One Sweet Shannon

Eighth and final cache today. Finding the cemetary was a little tricky for us. We enjoyed the old headstones. The walk through the woods was pleasant enough. The cache itself was cool. The paint job was a nice touch, and the log book was beautiful. I wish we had brought some Irish-themed stuff with us. Instead we traded for non-Irish items. This was a nice cache, but too short! This was probably our second favorite cache of the day, after Home of the Free, Because of the Brave.

After this cache we looked at the time, decided we couldn't attempt any of the others we had on our list, and took Route 11 towards Home before picking up 81. They were still cleaning up from an accident we saw on our way south much earlier in the day. There was a truck on its side and guys were in HazMat suits and gear roaming around the area. I missed the evening news, so I wonder what happened. I hope nobody was hurt!

So after all this, here's my overall impressions of our day:

-- The drive to and from, as well as between some of the caches, was very nice. It's a beautiful time of year to make this trip. The sights from the drive were some of our favorite parts of the day.

-- Doing a marathon run with Julian is probably not as easy as doing one alone or with another adult. He was well-behaved, it was just tiring for him.

-- As always, spending time with Julian one on one like this is one of the treats of my week. It's been hard developing a strong relationship with him in the same vein as the one I have with Ryder. Understandably, since he has always had a strong attachment to his mother. But this summer has allowed Julian and I to develop a true closeness. He calls me "Mom" all the time now, and when we're walking he frequently takes my hand. Even at home, where he likes to hole himself up to do his own things (football cards, TV, reading, etc.), he now frequently chooses to spend time hanging out with me and looking at our photos and talking about not just our caching plans, but lots of other topics as well. Steve has recognized what caching with Julian has done for our relationship, and is really happy about it, too.

And finally....

-- The caches we visited today in this area... well, meh. They were okay. It was fun doing a marathon and trying to get as many as we could, but there weren't many that really stood out or anything. I can't criticize, because I'm not from the area, nor have we even hidden our first cache yet, but most weren't that inspired it seemed. Sure, we didn't get them all (there were about 4 or 5 more in the area we didn't make it to), so I can't make a blanket statement about the area. We were hoping for some with nice hiking trails and bigger challenges, but they were all fairly simple and short walks from the car.

It just deepened my appreciation for the riches of caches we have in the Binghamton area. We're loaded with puzzles, multis, very difficult hides, and some really scenic and/or challenging hikes. We have plenty of micros and easy caches, too, but there is a clear abundance of challenging, inspired caches. Bless the cache owners for doing such a fine job and making such a wonderful game for us! I hope I do as well when we hide our first!

Our sixth cache of the day, and a relatively easy find. Julian liked that he got to be so close to a cannon and actually get to touch it. Quick in and out. Next it would be on to I Will Give You Rest.

Happiest Place on Earth #4 was the third cache of the day. This was a very easy find -- it was in the first place I looked! I made Julian stand a little further up the slope while I retrieved the cache. Then I handed it to him so he could sign for us.

After this cache we went through the nearby McDonalds drive-thru, grabbed a couple cheeseburgers and a shake to split, and went to Have a Ball. We sat at a picnic table and enjoyed a late lunch while Julian talked about how much he was loving our daytrip. He only wished we could have gone all the way to Pittsburgh, so maybe we could see the Steelers play. What a goofball! After lunch Julian played on the playground for a little bit while I caught up on my notes on the PDA so I could keep track of what we traded and such. Then we began our search for the cache.

I had inadvertently looked at the cachemate page for the next cache on our list, and thought we were looking for a magnetic keyholder. We searched and searched and couldn't find it. Then I noticed my error and pulled up the correct listing. An ammo can! Surely we would have seen an ammo can in all the places we looked! But we looked again, this time with an ammo can in mind. Nope, nada. I'm 90% sure that this cache has been removed. There were only so many places an ammo can could be in this park. This was our only DNF for the day.

Edited to add: While logging our DNF for Have a Ball, I noticed that another cacher who had previously found it back in June confirms it is missing as of 9/29. They edited their found log to include that, rather than posting a note or a DNF, and their find log was way down on the cache page, so it's no wonder I didn't see it until now. I don't even have their original log in cachemate. I'm sure the cache owner probably hasn't seen their comment from 9/29 either, so I added it to my DNF log. Hopefully they'll see it and replace it. I just wish I had seen it before we wasted so much time looking for it.

Drove down to PA today to attempt a bunch of caches. It was just Julian and me today -- Ryder and Steve stayed home to play some PS2 and work on some songs on the guitar. The drive out was beautiful -- it was a perfect day to make this trip. A couple weeks from now it should be even more pretty, with the autumn leaves in full effect.

MT. Valley was the first of eight cache attempts of the day for us. It was an easy find. Unfortunately we didn't think we could help Bandit the Mad Cow TB (when we got to the computer tonight, it looks like we may have been able to after all -- Oh, well.) But we did take some pics of him. We left the Can You Hear Me Now? TB -- it's our favorite. It's just the cutest thing!

After replacing the cache we explored the cemetary a bit. I've always found cemetaries to be fascinating, and I'm so glad that Julian has come around and enjoys them now, too.

We enjoyed this cache, and it was a good way to start our day!

We had less than hour before we had to be home to see Mr. Bear Paughs, dropped by Beauty is in the Eye and Chenango Point Micro, hoping to tie up some loose ends. Especially with Beauty is in the Eye, as it is going to be archived soon.

Being cautious after our last encounter with the Security Nazi, we made our way to the sculpture and prepared the camera. I started taking lots of photos, so if someone came by I'd have a cover story. Within seconds a police officer came outside and started walking towards us. We hadn't even started looking for the cache yet, and I was really hoping we wouldn't have to leave before we could find it. Julian started panicing, but I told him to play it cool and continued to take pictures like I thought it was the most interesting piece of art I'd ever seen. That's when the police officer confronted me -- and not in the way I expected....

"It should be over on that side, if you're doing what I think you are," he said. Wide-eyed Julian was awed, and asked, "You know what geocaching is?" Officer Cool (as we now refer to him) said, "the thing you do with the GPS, yeah I've heard about it. You wouldn't believe the weird things I've seen people doing trying to find that thing." We laughed with the officer about our not-so-successful attempt at being sneaky, and thanked him for the help. I let Julian go over to the other side and find the cache, and we signed the log. You just know he thinks we geocachers are all crazy!

Well, we are very glad to have gotten this one finally. Although it's sad in a wierd way -- after all, it did give us some really interesting stories to tell to the boys back home! We're happy that we got a chance to complete this one while it's still here!

After Beauty, we made our way over to Chenango Point Micro. We were pretty sure we were looking in the right spot last time, and it was confirmed later via a photo someone emailed me showing the cache site and container. I thought it was a pretty good possibility the cache is missing, but we decided to give it another thorough going-over before declaring it MIA. So we looked and felt, and lifted and lay on the ground, and examined the hiding spot from every which way. Unfortunately, we just confirmed our suspicions that the cache is gone, so this one is still on our ToDo list, once the owner replaces it, that is.

We left for home, hoping to get a couple more caches in later if we could.