Erin's First Cache! Congratulations!

I recently spent a few wonderful days with my daughter Erin and her husband Tony in East Northport, NY, out on Long Island.  Like any good geocacher, I had my GPS with me and during one outing took Erin out on her first official geocaching experience.

She had books to return at the local library, so our first stop was there at the cache appropriately named "Bookworm."  Erin, as she said, "took one for the team," crawling not beneath, but into a prickly arborvitae bush.  She could find wrappers, bottles, but no cache.  Bummer.  Fifteen minutes later we both gave up, Erin whining just a bit that she was "no good" at this stuff.

However, things changed at Pitts Park, our next stop.  She grabbed that GPS right out of my hands and led me to the cache just as if she'd been geocaching for years.  She looks pretty pleased with herself, doesn't she?  Congratulations, Erin.  Then she started in on me that I was prouder of her geocaching ability than the fact that she was a paycheck-earning, taxpaying member of society now.  LOL!  Ah well, moms just can't win sometimes.    :-)

What a day, what a day!

13 finds today, 1 DNF (did not find).  How's that for a day well spent!

 Bright and early (at least for me), Woodhick803 (aka my brother) showed up at my house and off we went for what turned out to be a fun and rewarding day.  First stop, Almost Off Your Rocker at Beckley's Cracker Barrel.  He'd hunted for this one once before and I had looked for it twice, but this time I just knew where it had to be and, sure enough, it was.  Yay! 
 
Stop #2 at Tamarack where Woodhick picked up "A Cache for Woobie."  I had already been there, so it was kind of hard to play dumb (no comments, please!) about the cache's whereabouts, but WH walked right up to it.  A very pretty spot - you'd never know it was there.

Next stop - Intersection Cache.  Although I hadn't planned on visiting this site today, Woodhick wanted me to look for it so he could blog about it http://cachingin--geocachingme.blogspot.com/
Poor old Woodhick - I thought he was going to have the proverbial hissy fit when I walked right up to it.  Poor guy had looked there twice earlier and only found it this morning on the way over.  Hehehe!  My turn to gloat!  Hehehe!  However, I do have to admit that it was an extremely clever hide, so maybe I should cut him a break.  (Nah.  I'm his sister, remember?)

 "Peanuts and Crackerjack."  Where would you go looking for a cache so named?  Right!  A ballpark.  A nice visit here to the new Linda K. Epling stadium.  Boy, wouldn't my dad, a true baseball fanatic, have loved to have visited here? Miss you, Daddy.





We then started working on a series called "It Was Here" - seven caches all on sites where Beckley landmarks (if you can call them such) used to be.  Some have changed for the better, others not so much. 

Who remembers Pizza Inn?  Yep, replaced by another drugstore (don't we have enough, yet?) - with a nicely hidden cache. You're really going to date yourself though, if you remember where the old Moonlite Drive-In used to be.  Guess what's there now.  At least it's stayed in the same genre - the Galleria movies are there.  And so is a cleverly hidden cache. Woodhick and I have some disagreement going over who found this one.  He picked up the box that was hiding it, but I actually called out and touched it first.  Eh, I'll let him have it.  After my Intersection Cache find, I guess I should be generous to him, right?

Woodhick had yet to pick up Rock the Cache Mall, so while we were in the area, we drove by.  Nicely hidden, but you can spot it as you drive by, which makes it not so nicely hidden after all, I guess. 

The Vo-Tech Center (what an eyesore) has been replaced by Thornhill Park.  A lovely, clean little park, nice fountain, and a pickup of yet another "It Was Here" clue. 







Our only DNF (did not find) of the day came next (well, after a delicious lunch at Aangan.  I think we choose our geocaching adventures by good restaurants).  It was at the site of the old "Big Bite."  I never remember it being the BB, but I do remember it being the Burger Boy, probably Beckley's first fast food hamburger joint.  I remember it had a big satellite type of light up on the top.  This was WAY before Ray Kroc had ever come to town.  We visited this site three times today, never finding the cache.  It has us stumped, for sure.  :-(

The former sites of Big John's Packette and the Palace Theater were next on our list.  Never went to Big John's; I always thought it looked a bit shady, but I do remember seeing "Rocky Horror" at the Theater.  Yes, there's a cache hidden there. 


