16 June 2013 Early Morning Workout

We wanted to stop in Coudersport and do a multi called Fit-n-Fun, Git-R-R Done. It hadn't been found in a while but had just received a new owner through adoption and sounded like a fun multi at a fitness course. We have done these before and usually do the exercises while finding the cache. This morning was no different.

We made certain we did our stretching before heading off to cache.

Okay, it didn't hurt that much...

Those are my toes!

Ali making a pole interesting even when wearing hiking boots.

After we successfully completed the circuit and found the cache :), we had no choice but to stop at the very nice local diner for breakfast.

Ahhhhh... french toast and waffles are calling.

The table top juke box was broken, but the menu and decor were diner-perfect.

Since this place had a steady stream of customers, I was just lucky to grab this image in a quiet moment.

We didn't play the entire day (unless you count caching... but that's serious play ;-) ). After breakfast we started seeking Legacy of Conservation caches in earnest. We were glad Smokey was giving the low risk sign for forest fires.

We were happy to spot a new flower along the trail. We spotted these first at the woods edge while doing the multi then found more along the trail at Parker Dam State Park.

I really expected bad weather when we were at Cherry Springs Park. I've always tried to not think of having a bucket list, but I guess I do. Besides some obvious things like a visit to the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, and Yellowstone I would like to be able to visit this park just once on a clear evening. It is one of the few dark sky parks in the country. I am in awe staring up at the stars near our home in Pennsylvania, and can't imagine how amazing this place might be. Today, my strange mind just took over and I kept thinking of a scene from Close Encounters with all the benches lined up waiting for the ship to return. I kept hearing the little song clip over and over...

Even the birdboxes were lined up and looking out...

The Cherry Springs Vista offered a nice overlook.

We made a return trip to the Susquehannock Trail System. The fire tower is closed from climbing :-(, but the nearby cabin for the firewatch still appears to be well maintained. We stopped here to find a nice 2001 cache and to enjoy this trail which we have visited before. It was a super detour from our mission.

We saw a lot of vistas on our journey. They usually have nice names like Cherry Springs Vista above. Water Tank Hollow Vista did not win the best name competition. It deserves better.

Some of the areas on the Legacy of Conservation just don't look as wonderful in images are they did when we were there. One of our later stops was like that. It was really just a walk along a trail, but the trail followed the path of a wonderful stream below. We could see and hear the stream as we walked, but images did no justice to the peaceful walk we enjoyed. If we had been along this trail in the spring, this blog post would be filled with an amazing gather of wildflowers. There were trillium leaves alongside the trail which were some of the largest I have ever seen. Most of the flowers showed evidence of spent blossoms. It must have been quite a carpet. There were still a few blossoms of earlier flowers remaining and the trail had a fair amount of mountain laurel in bloom. The big sighting for us were a few large bear paw prints fresh in the mud from the rain earlier in the day. I'd rather not run into bear on the trail, but I always enjoy seeing there presence.

We had time for one last stop to hunt for a cache placed by a deceased cacher. Over the years, his caches have led us to wonderful places. This cache was near an old fire tower with a nearby benchmark. We could only find one reference mark for the benchmark, but we were able to do a favor by rebuilding a cache that was in bad shape. The old firetower overlook is a scenic one.