17 May 2014 ASP Geobash

It was a big annual day for us. We always anticipate traveling to Allegeny State Park for the big geocaching event. It is one of the few days we set aside for friends, hiking, and geocaches with few or no other activities. The crowd was big and enthusiastic despite the threat of rain.

It was a very good day including time spent with friends, a day on the trail with our friend Chris, and lots of hiking and caches. The rain arrived after our first couple of finds and soon drove us indoors to Chris' cabin for a piece of pie while we waited for the downpour to let up. Eventually, we were back on the trail and even treated to a spot of blue in the sky.

I really want one of these things, but the practical side of me says don't do it. I think a good unit is a significant investment plus the cost of the camera. It looks like a toy made for me, but in the end it is still a radio controlled aircraft that can disappear or crash in a moment with a bit of operator error or a battery losing power. Besides as great as think it would be for taking pictures, I'm not so certain I would find dragging it on a trail to be a practical experience. I also can't forget my ability to damage land-based cameras.

The wildflowers weren't at their peak, but we were really happy to spot painted trilliums. They are still an unusual treat.

After the rain, the clouds slowly lifted and eventually gave us a touch of blue sky.

I usually don't notice the new caches for this event since there are always caches in the park which we haven't found, but Chris was interested in a new puzzle cache which required finding a number of other caches in the park to get the clues to the location of the cache. Since the twist to the puzzle was there was no indication of which caches had to be found to get the information, we searched for a lot caches. It was different and more intense than the type of caching we've done recently, but a lot of fun. It was another day to create a great memory at the beautiful park.