Happy 15th Birthday Geocaching! Part One...

This Sunday, I spent an exhausting, but fun-filled, day celebrating the 15th birthday of the amazing hobby of Geocaching!

Dottie was so happy to help us
hunt for the caches

Team Awesomesauce - consisting of Debaere, ncbiscuit, FailedApparatus, HoosierSunshine, and myself- hosted the celebration with a picnic and an edge-of-your-seat game of "It's All Just Trivial" Geocaching Trivia.

The event was held in Burlington at Cedarock Park, an educational site where visitors can learn about farm life in 19th-century North Carolina.  The park has 6 miles of hiking and horseback riding trails, including some that are handicap accessible, which I found very applaudable!  

 There is a lovely farm house that once belonged to the Garrett family and log cabin and an old post office to enjoy, as well as some very entertaining sheep who seem to like to follow you around when you are close by.



We were not the only ones walking along the Bridle Trail

At one point, a stranger approached ncbiscuit and asked her where the Bridle Trail was located.  Linda then asked her if she meant the Equine trail and the woman looked at her strangely and said that was not what she was looking for.  After seeing both engagement photos and pictures of a bride in her wedding dress being taken later, I cannot help but wonder if she thought she was asking for the Bridal Trail.  Considering the horses had stirred up sinking, sucking mud deep enough to cover your ankles, I would love to have been privy to her face when she discovered the value of good research before booking a shoot!



Found it!!

Probably not the Bridal gift
they were expecting

There are several caches through out the park and debaere, ncbiscuit, our 4 legged honorary team member Dottie (the geo-dog) and I met early to tackle as many of these as we had time for.  Considering we were averaging about one per hour in the beginning, this number was not as high as I had originally hoped. Sometimes the force is really just not with you at all!




Can you spot the elusive Canadian Bear in this photo?

As all but one of the caches were of the typical kind, I feel comfortable saying that it is not the actual caches themselves that would draw one to this park, but rather the beauty of the woods that surrounds you while you hunt. this includes a flowing stream, several quaint bridges and more trees than you can shake a stick at (though there was lots of stick shaking going on while we searched under the leaves!)  


Pausing a moment to absorb all of the beautiful
scenery around me.
Though it took us about a mile of walking to
find this bridge that was a few hundred feet away.

We got turned around several times and followed the geocacher's way to the cache, rather than the shortest route (you guys know what I am talking about!) but that simply left plenty of time for sharing tales of travel adventures and caches found both far and near. 

Our final count ended up less than 10 for the day, but the memories made were worth more than a thousand park and grabs! We even ended up actually being on time for our own event, so I would strike this one up as a good day!