Treasure Hunt

On Saturday, 65 people went on a treasure hunt of sorts at the Bucks County Courthouse in Doylestown. Only five found what they were digging for. The site of the hunt was the courthouse's community room, where hundreds of stolen items recovered by police from the home of Alfred Carter on West Fifth Street in Lansdale were on display. The articles were recovered Feb. 5 after Lansdale police and agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms entered Carter's house with a federal search warrant.

Instead of just complaining about the beasts in City Hall, you will be able to win prizes by tracking them down. Camels, lions, elephants, owls and other critters are among the scores of individual sculptures scattered throughout Philadelphia's City Hall, and the Foundation for Architecture is putting together a sculpture treasure hunt starting next week as part of its celebration of City Hall's unique architecture. The celebration marks the opening of an exhibit of the most interesting entries in a recent contest to redesign City Hall's ground-level spaces - indoors and outdoors.

Medford Township will sponsor bus tours of some of its points of interest May 10 as one of several events planned to boost tourism in Burlington County. "In Medford, we have places that people may have heard of but never visited," said Beth Richmond, Medford's recreation director. "We want people to know they are there. " Medford is sponsoring the Tour Your Town event for the second year. Stops will include Kirby's Mill, the Medford Leas Arboretum, YMCA Camp Ockanickon, Johnson's Corner Farm, the Air Victory Museum, and the Woodford Cedar Run Wildlife Refuge.

The Pentagon, accused by some of plundering national treasure, now has marching orders to help find some - a legendary pile of gold bars stacked deep beneath the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. Congress, in recently approving a 1990 defense authorization report, ordered the Army to help "conduct a search for treasure trove in the Victoria Peak region" of the 3,200-square-mile missile range, a no-man's land of unexploded bombs and burned-out tanks and airplane hulks. The Army is to provide the California-based Ova Noss Family Partnership with "transportation, communications, safety and security, ordnance-disposal services, housing and public-affairs assistance" in connection with the partnership's treasure-seeking efforts, the report said.

A former Lower Southampton police officer convicted of organizing a phony drug sting to finance a treasure hunt in Ecuador returned to Bucks County Court yesterday to receive a new sentence. But despite the appeals of his attorney and an outdoor protest organized on his behalf, the punishment for Edward Krajewski remained the same. Judge Isaac S. Garb reimposed a sentence of five to 10 years in state prison, minus time served. Garb had made the same ruling after Krajewski's 1996 conviction on charges that he conspired with another man to conduct a phony police raid of a Philadelphia drug house.

Edward Krajewski, a former police officer who turned against the law to finance a South American treasure hunt, was found guilty on more than a dozen criminal charges in Bucks County Court yesterday. Krajewski, 47, a thin man with a bushy moustache, sat motionless as the jury delivered guilty verdicts on 14 of 18 charges, including conspiracy to rob a Philadelphia drug dealer and a Pennsauken, N.J., storage locker. His wife, Christine, cried softly. The 10-woman, two-man jury deliberated for nearly eight hours yesterday and Tuesday.

Imagine the thrill British archaeologist Howard Carter felt when he discovered King Tut's tomb after scouring the Egyptian desert for years. Can't see yourself unearthing gold artifacts and the king's sarcophagi? Then try to remember going on childhood scavenger hunts, scurrying around the neighborhood for soda bottles, a library card and a picture of Mike Schmidt. Add a bit of 21st-century technology, and you have geocaching - a craze that is spreading around the world. "It's the thrill of the hunt," says Brian Vaughan of Narberth, who has been caching with his wife and two children for almost three years.

They travel in packs, noses just inches away from GPS screens. Suddenly, "I found it!", one boy announces, grinning and peeling away from the group of a half dozen. The others intensify their focus. "Me too!", shouts another a moment later, until all six kids are crowded around a tree on Girard Avenue, pulling out from a knot a plastic screw-top bottle painted to resemble tree bark. It doesn't look like much from the outside, but everyone gathers around, eager to see what's inside. This is geocaching (JEE-oh-cash-ing)

GREETING CHILDREN in the Franklin Institute atrium, Waldo, a character from a children's book, wears his trademark outfit and kicks off an 11-day "Where's Waldo" exhibit at the science museum. Waldos of every size will be displayed, and there will be a treasure hunt.

It will all be veddy British, but the beneficiaries of the special event at Plymouth Meeting Mall next weekend will be distinctly American. The event is the British Fair and Motor Car Rally; the beneficiaries are the Save the Children Fund, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and the Dermott Harris Foundation. Fair festivities will include performances by step dancers and balladeers, plus a dart tournament, a British dog show, a teahouse and an auto treasure hunt of landmarks along a designated route.

