On the Prowl

This blog has now been superseded

2011-05-04T09:13:00.002-04:00

As I have been unable to find a way to link this blog site with my Other Rambles one, I have created a new On the Prowl blog at that location. If you wish to follow my geocaching adventures, please go to the new Yabut-On the Prowl site here and book mark it. Thanks for your continued support.

Not Quite Easter Eggs

2011-04-28T20:37:00.003-04:00

I live in a tiny village, but even here there are four caches available for those who want to look for them. I’ve found a couple of them before, and even another that no longer exists. Easter Sunday was a really nice day to go for a walk, so I took my hubby and headed out.

The first one we looked for (GC26GHY) was what they call a multi cache. That means the way point that is given is not the one where you will find the cache itself. We had to check out a sign at the given way point, find all the numbers on it and then do some mathematics using them. Finding all the numbers is not as easy as it sounds, but we managed, and got the math right too. We know that because the nice person who was giving the clues gave us a way to know for sure that we were arriving at the correct numbers without actually telling us what they were.

Then, that’s where we ran into trouble. One of the numbers would tell us the distance to the cache in metres, while the other was supposed to give us the bearing to the cache in degrees from True North. It said to project a way point on my GPS to calculate where the cache was located. Uh huh. Some of you may understand that but I sure didn’t. I’ll be having to consult my manual to see if my GPS model even does such a thing. I could have tried to walk in a circle, but between the canal and the river, I’m sure I would have drowned in the process.

Never mind. We’re brave souls and we set out to find it anyway. We have enough experience at this that we figured we’d have some idea of where to look.....or at least in which direction to look, and hope we’d find a logical hiding place along the way. What I found was that the beavers had been very busy since my last walk in that area. While I was checking that out, my hubby poked about in a few places, and then found the cache using what he referred to as "man sense." Lovely. I am the registered member of www.geocaching.com, by the way, and I just log him in as +1 after my caching name when we find a cache. So hey, he may have found it, but I’ll still get the credit :)

The other cache (GC1NWQ6) was also nearby. I had looked for it for a few moments last fall, when I first learned about it. I followed the clues and looked where it should have been and it wasn’t. I wasn’t dressed for the adventure so decided to come back someday and look again. I did, and since I didn’t find it where I had expected to previously, I handed off the GPS to the hubby and he went right too it. And yes, it was right where it should have been! It was NOT there when I looked. But I could see where some smart #@$ may have put it just to make things more difficult. Or maybe that’s where it actually belongs and some lazy person didn’t put it back there this time. Either way, we (he) found both caches that day, but it did wet our appetite to go hunting again soon.

Christmas Caching

2011-01-07T11:51:00.003-05:00

I know I have not been good about keeping this blog up to date, but I have to tell you about the latest one.

About the time I would normally turn off the computer and head for bed, I read an e-mail telling me where all the latest new caches were. I couldn't believe it. There was a new one just down the road from me, and nobody had found it yet. I had never had a first to find, and I had never gone geocaching at night. I don't normally go geocaching once the cold weather sets in either. So, when I told the hubby to grab his coat, he looked at me and said, "It's eleven o'clock!" But he could see by my eyes I wasn't about to wait for morning and take a chance someone else would find it first. No way. It was December 23rd, and to me this was like a Christmas present I just had to go find.

It was a lovely evening, and it was amazing how many people we passed on the street. Mind you, most of them were walking dogs. We had no trouble locating the cache, but anyone not looking for it wouldn't likely just come across it accidentally. My very first first to find, and there was no special surprise for me to take home. There were several travel bugs and geocaching coins in there though. Normally I'd make off with one of them but since I won't likely be venturing out again until spring and the mosquitoes arrive, I thought I'd better leave them for someone else to help along their way. Still, I was happy to have this little adventure. I believe it was placed by the local Girl Guides and I do hope they enjoy watching some of their treasure move across the globe soon.

While I won't be out hunting treasure for a few more months, I have started a new blog at www.otherrambles.blogspot.com . I the rambles may be about where I go, or what I do, or just may be me rambling on about whatever is on my mind. I hope you follow me there as well.

A Few Weeks Back

2010-08-05T09:37:00.003-04:00

We had a lovely day out with my son and his family at a beach where we have not been for many years. On the way home, we stopped to find a new cache hidden at the Rideau Ferry Yacht Club.

To Perth and Back

2010-07-02T10:02:00.003-04:00

A friend wanted my hubby to check out a truck for him in the Perth area, so it was suggested that I map out a route and we make an afternoon of it. I never have to be asked twice!
The first stop of the day was at a business establishment that has given permission for the cache to be hidden there. Good thinking since there is more than one kind of treasure to be found at this location, if you happen to venture inside the store. (GC1V41B)

We traveled up Hwy 7, towards Ottawa a wee bit, then off onto a side road. The cache was placed for the McDonald and Caswell families, who founded farms in that area in the early 1800’s. It’s an interesting place for a cache, and I’m glad we took the time to go in that direction. (GC267EX).

Then we backtracked through Perth along Hwy 7 and went off to Glen Tay. I’m declaring this my favorite cache of the day, (GC154A1) as there are lots of interesting sights along this road, and in this tiny village. If my own village gets too much more citified, I might happily move there.

We continued along this road, to the Rideau Ferry Road. We kept our eyes pealed for Rock Island Road, and then went down that. I was glad I had a map to help me find my way to the cache. It was so nice to be coaxed down this back road to find this interesting roundabout. (GCY405) Mind you, I’m all for climbing rocks and checking the GPS later.

Kemptville

2010-07-02T09:53:00.004-04:00

We had a nice visit at Tim Hortons, with a lady from Kemptville one day, and she mentioned how she knew others, besides us, who went geocaching. She thought it sounded like fun, and thought she wouldn't mind trying it sometime. A week or so later, I discovered a new cache very near her home.

