Jayme's first cache...

We took Jayme along for her first caching trip. It was rated one star for both difficulty and terrain - a real beginner's cache. That was good though because it was getting dark really fast and we needed to find a quick one. This was along the Kuyper Walking Trails at Red Rock Lake.

This "booty" was pretty disappointing, but the hike was very nice as were the views. We scared a couple of deer into the trees and shared the path with a possum out for an evening stroll.

My caching partner...

Took this along the Karr Nature Trail. It may be a spot that we return to for senior pictures this summer.
We were planning to go the the Cache Bash at Jester Park this month, but I'm getting ditched for prom. Where are the kid's priorities? LOL!

Last cache before sundown...

We had time for one more quick cache so drove to Fifield Park - one of the most popular parks at the lake. There is a parking area for the bike/walking path there and our GPS signal told us to start down the path. The sun was getting really low in the sky and once into the treed area, it was getting harder to see.
We talked about how it would be fun to do a cache at night. That's something that we haven't tried yet.
It was a short walk in before it veered off into the trees. This cache would be a very easy one for kids. The terrain was very mild, by comparison to others we had been to, and it was a quick enough find that they wouldn't lose interest.
We took a witch figure and left our traditional Indians.

Second Cache - March 11

The second cache of the day on March 11 took us to the Karr Nature Trail that starts by the observation tower at Lake Red Rock. The trail itself is beautiful. They have little signs along it pointing out the different variety of tress and the birds you might see. It winds along the shoreline over several foot bridges.
The view of the lake with the sun getting low over the mile long bridge and shimmering across the water was really gorgeous.
For whatever reason that day I was enthralled with the dormant flowers and plants and I took a lot of pictures of "dead" stuff. I think they are really cool though. I maxed out my free Flickr account already so need to look for another option so I can catch up on my photo postings. ** Update ** Decided to just choose the best photo from each cache outing and post with Blogger **
The cache was a little off the trail, up a steep hill. We took a Woody action figure from Toy Story and left our eagle guy. It seemed like more of a fair trade since Woody was pretty big.

More from the lake...

Saturday was such great weather and Sunday it got cold and rainy again, so we decided to head out for some caching while we could.
The first cache of the day was at Elk Rock State Park. This is a great park with facilities for horses and lots of trails. I had been in as far as the first boat launch, but never back in where the trails start. Directly across from the cliffs, this is a hilly wooded area with a wicked drop off to the water. If you look at the photos from the cliffs cache, you can see this area from the other side.

We spooked four large deer shortly after entering the woods. They flew down a ravine before I could snap a picture. It was pretty windy on the bluff, but the views were great. We traded our Indians for an "Eagle guy". Figured this was appropriate since I had found an eagle feather on the way to the cache.

Finally!

The weather and our schedules cooperated so we could cache this afternoon. What a terrific day! It was sunny and warm (for February) and we only needed sweatshirts. We took along a pile of plastic Cowboys and Indians (like green armymen) to trade for our trinkets. I think they will end up being our team's calling card.

After trying for our first microcache a few weeks ago and failing (due to an incorrect coordinate on our part), we went back to that location and found it! Hidden in an Indianola city park, this micro cache was a tough spot even though the correct coordinates led us straight to it. The log was rolled up tightly inside a 35mm film container. To make it even tougher to spot, it was wrapped in gray duct tape. It almost perfectly blended into the surroundings. Also inside were two teeny tiny pencils to sign the log.

Also on the agenda were three other caches hidden by the same geocacher, Smiley Guy.

The second one also turned out to be a microcache. It was hidden in another little neighborhood playground type park along the walking trail that winds through Indianola. It was another tough find. Those micros are HARD! Fortunately the park was empty even though it was such a nice day so nobody saw us crashing around the brush.

Part of geocaching is not being seen by non-geocachers known as muggles. Yes, they stole it from Harry Potter. Anyway, you are a supposed to be inconspicuous as you search and not let any muggles see you raid the cache. There are practical reasons for this in addition to making it part of the game. You don't want non-cachers moving or destroying the cache.

The next cache of the day was a traditional cache. This one was old ammunition box hidden in the trees along the hot air balloon museum. It was a pretty easy find which was good considering that we were trying for four caches before it got dark. We traded the C&I for a bendable toy.

The last cache was a hard one. Not hard to find, but hard to be secretive about. It was along the same walking trail but a slightly different area. We found it almost right away only about 50 yards from where we parked and started walking. The hard part was the fact that there were muggles EVERYWHERE! The trail was packed with walkers, bicycles, dogs, and kids. We had to walk past it twice before it was clear enough to grab it. There was no time to sign the log in the open, so we sat in the truck humming the theme to Mission Impossible and waited for the trail to clear. Jake sprinted in, grabbed it, and brought it back. We traded the C&I for an Oompah Loompah keychain that I'm especially fond of. He sprinted back and replaced it when the coast was clear.

These caches were our first "non-wilderness" caches. The micros were hard to spot and it was challenging avoiding the muggles. All in all, I think I enjoy the wilderness caches a little better, but these were fun too.

Woodland Mounds...

Jake and I went after another local geocache yesterday. This one required a decent hike into Woodland Mounds Preserve, an Indian burial ground in Warren County.

