3 April 2012 View Across the Pond at a Small Park

2 April 2012 On the Way to Cortland

1 April 2012 Separate Ways

Ali had to head back to Ohio and work on Monday while I was headed east to Cortland, New York for work. We had time for a short walk along the Allegheny River and a chance to spot a couple wood ducks across the river.

After Ali was on her way home, I headed for a nearby gamelands to place a trilogy of Jasmer caches. We were finally ready to publish our Jasmer challenge. After finding the mini-Jasmers in the Niagara Falls area, I decided to copy the idea with one for each of the years 2001, 2002, and 2003.

31 March 2012 Quiet Saturday

Since I was into PA early and Ali would be driving in the morning, I got the 'chore' of walking out to one of our caches which was in need of maintenance. Ali had hidden it last summer in the frenzy for GeoWoodstock. The location was near one of our early higher terrain finds and a still favorite cache. The cache we found was archived long ago so we wanted a hide near that spot for GWS visitors who wanted another tough nearby hide.

She had the dogs so climbing a rock formation with an ammo can wasn't going to work. It was low in a rock formation and had gotten wet. I hadn't been to the area of the hide before so I got to hunt for our own cache. Once I found it, I decided to move it up a bit. ;-)

These are really nice gamelands. Depending on the trail the variety here includes everything from vernal pools teaming with salamanders to wildflowers to wild blueberries to large rock formations. The large rock formations are surrounded by really dense mountain laurel so the hike is challenging. The pleasant stream below is in the early part of the hike.

I think it will be dry on top below this big rock.

When you are on top, they really don't look like they are twenty feet tall.

After Ali arrived, we headed out with the dogs to do a little maintenance on the Irvine Flats cache hides. Our Beanie Baby cache was out of beanies and we wanted to check on Le Grande Orange, our only ammo can to ever get stolen. It was once again missing and is now an archived cache.

After the cache maintenance, we drove over to Crawford County for some walking along the Hydetown rail trail. We were here New Years Day with Brussard and cached the eastern side. We were rained out before heading too far west. Today we returned for a walk along the old rail bed. We were rewarded with marsh marigolds in the wetlands off the trail (and a few ducks which I missed with the camera).

30 March 2012 Homeward Bound

I stopped at Bond Lake for one last mini Jasmer cache before my journey home. I was a little cautious searching for this one since it is right at the edge of the Seneca Nation boundry.

Nick Charlaps in Hamburg, New York is one of the remaining Dairy Isle ice cream stands. They were all distinct for the huge ice cream cone the extends upward from the front of the building. Many of the cones have been topped or completely removed, but this one still stands tall. It is in the best shape of any I have seen.

As I was searching for the cache alongside a small fishing stream in Cattaraugus County, a storm was moving in. I made a few attempts to catch a image of the large lightning flashes, but that was futile. About ten minutes after this, I was drivng Ariel through a hail storm. Luckily she wasn't damaged.

28 March 2012 Walking in Pendelton

They always look like an invading army to me.

It wasn't a great evening for caching. This trail never seems to have a lot of wildflowers and is often being used by ATV riders. This evening was no exception. ATV's and walkers don't mix. The caches this evening were really substandard too. I gave up with about half the ones I sought being dnf's.

27 March 2012 Visiting Bond Lake

I used to visit Bond Lake frequently when I was traveling to the Niagara Falls area once or twice a month. These days, I'm here a few times a year and stop by Bond Lake much less frequently. With fewer trips here, it always seems like there's one or two unfound caches waiting for me. This evening, I found two. The second was near the firing range of a nearby gun club. I've been back near the property line on evenings when it sounds like there is so much shooting they are preparing to attack Canada. This evening there was happily no shooting. The sunset after the caches was quite pleasant.

26 March 2012 A Rare FTF

This afternoon was travel time. I was headed to New York for an audit. I planned to stop in the Harbor Creek area along the way to grab a first-to-find on a challenge which had been unfound for days. On the way I made a quick detour to find a cache at someone's business. The property along the road had a number of large dinosaur creations. Geocachers have a way of finding these things and placing caches there.

