26 December 2009 CSU


We spent most of the day at the art museum. The museum has been in construction for a few years. A few more galleries are open so it was a great time to visit and see a number of works we hadn't seen for a long time and some that have never been on display before due to a lack of space. After the museum we stopped by Cleveland State to hunt a few micro caches on campus. We dnf'd both caches, but spent a little time walking around and visiting. I spent a number of years here finishing my degrees. Much has changed since my time. The buildings have gotten a lot nicer, but I'm not sure there is as much green space. We made a stop at the Ten Thousand Villages store near campus and headed home for the evening.


This is University Tower and was one of my favorite places to catch up on too-infrequent sleep while I went to school here. The lower floors are the university's library. There were study carrels along the walls on some floors. I worked two jobs while in school and this area was a perfect place to avoid everyone when I needed a nap.





I graduated twice from the School of Business. This building was built just after I left the school for the last time. It's a nice addition to campus.





Trinity Cathedral used to host lunchtime concerts while I was on campus. With work, I didn't attend many of these or the midday ones at the nearby Agora ;-)






I spent most of my free time here at Fenn Tower. When I first started at school the third floor was entirely a student recreation area. There was a large pool hall and game room. The rest of the floor was a big open area with comfy furniture and big tall windows. It was also one of the warmest buildings on campus so it always had my vote as a favorite place. I shot a lot of games of pool and played a lot of pinball here. After about three years, they moved the recreation area to the west end of campus. My visits to Fenn Tower then became infrequent until a friend began living in one of the upper dorms.





Stillwell Hall looks much the same as it did when I was here earning my engineering degree. The cafeteria that was located in the southeast corner of the first floor is gone. I suspect that the overall health of the students improved when that happened. To this day Stillwell Hall's cafeteria remains the only place I have seen where bacon bits in salad moved :-0

25 December 2009

24 December 2009 Night Caching at Metzenbaum

24 December 2009 Christmas Eve at the Zoo

23 December 2009 Quarry Rock









Most people never see these falls head-on. They are visible at an angle from the trail that passes Squaw Rock, but reaching this view requires a tough walk of about two miles. The quarter-mile out and back nearest the falls is a very narrow trail with a quick trip to the river if you lose your footing. I often thought there was a way back to see these falls from this angle, but didn't realize there is actually a trail here. We were seeking a new location for a cache and trying to explore areas where there have never been caches in the Cleveland Metroparks when we found this very seldom used trail.

20 December 2009 Chapman State Park

This is a serious sledding hill




The suspension bridge is really wobbly when crossed. Gwen hates bridges, but she made it across. Eva is usually fearless, but today she needed to be coaxed across the bridge.






We had not seen a vertical light like this during sunset before.


2010 will be the fourth year for a Geocaching Event as part of the Chapman State Park Winterfest. We have helped each year, but this year we own the event. The attendance keeps growing with about 150 cachers last year. Today we headed to the park to hunt for the locations where we were hiding event caches.

This park is really photogenic, especially in the fall and winter. Chapman Lake is nestled in a low area with the hills surrounding it on three sides. There are a number of nice trails in the area and a trail at the end of the park that takes one back to the Tanbark area of the ANF. We had a great time with a walk-around the lake. At the end of our journey, we were surprised to meet We3Jeepers in the parking lot. It's a small caching world.

19 December 2009 Snow on the Eddy







Before this year, we had never been away from the house for more than a month. This year it happened twice. It's a little strange being away from a place where I have now spent so much of my life. It's almost like I'm disconnected on the return trip here. This visit was nice. We got to travel together which has become rare. On Saturday, our neighbor's daughter and her friend stopped by to help us decorate a very late tree. On Sunday, all three of them stopped by for a long visit and a few holiday cookies.

16 December 2009 Last Work Trip (for the year)






If I have to be on the road a little over a week before Christmas, I would rather be in the Niagara Falls area than anywhere else. The family that owns the Lockport Inn has become a second family to me. If you have to be on the road for work near Christmas, it's nice to settle in for the evening with a warm fireplace and a quiet room. I had to extend my stay for a day longer than expected, but was happy to get here and back with little snow.

12 December 2009 Caching Canalway

11 December 2009 Visiting Nela Park

6 December 2009 First Ice

5 December 2009 Caching Mosquito Creek