It was the first time I'd ever walked along the Kemptville Creek, and as always, I was thankful to whoever decided to coax us down this pathway. One end of the path comes out very near this lady's home, so next time we get a chance, we may just knock on the door, and take her for a little walk, just so she can see how it's done. Maybe after that, she'll be interested in joining in on the fun herself. It's a great excuse for a little exercise and fresh air.

Napanee

2010-06-30T08:52:00.004-04:00

Before heading home from Kingston Kicks, we took a little diversion up to Napanee. The first stop would have a spectacular view as sunset, but it was definitely the wrong time of day for me to try getting a picture from that point.

Two of the caches were at graveyards. At the first one (GC15CY7) it was a matter of not being able to see the forest for the trees. When you have a preconceived notion of where to look, you often don’t see what staring you right in the face.

At the other graveyard (GC15CT1) contains a crypt with grapevines and raspberry canes, but that looks okay. There was one other grave that was totally uncared for, in the midst of all those that must have been under perpetual care. It stood out as it was totally overgrown with vines and other wild vegetation.

There are lots of nice trees, but no "pictures" at the Fairgrounds (GCJNBB). On the other hand, there is a really nice picnic spot near a smaller park where we found a working interactive sundial (GC15CQR). The cache was a micro though, so, while normally you just get to sign the log, I actually found some interesting beads in there.

The best cache of the day was along the Napanee River. (GC165J4) First you had to find how to get to the park, and then you had to follow a trail to the cache. This was much more the kind of geocaching I like to do. The hint told us to look out for bugs, and that was an excellent warning as they were definitely hungry in there.

Wolfe Island

2010-06-22T20:50:00.003-04:00

We attended our favourite Martial Arts weekend, Kingston Kicks, recently and managed to get in some geocaching in the process.

First, before even checking into the Ambassador Hotel, in Kingston ON, we took the ferry over to Wolfe Island. It was a nice day, and we were not sure we would get another chance. We had never been over there before, but you can see many of the wind turbines from the mainland.

I often hear how noisy they are, but it there was only a slight breeze and though they were all rotating gently, we didn’t hear a thing. There are a lot of them though, in every direction you look.

There are probably about 40 caches on the island, but mostly we went after the non micro ones. We covered most of the island in the 3 hours we were there. It’s not really all that large.

The first one we found had a surprise waiting for us. I’d rather not tell you what that was, but it certainly made me think we were in for a fun day. There was also a travel bug in that cache, so I took that and have since placed it closer to home.

A lot of the caches were in or near trees, living or dead, but there was also one hidden inside another container that would definitely freeze to the ground and not be accessible in the winter time. It was easy enough to find, but even so, I’ve never seen anyone else hide a cache quite like that before.

There really isn’t much on the island to see, other than the wind turbines, but my favorite cache of the day was down along the lake shore. There was some amazing scenery there, but the sun was facing the wrong way at that point, so my best pictures were facing the opposite way. Too bad. Maybe I can get back there earlier in the day next time. And I do think there will be a next time.

Mountain Township Loop

2010-05-17T18:29:00.014-04:00

What a wonderful weekend to go exploring.

I decided, that since we went looking for friends along the way last time, that we could do the same thing this time. There is this very interesting lady I know, who is into martial arts, belly dancing, archery, medieval reenactments and leather work, and who knows what else. She also raises chickens, I noticed, while looking at some pictures on Facebook recently. I plotted a loop around the area in which she lives and thought perhaps we could track her down while we were in the area.

Our first stop of the day was at the old Van Camp cemetery. GC21KYT Now, this is in Mountain Township which is really quite flat so it can’t have been named after a geographical feature. Apparently it was named for the Right Reverend Jacob Mountain (1750 -1825), the first Protestant Bishop of Quebec. The cache was cleverly placed, but not hard to find, and we were quickly on our way.

This is when we made a little side trip and had a short visit with the lady mentioned above. An archer practice was about to begin, but we were welcomed and introduced to some of the chickens. I’d say she’s not in it for the eggs or meat since the chickens all have names and are a wild assortment of breeds. It’s more like she collects them. And she certainly loves them.

We made our way from there to another cemetery, also in Mountain Township, but this one at Mulloy Road. GC21KYW This cemetery, unlike the previous one, is still in use.

From there we went to Inkerman, home of the famous Inkerman Rockets hockey team. GC21PAC This cache was a micro. I prefer the ones with treasures, though there hadn’t been much in the ones we had found so far this day anyway. This one, being in a film canister, took a little longer for us to find, but the coordinates were right on, so it was a good test of the accuracy for my GPS.

Then we moved on to Baldwin’s Bridge. GC1D5B0 First we had to locate the plaque commemorating the building of the bridge. Then we had to decipher what the instructions wanted us to do next in order to find a tag on which we would find the next set of coordinates. After we found that we had to go find where those coordinates took us. I don’t remember what was in that cache either, but the real treasure was finding some of the most amazing fungus I’ve ever seen. I don’t know if the person who set up this cache put it there on purpose for people to see these works of art, or if it was just great luck, but this, for us, was the highlight of the day.

After that, we were back at another nearby cemetery. GC21PA8 The stones had obviously been moved to this location as they stood side by side in curve. One of the grave markers was very unusual, and amazing to look at. From a distance it looked like an old tree. But when you got closer you found that it was, in fact, carved stone, with lots of interesting embellishments. The more you looked at it, the more you saw. I would guess that it was created for someone who was very close to nature in life.

We then drove the short distance into village of South Mountain. Someone had given lessons on geocaching last year, and had placed a few caches of different varieties in order to teach people how to go about finding them. I guess we should have attended the class as there was one we couldn’t figure out. More than likely I’m misinterpreting something, or made a mathematical error while working out the puzzle. At any rate, I’ll have more time to ponder this now that I’m back home, and perhaps we’ll pick that one up next time we head in that direction. There are certainly enough other caches in that area to keep us busy some other day.

