16 March 2016 Detroit and Home

I arrived in Detroit early to wait for the last leg of my flight. I was surprised to see how empty the airport was at 7 in the morning on a work day. Most of the gates were empty and unused.

My flight was on time and I was at home. My statement of having seen the last snow of the season proved to be a wish rather than a fact as there was still plenty of snow on the ground. We grabbed the dogs and decided to spend some time on the trail at Lake Metroparks.

Skunk cabbage was popping up in the wet areas.

30 January 2015 A Short Stop in Detroit

Airport beauty is in the eye of the beholder. For me Detroit International sets the pace as the least friendly of the many airports I visit. Its long corridors of glass and metal are broken only by the recessed gate caves packed with chairs that appear to have been recreated from a 1950's bus terminal photo. Packed with uncomfortable chairs and zero tools for the business traveler, the best comfort the gate areas provide is the view of the jet in the gate to take me away. The blue neo they appear to use to break up the glass and metal is just visually jarring.

While most airports have added a multitude of food and retail choices to feed the unending appetite of visitors, Detroit's airport is a minimalist study in retail. If you needed food here, you might be in trouble. This morning, the choices were Wendy's and Einstein Bros. With a line at least three dozen long at the Einstein Bros stand, I passed on my standard plain bagel and opted for food when I reached my hometown.

The first few warm days of January were well in the past as the western end of Lake Erie was covered by a cracked blanket of ice.

Brrrrr, it looks so cold as the plane banks for its final approach into Cleveland.

20 December 2014 Pure Michigan

Phineas has been quiet since Gwen left us. Actually, the world has been a little quiet. Once you are used to the patter and play of two dogs, the silence of one, even a beagle, is deafening. Ali was not too happy, but probably not surprised, when she asked what I wanted for Christmas and I replied a dog. We've often rescued with Gwen being the only of our dogs coming from a breeder who was also a friend.

These days it seems as though local public shelters are overfilled with pit bulls and pit bull mixes. We aren't bringing a pit bull home. We tried to wade through the well-meaning, but generally misguided private rescue shelters. We walked this path before and were disappointed to unsuccessfully work with a "rescue" shelter. They seem to us to be more intent on holding rescued animals in long term prison while looking for their vision of a perfect home rather than seeking to find a place where the animal can be happy and loved. After a look at springer rescues, pointer rescues, and aussie rescues, I wanted to move on to someone with a dog and a genuine desire to find a home for it.

Ali's goal was not an easy one. We wanted a female since we expected blending in a new family member would be smoother if the new dog was the opposite sex. Ali wanted an older companion dog rather than a puppy. We both wanted an aussie 45 pounds or less. We had located one in Indiana, but being the holidays, it was adopted before we had time to travel to meet it. She located a few others, but getting replies from the breeder during the holiday season was harder than expected. Than Ali found Samilyn Aussies with not only one, but two potential companion females available for adoption. It was time for a holiday road trip to Ann Arbor!

Our ride was spiced up with the spotting of an old Fiat 125p on a car trailer. It was still running with a Polish license plate. A little internet research found the car is registered in the voivodeship of Podkarpackii in the southestern edge of Poland. Fiat 125p's were manufactured between 1967 and 1991. This appears to be from sometime during the last ten years of the production run. It passed us by very quickly, and this was Ali's first effort with images from an iPhone. I thought the image turned out well. I hoped we might see it again at a rest area, but the trailer was moving quickly. It was a fun distraction.

We brought Phineas along to evaluate his response to the new potential dogs. We were smart enough to stop at a local county park to enjoy a series of caches and give Phin a nice, long walk.

We made the trip hoping to see two female aussies, Blizzard and Puppet. We knew there was a real chance Blizzard had been adopted the day prior. A family was coming to see her and possibly adopt her. We were happily surprised to find both dogs were still there. They are both beautiful with Blizzard being a red merle and Puppet being a less common red tri. We knew in advance that Puppet was shy. She wanted nothing to do with me and Phineas. She warmed ever so slightly to Ali. If she were coming into a dogless family, I would have taken a chance since she seemed a gentle and quiet soul, but it is Phineas' home and he had to be okay with the decision.

