so the plan was to meet up in augusta around 11:30 at the state house then head to hallowell for lunch and geocaching at "hobbit land". i think i had around 27 caches listed for on the way there, while there, and on the way back, i got 2 on the way there, and 2 with mom, none on the way back. so much for 27 caches.
but i got to spend the day with mom and introduce her to geocaching!
picked up GC12EQX, seven of hearts, just as i got off the exit in augusta. quick easy find. took a glass nugget and left a 10¢ euro.my next stop was at GC1VTHP, a great beginning to a geoday, a few blocks down the road from the first cache. it was a guard rail cache so i thought it would be a quick, easy one, but there were so many guard rails it could be in! still found it quickly and signed the log.
then it was off to the capitol building to meet up with mom and oakley (mom and dads cocka-poo, or as i like to call him the vibrating bath matt). i bought kc, kevin & my 70lb, 2 year old, not very socialized akita. kc & oakley do very well together, but oakley is VERY well trained, so much so that he doesn't do well on a leash because he is always off leash. so mom let him off leash as long as we were away from the road, which basically turned kc into a 70lb weight that i constantly had to pull on to keep her somewhat behaving on her leash. needless to say my arm was super sore the next day!
at the capitol building there was the beginning to a four part, puzzle cache, GCR9K0, capitol idea. what better way to introduce mom to geocaching by a puzzle cache! this took us to a few different statues/monuments around the capitol building and in capitol park. it was a beautiful day, with a hint of fall in the air. once we figured where the actual cache was i went down the gully to get it and left mom with both dogs, it was kind of funny to watch what happened when they both saw a squirrel, arms outstretched in either direction with a dog pulling at the end of each leash. there were few things of interest in the cache that were tradable, but we settled on trading the glass nugget that i found at GC12EQX with a glass star, mom left a shell, and took... hmm, i can't remember, maybe she can fill in the blank in a comment... one cool thing that i found about this cache was that it had a disposable camera inside of it and the owner would develop the film and post them to the caches site. very cool, too bad the camera was full though! here are some pictures of places where the puzzle cache took us:
next on mom's maiden geocaching voyage was down the road a bit to the town of hallowell. we've visited here in the past and i think it is such a cute little town! lots of unique restaurants, antique shops, and old old buildings! usually we go to this local favorite, slates, but today my mom suggested we check out the menu at the liberal cup, no menu needed, i saw the sign which was a carved
hand pulling on a beer tap and i was game! not only was it an old style pub, it was a microbrewery, right up my alley! all of their draft beers were house beers, and how could i decide on what to get? what better way than getting a paddle of beer?? which is exactly what mom and i both got to start. we split two sandwiches, a cuban, and a haddock reuben, which was more of a haddock rachel (made with coleslaw instead of sauerkraut).
after our beer lunch, i went back to the car to check on kc, we thought it was her we heard barking from around the corner, but it wasn't. it was this poor angry poodle with a broken jaw. no matter how loud and viscious he barked i just couldn't take him seriously with his bottom jaw so crooked from his top. just looked like it hurt! mom went
to a little general store to get us some waters for the hike in hobbit land. she apparently got side tract and went into some antique shops because she was gone for quite a while and came back with an old game that she got for my dad's birthday. meanwhile i was waiting at the cars, really having to pee, she finally got back and we saw that this old church turned library had an outhouse behind it. i'm glad we went, not only to get relief from all the beer we had at lunch, but because i got a really cool picture (too bad it was with my phone) of the sun coming over the roof of the church/library.
once our business was all taken care it was off to hobbit land. there was a cache right at the start of it, but with all the muggles around, kc pulling on her leash this way and that, and the gps jumping due to lots of tree cover we weren't able to find it. so it was on to the next one, GC1X5FO, fish the kennebec, #15 smelt. i was able to find this micro while mom was off chasing after oakley, he was on the leash but mom had let go of it while we were searching for the cache and he had run down the trail and gotten the leash caught on something so he couldn't come back when he was called. signed the log, left nothing, took nothing.
as we were going along the trail we got to this really cool old stone arch bridge with a waterfall beneath it. mom suggested we let the pups get a drink of water, i agreed. oakley booked it right for the water and ended up falling in the pool at the base of the little waterfall. i was still up on the trail and it was a bit of a steap hill down to the water. as soon as kc saw oakley in the water she started to pull on her leash. lets just say with the hill and her pulling i ended up going halfway down the hill on my butt and we hadn't even hit the steepest part yet. that's when i decided it would be safer for both of us if i just let her off leash until i could safely get down to the water. as soon as she knew she was free she booked it to the water, nearly knocking mom over. mom asks "does she know how to swim?", my response "she's been once or twice". after having a drink she answered moms question by jumping/falling into the same pool oakley fell into. great, now i have a 70lb, excited, wet dog to put back on the leash...
