28 February 2014 Visiting Salt Lake City

Delta always seems to have issues in Minneapolis. This morning I arrived at Spokane Airport to a long line at the counter. A quick glance at the departure board showed bad news. I was supposed to he home in Northeast Ohio by 10:30. I hadn't reached the counter and already knew my Friday arrival wasn't going to happen. When I got to the counter, I was told Delta didn't have a jet so the Minneapolis flight wasn't going to be late. It wasn't going to happen.

The person at the check-in counter was amazing. She found me a way home using a red-eye through Salt Lake City and Detroit. I wouldn't be home Friday evening, but with a littl luck I could make it home early Saturday morning. I jumped at this option. The only "drawback" was over seven hours layover in Salt Lake City.

I spent some of my layover time wishing I could leave the airport and head into the mountains for a few finds. After longing for some Utah geocaching and eating a burger at an airport restaurant which thankfully didn't kill me, there was little left to do but wander the terminal and look for things to photograph.

Need Help?

This is the first time I've seen an emergency-gurney, golf cart tucked away like this.

Salt Lake City's airport had a couple of throwbacks making me check my cell phone calendar to be certain I hadn't slipped back twenty years. The first was this pay phone kiosk. It's a lot of real estate trapped in the past.

My second look back to the past was the smoking room below. It had been years since I last sighted one of these at the airport in Phoenix. At that time, I thought that one was antiquated. I walked past this a few times over a roughly two-hour period. I was surprised to see the same guy in the same seat each time I went past. He was never smoking, just sitting back and slowly inhaling carcinogens created by others. Maybe there were some deep feelings of guilt that kept him seated in that room breathing cigarette smoke for hours. I felt sorry for the person sitting next to him on his flight.

At long last, I was on the plane. I always think it's sort of funny that Delta thinks these lap napkins are "blankets".

27 February 2014 Foggy, Grey Day

I decided to change the location this evening and went for a walk along the Spokane River Centennial Trail along Mirabeau Parkway. We had a solved puzzle along this trail and there were other caches to find. The puzzle solution kept taking me to a fence with the cache appearing to be beyond the fence. I don't cross fences unless there is clear information on the cache page to send me forward. I found one other cache and decided to not to climb the rocks for the last.

Color was absent on this grey day.

There's a cache up there. Most evenings, I would have eagerly climbed the rocks. I passed by the chance this wet, icy evening.

It was a peaceful way to end the day.

26 February 2014 Take Me to the River

I enjoyed my morning walk the day before so much that I stopped again this morning while on my way to the office. I enjoyed the sunrise and another cache before a day of work.

25 February 2014 Along the Spokane River

Since my luggage was not due until sometime late afternoon, I needed new clothes and safety shoes to wear to our site. Since I had to wait for stores to open, I went for a walk along the Spokane River on a section of state park land. Like northeast Ohio the day before, it was a cold beautiful day to be out. It was too cold to search for long, but I found one cache and got some exercise while waiting for the stores.

24 February 2014 Return to Spokane

Not that trail....

The blue sky was deceptive. I try to pack lightly and Spokane is usually warmer than Northeast Ohio so I wasn't prepared for a little afternoon caching in Rocky River Reservation before my evening flight. Spending time with Ali was great, but it was seriously cold.

I arrived, but my clothes didn't. Somehow United can't work out the part where I give them $25 so my bag arrives with me. Snow at 11 pm is not a good sign. I was a little cold while cleaning the rental in a light fleece jacket and sport shoes.

It's not a good sign when you have traveled cross-country enough to know the guy at the car rental counter, and he knows you well enough to already switch your reservation to a sport ute to deal with the snow. The service is great and he's a nice guy, but everytime I see him, it means I am on the other side of the country.

23 Feburary 2014 Leaving Athens

We made one last park visit to find a climbing cache and another 2001 hide before heading home. The climb was fun although the view wasn't amazing. We probably stayed a couple hours longer in the area than was prudent. By the time we were in Morgan County, the mild Athens weather was in the past as we tried to beat the snow home.

When I was a kid, everyone knew something about the Indy 500. It was a television spectacle. Even those who really didn't care about auto racing knew names like A.J. Foyt, Mario Andretti, and Al Unser. I was never a racing fan, but probably saw more Indy laps on television than any other race. During Memorial Day weekend, it seemed to be on TV everywhere. Now it seems like there is a different NASCAR race on each time I scan the TV so Indy seems to have faded to the background. It was still an interesting fact to learn that the original bricks for the Brickyard at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway came from a tiny town in Southeastern Ohio.

22 February 2014 Athens and Vinton County

Our plans for today were to attend the local geocaching event before heading off for some older caches and caches in Vinton County. Before the event we took a walk to find a few caches along the water and stopped at the library for a puzzle cache. The puzzle was one of the more fun and creative geocache puzzles we have solved. The event was held at a local coffee shop (this is a college town). It was a throwback event where people gathered and socialized. We had a great time.

We found one of the handful of old caches in the area at the end of a trail behind the cemetery. The tank below appears to be a gathering point for the locals. The wooden pallet propped an angle to serve as steps was a scary addition.

