Afternoon Cache.

Today I worked from my home office and it was such a beautiful fall day. The rain held off during the moning and I went out at lunch time and was amazed by the nice temperature. So I decided that it would be a perferct time to pick up the daily cache.

I drove a few kilometres from my home, and spotted a local trail head and decided to pull over and see if there was a cache and of course there was! I was a little worried as the terrain was at level three. However, the cache was less the 100 metres away, so I was pretty sure that I would be able to get to it.
After a short walk down the path, I approached GZ and it was a nice little area.

I thought how can this be terrain level three? However, getting to GZ was a little challenging as there was a lot of brush to go through and the terrain was rough, but it was manageable! A very nice hide by an active local cacher, Flinstone5611.

Caching Between A Rock And Hard Place

I also have one picture from yesterday, I forgot I was able to take one with the iPhone before it got too dark.
This was not where the cache was hidden but the stump was a good decoy to distract us from the real hide.

Well, that's it for tonight!

Mosquitos in September??

So tonight the whole family ventured out to get the cache, we waited until after dinner so we ventured out at almost 7pm. It wasn't yet dark, but the light was fading fast.
I told Mark just to drive, and when he felt like it to pull over and we would look for the nearest and easiest cache. So we go to a little area in Brampton near a school with a trail near by, and there was cache on the walking trail. The kids and I started down the trail and soon approached the spot where we would have to leave the trail for the forest. The cache was only about 25 metres off the path, but dusk was setting in fast, and the flashlight was back in the car. Thank goodness the iPhone has app for that!
We approached GZ and there were several options. Unfortunately, it was getting dark too fast, so no pictures. But trust me it was a nice little area, perfect for a cache. After searching the wrong log, we looked at option two and soon made the find.

Captain Awesome

While searching and signing the log several mosquito's feasted on my blood! There were so many of them I was beginning to think that it May instead of the end of September! I guess I can't complain too much, at least it wasn't raining!!

Streak is at 52 days and counting........

Rain Rain Go Away

Okay it's been 10 days since I posted last. I am officially a horrible blogger. Maybe I can get better?

It's been a crazy 10 days, first, yes I have kept the streak alive. There have been a lot of things keeping the family busy. First it was back to school, end of year softball games and then this past weekend was GHAGAFAP event, the tenth and possibly last one.

Each day I have been able to get at least one cache and sometimes more and until today the weather has been co-operative. Today I could not avoid the rain. I attempted one cache, but there was too much mud leading to the cache ans even though it was only 15 metres away the mud was too much and I had to abandon that one. So back to the car to look for another option. Fortunately, there was one not too far away.
What I did next leads me to ask everyone a question. When you go out searching for a cache, do you look at the description and the hint? Or do you only look at the description or neither of them?

This question also came up on the weekend. We went to a cache, we used only the co-ordinates, no description or hint. The find was easy enough and the container was awesome. The kids found the items in ammo box very cool and traded one item. After we got home, I was making our log and read the full description and realized that items were NOT to be traded from this cache. We did not take the item on purpose, we were just trying to make the cache more of a mystery without looking at all the information.

But today, with the weather I did not want to be heading in the wrong direction so I read both and was thankful that I did, or I would have been bushwhacking in the rain. Instead I was able to follow a trail for a short distance instead of the bushwhack. The find was a nice ammo container and despite the rain it was a quick find.

Nelson's Conundrum

Another day down......rain rain go away......

Out and about.

So today was my last day of vacation and I really have not accomplished too much. I mean I have been getting my cache a day (very important!), however, all the things I wanted to do around the house have not been done. Yesterday, we did manage to get all the weeds in the backyard cut down. Yes, I said cut down, they were so high they needed to to be cut. Now we can enjoy the backyard during the cool fall nights that seem to be upon us already.
So what did I do today? Well I decided to go on a little road trip with my Elaine. She needed to make an urgent trip to get some needles for her quilting machine and I offered to go along for company. Now Elaine recently got a new car and when I say recent, well I was the first ever passenger! It still had that new car smell! It was it's first real road trip. So out we headed, now we knew where we were going but I was technically the navigator and I'm sure Elaine is regretting that decision. Not that we got lost or anything, but we did have to do a few turn arounds and had to take the long way around to get to one of the Quilt stores that we visited.
I managed to by a some Christmas charm squares at the first store but was able to keep the debit card in the purse at the second one. Although there was a very nice Owl Kit, that I looked at three times but still left empty handed. Elaine picked up a few things at each store, unfortunately I don't have pictures of anything today.
We did manage to stop for one cache. It was very cool. Tricky, yet obvious. Again no picture, but if you are in the area, you should check it out.