Geocaching.com lists the hike as 2-3 miles and states that there are several forks in the trail, with the left forks being the shortest routes. The problem with hiking that trail in the winter is that there were several places that "looked" as if it forked off. We took off to the left a couple of times only to find out it was nothing more than a deer trail. Those errors made the length and difficulty much more than if we had stuck to the main trail. This old decrepit body is really feeling it today!

The day was nothing short of glorious. Sunny and 50 is not the typical description for an Iowa day in January! The trail itself was a bit muddy and we had to walk along the sides where dead leaves gave us a little more traction, but it was beautiful. The trail wound downhill and across wooden bridges. I want to go back in the summer and fall - the trees will be fabulous. Maybe I will be in better shape so the long uphill climb back out won't kick my butt so much.

According to the information I have gathered about the area, an unknown Indian tribe had a village along the small river that runs through the park. A lot of artifacts were left, but no record of what tribe it was. It is very hilly there and along the uppermost ridge, mounds that are suspected to be either burial mounds or used for religious ceremonies are still visible.

The cache was off the trail a bit, but not difficult to find once we were in the area. See our photos we took along the way!

Our second cache of the day...

We were so pumped up after finding our first cache that we decided to look for another one. This cache was the Red Rock North Overlook cache. This hunt was so amazing that I can only hope future treks will be able to live up to it.

As we headed into the woods we found an unopened pair of flame orange hunter's earplugs. The wrapping was muddy, so we popped them out the wrapper and decided we would use that for a trade trinket rather than the coupons this time.

This hike was much more challenging terrain-wise. The land is very hilly with small creek running through the ravines. For a while, I was more concerned with not slipping since the footing was a bit muddy than I was finding the cache.

We were close to topping our first hill and even though we were not being in the least quiet, popped up about 30 yards from four deer. The does gave us a startled look and took off down into the ravine. We both agreed that was pretty cool and that we wished I had had the camera ready. GPS in hand we changed course a bit when we reached the top of the hill and were surveying the next ridge. Lo and behold, there were the deer. They were grazing and not paying us any attention.

At that point, we decided to try to sneak a bit closer and get a picture. With us on one ridge and them on the next, I struggled to get a clear picture of one of them through the abundant trees and branches. We snuck about half-way down the ravine without them noticing and I snapped a couple of pictures. They heard my camera beep and stared right at us and then turned tail and walked directly away from us. We high-fived for the pics and trudged up the other side of the ravine - again not trying to be quiet. We hit the top of the ridge where the deer had been and there they were not but 20 yards away just staring at us!

I stood taking pictures for about 15 minutes. The day was fairly overcast and my camera started to automatically fire a fill flash. I was so close to them that the flash created red eye! I fully expected them to take off, but they didn't seem to mind. One doe in particular seemed to be fascinated. Every time I snapped a picture, she cocked her head and took another step closer to us. She got to within 12-15 yards before she stomped her foot a couple of times, turned around, and flipped her beautiful white tail at us.

We decided to leave them in peace and head for the cache. About 50 yards away was the stash and our attention became focused on the find. Everything was packaged neatly in plastic bags, which was good because the outer container had a crack in it. I have posted on the geocaching site to let the cache owner know. Thankfully, nothing inside was ruined. We traded the earplugs for a celestial sun pendant.

After signing the log book and carefully covering the cache, we started to head back along the ridge. The deer were still there! This time two had decided to bed down and looked at us as if we were old friends by now. I snapped a few more pictures of them and we stood admiring them for another 5 minutes or so before heading back.

This truly was a phenomenal hike! See pictures of the cache and some of the deer!

And the adventure begins...

For Christmas, we gave my 17-year-old son a hand-held GPS. He likes to hunt and fish and the particular model that was picked out has both land and marine capabilities. We figured he would have fun with it. Little did we know...

Then a co-worker of mine asked if he would be going geocaching with it. I told him I had no clue what that was. He directed me to the Mecca of geocaching and a new obsession was born - not only for him, but for me.

We buckled down with the Garmin GPS76 instruction booklet to figure out what we were doing and picked out our first caches from the website.

On December 31 it was cloudy but not too cold. Jake and I decided to check out this whole concept and went after The Cliffs Cache. We parked and headed into the woods leading to the cliffs, GPS in hand. We scared some wild turkeys that ran ahead of us. It wasn't long before we had zeroed in on the general location and after a few minutes Jake found the cache.

It may seem silly to those who haven't done this. The cache is full of silly toys or trinkets. There isn't anything of value really. It's the search and discovery. It's honestly a thrill. Our hearts were pumping from the hike and from excitement.

We had forgotten to bring a trinket to exchange, so I had scrounged in my purse looking for something. All I could come up with were local pizza coupons, so that went into the plastic bag in the cache and we took a polished rock. We signed the logbook and Jake took a bunch of notes about the day and the surroundings in a special notebook he started especially for geocaching.

I have lived in this area for a long time and have known about the cliffs, but never visited. I probably still would never have visited if it hadn't been for this cache search.

Check out some photos from our adventure!

As we made our way back to the truck, we both agreed that we were hooked already and headed to our second cache of the day...