Groundhog Day

What might compel us to consider taking part in the annual trek to Gobbler's Knob? Held by some as the most insipid of holidays, Groundhog Day is one of my favorites. Pennsylvania's own famous weather predicting groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil, seems like an odd icon for a holiday to be formed around. It's said that the holiday stems from the ancient belief that hibernating creatures were able to predict the arrival of springtime by their emergence.

The German immigrants, known as Pennsylvania Dutch, brought the tradition to America in the 18th century. They had once regarded the badger as the winter-spring barometer. But the job was reassigned to the groundhog after importing their Candlemas traditions to the U.S. Candlemas commemorates the ritual purification of Mary, 40 days after the birth of Jesus.

Candlemas is one of the four "cross-quarters" of the year, occurring half way between the first day of winter and the first day of spring. Traditionally, it was believed that if Candlemas was sunny, the remaining six weeks of winter would be stormy and cold. But if it rained or snowed on Candlemas, the rest of the winter would be mild. If an animal "sees its shadow," it must be sunny, so more wintry weather is predicted:

If Candlemas be fair and bright,
Winter has another flight.
If Candlemas brings clouds and rain,
Winter will not come again.

What's not to love? You have to celebrate the fact that day light hours are noticeably longer. Badger, gopher, groundhog, marmot, hedgehog or what ever, they are a cute way of recognizing the end of hibernation is near.

In 1994 we met Tracdc to attend Punxsutawney's Groundhog Day festivities. It was the year the town helped the video game Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (with the shadow-like demi character of Knuckles) debut and the year after the famed Groundhog Day movie. Ravenboy was nine years old and totally addicted to his Sega video games. Sonic the Hedgehog was his favorite. I remember a rap he made at the time:

Sonic and me are friends
We like to play to the day's end
Sonic and me
Especially

I think you can catch the general feeling that we were a family that was a bit more sedentary than we are now. There is no parking at Gobbler's Knob proper and none of us were up to hiking back country roads at 2:00 AM. We caught one of the many shuttle busses before 3:00 AM. It was about 12° that chilly February night as we stood for hours near where Punxsutawney Phil was in his cozy little temporary enclosure. Tracdc reminded me that the cold effected her asthma and that her inhaler froze. We had to go into a nearby building to thaw it out so that she could use it.

Eventually the marmot was pulled from his hut and made his prediction, an obvious one. I then remember waiting in the line for the returning shuttle bus for what felt like the predicted final 6 weeks of winter. When we got back to town we grabbed some watery hot chocolate at a Burger King. Ravenboy's hands were so cold he spilled his hot drink all over my legs. After the initial burn it felt really good and I thanked him.
The call of Gobbler's Knob is strong this year. The holiday is on a weekend and the crowds will be fierce but that hasn't deterred my interest. I called yesterday to ask how many folks actually trek to Gobbler's Knob. The fellow at the Community Center said only a few young people did it, most catch the shuttle busses. I confirmed that the roads to the Knob were eventually out of town and that flashlights might be recommended. I asked what route he suggested to walk and he seemed to draw a blank. Something tells me that he has never made the actual "trek" to Gobbler's Knob.

We know the weather is supposed to be dicey until midday Friday but it is not until then that when we are planning on heading out. There are a few activities that sound like a lot of fun in town, including a scavenger hunt. We will also be taking a huge cut out of Punxsutawney Phil to wave on a stick (see below) so try to pick us out us on the sometimes national morning news coverage of the event. It will be early, Phil makes his prediction about 7:25 AM. After that I will go back into hibernation. updated information on our trip in comments

Here are some fun links for those of you who can't make the trek this year:
Visit PA :: Grounhog Day
Groundhog Day 2008 Schedule of Events
Punxsutawney Phill's page
Punxsutawney's Page
2007 Groundhog Crossing - a cross country adventure trying to reunite the groundhog with his shadow
2008 Groundhog Duel - Groundhog and Shadow's continued adventures and battle
Plush - A tabloid style blog dishing dirt on celebs Groundhog and Shadow
PA Highways Groundhog Day page

Resort Proposal in Central PA

Although it's too early to purchase those online season passes, you might want to read about the proposal for Holy Land PA. Notice that they liken their access to major attractions and rides to Knoebel's Amusement Resort. Perhaps this will open up a new venue for central PA letterbox gatherings.

