I have moved my blog
Mood:  celebratory
Now Playing: Fans
Topic: Life
You can now find me at Geosense@wordpress.com.

Morrisvile
Mood:  a-ok
Now Playing: nope
Topic: Geocache

I went purely Geocaching during a vacation day a couple weeks ago.  It was a beautiful day with sun and very little wind.  I planned a least ten caches with the time available and distance traveled.    I was in the Morrisville area, which I'm familiar with so I wasn't about to get lost on some back road.  For if you know me ill drive a road till I say oh this is where I am.  

   While the caches were easy for the most part a few had me stumped.  A few in my Garmin were archived.  I would find out later.  My first stop of the day was near a cemetery and the next was another cemetery but was a nano. That was a DNF a while back.  I found my way to the next cache which was along a lake side trail.  I found it under a pile of sticks.  Which is ok , but use some different materials like bark or leaves or a combo of both.  I left it better hid than I found it.  My next was an archived cache that I did not find; I looked to long for that one.  Next was at place I know well because it's a favorite place of mine for a long time.  I've done flyfishing, mountain biked from the very same trail head.  It was kind of buggy today what with all the rain we have had lately I wasn't surprised.  I t made my time at the caches very short, I'd just sign the log and that's about it, maybe see if there was a travel bug but not must else.  

  I left for the big city to what would be called urban caches.  Oxbow park had a cache next to the river.  I found it ok but didn't notice the Poison Ivy till I put the cache back in it hiding spot.  I still have the results of that adventure on my wrist.  Even after I attempted a wash up at McDonalds.  The next was along a old rail bed and found in pretty rough shape, the lid was about to be chewed off. Amazingly the contents were fair condition. The next was in a busy park along Main street, and just as I arrived to the general area kids set up shop in the gazebo where I believed the cache to be located. I skipped looking for it and had a long walk back to the Jeep.  Another cemetery cache was on the docket, when I parked I knew why it was called Pleasant view.  I searched for it in the wrong location for the longest time till I referred to my Axim PDA.  I thought about the difficulty level and where I was and rethought my GZ.  I exited the wood and found the cache right away.  I had one more hunt in mind, it said easy in the description, so it was on my way home so I pursued it.  I parked where recommended but could have easily parked closer, it was a multi along a rail trail.  The first stage again took to long to find, but came up short in finding the second stage.  When I got home in bed, I got to thinking about this particular hunt/search and It just popped into my head where the next coordinates were. DUH!.  Well that was the highlights of my day caching thanks for stopping by.

Dog run
Mood:  a-ok
Now Playing: nope
Topic: Geocache
Recently the family packed a lunch up and headed to Maine for a quick run to the seashore. It was for a new member of the family. A short haired collie was given to us free by a friend of my wife’s. All we had to do is drive the 350 miles to pick it up. So the wife had planned a stay at the seashore, in a beautiful cottage. For the drive East we took the scenic route, on the way back we went North to Rt.2 and West for the remainder.
I planned out a few caches for breaks and picnic. Most all were of the stop P&G style to keep a reasonable schedule. We had a long drive back, cause the dog(which I named Mylee) drooled and puked all the way home. It put a crimp in caching but I didn’t expect much of that anyway. Thanks for stopping by.

New Trails
Mood:  a-ok
Now Playing: Fat Boy
Topic: Mountain Biking

      Last day of vacation found me on the road to Rutland, VT.  I learned via the net that some decent trails have been built their recently.   I knew of several geo-caches in the area, so it could be a two for one trip.  The old Trek SS was loaded up along with plenty of water.

Expected temperature will be in the high eighties, so it was going to be a sweat festival.  I got rolling around nine am, and with just a few side trips for caches I rolled into Rutland at eleven forty five.  I used a cache to find the trailhead.  changed into my biking gear and decided to forget insect repellant and the map of the trails. I decided halfway up a loop that I would need both.  Back to the Jeep and got sprayed down and grabbed the map. 

