks, running in and out of the chapel, and having a picnic (right near the sign that says "no picnics")  It ended up feeling a bit more like visiting a playground than a nice nature walk - although it was a bit quieter on the back trail.   

 Still definitely worth a stop, we  really enjoyed seeing all of the rocks and buildings!   I'd love to go back and see this in the snow.

 I wrote more about Columcille here - http://susquehannavalley.blogspot.com/2018/10/columcille-megalith-park.html



Avenge A DNF - Little Free Library
We've visited here on our way through before - it's a cute little town park with an adorable free library.  Typical free library cache, but last time we were through we had to DNF it - the container had been muggled.  The only reason we stopped here again was to get that blue DNF off of our geocaching map.  DNF Avenged!  


Thai Thani
This was an impromptu stop.  After leaving the disappointing Hazen Creek Church Yard geocache, I saw there was a "Look At That View" geocache along our way.  I thought it might be an overlook, so I suggested we stop.  It probably COULD be an overlook, there is a bit of a view here, but it's pretty hard to see over the trees.  There is however, a Buddha temple, and a sign you can put your head through, and a nice Thai restaurant.  I mean NICE - this is more of a date night Thai Place.  There's a bar area that is a bit more casusal, but they seated us (the only diners at 1:30pm) in the more formal dining room.  The food was really good.  http://www.thaithanipocono.com/

http://susquehannavalley.blogspot.com/2018/10/thai-thanis-in-stroudsburg-pa.html


Overlooks
There are  a few overlooks along 611..  We did stop at one quickly.  This is the Delaware Water Gap Area, right on the PA & NJ borders.




The Waterfalls At Slateford Creek
  

These were gorgeous, and easy to get to.  Two short walks, three waterfalls!  I do recommend taking a change of clothes and going to the bottom of the first falls...  we didn't do that, because we didn't want to get muddy.  I really wish I had gone down - I've seen photos, it's SO much prettier from the bottom!
http://susquehannavalley.blogspot.com/2018/10/the-waterfalls-at-slateford-run.html




Hazen Creek Church Yard
We usually sort caches by favorite points when in different areas, as it's usually a great way to find the most interesting geocaches.  

This is an interesting little cemetery.  But not really that different from many other old cemeteries.  The geocache is a tube stuck in a brick. The brick is set on top of a very old stone (not brick) wall and is about as obvious as you can get.   The cache as 49 favorite points.  I have NO idea why.  It's not a horrible cache, it's a perfectly fine, normal, cache.  Just not what I expect when I see 49 favorite points.

I am glad it was on my list, we only passed Marshall's Farm Market because we were here!



Marshall's Farm Market
This was a cute, unexpected, stop.
 

 They had a great little are for "kids" to walk through and pose with signs, etc.  Hayrides, corn maze, and a small country store with a nice little deli and all sorts of old fashioned candy.  Plus apples, pumpkins, apple cider, and apple cider doughnuts.  We liked the apple cider even better than the cider we had in upstate New York last week - but the doughnuts there (Cider Mill, near Letchworth) were much better than these (also good!) cider doughnuts.  I definitely ill stop back in any time we are in the area!


A Mural In Kintersville Pa - we passed this on our way to Ringing Rocks Park

Bison Nightmare Geocache
If you are not geocachers, this is not worth the stop - although it is along a nice walking path...
This is a unique cache.  A tree full of bison tubes, find the one with the log.  There were not too many, and it wasn't too frustrating - it was nicely done. 

  For some reason I was picturing pulling up beside a field of bison, with a tree so loaded with bison tubes that it looked like it was decorated for Christmas.  Instead, it was much more practical.  Mostly camouflaged bison tubes on the back of a pine tree along a walking path.  :-)


Ringing Rocks
This has been on my list of places to see for years!  I don't know why it didn't dawn on me that it would be similar to Boulder Field.  It's a smaller version, and many of the rocks here "ring" when tapped with a hammer.  While we were there, there was younger couple who had found a couple of good "ringing" rocks and were playing a song with them.  It was really neat. I have a video of Dan playing the rocks here -  http://susquehannavalley.blogspot.com/2018/10/ringing-rocks-park.html
(There is a waterfall here, and I MISSED it!!  How did I not know there is a waterfall here??)

Giant Barbell
Both a roadside attraction, and a geocache
http://susquehannavalley.blogspot.com/2018/10/roadside-attraction-giant-barbell.html


Rosicrucian Pyramids
Get here during the day, leave your dog in the car, and you ARE welcome to, respectfully, visit the grounds here.  The 30ft tall pyramid is part of their cemetery.  We did not know we were allowed to visit the grounds, until we got home and I did more research!  So my photos are from the car.  :-(

 More about the pyramids here:
http://susquehannavalley.blogspot.com/2018/10/rosicrucian-pyramids.html

  

Sculpture Garden At Tobin Studio
It was dark when we got here, and if we are back in the area, I would love to explore it more in the daylight.  What a neat place!  It's much bigger than I expected, as our the sculptures.

 Steve Tobin is a world renowned sculptor.  The wikipedia article on him is really fascinating - and much more interesting than the bio on his webpage.

 I cannot find a way to describe this place.  Being there, even as the sunset, was really a neat experience.  His huge sculptures are scattered about over a large area, and they are just really, really fun to experience.  Don't skip this stop. 

Read more about it here: http://susquehannavalley.blogspot.com/2018/10/sculpture-garden-at-steve-tobins-studio.html



Stinson The Dinosaur
Stinson is cool, and just a short hop off of the turnpike. 
2525 Interchange Rd, Leighton Pa.  (Beside Thermal Solutions)

   He has a great story.
"Stinson the Dinosaur is a skeletal T-rex, nine feet high and 15 feet long, and the brain-beast of Joe Bradley. A good friend of Joe's dad suffered a minor stroke, losing his ability to run his shop. The only equipment he could run was the plasma table, and Joe saw the opportunity to help find him some work. Stinson is painted bright red (the official color of stroke awareness) and 30-inch versions are available for sale, each cut on a plasma table owned by a stroke victim." 

 Step on the plates under his feet, and his top half moves!


The Revised, Recommended, Plan
(I've included our original plan below, but we added some unplanned stops that we really enjoyed, and there were a couple of things I'd skip...  so this is the plan I recommend if you want to make this trip)
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1 comment:

  1. DennisOctober 9, 2018 at 4:56 AM

    Really enjoyed this story and will have to visit at least some of those caches. I think my favorite is the bison nightmare

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