WG & WH803 MAKE THE FTF (with an oddity thrown it)

If you've read along much at all, you know what most of the title means: Wiscongranny (wife person Joyce) and Woodhick803 (me) made the First Time Find on a cache.

FTF'ing, recording that special first time find, is one of the little extras in the geocaching world. It's fun for some reason, being the first one to that new and shiny hide. The owner is waiting with bated (well maybe not entirely) breath hoping that someone will hurry to his or her newly concealed treasure chest. And sometimes there's an extra gift for those who make that one time only find. A little money, a store gift card, an extra clever toy or...who knows what awaits the FTF'er.

Today we headed out early for the Cranberry Glades Wilderness and Monongahela National Forest to search for one of those newly hidden treasure boxes & we were successful in our hunt.

A short and pleasant walk on a clear and wonderfully cool morning (the entire East Coast has been under a heat wave the past few weeks) took us to within a few yards of the cache. Then it was a short bush whack to a likely site & voila!! We found it!!

Wiscongranny shows off our find. Note the FTF gift bag. Like most everything stored or hidden in a cache it's a simple ziploc bag--where would hikers and hiders be without them?? Note too, that's real money in there. $10.00 worth!! And like other FTF cash we've found, it will never be spent, but rather it will be placed on our growing shelf of swag--Stuff We All Get--remember?? Our shelf of toys and treasures now holds several FTF goodie bags too. How cool is that--if you are a geocacher that is.

Look again at the open cache Wiscongranny is displaying. See the small item dangling down the front?? Kind of hard to make out, but it's a travel bug (TB) attached to a stuffed mermaid figure, officially named "Marlee the Mermaid". Now here's the oddity of our find and picking up the Mermaid TB, it is owned by my sister BatikFreak10. She had placed it several weeks ago in one of her caches so that it could make its way to Key West FL, fitting country for a mermaid indeed. And I had no idea at all that Joyce and I would find it here in today's FTF cache. Odd indeed.

DAN GETS AN OWWY (OR TWO) WHILE BATIKFREAK10 & WISCONGRANNY TAKE THE FALLS

We were at it again this past Saturday-of course I mean Geocaching. We'd wanted to get out for the past few weeks but one thing or another always seemed to get in the way. Finally we were able to break free. And we had an excellent day, a good mixture of cache types, a place or two we'd never seen before, and excellent weather--a high of 70* in the middle of July. Of course, there was suffering too. More on that later.

We hit Camp Creek State Forest for our first find and then went on to the well known Brush Creek Nature Preserve for our second and third finds. We had never heard of the place either and were pleasantly surprised when we got there.

Mash Fork Falls at Camp Creek SF is suffering from the recent dry weather, but there is still a trickle. These falls, about 5 feet or less in height, will be beautiful with a little increased flow when fall arrives. Our caching find was nearby, within sight of the falls.


Then we moved on to our second and third finds of the day at Brush Creek Falls Nature Preserve.

American Gothic, Geocaching style.

Woodhick803 & Wiscongranny show off the best in summer Geocaching fashion.

Camp Creek State Forest and Brush Creek Preserve are both the sites of extensive logging operations in the early part of the 20th century. Much of the hiking we did in these natural areas was on the remains of old logging railroad grades. The tan/beige object just above the right most flow of water is the remains of a cut stone bridge pier. The RR tracks would have passed just above the falls back in the day.


We've been under a fairly long spell of dry weather recently, not too surprising in mid-summer. For a look at the Falls after some heavy rain, go here. Quite a difference.

Although I'm modeling the ever popular "Sonic Dog" bit of swag (yes, I took it home too), the finds around the two falls areas belong to BatikFreak10 and Wiscongranny, so to them goes the credit for "taking the falls"

We are always on the look out for an unusual find, and today's was an excellent example. The cache owner had hollowed out a section of log after slicing off a slab to serve as a top. The top keys into the hollow inside so that everything stays in place and looks natural. He (she?) then placed the log hide in a small area of woods in a city park in Princeton WV. Sure looks natural here too. An excellent hide.

Sometimes I think that Geocaching means "Let's go for ice cream" to Wiscongranny. A lot of her finds seem not to be caches, but Dairy Queens...but this one is not the best sit down restaurant in Princeton WV. Good ice cream though.

Finally, our 12th and last find for the day goes to BatikFreak10. This is a Travel Bug Spa (aka motel). As with a lot TB motels and spas, this one is located at a truck stop area and is designed as a repository for travel bugs making their way to ???, wherever their destinations may be.

Now for the pain and suffering part of the day. I'm not one to whine and complain, but it was a really tough day. I got some poison ivy on my left ankle, TWO WHOLE BUMPS!! And then I got scratched on my left elbow at another cache, THREE SCRATCHES!! LOL We had a fun day :-)

AFTERNOON DELIGHT

Not all geocaching expeditions are, well, expeditions. Sometimes you just want to get out for a few hours and "find a couple". Yesterday was one of those days.

When I mentioned to Wiscongranny (loyal wife person Joyce) that a new cache had just come up in the geocaching weekly newsletter and that it was located at Union WV, a small community less than 30 miles from our home, she jumped at the chance to say "let's go get it!!" And I have to say, who am I to object...I know my place.

So off we went for a nice ride and a couple of finds.

The Union Confederate Memorial was placed in 1901 by a group of local women. Union lies in Central Monroe Co WV. Greenbrier and Monroe Counties have more in common with VA than the rest of West VA and, like Greenbrier, was of strongly Confederate sympathies. The memorial was placed outside the town limits of Union so that as the town grew it would gradually surround the site. Now, 150 years later, the memorial still lies somewhat outside the actual town of Union. The site is quiet, peaceful and well kept.

As you can see, not much has changed except for the addition of those power lines in the foreground. This mansion dates from before the Civil War and would have been witness to fighting in the area. Some years ago a film entitled Sommersby was filmed in Virginia. Still existent slave quarters were purchased from the family here and moved to the filming location for use in the movie.

Our second (and final) find of the day was located near the water tower at the town of Lindside WV.

Like I said, not a big day with numerous finds, but rewarding none-the-less.

LUKE!!

My family visited here last week and I had a chance to take my Grandson Luke (AlcubierreWarp--Google it as two words) out for a small taste of Geocaching. I guess some switch must have gotten turned on by the experience. When he got home he took to caching like a duck to water, as the saying goes.

Luke, excuse me, AlcubierreWarp, sent me these shots of one of his earliest Geocaching trips at home in Illinois.

With over 200 caches within 20 miles or so of his home in Monticello, it looks to me like Luke can go Geocaching for a long time to come.

What you can't see here is the fact that when this shot was taken the temperatue is near 100*F!! Summer in IL can be as cold as the winters hot.

Good luck to my Grandson. I'm a blessed and happy man.