27 January 2008 On the Road Again







If I had one of those mood indicator icons on this page, today would be crabby. I have been at the office so much lately that I am having problems with the lack of daylight. It seems that every sunny day passes by from my office window and is followed by mostly grey sunless days on the weekend.

I had to travel today. I didn't really want to. Actually, I didn't mind the traveling. I'll get to meet another staff member this week, but I didn't want to do it on Sunday because so many places close down Sunday evenings. Mars, Pennsylvania is no different. Despite persistent snowfall, I had an easy drive here and my new gps is a gem for finding things with addresses. Once I had checked in, I took a ride to look for some place to settle my urge to wander. I was really glad to see a Barnes and Noble. Yes, it was time to look for some music to add to the Ipod. Oops, some genius at B/N decided to take out the music section and replace it with this huge kids book section. Wahhhhhh... they were one of the few places that occasionally had music I would buy. I hope this isn't a trend. No music... no reason to stay.

Back at the hotel, I topped off a four-walled evening with a new cell phone that appears to be broken. I got a new phone last week so my e-mails can be forwarded. I got it on Friday, it seems to have died some time today. :-( On the bright side,we added a new county today. Yep it was a wimpy one. I didn't get the second find to change the map color.

The photos are a change of pace for me. The cannon is a leftover from a garrison used to protect Franklin during the Indian Wars. Seems like a bit of overkill, but it was a nice piece of old casting workmanship. The headstone was kinda eerie. Yesterday at the event we picked up a Harry Potter themed travel bug that was left at the end of the day. I dragged the bug out to that cache to drop it. After I placed the bug and returned the container, I looked up and the first headstone I saw was for Riddle. A little spooky... huh? For some reason, my camera went bonkers when I tried to take the photo of the headstone. Everytime I tried to zoom the camera turned off. It has worked fine since then. Hmmmm.

26 January 2008 Chapman Park Winterfest









There was snow for the Winterfest this year and really cold temperatures. Despite shaking most of the day, I had a great time. We got to see a ton of friends. As always, it was fun being out and about with Goat Haunt, Dove78, kickin', and kachekat. I deny having anything to do with helping Dove bounce the suspension bridge while kachekat was crossing. :-) We were really happy Grandpa and Grandma made it back from Maryland for the event. We also got to see Rev. Mike, Tprints, Peak Bagger, Dave w/o id, Meriadoc, 2climb Bunker Hillbillies, Snoop, and Doo Wop Dee.

20 January 2008 Cold Afternoon in Venango






We make a few short caching stops in Venango on our way home. Our first cache was an AGT cache just outside a cemetery. After that, my fingers were frozen so we stuck with a few quick micros before ending the day. The bright sun, blue sky, and white blanket of snow made for pleasant sights.

19 January 2008 Caching Crawford

18 January 2008 Later Sunsets







I stopped by South Chagrin after leaving the office to complete maintenance for one of our caches. It is great to see the sunset stay around for a little while longer. The gps said sunset was at 5:22. It will be nice to be out walking again in the evening. Maybe there will even be a few more photos. :-) The Chagrin River looked wonderful as always with a nice moon in the sky.

13 January 2008 Big Creek Park







We were going to head out for a day of caching. At the last moment we decided to take the dogs and ended up at a local park. We hiked about five miles. The day progressed from grey to flakes to some accumulating snow. While here we figured out a new cache for this park. We will need to stop back with the gps, but it will be a nice walk for anyone who hunts it. We had fun... so did the dogs.

12 January 2008 Canal Fulton









We're not finding a lot of caches these days. We're still caching a lot, but we're back to that stage where three or four are just fine and ten or twelve is a long day. Today was another quiet day of just being together. We planned to visit Canal Fulton to walk the towpath and a local rail trail. We got started late and walked into town for a benchmark so our finds stopped at four, but in between we got a quiet walk on the towpath and a chance to walk around this little town.