      Took a different trail this time and found that there are a lot of rocks in, on and around every square foot of trail here.  Not really a problem, but it made it interesting on the SS.  The climbing was just barely doable.  I pushed the Trek a bit here and there.  If I had the XLT w/ 27 gears I would have been on the bike a bit more. 

     So I found the three geo-caches: Pine Hill 1 and 2, Lonely Rock that I set out to look for.  The best view was at Pine Hill 2.  I spent like four hours biking with a side trip that took me out of the park and off the trails onto the roads.  I just happened to miss the turn.

I backtracked to the trail system and found my way to the Jeep.  I reached home at six fifteen with one stop for gas, and oh  a long construction delay.  

Still here
Mood:  caffeinated
Now Playing: Shower
Topic: Life

So I'm sure any fans of the site have tuned out by now.  I been livin the high life on vacation this week.  Mostly been mt.biking lately.

  My brother has joined me on some of my rides, he just picked up the phone last month and asked me if I  wanted to go biking.  I took him up on it last Sunday.  We went up to Fairfax Falls did about three hours or so.  We had a good time, My bro decided he would need to upgrade his bike some.  And I would need a new middle ring, mine is toast.

Then yesterday this report: 

  Last night the kids and I took the bike path to the Burlington waterfront to view the fireworks show.  We started our ride at Airport road in Colchester and had a trouble free ride into B-town.  Last year we watched from North Beach but this year we decided to get a little closer to the show.  We found a good comfy rock to sit on and enjoyed the show.    After the fireworks ended, was the challenge of getting back on the bike path with like 40,000 people going East and Us needing to go North.   The kids were not used to riding at night, but it got better as the crowd thinned out. 

  We eventually made it home, with some good memories and a few pictures.

  

400
Mood:  a-ok
Now Playing: Cat's playing with ants
Topic: Geocache

I had an invite from Chris/Scubatime to go out caching last Friday.  It would be a chance to hit 400 caches found.  It's a big deal in the Geocaching world to have lots of smiles.  Many, many people have a lot more smiles, than I do and I am ok with that.  We hooked up around ten and drove in separate cars to the Mills Park.  I would have to leave early for work if we didn't get through all the caches planned.  Either way Chris said she would clean out the park, meaning no caches in the park not found for her.  I had brought my waders in case of one cache.  It was said to involve some water and getting wet.  It turned out that, they were a bit useful but not necessary to find the final.  We made our way through some cool  and tricky hides .  To my 400 find/smile I choose the closest one, It was called Darth Vader's Helmet, it was a large rock that appeared to have the afore mentioned shape.  Chris took my picture and traded some stuff and picked up a travel bug. Snow 2 slo, wants its picture taken near ski areas, or visit other caches.   We backtracked to another cache with tricky hides and lots of walking.  That one was probably the best cache/hide wise I've done. I think it was called Vermont 1000.

Boston Lot
Mood:  a-ok
Topic: Geocache

  I'm back, took a break from the blog a bit, never feel like writing.  The weather here in Vermont has been really nice lately and been outside a lot.

  Last Friday Chris, Joe and I went caching down to New Hampshire.  It was a really fun time.  The whole point of the caching trip was clean up the few caches in a local park area called Boston Lot.  It also was to get Chris to the Dartmouth-Hitchcock for her appointment.

  Chris, is a co-worker and she is the one who introduced me to Geocaching.  Joe is a friend of Chris's.  Chris met Joe online due to Geocaching. Well now that's sorted out Chris picked me up at 8 that day but I was not ready to go, I had just woke up like 10 minutes before she arrived, I barely had time to grab a few things and we were off. The plan was to drive to Barre where Chris and I would jump in Joe's big truck and head to New Hampshire. Chris and I grabbed a cache at the Park and Ride, It was a pretty easy find, it did have a unique container.  I should something about the dogs we brought along with us, there was Cocoa, a Chessie and Molly the Mutt.  The dogs were our companions through out the day.  

  We arrived in New Hampshire and did some bike trail caches that took us till Chris appointment to finish.  While she was at her appointment Joe and I went after one next to the hospital.  This cache had a large matchbox car as a container.   