The Big Red Box

After the cache we attempted to go to the closest McDonalds, and we saw something I have never seen before. It was closed! They were renovating. Of course there is always another McDonalds not far away (just like Timmy's) and at the next one one we were also able to get to a Canadian Tire where Elaine was able to pick something of her to do list. By this time it was already 5pm so no more caching as I needed to be in Mississauga for 6:30 and we were in Grimsby!
Well that's it for today.

Already have my cache for today. I had to go to Mississauga today for an appointment, so I decided to pick up a quick cache while there.

Mearsh Micro

It was a quick find and the weather does not look promising and I didn't want to get stuck caching in the rain.
One more done.....

One month down.......

Now that school is back in session it might be a few weekends before we have a weekend like the one we just had.
On Sunday, we decided to get the two more of the GeoTrail caches for the Lake Erie region so that we would have enough punches to qualify for the coin. The caches were not too difficult, one was located at an entrance to a nice little public beach area. However, it was too cool to go for a swim. Temperature was very different then the day before. We now have 10 punches in our log book and we can return to the visitor centre to get our coin. Unforunately, the centre was not in the direction we were heading so we had to forego the coin until another day. We did manage to get one more cahce in the Buffalo/Niagara region, so we already have two punches for this region.
Elaine, Marion, Carol Nicole, Bill - Whenever you guys are ready we can go. It really isn't that far!!

Then on Monday, we thought we'd rest a little. That didn't last long. Mark still had the itch to go cacahing, so we planned a little trip to Acton and did 12 caches there on Monday. There was one cache in particular that drove me crazy. MiniGomes and I had gone to GZ and had actually looked at it several times. It wasn't until Mark and CelyG came out tolook that MiniGomes made the discovery. Just look how small and sneaky this cache is!

Then yesterday and today I did local caches, ones closer to home. The next few weeks will be quiet as we have lots of back to school activities and the champions days for baseball this weekend. However, I am excited about September 17th, it's the 10th annual GHAGAFAP Event.

GHAGAFAP X - The Milestone


Well one month down and 11 more to go....and thanks to Elaine for keeping me on my blogging toes, I still don't know how you manage to get this done almost every day!

Great Lakes Seaway Trail

Well it's been a crazy 24 hours! We left Toronto yesterday and drove through to Erie, PA. Our plan, to cache on the GeoTrail of the Great Lakes Seaway Trail.
http://www.seawaytrail.com/geotrail.html
It is an amazing trail that travels along all of the great lakes (on the American side). If you complete 10 of 15 caches in each section you can get a commemorative coin. Our goal was to get 10 in the Lake Erie section.

On Friday as we drove down I90, I recognized a view point as having the same name as one of the caches int a different region, but we stopped anyway. It was our second cache of the evening (as we had stopped for one near the visitors centre, just after we crossed the border).

Then we continued all the way to Erie and we got a hotel room for the night, so we could get up early and begin our adventure.

So this morning we awoke early (at least by my standards) and were out the door by 8:30am, and off to our first cache location. However, we had to make a little detour...Cracker Barrel...for some fried apples!! Yummy! All was not lost as we were able to pick up several urban caches during this pit stop!

It was so humid out today that we never did take the bikes off the back of the van! :(
Our first stop for the GeoTrail was a cache that was down a very steep hill.

And here is Celeste on the steep staircase.

Now most were not like this, they were on trails that had easy access.
Here is Celeste at the Environmental Centre, one of the places you can pick up a log book.

 Now we lost some time here as there was a lot to see, and the State Park at Presque Isle was also a distraction. There were a lot of caches on the Isle, but we wanted to see some of the sights so we took a drive down one lane and completed a virtual cache about the War of 1812.  We will definitely return here, there was too much to see and not enough time. It was already time for lunch, so we stopped for a burger and fries at a local eatery. Man was it hot out!
After refuelling, off to do more caching! During our journey, we saw this street sign and just had to take a snap shot for Elaine and Carol.

And can you believe that I haven`t even once looked for a quilting store or fabric shop?

Well that's the last photo I can load, because Mark took the rest in RAW format and I don't have time to convert them as we are still it the US. You might think it would be easy to get 10 caches in a day? Well we were not able to make it. Maybe if we ignored all the other caches in between and all the other interesting thinks to see. One we couldn't find (like many other cachers before us), and two had too many muggles around and we couldn't wait them out. So just before the sun went down we were able to get our 9th cache on the GeoTrail.
So we are spending another night in the US and tomorrow morning, we will get the 10th cache plus a few more and then head back to Canada.

I'm exhausted..the other two are already asleep...I'm heading there now.....