I assume it might be like the similar Holy Land Experience in Florida. A parody has been created on this website.

Neato!

What could be better than an awesome veggie burrito? Eating it with a bunch of letterboxers and getting a stamp for it! A few little obstacles jumped in the way of our making it to New Cumberland but we dodged them left and right. Snowfall that was not scheduled to arrive until much later in the evening made an appearance and asked to be noticed about the time we went out the door. RGBisMe and I could not be deterred. We had to pick up Maga11 and DaBraLady and we had to finally get a wedding gift into the hands of Archaeobirder and LitChcik.
We got on the road after picking up the ladies and the snow cleared up in time for us to get a good look at an eagle's nest along the Juniata River. No one was home as far as we could see but it was obviously a nest of a few years in the making. It was so big!

We made a stop in Dauphin to find 4Rhine's Torchlight letterbox. After choosing the wrong road to explore we reoriented and set out on foot to find this little gem. It was cold but no new snow was on the ground so the four of us had no problem walking the letterbox back to stamp up in the warm car. It was so much fun to sit and chat about letterboxing with Maga11 and DaBraLady. We know that they usually think we are crazy for the amount of time and effort we put into this hobby so having them along for the hunt was very special for us.

The next stop was Cucumber Land. RGBisMe and I had put this letterbox out a few weeks prior to the event but Maga11 and DaBraLady wanted a chance to find it. It was so much fun to watch them out on one of their first hunts without us seeking with them. As we got closer to the box, we ran into the 4Rhines! Hugs and handshakes were shared and RGBisMe and I stood and chatted with them as Maga11 and DaBraLady continued on to the box. We told Fiona how much we had enjoyed finding Torchlight and that it was in very good shape.

As we caught up with the 4Rhines, we realized that we could see Maga11 and DaBraLady had veered off course from where we had hidden the box. It hadn't been so very long but Stonefly asked me a good question, "How long do you let someone look in the wrong place?" We started to discuss this and I decided that it was only cruel to let them stumble in the cold. I took a step to tell them to walk a bit more to their left when I saw that they had found it. Excellent! Nothing feels better than a success without someone hand holding you to the letterbox. They did just fine and didn't wander around anymore than we would have if we hadn't know exactly where it was.

Off to Neato Burrito where I ate half of a wonderful black bean burrito with salsa verde. We took the no utensils challenge but shocked the restaurant staff when we sent back the plastic fork and knife they served with our burritos. What was the good of giving us forks and knives that we would just throw in the garbage unused?! We saved wasting them on us; we don't need no stinkin' utensils!

The next few hours were spent in a blur. We gave Archaeobirder his belated wedding gift and many people kept thinking that it was some type of special letterbox. I was happy to get to meet Catlady8 and the Big Bad Wolfes but I never got to visit with many other friends. I had made it a point to watch "O Brother Where art Thou" the night before just to sit and discuss it with Indigo Vulture but all I managed to do was wish him a safe trip home. I spent about the same amount of time chatting with Pink Panther and Lotus, and even less with others. There just is never enough time.

Through all of this I never even sat with Maga11 nor DaBralady. It was near the end of the afternoon I checked in with DaBraLady whose eyes had glazed over a bit. Oh my, to be a new comer at a letterboxing get together is even more overwhelming and I had forgotten. We said our good byes and shared stories on the way home in the car. Having not spent much time together at the restaurant allowed us totally different interactions. It was fun hearing what each other had experienced during our time but feet from each other.

Thank you Hunter Jumper and PA Paddler for coordinating this mini meet and the wonderful event stamps. An indoor get together is just what was called for in central PA at this time of year. Burritos and Other Delights can be viewed at this link. Please add to this album if you took any at the Neato Burrito mini meet or on your trip to it.

Geocaching on Nittany Mountain

It's just 1pm and I am sitting in my warm apartment blogging away but earlier this morning I was hiking on Nittany. When I woke to single digit temperatures I never thought that I would be doing something like that but some obstinate spirit possessed me.