When I reached the park with the unfound cache, I was still expecting someone had finally stopped by to nab the FTF before I arrived, but when I opened the container there was a blank page staring at me. I think our last first to find was on Christmas Eve 2009 at the Cleveland Zoo. We never grabbed more than a couple a year before we became reviewers. Since we've become reviewers, it has fallen back to more like one every couple years. This was nice treat.

Looking at Lake Erie, it was hard to believe it is still March. The lake looked wonderful with rollers splashing waves on the beach. I thought briefly about chasing the cache on the other side of the creek, but the water was moving swiftly and was high. One bad step and I would either finish my drive soaked or would find myself a few hundred feet away in the Lake Erie surf. It's a scenic stream and a nice cache location. Hopefully, I'll have a chance to return for the find some day when the stream is a little quieter.

25 March 2012 9,000 Geocache Finds

It is strange to think we have been geocaching for so many years. It seemed like a fun activity, but I wasn't sure how long it or our interest would last. It certainly has staying power.

I was going to be traveling, and we wanted to hit another milestone together so we drove to northwest Pennsylvania to Erie Bluffs State Park. For a time, cachers would place caches and call this area Erie Bluffs State Park. I would chuckle at the prospect of this area being a state park. Then about a year ago I found out this really was planned as a state park. At the moment, the "park" is a sign at the entrance, a gravel parking area, and a couple of really muddy trails. Today we found lots of wildflowers, a handful of birds, and a pleasant walk (and some ticks). Normally there is a great view of Lake Erie, but the haze really closed in visibility. We had fun and passed another milestone in the world of Geocaching.

The trail on our walk out was filled with white trilliums that hadn't yet opened.

We were rewarded for our early visit with a large number of red trilliums near the bluff.

There wasn't much to see on a hazy day. As usual Eva the daredevill looks like she's trying to jump off the bluffs. I have been on these bluffs not far from here as a thunderstorm rolled in from the northwest. It was an awesome sight.

24 March 2012 Touring Windsor (and parts nearby)

We had tried a couple times to locate the first stage of the Let's Tour Windsor multi-cache in Ashtabula. On our last visit, we realized where stage one should be, but it was missing. Today we stopped by the Windsor covered bridge and had stage one quickly in hand. It was nice to see that the bridge has recently been painted.

I saw this can in a small cemetery where a stage was located. Despite being almost 40 years old, the colors on the Pepsi can were still strong with only a little fading. Pepsi was always third behind Coke and RC Cola, but I was willing to drink it in the days when the soda was still made with real sugar. I always have an ear-worm playing in my brain. Seeing this old can started an endless loop of Pepsi's old slogan. The age of the slogan is a few years off the age of the can, but the memory still popped into my head. The ear worm is back as I write this post.

The old church below was built in 1832. It is long past its days as a house of worship, but it lives on as a home to the local historical society. The steeple is unusual, but there is yet another church in the county with the same style.

We had a great time in Ashatbula County for the afternoon. There were some wonderful spring wildflowers on the Windsor tour and along the Western Reserve Greenway Trail.

Our first salamander of the spring was spotted on the Greenway Trail near a cache.

23 March 2012 Knight in Rusting Armor

Goecaching has led us to adventures which were very memorable. Some were funny. Some were amazing natural features. I was out for a little after work caching to bring us to twelve for the day. Sometimes the sights while out caching are just different. Even the birds weren't too impressed with the knight.

22 March 2012 Walking Metzenbaum

19 March 2012 Listening for Spring Peepers

18 March 2012 Euclid Cemetery

There has been a cache in this cemetery for some time.  We hadn't been able to visit since the cemetery closes at 3 every afternoon.  Today, the timing was right, and we were here with time to explore.  The 1864 established date seems a bit odd for a cemetery with four Revolutionary War veterans.  Three of the markers are replacements while the fourth is just a small portion of the marker.