But we were successful at locating two others placed for this practice session. One was another micro, and the other was the only time we were taken into the woods all day. I must say, I’m just as glad as there were plenty of mosquitoes in there. There was also some sort of animal den in the ground near the cache. Not something terribly small either.

It was a great afternoon, if not as adventurous as some.

Treasured Friends and Other Trinkets

2010-04-27T10:23:00.006-04:00

We have friends who are about to build a new house down some country road we have never been on, so we decided to go see if we could find them. As they are often on the property on weekends, clearing the land and preparing to build we would just keep our eyes open for their truck. It seemed like a good time to hunt down a few treasures, just in case we couldn’t find our friends....not that they aren’t treasures themselves, but we just were not sure we could find them.

Our first stop was at the site of the Crosby Flea Market. GC10BBD It’s too early in the year for it to be in operation, if it ever is, so we didn’t have to hide our searching from anyone.

Then we stopped by Portland and picked up a couple of caches there.

One was found between one of Portland’s old churches and a newer one. GC1NMXJ

The other was found near the shore of the Big Rideau Lake. GC1H1MP Both were very easy finds. There are lots of other caches hidden around the Portland area. We’ve picked up some in the past and we left others for some other day.

Out final cache of the day was in Smiths Falls, down a little trail behind some houses. GC26128 By now you should know I love to walk trails, but I really can’t recommend this one. For one thing, it’s only about a block long, and for another, it looks like most of the trees along there have recently been cut down, so that certainly spoils the charm.

And just so you know, we did find our friends. They were well down a side road in some really beautiful countryside. I do wish we had stopped for pictures, but I’m sure we’ll be back in that area again sometime over the summer.

Easter Hunt

2010-04-04T15:30:00.020-04:00

While some of you think Easter is the time to hunt for eggs, we thought it was a great weekend to go looking for a different kind of treasure. The weather was perfect for a full day of geocaching, so I mapped out a loop that would take up most of the day.

Our first stop was in Franktown. GC1HA3T It’s too early for the blooms on Lilac Lane, but we’ve seen them before and this early in the season there are no people around to catch us snooping around. It was a quick, easy find, and a great way to start the year. There was another cache not far off, but there were other people there when we arrived. One of them even walked over to talk to us as we were wandering around. I just said I was out looking for pictures and she said it was a great day for it. We left that cache for some other time.

Our next stop was in Carleton Place, in a little park on Mill Street. GC1T81G There are some Hackabery trees there, and those are apparently quite rare in Canada and especially in this part of Ontario. It’s a nice park by the rushing Mississippi River.

From there we went to another part of town and wandered down a trail near a calmer part of the river. GC1MY8V We were glad to have found this cache at this time of year. It won’t be long before one would have to make some major blood offerings to the mosquito population that would surely be living here. Apparently my hubby used to park beside this trail to have his lunch, when he was working in Carleton Place, but he never walked the trail before now. Isn’t it amazing what a little treasure hunt will get you to do?

Then we made our way to Almonte. One cache couldn’t be found, but apparently we aren’t the only ones who couldn’t find it, so we didn’t feel too bad about that and carried on to look for another in the same area. GC16GCJ It was a lovely walk through the woods, and I worked off some of the lunch we had in Carleton Place. By this time we were getting quite hot, and even stopped to cool our feet off in a stream.

People seem to like to hide caches in cemeteries these days. The next one we went to was not in the cemetery, but near by. GC21KT0 We thought this was a strange place for a pump though, as we didn’t know dead people go thirsty.

I think my favorite cache of the day was down a skidoo trail along a township line. GCP1XQ We disturbed some frogs in the puddles along the way, and ran into a few thorn bushed trying to avoid the muck, but it was an easy walk along a pretty trail. I picked up two treasures at this one, leaving behind items of equal value.

We stopped at the Innisville Rest Stop, which is supposed to be a multi cache, but we were only given one set of coordinates, and no clues, or instructions to find others. There was nothing at the given coordinates, and certainly nowhere to have hidden anything, so I really suspect they just wanted you to park there and explore the nearby businesses. Actually, a lot of what the cache listing says is there is not there anymore (including the restrooms), so perhaps they just forgot to deactivate the cache listing.

We made our final stop of the day in Perth, at the Garden In The Round. GC1EDHM This garden was created for the blind, and in season, it has many very fragrant plants.
I think we were out for six and a half hours, including our stop for lunch. It was a wonderful way to start our geocaching season.

End of the Year

2009-12-02T18:47:00.005-05:00

I had found a geocoin a while back, and had it quite a while, due to illness and the weather and the fact that any cache we found was a micro and too small to leave it in. Someone e-mailed me and asked that I get it back into play, and I assured him that it was never my intention to keep it, and that I’d put it back out the first chance I got.

The thing was, it was already past when I’d normally be out looking for caches. So, one day, when I knew we were headed for Ottawa, I scouted out some possible caches on route, to see if there was anywhere we could drop it, without wrecking out city clothes. It seems there’s a park in Leitrim where they play soccer and such, and there was a cache hidden there, so that’s where I dropped the coin.

Someone picked it up again before the day was out so I’m happy to know it’s back in play, as I didn’t get to take it as far away from where I found it as I would have liked.

That will likely be the last of my geocaching until next spring now, even though we don’t yet have any snow. It’s almost as muddy as in the springtime, but it’s also cool and damp.....two conditions I’m not fond of.

I saw a video today, that I thought I’d share. Apparently the very first geocache was stashed in 2000 and it had some pretty good stuff in it. Take a look.
http://firsttofind.blogspot.com/2009/12/geocaching-tip-of-day-43.html
I found a CD once, and occasionally I find something someone has made, which is pretty cool. But mostly, I just find Dollar Store trinkets. Even so, I prefer that to the micros, where all you can do is sign the log. Especially now that I like to take the grandson along, it’s way more fun if there’s treasure of some sort to find. I do think the geocoins are wonderful treasures though, even if I do have to give them up again. I can at least keep a picture to remember them by.