Forty-one children, all of whom had lost a parent or sibling, began every morning this week sitting in a circle. Little glass hearts were passed around. The children held them in their palms, joined hands, and recited: "We weave our hearts and hands together in the circle of safety and trust, to support each other as we explore our dreams and hopes together. " This action each morning at Camp Charlie in a sense transported these children, freed them. The message was clear: You are here, together, with others like you. This is a chance to let down your guard, to open up, to heal.

Neither Christmastime nor summer vacation brings as much joy and anticipation to Mary Lou Piecyk as the first week of June. "This is the best week of the year, no doubt about it," she said as she carried a '50s-era makeup case to the sidewalk and plopped it atop a growing pile of detritus that until recently had been stuffed into closets and drawers in her house. "I'm off, too, so I can really enjoy it. " What Piecyk was so excited about was Narberth's "junk week," as it's known, when residents look at the rubbish-filled refuse stations that used to be their homes and start hauling the dross out to the curb for a weeklong communal uncluttering.

Like the scientist she is, Karen Snetselaar is methodically compiling a "before" list, so that "after" the Cynwyd Heritage Trail is built, everyone will know what was there first. This is knowledge for its own sake, which folks like Snetselaar, head of the biology department at St. Joseph's University, relish and build careers on. But it's useful, too: Her survey of plants growing along the old railroad bed, formerly part of the R6/Cynwyd line, will be shortened from more than 100 to about 20, then offered as a guide to trail visitors for fun and instruction.

They travel in packs, noses just inches away from GPS screens. Suddenly, "I found it!", one boy announces, grinning and peeling away from the group of a half dozen. The others intensify their focus. "Me too!", shouts another a moment later, until all six kids are crowded around a tree on Girard Avenue, pulling out from a knot a plastic screw-top bottle painted to resemble tree bark. It doesn't look like much from the outside, but everyone gathers around, eager to see what's inside. This is geocaching (JEE-oh-cash-ing)

With the economy biting into the budget for getaways, late-summer vacationers could find themselves scaling back grand plans in favor of less exotic, more modestly priced destinations. A Philadelphia "staycation" offers a chance to rediscover the affordable and accessible charms of this city. "Philadelphia is an amazing value destination because we not only have history, we have culture, dining, and nightlife," said Caroline Bean, who works to promote the city for the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corp.

At age 51, it's all downhill. So I put on skis for the first time and enjoyed the ride. I also strapped on snowshoes to look for treasure on a snow-covered mountain and ventured onto a frozen reservoir to see whether the fish were biting (they were). Here's how I stayed safe while having fun in Utah: The Charleston on skis. At Powder Mountain, north of Salt Lake City, I took a one-hour Learn to Ski group lesson for $55, including rentals and lift ticket. First, we glided horizontally across the ski slope on one ski; then on two skis.

A certain amphibian will rein at the Philadelphia Zoo this weekend during Frog Days of Summer, scheduled for 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. The two-day frog fete will feature learning activities, including several zookeeper talks on topics such as frog conservation; up-close looks at various frog species; and frog call stations. Live entertainment will include the Frog Olympics, pitting frogs against one another in activities such as a Frog Feast and a Frog Long Jump Competition.

Imagine the thrill British archaeologist Howard Carter felt when he discovered King Tut's tomb after scouring the Egyptian desert for years. Can't see yourself unearthing gold artifacts and the king's sarcophagi? Then try to remember going on childhood scavenger hunts, scurrying around the neighborhood for soda bottles, a library card and a picture of Mike Schmidt. Add a bit of 21st-century technology, and you have geocaching - a craze that is spreading around the world. "It's the thrill of the hunt," says Brian Vaughan of Narberth, who has been caching with his wife and two children for almost three years.

Taking a company public is risky. Searching for buried treasure is chancier. Staking a claim on government artifacts may be plain lunacy. Put them together, however, and you have the makings of a viable treasure-hunting business. Or so hopes a group of Bucks County entrepreneurs, who took their shipwreck salvage business public last year and now have an international fracas on their hands. Sovereign Exploration Associates International Inc., of Newtown, believes it has pinpointed off the coast of Nova Scotia a trove of 19th-century artifacts and coins from the White House and U.S. Treasury that the British plundered during the War of 1812.

I tried to sell my beautiful house in Wallingford by myself in July. At my first open house, bargain hunters and tire kickers besieged me at once with compliments and dancing eyes - but no firm offers. About a week later a rosy-cheeked couple drove in from a nearby town in Delaware County, two among dozens of visitors scouring our notoriously desirable neighborhood and school district to find a for-sale-by-owner house at a bargain price. A bargain is in the eye of the holder.