Blizzard quickly became the belle of the ball. She and Phineas played enthusiastically and she was friendly with both of us. She made the decision for us. We stopped for one quick cache with her on the way home so she could have a geocache find in Michigan, but didn't want to push our luck since she wasn't used to leash walking and we were in an unknown area. You'll have to wait for another day for Lizzie's reveal. ;)

1 March 2014 Detroit Airport at 6 a.m.

This is probably not the place to be at 6 a.m. if you've had a rough night.

After walking the disturbing tunnel and finding out the maps were outdated because there are no more Tim Horton stands in the airport, I decided to just hang out at the gate and watch this frustrated sparrow who was trapped in the terminal.

My flight was on time. :) When I arrived in Cleveland, Ali met me at the airport with Gwen and Phineas. After much happiness was shared we were off to Rocky River Reservation for a few caches. Our first cache became our last for the day at Rocky River. We hadn't expected the trails to be icy still. Our first walk was along a trail near the river. In better weather, this would have been a fun journey. With a very happy and excited beagle, I was just happy to not fall in. The only thing stranger than us walking this trail was a family with a toddler on the trail. We enjoyed watching ducks at the open water, found the cache and headed for the safer terrain of Hinckley.

12 September 2013 Early Departure

My colleague and I both needed to return to Ohio by late afternoon so we made an early start from the resort. When we arrived the ferry was loading and almost full. We were lucky to be the last vehicle on the water being waved by a bigger sport ute.

I liked Drummond Island. If time weren't in short supply, I would gladly return for a couple days with Ali so we could explore together (and clean out the remaining caches on the island). I like the area between Drummond Island and Mackinac even more. There was a lot of quiet, peaceful shoreline between the two.

11 September 2013 Short Tour of Drummond Island

I had a few hours to explore the island before an evening's social gathering. I wanted to find two multis and explore as much a possible. My first stop was a campground with an inlet and boat docks. The motorboats were tempting for a few hours on the water, but my exploration was going to be limited to land. I eventually made my way to a cemetery for the first multi. The first stage was gathering information. The second stage was completely unexpected as it led into the woods and the two old cars below. I wonder what history they saw.

I wasn't as lucky with the second multi. It started at a beach with an easy stage one. Stage two was in a section of woods with great rocks behind the beach. I am certain stage two was missing, but the hunt was in a great location. After that, I made my way back to the beach to enjoy the afternoon and watch a couple hunt beach glass. I grabbed a couple more caches on my way to gas and found some Mackinac Island fudge at a small store with a friendly owner before making my way back to a cookout and bonfire.

10 September 2013 Drummond Island

I needed to attend a business meeting on Drummond Island. I had never been to the island so this was going to be a new adventure. It was a 10+ hour drive from home to the island, and we needed to be there for an evening of social activities so there was no time for caching on the way except looking for a few rest stop hides which seemed to bne missing.

We arrived with the ferry just out of dock so I had some time to explore Detour Michigan and the Detour Museum grounds while waiting for the ferry to return. The museum (and the rest of Detour were closed, but there were some interesting historical pieces (and a cache) related to the maritime history of the area.

The ferry was punctual, quick, and crowded. We still had a half-hour drive once we reached the island so exploring the island would have to wait.

8 August 2010 Three States and Home


Before starting our journey home we made our way to the intersection point of Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan to find the virtual cache there. The nice granite marker which once marked the triple corner is broken and damaged now, but still marks an interesting location. I'm not sure we've ever found virtuals in three consecutive days before.




On our way to the tri-state benchmark, we saw a sign for indian mounds. Neither of us were aware of any mounds in the area, but have been to a number of mounds in southern Ohio. We were surprised to find four mounds from the Hopewell Indians. We stopped for a visit and a few pictures before continuing our journey.




Our trip home was going to include a stop to get another page of the Ohio Delorme Challenge completed. I had stopped briefly at a Toledo metropark in the spring and was impressed by the quality of the park. Ali decided we would cover a page need with a stop at Secor Park in the Toledo Park system. She picked well. An early cache led us to a small but very well-flowered prairie area. The prairie dock was a real surprise.




Our last stop was at the Irwin Prairie State Nature Preserve to do a very rare earth cache. Lately we've reached the point of avoiding earthcaches, but the write-up of this wet prairie left us interested enough to make the stop and do the earthcache. we were not here at the best time since much of the prairie was dry from our dry summer, but there were nice wildflowers and some interesting birds.