Thanksgiving Quest

2009-10-13T19:33:00.004-04:00

Normally for Thanksgiving I forget the whole celebration thing and go out to some woodland trail to get a good look at the beautiful leaves. This year we decided to get a little turkey and invite the family over. We did that on Sunday though, so on Monday we actually did go for a little ride to look at leaves. Not as far as usual, and not down any woodland trails.

We did drive down one road I’m not sure I’ve ever been on before, and found something that tickled me so much I had to get a picture of it. I’ve certainly never seen this before, but now I think everyone who has an outdoor oil tank should do something similar. This paint job just made my entire day!

Eventually we got to Smiths Falls and looked up a couple of caches while we were there. One was in a very public place, with cars going by all the time, so it was hard to find and retrieve the cache without anyone seeing. Hopefully the people in the cars were busy looking at the traffic and didn’t notice us poking about. This is why I don’t care for urban caching. I’d much rather go to some rural place, wander down some trail I didn’t know was there and find something somewhere where most likely nobody will catch you poking around.

Our second cache was also in town, but at least it was on Parks Canada land. After more than 35 years of driving right past Old Sly’s Locks, we actually got to explore the area. First thing I noticed is that this is a double lock, with one emptying into the other with no basin in between. I hadn’t realized that. The second thing I learned was that what appears to be a retaining wall there is really the top of an old 23 foot high dam that used to run across the main channel of the Rideau River. The area between the dam and the railroad was filled with dirt in the later part of the 20th century.

There are even steps leading down and under the railroad bridge, and a bit of parkland on the far side that I didn’t know about. The people with homes along that part of county road 43 would have full access to the park.

In Search of Giants

2009-09-24T16:17:00.004-04:00

It was a lovely day to go treasure hunting last Sunday. We picked up the grandson and headed for Kars. There is a big cache there made especially for kids, but first you have to find a little metal tag so you will know where to go next. We didn’t find that tag, but we saw a trailhead nearby, so we figured we would go down that, and see if we could locate the big trees that were supposed to be at the cache.

Immediately my grandson asked, "Where’s that blue thing? (my GPS). I want the blue thing." After he got his hands on that, he led the way. He even told us we were going the wrong way, and though we didn't have the new waypoints, it turned out he was right about that.

While walking though the woods, we usually make a point of talking, or thumping a cane against trees, or something, to make noise. There are reportedly lots of bears around our general area, so we don’t want to be surprising any. That day my grandson was giving us a running commentary on what he was seeing, and his interpretations of the GPS readings. I didn’t want to mention bears, and maybe scare him, so I just said something about how much noise we were making in the woods that day. He immediately said, "I talk too much." I wondered where he had hear that, and asked if the teacher told him that. "No," he said, "Daddy tells me that. He always tells me I talk too much." I can remember that when Daddy used to come home from school, he would talk for two full hours, just to make up for having to be quiet in school all day. What goes around, comes around, as they say.

We found some big trees, but not the right ones, so we never did find that cache. There were a couple of little board bridges over some muddy areas. I thought my grandson must have heard the story of the Three Billy Goats Gruff, when he stood in the middle of one and made himself big, and said, "What are you doing on my bridge? Get off of my bridge!" Poor grandpa immediately did as he was told.

I’m disappointed not to have found this particular cache as there are picture on geocaching.com that shows how big the trees we were supposed to be looking for really are. These are giants, and I know the grandson would be really impressed with their size. We’ll have to go try for that cache again someday.

Right now, there is a detour as one of the bridges is out, along the highway, so at first we had great difficulty even getting to the right road. But while we didn’t find the giant trees, we did find the cache at the Hangman’s Tree, which this very trail led us to. Once we got close to where it was, we turned the 4 year old loose to discover it on his own. He didn’t have any trouble. Once a treasure was selected, it was time to head for home.

Labour Day Weekend

2009-09-13T21:43:00.008-04:00

I'm a little late with this but.....

What wonderful weather we had Labour Day weekend! Besides getting lots done around the house.....scraping the paint off the garage, trimming the cedar hedge and getting the netting off the blackberry bushes (that’s harder than it sounds), there was also some automotive body work being done around here. But all work and no play makes for a boring weekend, so we took advantage of the weather on Sunday afternoon, and finally went geocaching.

I often leave it up to the hubby to decide which direction to go, if we aren’t headed somewhere anyway. Usually we’re off on some other errand, and I just look up caches in whatever direction we happen to be headed. But once in a while, like this time, we’re specifically going off to hunt for treasure. It was decided that we would look around the Metcalfe and Russell areas, here in Ontario. I printed out a good handful of sites and off we went.

The first one we stopped at was at a park in Metcalfe. I’m sure this is often a busy area, and we lucked out as there was nobody in sight to wonder what we were up to. The area that the cache was hidden in had a multitude of hiding spots, and also an over abundance of mosquitoes. I wondered if we would have to give up on that, as I expected it to take too long and neither of us were in the mood to feed the bugs that day. However, my hubby has sharp eyes, and can spot the tiniest thing out of place. It only took him seconds to find the cache. I swear, I don’t know how he did it. The whole area is full of rocks, and it could have been behind or under any of them. How he found it so fast is beyond me, but we made a quick trade, signed the log and got out of there as quickly as we could. I wondered if the rest of the day would be like that too. The logs for this particular cache did warn us about the mosquitoes, and none of the others made mention of it, so off we went.

There was another one nearby, but the logs for it actually warned of yellowjackets, and I certainly didn’t want to run into them, so we headed for Russell.

I think the people in Russell are very lucky. They have lots of lovely trails in at least two separate conservation areas. One had a dam on the Castor River, that somehow is supposed to help regulate the South Nation River. The Nation is famous for flooding. I couldn’t figure out how this would work, upon seeing the dam, so I may have to do a little research on that, as now I’m curious.