A new geocache was approved on Nittany Mountain this morning. I compared the coordinates of where it was to where my letterboxes are. I try to mark all of my letterboxes with my gps for reasons like this. I took time and put the info on google maps and can look at where they all are at an easy glance. This allowed me to also put in where the new geocache was. It looked like it was 100 feet from my one box. That concerned me because there is a thick stand of little pines right where the cache could be and geocachers might have poor satellite reception when seeking the cache. I really didn't want them to find this box and moving it would be tricky because it's location is critical in a clue to finding a bonus box in it's series.

I looked at the clue to the new cache and looked at the thermometer. Brrrrr, no way. A letterboxing pal I was chatting with online asked what I was doing today. I told him, "Staying home and cooking vegan food." Having put it into type, that made it so. No more thinking of hiking in the cold windy weather. No more being tempted by the long abandoned call of FTF a geocache but I had to check the log just one last time to see if anyone had found it. No finders but a note from someone saying, "If it wasn't so cold, I would go and get it." AUGH! That did it! I had to go.

At 10 am, I was throwing food and stuff into my pack. RGBisMe called and I told him my plan. I grabbed my bike and started the bitter and grueling trek to the trail head. While huffing and puffing, I had plenty of time to ask myself why I was doing it. I wondered if it was just to be first and if someone else had logged in first if I would be disappointed. I was clear on that, I wouldn't be disappointed because the call of FTF was spurring me into checking on it's location. It was also throwing me into another extreme weather adventure on the mountain. I had hiked it years earlier in a hurricane. I am not sure why when the weather turns foul that I am compelled to tackle the mountain. Hiking it in good weather is really a challenge enough.

Now don't all of you letterboxing geobashers® start in on me. I know I have a problem with getting the call of the FTF out of my system. Geocaching in this area years ago started it. Our posse, Deetylong, Diggles & Liggles and others would dash to a cache to try to beat each other as first finders. Deetylong was truly king before he left the area. This abhorrent twist on the geocaching game sadly gave many newbie geocache locals the impression that was the thing to do. An older couple we knew through my work who were interested in finding out more about geocaching came to a local event, much like our Huntin' Tupperware last year. At that time they had not settled on a trail name but they soaked all of the information up, including the call of FTF. When we speak of the now geo-famous carels, we usually say that we were responsible for creating a monster.

Carels came to mind this morning as I started up Mount Nittany Road, there was a yellow Hummer like theirs parked at the bottom of the hill. If anyone else in town would be foolish enough to brave what was 11° when I left the house, it would be them. They had gone on crazy hikes to find geocaches by bushwhacking for miles, fording rushing rivers, scaling sheer volcanic rock faces. Crazy and amazing people, they are also some of the most positive and kind folks we have ever met.

I was all warmed up for my hike from biking when I reached the trail head. There it was, the yellow hummer and carels sitting inside with the heater running. I waved to them and they jumped out into the cold to greet me. I asked if they were just starting out, waiting for someone or if they had already been successful. They had just returned from being first finders. I congratulated them and told them about someone logging that it was too cold to go for the cache was what goaded me into coming out. They laughed and we swapped a few stories before I hit the trail.

I had no problem with making the hike even knowing I would not be first and the hike alone was pleasant. The snow under feet my made menacing noises as it can in super cold temperatures. I started up the north face but the cache was on the south side of the mountain. The cold weather kept most people from the trails even though there were no classes on MLK jr holiday. One lone hiker on the south face passed me going in the other direction. He sure was a hottie and added to the beautiful scenery.

As I got within a tenth of a mile of the cache, I was getting a little concerned about how close my letterbox was going to be. As I approached the blue side trail and tight group of pines I checked my gps to see how much farther it was to the cache. If people started to look behind logs and things at this point I would be in trouble. The gps said I had over 250 feet to go to the cache so I breathed a sigh of relief. It was well down the trail away from my closest letterbox.

