What Are You Waiting For?

We all do it. We repeatedly go right past someplace that we always think we will stop and explore someday. Often that day never comes and we don’t know what we’re missing.

Last year, after 34 years of driving by the Mac Johnson Wildlife Area, on the outskirts of Brockville, we finally ventured in. We went through the main gate that time, but there is another area on the far side of the pond that is right near my oldest son’s home and we drive by that even more often. We had to go pick up his computer for repairs, and, since the weather was nice, we decided it was time to take a walk and go look for another cache while we were in the area. The treasure I found along the trail to the cache was amazing.

There are rocks in there. Flat slabs and blocks of rock. They form natural walls, and steps and it’s a sight I never expected to see that day. This is a place where geese gather, to refuel and rest before continuing their journey southward. I was just hoping to be able to see them through the bull rushes. I was so thrilled with the rock formations, I think I forgot to even look for the geese!

So, what are you waiting for? Were is that place you always think you will someday take a closer look at? Go. Go now. And feel free to tell me about it.

GCTFQF

Mountain Tales

We decided to take in the On Common Ground Studio Tour, which is mostly around Mountain, and South Mountain, Ontario. I thought we might as well kill two birds with one stone, and go geocaching while we were at it. We’ve tried to find certain caches in the South Mountain area before, but it was too wet, and/or the mosquitoes were vicious. But this was a nice fall day, and it seemed a good time to try our luck again.

First, let me say that I have no idea where these places got their names. There are no mountains there, North, South, or otherwise. Actually the land is rather flat in that part of the province, so there weren’t even any decent hills, as far as I could see.

We drove by one cache on our way to see a marvelous woodworker. If ever I was to buy some turned pieces, this would be the guy I’d get them from. The ones I liked best were made of Manitoba Maple, and had streaks of red in them. Manitoba Maple is actually good for something after all! But the man said that it’s a rare thing that happens, when the wood starts to decay. Still, it’s only the Manitoba Maple that does it.

When we were finished checking out his work, and noting that I couldn’t afford it even if I was inclined to buy, we went back down the road to the little trailhead of what is apparently part of the Mountain Memorial Park, and prepared to search for our first cache of the day. What a lovely little trail. There were some really tall, really straight trees in there. Some were iron wood, others were not, but they were all amazingly straight.

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After that, we carried on to South Mountain and explored a cemetery, where we found our second cache of the day. This one was hidden as part of a Geocaching For

Families teaching seminar. It was meant to be an easy cache to find, and it was. I’m always thankful for that. Sometimes you walk a fair distance to hunt down the area where something is supposed to be hidden, and some supposedly clever person has hidden the cache in a way that makes it most difficult to be found. Some may enjoy such challenges. I just enjoy being lured to someplace I haven’t been before, and finding a little reward for my participation.

As we headed towards the next cache....one of those I mentioned earlier as the ones we gave up on....we realized we were near the home of a nephew and decided to drop in for a wee visit. After a delightful chat, and a bit of a nibble, we carried on to, once again, give up on the cache in that location. It was still wet there, and was getting too late in the day to be prowling unknown territory. Oh well, it’s an excuse to go back for another visit someday, eh.

Headed back towards home, we stopped in Mountain again, to check out the famous Mountain Pizza. It sure smelled good, but they don’t have eat in facilities, and we didn’t want to attempt to eat it in the car. We discovered, however, that we were very close to two other caches.

These were not the regular kind. These were what is known as micro caches.....being only big enough for the log book. Well, in this case, they were more like nano caches as they were very tiny and could only hold a thin strip of rolled up paper to write your name and date on. Each of them was hidden near a historical item. One was near an old broken bell, and the other was near an old gun in a park setting.

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I hadn’t originally planned to look for these as, like I said, they were tiny, and I thought they would be hard to find. But they were quite easy to locate, actually. Rolling up the scroll and inserting it back into these tiny containers was the hard part. They are about the size of a ball bearing....half the size of a standard marble. I do prefer to find trinkets than to simply sign a log, but I’m still glad we took the time to locate these

two little guys.

Thanksgiving Treasure Trails

Thanksgiving arrived, and I have to say I was very thankful for the beautiful weather and to finally feel well enough to get out and enjoy it.