To get to the other cache, you walk along a paved bike trail, that has a deep ditch on either side of it. From the size of the culverts there, I suspect the water runs deep and fast in the springtime.

Various people, with homes on the other sides of these ditches, have built somewhat rickety bridges so they can get from their property to the bikepath. Another conservation area runs off from this path. It’s a series of trails that run both along side the creak bed, and also back through the forest. Though you might expect bugs in there, there wasn’t even one. Other trail builders should go and have a look at how nicely the Russell ones were done.

I’m just recovering from a bout of chronic fatigue, and though I hoped to do more caches this fine day, I decided I’d call a halt to it, as I was starting to trip over my own feet. We found some relatives to visit on the way home, so all in all, it was a great day.

A Short Visit to the Stony Swamp

2009-08-02T11:03:00.004-04:00

We had to make a run into Ottawa to get a replacement computer for my oldest son. The Trailing Edge is not far from the Stony Swamp Conservation Area, so I looked up some caches to hit while in the area.

The first cache was easy enough to find. I figured that if you went down a dead end street, there might be an entrance to the trail system, and I was right. The cache was hidden in a camouflaged thermos bottle, which is a perfect way to keep the contents safe and dry. I’ve got one here that doesn’t tend to keep things hot or cold, so now I know what to use it for in the future.

I found a travel bug in that cache, but when I went to log it, I found that it’s basically been lost since at least April. Nobody logged that they left it there, or where they found it before putting it there. I took it home with me, logged it properly and will drop it someplace else next time I’m out. I see someone is watching this one, so that may be the owner, trying to determine where it wandered off to. I’m sure he’ll be pleased to see it back in play.

The second cache we went to was on another part of the same trail, but we had more difficulty finding the way in. After circling around the neighbourhood for a while, we finally found the way in. I liked this part of the trail as the Precambrian rock had come to the surface and was actually the trail bed we walked on. I was upset with myself for having actually forgotten to bring the camera along on this expedition. There wasn’t much to see on either of these trails, really, but I would have taken a photo of the trail across the rock itself.

I had several other cache sites planed for the day, but my body is in fatigue mode again, so I thought it best to stop for the day, before I trip over my own feet and do myself some injury. It wouldn’t be the first time.

These are nice trails, and I had only scoped out a few of them in a very small area of the Stony Swamp. We will be back....likely numerous times over the coming years.

Blueberry Expedition

2009-07-30T21:15:00.005-04:00

On Saturday, July 26th, we took a run up Highway 7 to renew our supply of blueberries. Little did I know we would practically have to mortgage the house to get some. As it was, I settled for just 3 litres, as that cost us $47. Divided into 6 soft margarine containers for the freezer, that will have to last us for the year.

As has become our custom, we don’t just go somewhere and come back without at least looking to see if we can find some treasure along the way. I discovered that there were 3 caches along aother little strip of old railway bed, and they looked close enough together that I was prepared to hunt for all three. As it turns out, we parked in three separate places, and went down different sections of the trail from roadside access points for each of those three caches.

The first one was near a large swamp, which made it rather interesting. After a decent hike down the trail, we found the cache quite easily. I had to dump a couple of inches of water out of it though, as it wasn’t in a very good quality container. The other two caches were placed by the same family, and had the same sort of container. Each of them had actual holes in the lids, so everything was quiet damp, but since they were hidden under rocks, they at least were not full of water like the first one. I sent the owner some maintenance notes when we got home. I see we were not the only ones to find these caches in that sort of state, but others just filled out the log and never notified the owners of the problem. I hope they get out there and replace these containers soon, before the log books are totally ruined.

One great thing about these caches was that we got to see all the beautifully kept farms along Old Brooke Road. Well worth the side trip, I must say.

Our next stop was at Silver Lake. There were lots of muggles about (people not into geocaching), so we had to be careful. Luckily I had my camera with me, so I took pictures of the lake, and got myself interested in anything that was growing in the area, as I had a pretty good idea just where the cache could be, and I wanted to check that out without being caught. Three fisherman on one side of me, a couple picnicking on the other, soon lost interest in me as I clambered about on the rocks near the shore. Luckily, there was a tree between me and the fishermen when I finally got close enough to get my hands on the cache. I removed it, and went to another location to inspect the treasures, and sign the log, before going back to replace it. I had the hubby stand on top of the rock pile, so I could take his picture up there. Hopefully that fooled the fishermen as to why I would return to the same area.

After we left there, it wasn’t too much further before we got to the blueberry stand. We go to the same one year after year. The berries were a good size this year. I suppose all this rain has plumped them up, and kept them from drying out. I would have liked more than I got, after coming all this distance, but it was hard enough to pay out as much as we did for those little blue treasures.

Of course, once we had them, we couldn’t geocache anymore or they would just cook in the car. So that was the end of the fun for that day.

Family Fun Day

2009-07-22T08:45:00.005-04:00

It was time for the annual Family Day at Rideau Carleton Raceway. We picked up the 4 year old grandson and set out for a day of fun. First stop, of course, was to do a little geocaching along the way.

We stopped at the Veterans Park along Highway 416 and were informed, "I’ve been here before!" I just assumed it was because his great grandfather was a veteran and the family had taken GGPa for a ride and stopped there. But no, it sounded more like Mommy had taken him to look for treasure at this location already. So I told him to lead the way. He said they never found it, but asked me for my GPS. He studied it for a moment. "Okay guys. Look. See, this is where we are," he said, poking his finger at the GPS screen, "And the treasure is way over here." Then he started walking, with us following up behind. Four year olds are pretty smart these days!

It was Grandpa that spotted the cache in the end though. It had several beaded bracelets inside, and just a few other trinkets. Remembering that last time we took this child geocaching, he chose a little hairclip for his Mommy, I thought he’d pick her out a nice bracelet this time. No way! There was a little plastic blue and yellow knife in there, and he went straight for that. And that thing amused him the rest of the day.