So, mission accomplished. My toes had gotten a little cold at one point during my ascent but once I hit the level they seemed to warm up. I kept my cell phone close to a hot spot on my body in case of an emergency but it looked like I would make it home in time for lunch. Do I keep going 250 more feet to find a geocache that has already been found or head back to my bike? Lead on gps, let's see where that cache actually is.

The cache was placed in a very tasteful manner where nothing will be damaged if the seekers have common sense and good satellite reception. It was a cammo taped Lock n Lock packed with McToys and a used deck of kids cards. A geocoin that carels had left was on top but who knows when I would be able to put it into another cache. I took nothing, stamped into the log and left a coupon good for one hand carved stamp before replacing the cache.

As I returned to the trail head and my bike I mused as to why I had left the coupon. We originally started leaving them as trade items in geocaches to try to get a few cachers to try some of our letterboxes. Of the ten or so RGBisMe and I have carved for geocachers, not one has shown any interest in letterboxing. It's not that they don't know about it. It's not that the hikes are too hard for some of them like carels. They even have some brain ticklers that are required to solve some of their coordinates so it's not like all of our clues would be too difficult for them. I know Archaeobirder has also geocached so I conclude that although the hobbies are similar, there must be some elements lacking in letterboxing that do not entice local geocachers.

I think it is fine that both hobbies currently peacefully coexist and I will hope that they will continue to. I will keep my finger lightly on the pulse of the geocaching community so that I can stay aware of how my letterboxes might be effected. Today a geocache got me out on the trail. I am glad for it.

Études

On June 3rd, American Ballet Theatre will have a revival performance of Études. The company has not performed the piece since 2000, Études is set to music by Knudaage Riisager, after Carl Czerny, and features costumes by Rolf Gerard and lighting by Nananne Porcher. The ballet was given its World Premiere by the Royal Danish Ballet in 1948 and was danced by ABT for the first time in 1961. The revival of Études will be staged for ABT by Susan Jones. The ballet will share the program with the new Tharp ballet for seven performances through June 7.

Many of you have kindly asked how Ravenboy is doing. His MRI came back showing very little tearing of his ligaments. Between his doctors, PTs and company staff, they will coach him in a way to minimize future tendonitis. At this point, he is in no pain and building back strength. This past week was his first full week back to work, they were kind in not giving him a heavy rehearsal schedule. He gave us a call yesterday to say that he has been cast in the first cast of Études. He is cast so amazingly well, a showcased role, that principal dancer Herman Cornejo is his understudy. We all agreed that being cast in such a part is wonderful incentive to heal up well.

Thank all of you for your love, thoughts and prayers during a time that was quite distressing for this family.

Ironton Rail Trail

We spent this past weekend visiting Tracdc and managed to sneak in a few letterboxes between birthday celebrations. We met up with Biker Chick and explored the Ironton Rail Trail. The level walking was just right for Tracdc who is finishing up building strength after her October foot surgery. It was another fine day for being out and, after the warmth of the week, the trail was muddy in most spots. We all came away with a little dirt on our pants, some more than others, but we also acquired many lovely carving impressions in our logbooks. Seven new ones in all.

One of the boxes we found in the open and scattered around. Everything was there except the log book but Biker Chick had a replacement to offer. We packaged it and replaced it to where we thought it belonged. I hope the placer might check to make sure. We were all happy the stamp was still there, stamped the image into the new log book as well as our own and hid the box for the next finders.

A couple of the boxes were on an unimproved section of the trail. We had a more difficult time navigating through the mud there. There was also a lot of gun fire nearby that was more and more unnerving as we got closer to where the boxes were. RGBisMe was so disturbed by the close shots that he left the one box for lost and went to find the other. He and Biker Chick found the one box and Tracdc and I grabbed the other. We moved away from the hiding places and gun shots to stamp in when we saw that there were "No Trespassing" signs along the side of the road. We were actually seeking boxes on posted shooting grounds! We packaged the boxes up and braved the noise of the guns to replace them. Sorry we trespassed but we put things back like we found them before we walked back via the paved road that runs parallel to the unimproved section of trail.

Beautiful skies, pretty flowing creeks and plenty of good company made for an enjoyable time letterboxing on the Ironton Rail Trail this past weekend.