One of the reasons I haven't updated in a while is the batteries were dead in my camera, and I kept forgetting to fix it before we left for a caching run. I finally remedied it and have some pictures to share. It is much easier to recall what happened when I have pictures.
Well, there are many adventures I can't tell because I can't remember enough detail from the day to make it interesting, so it would just be scattered anecdotes. Such as the time I almost stepped right on a huge black snake. Instead, I will tell about the last couple of days geocaching. I have gotten to 241 caches found now (I think--geocaching.com is down for maintenance, but I'm pretty sure that's right). We hid one more cache today, and made preparations for hiding another one. This one will be a murderous one to find. I fully intend to rate this one a 4-star difficulty. I will show you why.
We started out yesterday morning in Bella Vista, Arkansas. We went down a back road and found a cache in the back of a cemetery behind an old small church building.
After passing on one that looked really ridiculous (any time you walk up to ground zero and find a huge pile of rocks, you might as well just move on--those suck), we found another one in the area and then moved on to a 1.8 mile walking trail that supposedly had 4 caches hidden along it.
Adding the extra distance to walk out to the caches that were off the trail, we probably walked at least 2.5 to 3 miles on this trail. Unfortunately, we went 1 for 4. 2 of the caches we didn't find, we could basically see where they were. One required special equipment (repelling/climbing gear), and one I couldn't see how to get to without stepping over the railing on a bridge and venturing out over the ledge. No way. The third we didn't find, we just plain old couldn't find. Here are some pictures of that adventure:
Snapped this picture just as we started our 2 mile walk on the trail. It was pretty, but not really near a cache. Somewhere between the bridge one and the one we actually found:
This cool cave and waterfall area was the site of the one that required the climbing/repelling equipment. My wife found a little inset that was about halfway up the face of the rock (behind where I'm standing in this picture) that is almost 100% certain to be where the cache was. Couldn't see it or get to it, but that's almost certainly where it was.
Another view. This was from the direction we came from.
The cave is one of the cooler places (literally, too) that we have been to geocaching. Wish we could've marked this as a find, but probably never will. Not even remotely interested in rock climbing or repelling.
Walking to the next cache, we looked to our right from the trail and saw another cave. Here is the view from the trail.
It was a tough little hike up to this one, and I almost bit it pretty hard when I stepped on an angled rock that was slick. I got up to the cave and took this picture:
No cache in this area, just a cool place on our way from one to the next.
We finally got close to the next cache and headed off the trail to get it. Whoops. Still 120 yds straight ahead!
Well, all we could do was continue walking all the way around the lake. We did and got to the spot you see in the picture. We looked for 20 minutes, surrounded by very territorial geese that were quite uneasy at our presence. We finally gave up and headed back to the van.
Ugh.
Before we got to the cache site, on the far end of the lake as we got turn around and head back in the right direction, there was a cool Veterans' Memorial Wall. Thought I had to take a picture of this since it was only one day after Memorial Day.
We called a friend that lives nearby and asked them to meet us for lunch in the area. On our way out, we passed a cache icon on the GPS screen that was clearly at a rest area. Those are usually pretty high percentage finds, so we darted in and started to search. Mostly to lift our spirits after going 1 for 4 on the 2.5 mile walk. This one was indeed pretty easy. under a little pavilion with a picnic table, this little guy was hiding near the ceiling.
This and one we found with our friend near her house brought our total for the day to a really disappointing 6. Still had fun and got lots of pictures.