The Family Fun Day is really a fund raiser for CHEO, and totally geared for kids. There was a man singing kiddy songs, and lots of rhythm band instruments for the kids to use. There were stations set up for coloring, beading, and facepainting. There were pony rides and bikes built into a horse and sulky set up. There were live reptiles and tarantellas and places to throw balls at a hoop or use chalk on the pavement. There was even an area where the kids were given a kit to build their own birdhouse. All the while, there were horses doing practice runs around the track. There weren’t as many demonstrations as the previous year, and there didn’t seem to be as big a crowd either. I just hope they made enough for CHEO to continue holding this event for a few more years yet, as, by the time this grandson grows out of it, the new one will be old enough to go.

After a bit of food, purchased from a chip wagon at the site, we headed for home. We made one final stop to do a bit more geocaching. The grandson looked at the entrance to the path, and asked, "Are we going into the deep, dark woods?" I said, "We are, but remember, we have the GPS so we won’t get lost." That met with approval. So did the many puddles along the path. There has been a lot of rain this summer. It was hard to stay out of the mud, and each one of us nearly slipped at one point or another. But that was only after we decided there were entirely too many hungry bugs in the woods that day, and perhaps we were in too much of a hurry to get back out of there. We’ll have to return for the cache some other time of year.

Birthday Happenings

2009-07-17T08:44:00.006-04:00

Sunday, July, 12 was hubby’s birthday, so I let him decide what to do with the day. Luckily the weather was perfect for lots of outdoor fun.

First we went to downtown Merrickville, where the annual Cruise and Shop was underway. There were about 500 antique cars on display, and though I recognized some from other years, I saw some new ones that were interesting too. That took up the entire morning.

Hubby then decided it was a good day for geocaching, so it was just a matter of which direction to go. He thought it was a good day to head to Prescott, so I hunted up some caches to visit. I have a travel bug to get rid of, but most of the caches in the Prescott area seem to be micros. I found a couple that weren’t and armed with all the coordinates, off we went. The road between Merrickville and Kemptville was extremely busy. It was just a solid stream of traffic headed into the village. It was as if the city people had all come out of church and headed to the Merrickville to see the old cars. I don’t remember ever seeing highway 43 this busy before.

We went to Prescott by a cross country route, and found the first two caches very easily. I’m not fond of micros for some reason, but these were at least in interesting containers. One was at an old train station. Last time I was there it was a factory outlet for some line of pots and pans. Now it’s where the Grenville Historical Society houses it’s Archives and Resource Centre. It’s a nice old building and I’m glad it’s being used for something.

We didn’t find the third cache we looked for, down at the harbour. We had been there last year, but got caught in a storm and gave up. (See http://georambling.blogspot.com/2008/08/between-rain-drops.html )
This one is a multi and we tried to find it using the coordinates worked out last year. But we may have gotten one of the numbers wrong somewhere along the way as we didn’t find it this time either. I wasn’t in the mood to work through the various steps again that day, so I work it out on some other visit to the harbour sometime. There is a very friendly cat that lives in the rocks at this harbour. It was nice to make his acquaintance, so I felt like I had found some sort of treasure there after all.

As we walked along the water, looking at the sights, I noticed another cache show up on my GPS. I wasn’t expecting that, for some reason, but we went to hunt it out. After waiting for some muggles to come and go, it was another quick easy find. Still, it was another micro, and I still had the travel bug.

We decided to go back to one of the caches we had not found on a previous year. We thought we would have better luck this time, as we have now seen a picture of the actual cache container, so we would have a better idea what to look for. No such luck. There was a family having a picnic right about where we needed to look. We sat on a bench for a while and watched the boats, but it was obvious they weren’t going anywhere anytime soon.

The only other cache I knew of that would be big enough to drop the travel bug had us going around in circles for a few minutes, but that turned out to be okay as we ended up over at Burger King where we were able to make a rest stop and refuel ourselves. Great birthday dinner that turned out to be, but we had been out to Rideau Carleton Raceway on Friday night, and even got to ride in the chase car, so nobody was complaining. At Burger King we used an Entertainment coupon, so it was two Whoppers for the price of one. Then we each discovered we had won in the latest contest. One got a Cheeseburger and the other got another Whopper for next weekend (since that’s when the current promotion ends). So, considering that’s 4 burgers for the price of one, I’ll take that as another treasure collected that day.
When we got to the location of the final cache of the day, we found that it would be necessary to walk through several yards of poison parsnip, just to get to the treeline. The caches is a multi hidden in an old dump, so there was likely even more of the noxious weed in there. We decided not to take any chances as that plant produces blisters on the skin. So I still have the travel bug. I do hope we have better luck next week!

On the Trail Again....

2009-07-06T22:08:00.007-04:00

It was a busy weekend. We had a wedding reception to go to, and company coming to join us for breakfast the next morning. I enjoyed that, and think we will have to do it again sometime. We all went over to check out Canalfest after breakfast. Luckily there was no sign of rain, for a change. It was a lovely day to be by the canal, and cruise through the craft booths, then head back to the house to continue our visit.

Later in the day, we decided to go see if we could find a geocache large enough to deposit a particular travel bug in. It was called the comet, and sort of resembled a ball with a windsock trailing out from it. Anyway, it was larger than any of the other travel bugs I've seen in the past, so I knew I had to find a decent sized cache to put it in. We didn't want to have to travel too far since it was already late in the day. I located coordinates for two....one in each direction.... and after deciding which to tackle, we headed out towards Smiths Falls.

