After that, I continued up the NJ Turnpike. I found the first cache of the night, "Kilmer Bunker", in the rain at the stroke of midnight. So it was technically my first cache of October. I stopped for more geocaches in the Perth Amboy area when I left the turnpike to switch to Route 440. I also did some easy caches in Woodbridge and Linden before deciding that it was time to cross over to New York. I got a few geocaches in Brooklyn and Queens, and arrived in Nassau County just before daybreak. Breakfast was a free Rooty Tooty at IHOP in West Hempstead. This was for the anniversary of my joining the IHOP mailing list. (Same freebie as the birthday coupon.) I suppose I can't really complain because I got free food but service wasn't that great and this restaurant has some rather foul-mouthed clientele. I didn't notice this as much back when I lived in North Jersey and visited Long Island frequently, but I guess I got spoiled when I moved out of the NYC area. I also saw a lot of bad driving behavior on the streets in that part of Nassau County. In particular, someone cornered too fast, swung around really wide and nearly knocked me over when I was just starting to cross the street.
Anyway, it was a super-productive day of geocaching. I found 48 geocaches on Saturday. The Long Island batch was mostly from Elmont to North Hempstead. I went around in a big curve, ending back at the Nassau/Queens border. I encountered one Nassau County police officer who was curious about what someone from out of state was doing in the corner of an office lot on Saturday, but he already knew about the geocache! In the evening, I went to
jbadger's house to meet up for dinner. (also, I was staying at his place overnight) After checking out several restaurants on Smithtown's Main Street, we settled on Luso, a Portuguese BBQ. It's a rather expensive restaurant (then again, I seem to think anything that costs more than Old Country Buffet is expensive :) ) so you'd think there'd be something special there, but that was not the case. They don't have exotic meats, for one thing. It was just ordinary beef, chicken, or pork. Service wasn't that great either but then again, maybe I'm spoiled. For all I know, it could be normal to have to ask servers at fine restaurants multiple times for stuff before you get it. Maybe we shouldn't have expected better service than say, Denny's, even when the meal costs an order of magnitude more.On Sunday, JBadger and I woke up early to get out to the mascot gig. We were joined by
rapidtrabbit at Jones Beach. We had pretty good accommodations at the event this time. Our changing area, which we shared with some stormtroopers and two Toys R Us Geoffrey giraffes, (Identical mascots; they took turns going out so there was always a Geoffrey out there.) was a bigger and better tent this year than the last year. It was a good mascot gig. I wore the husky fursuit this time. Went out 3 rounds, in the field area and out on the boardwalk for a while. After the gig, we went to Old Country Buffet in Levittown for a late lunch. I got to use my Old Country Buffet birthday coupon on the very last day before expiration! After dropping Rapid T. at the Hicksville train station, JBadger and I went on a little geocaching spree. We did four geocaches in Hicksville, Huntington Station, and Melville. That was about all we could do before it started raining. On the long drive home, I picked up one geocache in Smithtown before hitting the highway. The fuel gauge warning light had been on briefly by the time I reached Carneys Point but that was okay because I could get the tank from empty to full on cheap NJ gas. Apparently, my car fills up on just 15 gallons, which is about $48. I had no idea how the customer before me went up to $200 on the fuel pump!Saturday:
Kilmer Bunker (New Jersey)
Walkway spanning Rt. 440 (New Jersey)
Give me bagel…or is it Liberty? (New Jersey)
While Flower Power Was Skating (New Jersey)
A Mellow Cache (New Jersey)
Cache,Cash, n' Dash (New Jersey)
Pole R Express Train (New Jersey)
Veterans Memorial Park (New Jersey)
"Fresh is best" (2006) (New Jersey)
SHORE PROMENADE #6 (New York)
Courtyard Cache (New York)
Original Elmont Memorial Library (New York)
New Elmont Memorial Library (New York)
Froggy Cache #3 (New York)
Coffee and Cache (New York)
Micro #6 (New York)
Seasonal Hairdo (New York)
"Five Dollar Foot Long" (2009) (New York)
(Sometimes) Empty Parking Lot #3 (New York)
Candy Cache #2 (New York)
"Choose Well" (2004–present) (New York)
NCTP's Series # 5 (New York)
Small Hide (New York)
NCTP's Series # 4 (New York)
Meadowbrook & Northern (New York)
SAKIMAN 7K/MMACGOWN 8K - Milestone cache (New York)
Super Stop & Cache (New York)
"It's all fun and games..." (New York)
The Luck of the Irish (New York)
NCTP's Series #3 (New York)
#3-We all Scream for Ice Cream (New York)
#2-Duck Hunt (New York)
#4-Let's Play Ball! (New York)
An Empty Parking Lot (New York)
Best in "Caching" (New York)
Out In Plain Sight (New York)
An Empty Parking Lot #4 (New York)
TRC, Cache to Eagle #5 (New York)
Church Lady (New York)
Welcome To New Hyde Park (New York)
Blink Blink (New York)
Bird Food (New York)
Alley Micro Series # 47 - Hillside Lanes (New York)
Starbowler 3K---Congratulations---AGAIN!! (New York)
What the House!? (New York)
Cachew Nuts NY 2K Milestone Cache (New York)
Hallycat 2K Milestone (New York)
271 Street (New York)
Sunday:
A Truly Secret Park (New York)
Okay when it's in a three-way (New York)
Let's Go Shopping (New York)
Get Your Cache XVII (New York)
JAMinz -04: P&G (New York)