As always, be aware, this post may contain spoilers. In most cases, we try to keep things vague and non-specific, but occasionally there may be pictures or descriptors that give some secrets away.
Saturday, April 21, was an afternoon that just begged to clear our minds and spend some time together outside. How could we resist? We ran some errands and stopped at a park right behind the grocery store we found ourselves shopping at. There were a couple hides in the park, so we figured, why not?
As we walked past the playground and picnic areas, we encountered this manhole cover. Since Lexi was with her mom, Shane decided to take the obligatory bow in her honor. It was fantastic! I am guessing there were a few folks wondering what he was up to that day. :-) (It was totally worth it to bring Lexi with us in spirit.)
We entered the walking trails, which gave us cause to slow down and really appreciate our surroundings. Although there was a nice wood chip path through the woods, it was remarkably maintained as a natural place. The trillium were in full bloom, the trees mostly leafed out, and mayapples doing their thing. It was breathtaking!
We stopped hurrying into the woods and stood still for a while trying to appreciate it all. I took some pictures (It's what I do while out and about, I am sure that hasn't been clear until now...). :-)
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| Trillium in the light of late afternoon |
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| #103 back in its place |
We happened upon the GZ for the first cache and found it lying open with items missing. It had been muggled that day for sure. We were certain it was newly tampered with since it rained hard the night before and the contents were not wet, even though the lid was open and the contents exposed. We made note of it, signed the log and replaced the cache with the camouflage back in place.
We looked at the distance to the second hide and the logs most recently written to determine the terrain conditions. It was clear that it was a hunt we only wanted to attempt after a dry spell, so we moseyed back toward the car. While on our way, we encountered this super cool bridge and it gave me ideas for spanning the creek at the back end of our yard. With all the fallen ash trees, I likely have access to enough logs to create this already!
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| The view from our #104 |
Since the evening was so pleasant, we decided to find a few more, so we headed next to a very large park we had seen often from the road, but never took the time to stop at. The first nano was located on a bench overlooking the park. It was a truly spectacular view and made us want to come back to walk the paved trails or ride bikes as a family. We will definitely be back when the weather warms a bit to really explore this place!
There are several sections to the large park and a quick shift in parking took us to a dog park hide that Shane had to crawl through brush to grab. I was so entertained by his efforts, I forgot to photograph the cache and the location!
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| Vermilion Pavilion |
Another shift in parking took us to the newly developed section of the same park for a cleverly named hide.We braved spider webs and stuck our hands into numerous nooks and crannies to make this find.
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| #106 fit perfectly in its spot |
As we were leaving the parking lot, we noticed another couple making the rounds in the same pavilion we had searched moments before. We made the circle and said hello to them, introducing ourselves. It's so much fun to meet other cachers on the hunt! This day, we met Rocketboy and his wife? after they made the grab.
It was getting cool, as evening was fast approaching, but we couldn't resist a quick log of a nano on the nearby newly constructed walkpath just outside the main part of the park. It rounded out our quick afternoon hunt with 5 smileys added to our map, bringing our total finds to 107 so far.