The Lost Railroad (GCZTNX) is a lovely trail on an old abandoned railway line. It is part of the Cataraqui Trail and runs through diverse landscape from Smiths Falls to Strathcona. That's about 104 kilometres. Even the section we were on had swamplands, cuts between rock faces, open fields and forest. It also had some interesting looking pathways to nearby homes along one stretch. It was a good walk, and probably took us 45 minutes or so, to go and come back. We even saw a couple of deer cross the trail ahead of us at one point. Unfortunately they were too far away for my camera to be of any use. It was a great day for a walk, and I'm glad that, once again, geocaching got us to stop and walk along a trail we had driven past numerous times without really realizing it was there. After reading more about it once I got home, I discovered that this trail is also part of the Trans Canada Trail. I know where there are more sections of this around here, and I will be wanting to explore further, cache or no cache.

Monkee Adventures

2009-06-24T11:34:00.012-04:00

We went geocaching on Sunday, June 21, but the story starts well before that.

I use Twitter, and had searched for Merrickville stories. One said that monkees were taking over Merrickville. Huh? I followed that lead to discover that a lady named Louise Ingram creates monkey beads out of glass (lampwork), and the ones that don’t turn out quite the way she had hoped get left around town for people to find. There is nothing I love more than a treasure hunt so I decided to keep my eyes open in the future when walking about the village.

Then Friday she announced on her blog that she had just set three more monkees free. She had also posted some pictures from around town, and I figured they had to be along that route. So, I took myself for a walk, and used my brother’s old trick to locate something. I thought, "If I were a Monkee, where would I be?" I got an instant picture in my head and made that my destination. If I didn’t find one there, I wasn’t meant to be searching. But oh.....I found one before I got there. In fact, it was so out in the open, it was amazing that it hadn’t been picked up before I passed by. Still, I had a destination in mind, and I’m too curious not go check it out. That’s where the dilemma came in, as I did find another one where I had decided to look. Now I had two, but I knew I shouldn’t, so I wanted to put one back. But which one? Smiler, with his big toothy grin would make a better showing hanging on a necklace. But Buttons was as cute as a button (which may be why he had that name). He was much smaller though, and not as likely to be noticeable on the sort of necklace I usually would make. I couldn’t make up my mind, so I thought I’d sleep on it.

The little monkees had a sleep over at my place, and by morning I knew what to do. We would definitely be going geocaching sometime that weekend, so I would drop one off in a cache somewhere. One of the monkees was going on an adventure! I still didn’t know which one (it’s hard to part with such treasures), so I consulted a few people, and let the majority rule. Buttons is just too cute to let go of, so Smiler went to Brockville.

I had a list of caches I thought we might get to visit, but the first order of business was to get fed, so we headed downtown, where the Food Festival was underway and spent an enjoyable time walking the streets trying to decide what to eat. Although there were some pretty interesting choices, we ended up with a wonderful medium pizza, with 3 toppings for $8.99, as we could sit inside at 241 Pizza.

After that we had to make a stop to look for a wedding present before we could go geocaching. Unfortunately, by the time we actually could start our hunt, it had started to spit rain, and the sky was promising something worse. The closest cache to the store was down a little blocked off dead end, and that’s where Smiler is hiding. Now, while I had thought it would make a better story if I had a big snake swallow him at another cache on the list, I wasn’t sure we would get that far before the rain came. I felt I had to let go of him at the first opportunity, in case it was also the last. The cache where I left him was perfect though, since there were other trackable items there, and whoever finds the little monkee may be more inclined to report him found. His creator does like to know her little critters have found a good home.

We went from there to a nice paved trail along a little creek. I believe this trail actually winds through town, all the way back to the St. Lawrence, but this is the first time I’ve ever been on any of it. That’s what I love about geocaching most. It gets you to explore places you pass all the time.

There where three caches along this trail, but we only hit two of them as the third one was just a micro cache, and further out, so we may have gotten too wet if we had gone looking for that.
The first one along the way was cleverly hidden, but not difficult to find. The second one was where the big black snake resides. But upon finding it, I discovered that it was a good thing I’d left the monkee where I had, because the snake really only swallows a log book, and not treasures. From there we had time for one more, on the way home. It was just placed on a piece of land that will be developed soon. We thought we had better have a look before it was, as afterwards that cache would no longer exist.

It was a nice day, with nothing but easy caches (meaning we were successful without too much effort), and while I left a monkee for someone to report found, I also picked up two other trackable items along the way. That means I have to go out again, as soon as possible, to find places to drop those off also. One is a fair size though, so it may be a while before I find a cache with enough room to accommodate it. Wish me luck.

Quick and Easy

2009-06-11T07:45:00.005-04:00

Saturday, June 6th, we thought we would take the grandson geocaching again, but we couldn't get anyone on the phone. Oh well, we decided to go to his area anyway, and maybe someone would be home by the time we got there. No such luck. So we checked out a nearby cache on our own.

I think we'll take him back to this one, as it's easy to find, and right about his eye level, so he should be able to find it on his own ..... maybe even with the GPS in hand, as he seems to have quickly figured out how to read it.

There are quite a few caches at Ferguson Forest Centre, and that's where we took him last time. This one though, you could drive right up to, if you wanted to. There were some flowers along the road that I can't identify. And on the other side was a fence. People often walk their dogs in this area, and though there are poop and scoop rules being obeyed, nobody apparently told the pet owners that they should also carry out what they retrieve. We spotted a few plastic bags, with obvious contents, hanging from the fence along the way.

Kingston Kicks and Beyond

2009-05-28T08:39:00.008-04:00

The weekend of May 23-24 we went on our annual trip to Kingston Kicks, a martial arts weekend, held at the Ambassador Hotel. Saturday was a full day of seminars and Sunday there was a tournament. I love to go to these things as I get to see lots of people I don’t see otherwise. It’s like a big reunion every time. There is even a party on Saturday night, and a good time was had by all.
On Saturday I got to meet a couple of ladies I have only ever talked to online before, and we went off to lunch at East Side Marios. I’m not involved in the seminars, so it was good to have something to occupy my time for part of the day.