Water Tank Art

The mild weather brought out lots of people. We were hunting a letterbox cache at the entrance to a woods trail at the rear of a cemetery when the area got very busy. We had been near the cache area and noticed a dead deer behind a pedestrian bridge and alongside a stream. Trying to return the container, we had to wait through a series of a family where each of the teenage sons needed to be photographed near the dead deer. A pair of couples decided the deceased animal was the highlight of their day on the trail. Lastly, a college age couple decided to sit on a downed log within a few feet of the dead animal and hold hands while sneaking kisses. I don't see a really romantic location when I think of a downed log near a dead deer, but to each his own. Through this all, Ali sat on a bench overlooking a nearby pond patiently waiting with the container. In the end she walked over to the romantic couple, explained geocaching and replaced the container since they appeared to be there for the long run.

This was our icy pond view while we waited for muggles to go away.

We stopped to visit the lonely park ranger at the Lake Hope Nature Center before heading off for a longer trail walk through the woods and along the shore. This was one of a few older caches (2002) we were able to find this weekend.

The view at Hope Lake was grand where we stopped for a roadside cache. The bench makes for a great view which was mostly ice for the day.

Hope Furnace in Vinton County is a well-kept piece of the past. The iron furnacs in Vinton County ushered US military to a new level when they provided the iron that became the cladding panels for the Union's Civil Warship the Monitor.

It probably looks faster standing still than it ever was in the air. The top speed on this trainer according to the display sign was 600 mph. I say pilots were really brave.

The late afternoon air let us both know it was still winter. We had a fun day out, but the cache at Cox Covered Bridge was our last of the day.

21 February 2014 Strouds Run and Baker Preserve

We spotted a blue bird at one of our first caches. Can spring be far away? Athens is covered in puzzle caches with parks loaded with higher terrain hides. We started the morning finding a few of the many, many puzzles Ali had solved before our trip.

Thus strange water spout seemed to be a part of the dam and control system for the reservoir at Strouds Run. I've never seen something like this before. The water would go from flow looking like a large artesian well to spouting like a geyser.

The water was a mix of thin ice with open water along the shore. With a lot of blue sky thrown in, it made for a very pleasant first walk at Strouds Run.

We left the water line and headed uphill for a rock find overlooking the reservoir. Besides a well hidden cachem we were both happy to spot many rattlesnake plantains which showed evidence of many spikes from prior year blossoms.

I think I am the only person to see the profile of a face in this rock.

We passed a number of small waterfalls on our journey. They were all either iced in or kust beginning to thaw. In the warm day, this one was mostly thawed and had a fair amount of flow.

The day was filled with miles on the trail, lots of uphill, and blue sky everywhere.

We were nearing the end of our day when we cam upon this stream. Normally this is probably tame with little water. With the spring thaw in full force, today's crossing meant very wet feet.

We were down to our second last cache of the day and signing the log when we both spotted this nice oak tree highlighted in the afternoon sun.

Athens is a town that is driven by the university. On Fridays and Saturdays, alcohol rules the downtown. It's hard to navigate the town with bar-hopping students, but it is a college town which means there are bound to be some very good restaurants supporting the faculty. Ali located Lui Lui in a quiet side street near downtown. Their excellant Thai cuisine and quiet atmosphere made the location a perfect place to relax after a day of hiking and caching.

The best news of the day was I survived the hiking. If felt great to be back and ready to hike again. Until the next time...

20 February 2014 Escaping the Cold

Mega events have a way of changing the caching landscape of an area. The changes aren't usually good. Between burned-out local cachers who gave all their free-time for months to prepare for the event and a pile of cheap vacation caches, an area can be a little scared by the experience. We wanted to visit Athens, Ohio before MOGA came through and changed the area.

After a stop in Zanesville for some walking and a few finds we were on our way to Blue Rock State Forest and an older cache near the firetower. The nearly 80-year old fire tower is still standing and has open access to the stairs for climbing. It was a thing of beauty.

The object of my climbing desire.

Of course, we climbed it. There were only two of us and we're small.

The observation tower is closed from access, so the top of the stairs is the end of the view. Its a good view with Appalachian foothills visible in the distance.

Ali returns to land after the climb.

We also stopped for our first finds at the Muskingum River Parkway and Burr Oak Lake for our first finds in those state parks. I never realized the roadside pull-offs for the Muskingum River locks were a part of an Ohio State Park. The lock was interesting and we spotted a few ducks in the water. We were late to Burr Oak and did little beyond a short cache near the entrance. A longer visit will need to wait.

Ah.... just a few short hours south of the Cleveland area, and the weather was near spring.

16 February 2014 Too Much Snow

We tried to take a walk in the woods and cache a little, but with over a foot of snow on the ground covering caches and more falling, it was a hard walk and too tough to cache. We settled for a couple urban hides in Titusville. On our drive home, Ali slowed on the snowy road for me to take an image of six road-side turkeys.

14 February 2014 The Eagle Captured

Returning to the same gameland over and over paid off this afternoon as we both got to see an eagle and I was able to capture a (grainy) image. I hope to see the day where these birds are common. In the meantime, I'll continue to be thrilled with each spotting.