The towpath and the canal area is really interesting. We aren't normally attracted to touristy things, but if the restored canal boat were running today, we would have been riding it. As it was, we both noted when the season opened so maybe we can stop back for a few of the remaining caches and a ride into the past.

The sun was perfect. The little shop in town where we stopped for sandwichs and shakes with a ginger beer to go was peaceful. It was a good time to remember it's not about the numbers.

11 January 2008 Chestnut Ridge







I have never gone two months without a find in New York since we started caching. After a two month dry spell, I was able to leave my office early enough to stop for a few caches on my way home. My first stop was a trail a few miles from my office. The wind was howling. I must have been a great illustration of the story where the wind and the sun try to get a man to remove his coat. The harder the wind blew, the more tightly I held on to my coat and my hat. Brrrr... A little persistence and a nice multi was found.

When I left the first cache I made my way to Chestnut Ridge. This is one of the Buffalo/Niagara Falls area parks that I have made a personal goal of finding all the caches here in 2008. After a quick walk to a newer cache by the parking area, I was ready to tackle the final of a multi I have wanted to finish for over a year. I had a great walk to the final and a peaceful visit to this amazing place. Funny, I've never seen this place any other time than late fall or winter. I think I'll wait until spring to continue my hunt in this park.

6 January 2008 Walking the canal









We were both looking for some walking this afternoon. We headed toward Medina knowing there were a few caches in the area that could provide a nice walk. The photos on this page came from a nice four-stage multi. Since there are not a lot of trees suitable for chewing, we were surprised to see a beaver on the inlet. There was a little chewing on a few larger trees and a strange mound in the middle of the wetland area that looked suspiciously like the start of a beaver lodge. We were even more surprised to see a second beaver and what appeared to be a bit of territorial fighting.

5 January 2008 Caching Elyria









I had pent-up caching demand. I hoped to make a stop in Chestnut Ridge while in the Falls area, but didn't leave my office until after 4. Saturday had to be the day to catch up in trail time. GG came by early in the morning and after a stop in the Rocky River Reservation for a nice cache, the three of us were on our way to Elyria. We spent most of the day in a small cluster around Cascade Park. Despite times when the rain was really steady, we had a fun day. Cascade Park has some great views and two outstanding waterfalls. The top area in the photo is the sad scene of a place where two bears were held captive in a cage for years. The cage was active until the early 80's. A concrete pad remains outlining a shallow denn and as a reminder of the terrible home those bears must have had.

1 January 2008 Happy New Year





The photo is looking out toward our woods in PA. Gorgeous isn't it? Hehehe... we still had to drive back to Ohio. I actually drove about half way. Yeah, me the original snow chicken driving in a snow storm. Of course, I got the easier half. ;-) I finally surrendered near Edinboro and let Ali work her driving magic and get us home. It was a fun holiday break. Time to head back to the office and a trip to New York.

Happy New Year. May all you who visit find peace and happiness. As always thanks for visiting.

31 December 2007 New Year's Eve Blue Sky







We spent a short day caching in McKean County. It was colorful out. There was blue sky. We had a good time and found some nice caches, but it was a weird day. We were walking down a road we have cached before and encountered posted signs. We are pretty certain the land is ANF, but decided to not go past the signs. One the way back to the vehicle, Ali took a bad spill on the icy drive. Luckily all seems well. We dnf'd about half the caches we were hunting. After a while we finished off with a nice AGT find and packed it in. A stop for New Years Eve ice cream on the way home finished the day.

30 December 2007 Grey Days







We spent a quiet afternoon at Chapman State Park. We were placing geocaches for an upcoming geocaching event hosted by our friends Liz and Wes in conjunction with the Warren County Winterfest. We also had a cache remaining in the park that we hadn't found. It was a fun walk around the park with the dogs. We walked about 4 miles and got some great exercise. It was disappointing in that there were virtually no birds about today. We have had some nice sightings at Chapman so we were both eagerly looking. Ali saw a couple different ducks, but they were on the other side of the water.