Later, after the seminars, we went after our first cache. Kingston has a lot of micro caches, and, I’m sorry, even though the bigger ones don’t have any "real" treasure in them, I still like them better than micros. All that work just to sign a tiny log just isn’t as much fun somehow. I knew there was a micro nearby, and off and on all day, I tried to get the GPS to pick up the satellite signals from inside the building. No such luck. There must be too much steel in the building, or something. But once we got outside, it was obviously not far off. We found it and then went looking for another one, also within walking distance, but even though we found lots of good hiding places, that one eluded us. Perhaps we will have better luck with it next year.

Sunday we stopped in Gananoque on the way home. First we went to a nice park with water running through it. There are boardwalks over the dams there, and lots of art to look at also. That cache was officially missing that day, according to the online log, but we thought we would scope out the area, and maybe figure out where to look next time we go through town, just in case the cache came back, or got replaced by the owner. We have driven over that bridge several times, but this was the first time we had ever stopped to explore the park.

Then we went to visit an old friend who usually is still down south when we are going through. This time we caught him at home and had a nice little visit with him and his new wife. After that we went to find a section of the Gananoque trail. The thing I love most about geocaching is that it points out things like this, that you may never have found any other way. It’s a lovely trail, with lots of big rocks and I would be quite willing to go back and explore more of it, cache or no cache. I don’t know what it is about me, but I do like big rocks! This section of the trail also lets you get a good look at a grand old oak tree. As I often say, it’s not the treasure in the cache that’s important, but the ones you find along the way. Nature certainly provided lots of treasures along this trail.

We went back into town and down to a little park on a bluff. After following the GPS for a few minutes, and getting a general idea of where to find the cache, we discovered a couple of kids poking around in that area. When they saw us, they strolled over to a picnic table on the opposite side of the park. I thought, perhaps they were also looking for the cache, and didn’t want us to know where to look. Well, I didn’t want them watching us either, so I went to the edge of the bluff, and found a set of stone steps to take us down towards the water. By the time we came back up, the kids were just peddling their bikes out of the park. That gave us a chance to look for the cache. The over head trees gave us a bit of trouble, but we found it.

The last cache of the day was called Timmy’s because a Tim Hortons was nearby. We figured that was a good excuse to take a break and have something to eat. After eating big meals all weekend, we decided to get some chicken wrap combos this time. Once fed, went off to feed the bugs. The cache is on another part of the Gananoque Trail, that is within walking distance of Tim Hortons. For some reason the mosquitoes were hungrier here, and we were glad we didn’t have to walk too far in, or hunt for too hard for his cache.

All in all, it was a great weekend.

Victoria Day Caching

2009-05-19T22:16:00.004-04:00

About 3pm on Victoria Day, we decided we had time to go back to the South Gower park cache we couldn’t find a couple of weeks ago. We were much more prepared this time, and though it took a little while, we finally found the cache. A very clever hide it was too, but if you have your wits about you, and pay attention, it can be found. Now I’m ready to go back to a couple of others this guy has placed, as we might be on to how he thinks a bit better. I spotted where this cache was, walked up to it, and thought, no, it can’t be there, but 15 minutes later, that’s exactly where it was found.

We did notice that someone had gone on a bit of a rampage since we were there last. Various things had been kicked around, or smashed up. But no harm done, thank goodness.
Once again, another family was entering the area here, to hunt for the cache. As we were just about to put it away, I went over and suggested they turn around for a moment or two, so as not to spoil their fun. The log shows that the gentleman we hunted with last time never did find this cache. Hopefully he will come back for another try too.

On the way home we stopped for ice cream at the Red Barn. It seems to me I’ve mentioned that place before. Well, even though it was not a particularly warm day, they certainly were busy!

We took our ice cream and headed for Burritts Rapids. There is a new cache on the Tip to Tip trail. I’m not recommending this one to anybody though. Oh, go for the walk, figure out where the cache is, then go home. Even the sign at the end of the trail mentions calling 911 in case of emergency. No sense in creating one, I say. Even so, I’m sure I aged a few years at this location.

Up the Garden Path

2009-05-19T21:39:00.007-04:00

For several years we have gone on various Artist Studio Tours, and last weekend there were two available. I took the brochures and bounced their maps against the maps at geocaching.com and Sunday, May 17th, we decided we would take in part of the one called Up the Garden Path. It was billed as an art and garden tour.

We came off the 401 at the Mallorytown exit, and found a place to park so we could look for the cache there. That one is called Calibrate, as you are instructed to place your GPS on a specific spot and see how close your readings are to the ones listed for the cache. My GPS was dead on, all except for the elevation. My GPS read us 10 feet lower, but since I will likely never have to know how high I am, I guess that’s not too bad. I picked up a geocoin there. It has a dragon prayer on it that reads:
"May you always find what you are looking for; a good life, a good love or a good cache."

This is the first geocoin I’ve ever found, but when I tried to register it, I may have done it wrong as the only one with that number hasn’t been seen in years, and nobody claimed to have left one with that number at this location. Oh well, I tried. I’ll only pass it on once I know for sure I’m logging the correct number.
One other treasure found at that location was a family of Canada geese. They where right beside the road, and didn’t leave when we stopped right beside them. And to think I used to have to go to the Upper Canada Bird sanctuary to see the geese at feeding time, and they never came anywhere near this close!

We left that location and drove into Mallorytown. The next cache was at a little park and was also a quick, easy find. Right around the corner from that there was a building containing art displays. This isn’t the usual venue for this sort of tour. It was obvious that, while this looked like a house, nobody actually lived there. They told us that it had been recently renovated to house various displays throughout the year.

Not far from there was our final cache for the day. It’s listed as being the site of Canada’s first Glass Works, and there is a plaque there to tell you about that.

We went from there to Pond Road, just outside of Lyn, to the studio and garden of Jean Marr. It’s hard for me to go there without bringing something home. She’s a potter who makes beautiful things. There was one little dish that I had to talk myself out of. I really liked it, but have no idea what I would have used it for, and it was too small to just put on display. I’m already regretting leaving it there......