Off to Wildwood Cemetery for In Memoriam.  I think I backed-up into something.  Both Woodhick and I felt a bump, but neither of us could find anything that I would have hit and the car was undamaged.  Perhaps a ghost was crossing the road?

I had stopped by New River Park a day or so ago and found this cache.  Thought Woodhick deserved a chance at it too.  It was his cache today, but here I am holding it.  Please notice the Vanna White modeling.  (Too bad I wasn't wearing one of those evening gowns...)


Woodhick also needed Groce 'n Cache at our local friendly Kroger store.  An easy find for him, even with muggles around.

What a day!  13 finds and only 1 DNF.  Pretty good caching.  Now we're planning our outing for Geocaching Day, celebrating 10 years of geocaching on, what else, 10/10/10.

 Get outside and play!

You know you're hooked when.....

You know you're hooked when you plan your errands around what geocaches you can find between here and there.  I'd been feeling out of sorts for a couple of days, so I spent some time with a really good friend - the one who started me on this geocaching craze, actually.  Feeling better after an hour's worth of giggling, I stopped at New River Park and found the cache hidden there.  So peaceful, so quiet.  I watched the squirrels play and gather acorns which were falling by the branchful and even got clunked on the head a couple of times (by the acorns, not by the squirrels).  An easy-to-find cache.

The next stop was up Rt. 16 to a cache near that megastore (boo! hiss!) that has taken over America.  I almost didn't stop for this one as there was trash dumped nearby, but could see the path others had taken, so I went for it.  Walked about 50 yards and quickly found this one.

Woodhick803 and I have a geocaching day planned for tomorrow.  Should be fun! 

Woodhick's Day in the Sun

Today was definitely Woodhick's day.  The only reason he brought me along today was to be his chauffeur.

Our first cache was a 3-parter named The Greenbrier Ghost.  From this marker we traveled to the church at Sam Black Church for part 2 and then to what could have been a nice roadside park.  However, it apparently is the local party spot and was really pretty trashy.  Ugh.

Earthcaches are always pretty interesting.  This one led us to the Meadow River Wetland, an area just a few minutes off of Interstate 64.  Woodhick told me this interesting log is called a nurse log.  See the vegetation growing from the top of the log?  Eventually the log will decay, but the plants will remain. 




At Mundy Park Woodhick walked right to the cache while I was still getting out of the car.  Well, it wasn't quite that bad, but I was still getting my bearings with the GPS.  Obviously he's learned how to use his since our last outing, while I still haven't.

Woodhick was most pleased and giggled like a little kid with his find at Picnic Treasure.  Why?  The last couple of searches for this cache had turned up negative results, but, again, he walked right to it.  (That makes me wonder - maybe he did prior scouting and actually did know where these caches were hidden.  Hmmm.....)

We declined looking for Mountain Mystery, as there was road construction right where we wanted to look.  Onward then to Bingham's Troll.

Even though Woodhick once again found this cache (remember what I said about prior knowledge???), I think I should be given credit for it.  After all, I reminded him that trolls live under bridges, which was where this one was found.  Hmm, wonder if Woodhick was originally one of the Three Billy Goats Gruff? 







Jacob's First Cache was hidden right in plain sight.  I walked right past it, thinking it was trash.  Another score for Woodhick.

By this time, it was a laughing matter that Woodhick had a nose for caches and that maybe he ought to be a drug sniffing dog.  I was beginning to think that he could even find caches without the GPS co-ordinates.  Sheesh..........

The last cache of the day and, yet again, a find for Woodhick was at Spy Rock.  What was so aggravating about this one for me is that my foot literally was within 2" of it, but I just didn't look in the right direction.  Woodhick tried to play it cool and act like he hadn't found it, but the smirk on his face gave him away.  (Hey, maybe I should pick up a poker game with him.)


A good day of geocaching.  West Virginia is so pretty and I'm so glad to be able to get out and see these parts.  Oh yes, we also stopped at Babcock State Park.  Woodhick says there is a state law that says you have to take a photo of the grist mill, so I did and here it is.

I get to choose our next geocaching trip.  Think I should go out and explore beforehand?  LOL!