We did another of our famous loops on Sunday. This time, towards Carleton Place. The first stop along the way was in Franktown, the Lilac Capital of Ontario. Of course, no lilacs were blooming at this time of year but there was a cache under the cedars that we had attempted in July. We were driven off by the mosquitoes on that occasion, so we stopped to quickly pick it up this time. We discovered a trail made out of an old, overgrown roadway. I might like to follow that sometime, just to see where it goes. Maybe next time we go to enjoy the lilacs.....

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When we got to Carleton Place, we found a nice boardwalk through a wooded area near the river. I was glad that I had read the story of the Three Billy Goats Gruff to my children when they were little as it helped us find the cache. With all that lovely weather there were lots of people out walking that trail that day.

It was really hard not to be caught while finding the cache. One guy on a bike appeared out of nowhere and asked if we had lost something. He probably thought we had dropped something on the boardwalk and it had fallen between the slats. I explained that we were just geocaching, and he grinned and said he had heard of that and went on his way. Just after we dug the cache from it’s hiding place, and were opening it to see what was in there and sign the log, we looked up to see a boy of about 8 standing staring at us, while his family stood back near the bend in the trail. Caught again! Not a good thing. Hopefully they didn’t see where we got it from.....but even then, they may come back to search for themselves, if they think we found it nearby. They hung around for quite a while, first on one side of us, then they went past and waited on the other side, as if waiting to see what we would do with the cache container. I doubt they were geocachers, themselves, or they would have either introduced themselves, or pulled back around a bend so they wouldn’t see exactly where to find it. (after all, what’s the point of a treasure hunt if you see where someone puts the treasure). We simply out waited them before putting it away, and I actually went and stood by the bend to make sure nobody else snuck up on us until it was safely stashed again.

We found a travel bug at this site, so we took that. I’ll drop it somewhere else, next time we are out geocaching for someone else to find. These are tracked, online, as they travel from place to place. I’ve only started picking them up this year, and when the ones I’ve found get moved again, I get e-mail about where they are, and how far they have traveled. The one I picked up this time came all the way from British Columbia to Ontario.

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The third cache of the day was, to me, the most interesting and fun of the bunch. It was along a woodland trail. The website said it would be a kilometer for the round trip, to and from the cache. And it likely would have been, if we had taken the right trail the first time. I’m just as glad we didn’t though, as I like the pictures I got along the wrong trail. Most of the time, my photos are my main treasure on these adventures anyway. The hubby spotted a grouse right by where the cache was hidden though, so he felt like he also got an extra treasure out of this one.

It was a fun walk, all up and down hill, over rocks and roots. My kind of forest trail, for sure. This cache was a bit different in that the things left there were to be things recycled from previous caches. I left some Dora Explorer shoelaces that we found in Kemptville last year. I’m pretty sure people recycle their previous finds all the time, but mostly, I’ve kept them in a treasure box. When the box gets full, I’ll likely recycle them more often.

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The 4th trail was much easier, but not as much fun. We followed an old railway bed, that is now a hiking and biking trail. We past a few farms and found the cache very easily. I must have been psychic as there were trees all along the trail, but I suddenly decided we should look for the cache amoung one particular grouping, and that’s exactly where it was. Okay, so a GPS that isn’t under trees is much better at pointing out where to look. I’ll have to admit that.

There are several other caches hidden along other sections of this railbed trail. While I think it was probably a good way to rest after the previous cache, I'm no longer sure I would care to bother looking for them. I've never been one for flat land, or being able to see where you are going. I like to go over hills and around bends to find new sights, if not caches.

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The 5th trail was obviously created by a homeowner who wanted to be able to access a nearby golf course without going to the clubhouse. He had basically cleared a path through the brush, straight to a secluded corner of the golf course. Once we found out how to access that trail without trespassing, the rest was easy.

GCTE0T

Our final stop of the day was in Appleton. Now, this is a place I would have loved to have explored more. There is a dam, with the ruins of an old mill in the middle of the river. I wanted to take lots of pictures but everywhere you looked, there was a "No Parking" sign. It was as if the local folk didn’t want outsiders to even stop in their village. The cache there had us parking by the mailboxes, but that wasn’t a place where you could leave the car and walk over to the sights either. The other side of the river was all private property, and though it was a much better view of the ruins from that side, there was no way to get close enough to take pictures from over there either. I will be wanting to go back someday, even if I have to hike in from the countryside somewhere.
All in all, it was a great day. Not only was the weather great, so were the leaves, and we found every cache we looked for. That’s not something that always happens.....at least, for us.