Treasured Friends and Other Trinkets

We have friends who are about to build a new house down some country road we have never been on, so we decided to go see if we could find them. As they are often on the property on weekends, clearing the land and preparing to build we would just keep our eyes open for their truck. It seemed like a good time to hunt down a few treasures, just in case we couldn’t find our friends....not that they aren’t treasures themselves, but we just were not sure we could find them.

Our first stop was at the site of the Crosby Flea Market. GC10BBD It’s too early in the year for it to be in operation, if it ever is, so we didn’t have to hide our searching from anyone.

Then we stopped by Portland and picked up a couple of caches there.

One was found between one of Portland’s old churches and a newer one. GC1NMXJ

The other was found near the shore of the Big Rideau Lake. GC1H1MP Both were very easy finds. There are lots of other caches hidden around the Portland area. We’ve picked up some in the past and we left others for some other day.

Out final cache of the day was in Smiths Falls, down a little trail behind some houses. GC26128 By now you should know I love to walk trails, but I really can’t recommend this one. For one thing, it’s only about a block long, and for another, it looks like most of the trees along there have recently been cut down, so that certainly spoils the charm.

And just so you know, we did find our friends. They were well down a side road in some really beautiful countryside. I do wish we had stopped for pictures, but I’m sure we’ll be back in that area again sometime over the summer.

Kingston Kicks and Beyond

The weekend of May 23-24 we went on our annual trip to Kingston Kicks, a martial arts weekend, held at the Ambassador Hotel. Saturday was a full day of seminars and Sunday there was a tournament. I love to go to these things as I get to see lots of people I don’t see otherwise. It’s like a big reunion every time. There is even a party on Saturday night, and a good time was had by all.
On Saturday I got to meet a couple of ladies I have only ever talked to online before, and we went off to lunch at East Side Marios. I’m not involved in the seminars, so it was good to have something to occupy my time for part of the day.

Later, after the seminars, we went after our first cache. Kingston has a lot of micro caches, and, I’m sorry, even though the bigger ones don’t have any "real" treasure in them, I still like them better than micros. All that work just to sign a tiny log just isn’t as much fun somehow. I knew there was a micro nearby, and off and on all day, I tried to get the GPS to pick up the satellite signals from inside the building. No such luck. There must be too much steel in the building, or something. But once we got outside, it was obviously not far off. We found it and then went looking for another one, also within walking distance, but even though we found lots of good hiding places, that one eluded us. Perhaps we will have better luck with it next year.


Sunday we stopped in Gananoque on the way home. First we went to a nice park with water running through it. There are boardwalks over the dams there, and lots of art to look at also. That cache was officially missing that day, according to the online log, but we thought we would scope out the area, and maybe figure out where to look next time we go through town, just in case the cache came back, or got replaced by the owner. We have driven over that bridge several times, but this was the first time we had ever stopped to explore the park.






Then we went to visit an old friend who usually is still down south when we are going through. This time we caught him at home and had a nice little visit with him and his new wife. After that we went to find a section of the Gananoque trail. The thing I love most about geocaching is that it points out things like this, that you may never have found any other way. It’s a lovely trail, with lots of big rocks and I would be quite willing to go back and explore more of it, cache or no cache. I don’t know what it is about me, but I do like big rocks! This section of the trail also lets you get a good look at a grand old oak tree. As I often say, it’s not the treasure in the cache that’s important, but the ones you find along the way. Nature certainly provided lots of treasures along this trail.


We went back into town and down to a little park on a bluff. After following the GPS for a few minutes, and getting a general idea of where to find the cache, we discovered a couple of kids poking around in that area. When they saw us, they strolled over to a picnic table on the opposite side of the park. I thought, perhaps they were also looking for the cache, and didn’t want us to know where to look. Well, I didn’t want them watching us either, so I went to the edge of the bluff, and found a set of stone steps to take us down towards the water. By the time we came back up, the kids were just peddling their bikes out of the park. That gave us a chance to look for the cache. The over head trees gave us a bit of trouble, but we found it.

The last cache of the day was called Timmy’s because a Tim Hortons was nearby. We figured that was a good excuse to take a break and have something to eat. After eating big meals all weekend, we decided to get some chicken wrap combos this time. Once fed, went off to feed the bugs. The cache is on another part of the Gananoque Trail, that is within walking distance of Tim Hortons. For some reason the mosquitoes were hungrier here, and we were glad we didn’t have to walk too far in, or hunt for too hard for his cache.

All in all, it was a great weekend.