Family Fun Day

It was time for the annual Family Day at Rideau Carleton Raceway. We picked up the 4 year old grandson and set out for a day of fun. First stop, of course, was to do a little geocaching along the way.

We stopped at the Veterans Park along Highway 416 and were informed, "I’ve been here before!" I just assumed it was because his great grandfather was a veteran and the family had taken GGPa for a ride and stopped there. But no, it sounded more like Mommy had taken him to look for treasure at this location already. So I told him to lead the way. He said they never found it, but asked me for my GPS. He studied it for a moment. "Okay guys. Look. See, this is where we are," he said, poking his finger at the GPS screen, "And the treasure is way over here." Then he started walking, with us following up behind. Four year olds are pretty smart these days!

It was Grandpa that spotted the cache in the end though. It had several beaded bracelets inside, and just a few other trinkets. Remembering that last time we took this child geocaching, he chose a little hairclip for his Mommy, I thought he’d pick her out a nice bracelet this time. No way! There was a little plastic blue and yellow knife in there, and he went straight for that. And that thing amused him the rest of the day.

The Family Fun Day is really a fund raiser for CHEO, and totally geared for kids. There was a man singing kiddy songs, and lots of rhythm band instruments for the kids to use. There were stations set up for coloring, beading, and facepainting. There were pony rides and bikes built into a horse and sulky set up. There were live reptiles and tarantellas and places to throw balls at a hoop or use chalk on the pavement. There was even an area where the kids were given a kit to build their own birdhouse. All the while, there were horses doing practice runs around the track. There weren’t as many demonstrations as the previous year, and there didn’t seem to be as big a crowd either. I just hope they made enough for CHEO to continue holding this event for a few more years yet, as, by the time this grandson grows out of it, the new one will be old enough to go.

After a bit of food, purchased from a chip wagon at the site, we headed for home. We made one final stop to do a bit more geocaching. The grandson looked at the entrance to the path, and asked, "Are we going into the deep, dark woods?" I said, "We are, but remember, we have the GPS so we won’t get lost." That met with approval. So did the many puddles along the path. There has been a lot of rain this summer. It was hard to stay out of the mud, and each one of us nearly slipped at one point or another. But that was only after we decided there were entirely too many hungry bugs in the woods that day, and perhaps we were in too much of a hurry to get back out of there. We’ll have to return for the cache some other time of year.

CITO

We started our 2008 geocaching season by taking part in our first CITO this morning..
That’s Cache In, Trash Out, to the uninitiated.

Basically what it means is we spent the morning with a group of other geocachers,
picking up trash along Highway 416. We had separate bags for recyclable tins and
bottles, and just put the paper in the regular trash bag. It was often too wet or deteriorated
to pick up with the pole with the nail on the end that I was using. I was thankful to have that though, as it often helped steady me on some pretty steep slopes. It also helped me identify some really soft ground before I would likely have accidentally sunk up past my ankles in the mud.

There were 65 people expected today, but I’m not sure if they all came. It was a good,
lively group though, and we got the job done. We split up into 4 separate groups and
went off in different directions, agreeing to meet back at the park at noon, for the
promised barbeque. They say they didn’t get as much trash this year, even though we did
manage to cover more ground. I guess that’s a good sign that people are learning not to
litter. Most of what was picked up, by our group anyway, was recyclable.

One group came across a dead deer, while we saw a couple of dead muskrats. Road kill.
We, ourselves, wore the orange vests so we could be easily seen by passing traffic. Many
cars and trucks honked their horns at us as they drove by. They were just saying thanks :)

The food was supplied by M&M’s and Giant Tiger, and there were lots of prizes supplied
by all kinds of places. Via Rail even kicked in a train trip from Ottawa to Niagara Falls.
One of our group one that. I won a family pass to the Diefenbunker. Ron got a hat, and
at the end of the day, when there were still prizes left and we were told to help ourselves,
we took a small ammunition chest, so we can create a geocache of our own someplace.

The ammunition chests were painted black and green by the kids who attended. They could clean up the park, but they were not allowed to walk along the highway so they
were kept busy with Frisbee and this painting task.

All in all, it was a really nice morning, and I’m glad to have had the experience.

GC16YVZ