15 June 2015 Caching Milestone

We visited Elk County to find a milestone cache. We're nearing eleven years of geocaching and today was going to be our 13,000th find. We try to hunt higher terrain caches with the dogs for our 1,000 increment milestones. Today Ali had identified a series of caches in a State Game Lands. The game lands were still wet from the rains of the past few days, but at least the rain was holding off when we started on the trail.

Ali's mom showed us wine berries years ago. The plant is an asain invasive, but the berries are delicious. We were too early for the berries, but the trail promised treats in a month or so.

There were still plenty of wildflowers along the flat stretch of trail.

The flowers were great, but this place is about rocks, really big rocks with trails through and over them.

In Pennsylvania, rocks like this are often joined by mountain laurel. This afternoon, the mountain laurel was in bloom.

We had just reached the first stand of huge rocks when the rain started. It's difficult to keep a log dry when the rain is coming down

I can see clearly now. The rain is gone.

I can see all obstacles in my way.... (Johnny Nash)

Lizzie decided the stream was a great place to shake off the water. ;)

Wet flowers make great images...

This was an out-and-back journey. Our trip back was much more comfortable with no rain and some sun.

The mountain laurel was still very wet as we passed through.

We made a stop for a very wet milestone image with Phineas and Lizzie. It was their first milestone together and a little strange for us after caching nine years and passing many milestones with Eva and Gwen. Hopefully they will join us for a long string of happy milestones on the trails.

The salamanders were quite pleased with the wet trails.

Sometime near spring we will start thinking of the next cache for find number 14,000. Thankfully there always seems to be challenging trails and great walks waiting in Pennsylvania.