26 January 2018 A Short Visit to Ashtabula

We were heading to Florida the next day and wanted to take the dogs for a long walk before they went to camp. We made three stops on the afternoon with a visit to Arcola Creek in Lake County and a nearby residential park on the lakefront. Our afternoon ended with a pleasant walk at Geneva State Park.

The residential park was about five minutes from Arcola Creek. It was deserted on this cold, windy afternoon, but looked like an inviting place to relax and watch a Lake Erie sunset during the summer.

This small inlet at the state park was hosting multiple woodpeckers today.

17 December 2017 Phin Gets Impatient

This is the look of a determined beagle who wants to go to the park.

The dogs trail time had been light with snowy, cold weather and our avoidance of the woods in Pennsylvania during gun season for deer. There were more caches to find at West Branch State Park so we made a return visit with the dogs and walked a different trail on the reservoir side of the park road. The day was a little warmer and a lot brighter.

This area has seriously determined beavers. The many small trees created a field of spear tips alongside the trail

15 December 2017 Walking West Branch

We had a rare chance to spend some time alone together today. I was finished with work travel for the year, and had a couple hours before the short daylight faded away. It had been some time since our last visit to the trails of West Branch, but it is relatively close to my office which weighs heavily less than a week before the year's shortest day.

It was in the mid 20's with a brisk wind so the trails weren't comfortable. The woods helped break the wind.

In this smaller cove, the water was frozen and the trees were snow covered. We met one other person and his dog on our quiet journey.

Geocaching in this weather means your vehicle's snow brush is your friend. The hunt for a container can be a slow process in the snow. It takes extra care to hunt for the hide without damaging the container. Each year, we see at least one container destroyed by someone searching aggressively during the winter.

It wasn't supposed to snow this afternoon, but about an hour after our arrival the flakes started to fall.

By the time we started our walk back to parking the wet park road from our drive in was snow covered with more falling as we walked. It would be a longer, slower drive home than planned.

25 March 2017 Punderson State Park

We had a couple unfound geocaches at Punderson and decided to take a walk at the park. The lakes were fully thawed giving us the hope of spotting a few ducks. There were no ducks, but coltsfoot and skunk cabbage was easily spotted, and we saw our first turtle of the Ohio spring sunning on a log.

25 July 2016 A Good Day For Butterflies

Our big stop of the day was our first visit to John Bryan State Park. The butterflies were plentiful at this attractive park. We enjoyed the trails, time spent hiking along the Little Miami, and seeing the abundant foliage from spring wilflowers. If just a small portion of the many hepatica we spotted were to bloom, it would be an impressive spring sight along the trails.

I usually don't consider wearing special biking gear, but if I did, I wouldn't be using this well-meaning but rather exposed changing area. :0

We also enjoyed a quick stop in the Clifton Gorge State Nature Preserve. The area was over-run while we were there with teens from a nearby private camp so our stay was short. The gorge area and the park both deserve another visit.

While at the park we also made a stop at a monument to Edward Orton, Sr, Orton was a former president of the predecessor of Ohio State University and a pioneer in the field of geology. His son is at least as important to us as one of the pioneers of technical ceramics in the United States. The local geologic features in the area and the proximity to Ohio State made this a fitting place to leave a monument in his memory

8 August 2015 West Branch State Park

All it took was one visit to West Branch to be reminded why I enjoyed the quality parks of Minnesota so much more. :(

10 January 2015 Lakefront State Park

We had a big day planned with a number of caches on our to-do list. The day was bright blue and looked perfect for caching, but with overnight lows near zero and a strong, biting wind we did something we almost never do. We stopped caching with one find. It was a nice cache and the park views were nice, but we were really frozen. After the find we tried to access the Dike 14 Nature Preserve, but it was closed. I didn't expect to spot birds, but the frozen water would have made great images.

2 January 2015 Portage Lakes State Park

Bright, somewhat warm January days don't happen that often in Northeast Ohio. We decided to spend this one on the trails at Portage Lakes State Park. The weather and the park were more exciting today than the geocaches. Most of today's mix of caches were in places that weren't memorable. The dogs had fun and we had fun so the day was a success.

Phineas table dances while we do unplanned maintenance on a cache missing a container.

Lizzie waits patiently for us to finish signing the log.

Portage Lakes State Park has one of the nicer dog parks. It is huge with wide open spaces to run and is the only dog park I've seen where dogs have a dock they can use to jump in the lake (or their human owners can use to bring their dogs to the dog park by boat). We found the cache nearby, but passed on the dog park. Phineas is a beagle and can't be trusted to stay in the less than maximum security fences at this park while there was no way I was going to expose Lizzie to any males in the park.

Dusk at Portage Lakes

24 December 2014 Christmas Eve in Quail Hollow

We usually go to the Cleveland Zoo to relax and walk around on Christmas Eve. Last year, I was too sick to function. This year, we decided to pass by the zoo and spend time with our new dog Lizzie and Phineas. We normally avoid Quail Hollow State Park to avoid the massive poison ivy collection at the park. This year there was a series of caches spread throughout the park and with the leaves gone spotting poison ivy is much easier. We had a great time, but ran out of daylight on our quest for the entire series. The freakishly warm weather made for a super day on the trail.

This cemetery is now surrounded by the state park. I'm surprised no one has ever used information from the markers for a puzzle cache outside the cemetery.

Lizzie is not afraid of boardwalks :) and seems to be really interested in the containers and the gps.

There were very confused skunk cabbage plants out of dormancy along the wetter areas of the trails.

25 October 2014 Headlands State Park

It was a blue sky day. It was also cold and very windy. There were two geocaches at Headlands which we had not found.

Dogs aren't permitted on the beach so I stayed behind with Gwen and Phineas while Ali went to retrieve the first cache. I was able to watch the freighter Calumet as it passed by the point. They say renaming boats is bad luck. The 1973 Calumet started life as the William R. Roesch. Became the David Z. Norton and later just the David Z. It was christened Calumet in 2008. It became the second Great Lakes Freighter to wear that name. The freighter has seen a lifetime of changes in the steel industry along the Great Lakes.

Our second stop was a Lake County GeoTour cache in the dunes area. This area is also a no dogs area so they waited in the vehicle while we took a short walk to the cache. It was too cold to visit the lighthouse today so we did a short walk along the dunes trails.

The dogs had some walking in the area available to them. Gwen was still a little slow so a short walk was best for her. Phineas seemed to enjoy his day.

6 October 2015 Rainy Drive to Lexington

I had a business meeting in Lexington, Kentucky and visions of warm weather and sunshine during the drive and breaks in the meeting. Sometimes, those visions don't work out. The travel day was cold and very rainy. I had hoped for a break on the way and a nice hike during the break. Instead, I made a quick cache find in Scioto Trail State Forest and a second quick find at Lake White State Park. I was happy to see a fire tower at the state forest open for climbing. Despite the wet and cold day, it was a fun climb with a bonus benchmark not far from the base of the tower.

18 April 2014 Strouds Run State Park

Strouds Run was a highlight show of spring. There were wildflowers everywhere. The wilflowers combined with miles of high-terrain trail and many, many caches made this a wonderful way to start the weekend. We left dozens of unfound caches in the park despite hours of hiking.