8 September 2019 Medina Caching Part 2

We were back for another day of visiting Medina County Parks.  This visit was without the dogs.  Our first stop was Medina Marsh which is a recently opened park in the system.  The public portion of the park is roughly a half-mile flat trail through an open field that appears to have once been a driving range.  We enjoyed the gathering of butterflies and avoided the gathering of things that sting.  At the end of our walk, we were happy to visit a few other cachers who had also arrived at the park to seek the cache.

Monarchs Visiting Wildflowers

The rain had started by the time we reached Princess Ledges.  We still enjoyed a fun walk in the park.

Sneezeweed along the trail...

We finished on the trails at Susan Hambley Nature Center while enjoying a few bird sightings.

Young mallards dabbling on the water.

7 September 2019 Medina Caching

We were in town for the weekend and wanted to finish the Medina County Parks to finish the cache series.  We first started the series in June so it was time to complete it before the caches went away.  It's a good park system with interesting locations so it promised a good weekend.  The dogs joined us Saturday with our first stop at Allardale.

It was definately the time of the season where yellow and purple flowers dominate with goldenrod and asters leading the wave.

We were treated to a number of young bluebirds growing their adult feathers.

There was water.  Lizzie was happy.

Our next stop was Hubbard Valley.  The parking lot was full, but the trails were mostly empty.  We soon found out as we were in the woods and the sounds of someone performing Simon and Garfunkel classics were heard.  There was some sort of social gathering on the other side of the park.

We enjoyed walking in the woods, finding the cache, and spotting this odd tree.

Our next stop was Killbuck Lake.

We ended our day with a stop at Buckeye Woods.

10 August 2019 Caching Knox

Our weekend away had not worked out as planned. We were back in Knox County to finish the county's geotrail and hopefully spot some wildlife. Our adventure started at Bat Nest Park. The park includes a walk through a field and ends at at bat house. We were treated to a show of butterflies in the fields with the wildflowers.

Our next stop was at Honey Run Park. The walk included a nice mix of mowed path with a walk through the woods and a flat prairie area at the top of a hill.

A large tree gave us plenty of shade to rest and sign the log before our return walk.

Phin looked great posing in a pair of Hairy Potter sunglasses found in the cache.

Our last Knox find was at the waterfalls section of Honey Run.  This shaded side of the park was really popular on a warm summer day.

28 July 2019 Dublin (Ohio) to Home

We were both ready to head home after the weekend of oak mites.  Ali hadn't slept much while I was less than happy with the leftovers from the Friday bites.  We stopped at a Tim Hortons on the way to a park to grab donuts for breakfast.  The park had a couple caches so after breakfast at a picnic table watching a father drilling his two kids over an over on the tennis court, we made our way for a walk.  This park had serious community garden plots in raised beds.

I was feeling completely inadequate with my meager garden efforts when we left and made our way to Centerburg, the Geographical Center of Ohio.  Yes, the large rock is it.  I was hoping for at least a bench mark to log.  At least the nearby water tower took care of spotting a benchmark.  The old railroad grade beyond the rock and parking area has been converted into a very nice bike trail with a few fun cache finds.

With a stop or two between, we eventually reached Knox County and the park system's geotrail.  Thayer Ridge was our first stop.  The park is a horse park with trails that have been rutted and muddied by horse traffic.  We did spot a few nice wildflowers along a small stream.

By Wolf Run Park we both knew the mission of finishing this geotrail today wasn't going to happen.  Ali was dragging and the driving from park-to-park was an example of there's no easy way.  We left woods caches at Wolf Run which is something we would normally never do at a place with good trails.  Maybe we can make a return visit later.

We stopped st Indianfield Bluffs before making a last visit at Hellbender Preserve.  The cache was accessed with a walk down a bike trail.  I liked the area and enjoyed the walk, but Ali was clearly exhausted from lack of sleep.  It was the last walk of the weekend for us.

13 March 2018 Caching Around Spokane

The first Spokane GeoTours are winging down and the coins are gone, but I was still hoping to find at least some of the caches while they were active. The Sustainability of Spokane Tour had caches placed to highlight sustainability initiatives in the area. My first stop was at a hide by a solar array. From a distance, I thought this may be a gadget cache. Spokane has one of the best gadget cache builders.

Instead, it was just an elaborate holder for a peanut butter jar container with a couple solar lights randomly attached.

I found an easy puzzle hide which required visiting a couple charging stations to gather information for the final. The Spokane area is much more user friendly to electric vehicles than my home area in Ohio. I visited four charging stations while finding caches for the geotour.

One of my finds included a library cache. I enjoy finding these and seeing the creativity used in the containers.

I forgot elections here are managed with drop boxes at the libraries to collect ballots.

After the SOS caches, I decided to walk an all-purpose trail which runs along a municipal golf course in Liberty Lake. The golf course wasn't yet open and not an issue for finding the caches, but the all purpose trail was congested with walkers, runners, bikers, and even golf cart riders. Despite the crowd, I found both hides along the trail.