   Chris rejoined us after her appointment and we planned our attack for the caches around Boston Lot.  Boston Lot is the name of a pond/that has a medium hard trail around it.  The caches were found by Joe and I for the most part.  Chris had already done most of the caches.  I should note that I had been here before, but had not found one that I was looking for. We finished up the caches here by five or six after a pleasant walk around the pond.

   Both Cocoa and Molly were dead tired by the time we started for our respective homes.

Joe played tunes off his MP3 player and guessed who they might be, the music was telling of Joe's age. The sun rode down behind the mountains. 

   After Chris dropped me off a home I realized how tired I was and went right to bed.

 

maple sugar
Mood:  a-ok
Now Playing: nada
Topic: Geocache

I have been lazy lately about updating the blog.  I guess it not really a blog then. More like a Month- log or something silly like that. 

 

  I've got a few caches this past month, most memorable were when I brought the kids.  The trails around here are covered with ice and not much snow.  So trying to stay upright was a fun challenge. 

  I have placed a new cache as well, a pretty easy micro along the Missisqoui Rail Trail.  It was part of a seed cache that was placed locally by some folks I know from work.  At first I wasn't into Micro sized caches but I changed my mind recently.  I don't know why.

 

  Today the kids and I went on a drive for a cache and visit a maple sugar house.  It's all part of a state wide open house for the sugar producers.  I went to the web site and chose a sugarhouse on the way to a cache.  We drove to the cache first and my son found it right off the bat.  I took a few photos of the sugar house and the cache area. 

Thanks for stopping by.   

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Catching up
Now Playing: nothin but silence
Topic: Geocache
Ive been sick for like the past week, so today I called out from work. So here I am pounding the keyboard.
  My Cache (Highpoint) that I placed last month in the Milton town forest got some visits, the logs were pretty entertaining. Most of the folks that attempted it took the easy way to the cache, I did have an alternate route that consisted of a mile and a half one way hike.
I did a few caches that were in places Ive been to before and knew the lay of the land. One was Babbling brook, the other was Vermont 52 pickup.
Vermont 52 Pick up is a seed cache, where your encouraged to take and place small film canister sized caches. I took the three of clubs, and have yet to find a place for it. I have some ideas, yet have not commited to a place yet.

  Remember I had my Jeeps brakes done in February?, well I had to make another appointment to get the Jeep ready for a long trip coming up March 10-11. I tested the E-brake just a while ago after the brake job, on a steep driveway, and had nothing, no braking action at all. So I wanted them to check it out. So after a while in the shop, me waiting for what was just a simple tire rotation and top off of fuilds. They called me to the desk and told me they didn't charge me any labor becuase of they had messed up my e-brakes. But they did charge me for parts to fix the problem. I understand people make mistakes and thats OK with me. Lord knows I've made my share. Although, I might be in the market for a new shop.

Cut it right!
Mood:  accident prone
Now Playing: Washing machine and the Dryer
Topic: Life

I had a scare today, driving Rt. 7 in Georgia, a line of cars ahead had slowed, and I had not.  So I touched the brakes and just started to slide, and slide and slide some more.  I cut the wheel toward a snow bank in a person's driveway. I believe if I hadn't cut to the right I would have hit the car ahead for sure. The Jeep plowed it going about 5-10 miles an hour.  A momentary lapse of judgment, luckily were all safe.  The kids were with me and were real excited about crashing into the snow bank.  I backed the Jeep out of the snow and drove down the road a bit then pulled off at the state garage to check for damage none was apparent, whew that was close.   

 

 It's been awhile since I've visited here so here goes work, work, work, work, work. Days off, days off.  Repeat.  A lot of shit goes down not worth mentioning.

 One of our cats had surgery to remove cancer from the top of its head, got our tax return back, I'm going back to swing shift, no more day shift for me.( I was beginning to like it) after so many years on swings.

 

Well I did do some caching but it was pretty quick grab and go and nothing special about the place.  Thanks for stopping by, and leave some comments if your still tuned in.