we let the dogs play around a bit in the water and on the rocks before heading back on the trail. we then went in search of GC1F17X, my last hobbit cache but with the steady flow of muggle traffic and jumpy gps readings due to the tree cover we looked for a bit before i called it. i was getting tired of pulling on kc and was ready to call it a day.
it was such a cool place though, i am determined to be back and find the caches that i had left behind! here are some pictures of our adventures in hobbit land:
Read more!
hand pulling on a beer tap and i was game! not only was it an old style pub, it was a microbrewery, right up my alley! all of their draft beers were house beers, and how could i decide on what to get? what better way than getting a paddle of beer?? which is exactly what mom and i both got to start. we split two sandwiches, a cuban, and a haddock reuben, which was more of a haddock rachel (made with coleslaw instead of sauerkraut).after our beer lunch, i went back to the car to check on kc, we thought it was her we heard barking from around the corner, but it wasn't. it was this poor angry poodle with a broken jaw. no matter how loud and viscious he barked i just couldn't take him seriously with his bottom jaw so crooked from his top. just looked like it hurt! mom wentto a little general store to get us some waters for the hike in hobbit land. she apparently got side tract and went into some antique shops because she was gone for quite a while and came back with an old game that she got for my dad's birthday. meanwhile i was waiting at the cars, really having to pee, she finally got back and we saw that this old church turned library had an outhouse behind it. i'm glad we went, not only to get relief from all the beer we had at lunch, but because i got a really cool picture (too bad it was with my phone) of the sun coming over the roof of the church/library.once our business was all taken care it was off to hobbit land. there was a cache right at the start of it, but with all the muggles around, kc pulling on her leash this way and that, and the gps jumping due to lots of tree cover we weren't able to find it. so it was on to the next one, GC1X5FO, fish the kennebec, #15 smelt. i was able to find this micro while mom was off chasing after oakley, he was on the leash but mom had let go of it while we were searching for the cache and he had run down the trail and gotten the leash caught on something so he couldn't come back when he was called. signed the log, left nothing, took nothing.
as we were going along the trail we got to this really cool old stone arch bridge with a waterfall beneath it. mom suggested we let the pups get a drink of water, i agreed. oakley booked it right for the water and ended up falling in the pool at the base of the little waterfall. i was still up on the trail and it was a bit of a steap hill down to the water. as soon as kc saw oakley in the water she started to pull on her leash. lets just say with the hill and her pulling i ended up going halfway down the hill on my butt and we hadn't even hit the steepest part yet. that's when i decided it would be safer for both of us if i just let her off leash until i could safely get down to the water. as soon as she knew she was free she booked it to the water, nearly knocking mom over. mom asks "does she know how to swim?", my response "she's been once or twice". after having a drink she answered moms question by jumping/falling into the same pool oakley fell into. great, now i have a 70lb, excited, wet dog to put back on the leash...
we let the dogs play around a bit in the water and on the rocks before heading back on the trail. we then went in search of GC1F17X, my last hobbit cache but with the steady flow of muggle traffic and jumpy gps readings due to the tree cover we looked for a bit before i called it. i was getting tired of pulling on kc and was ready to call it a day.
it was such a cool place though, i am determined to be back and find the caches that i had left behind! here are some pictures of our adventures in hobbit land:
kc wondering if she should go in again
hobbit artwork?
but this is a blog about geocaching, not baseball, right? so after the game we went to where thefirst cache, 
give up from looking, but at the same time didn't want to seeing as we rarely got down toportland. i was looking over by a light post in the area, on it, under it. chris came over and lifted up a part of the base and BINGO! "i didn't even know that could lift up!" there was a jr. portland police badge sticker inside with the log even though it was a micro. it would just about fit this tiny "homies" figurine i had found while cleaning out the office. i have no clue where it came from, but it's a good little cache item for sure!
was just down a ways from where i got on to whitman spring road. i rested on a rock looking out at the quite lake while letting the gps lock in to some satellites. followed a nice path down to a beautiful beach where I quickly located the cache! signed the log and sat there a while admiring the view.
poor shape of the cache, waterlogged and all. one also said that they bushwacked around a bit then looked at the name of the cache, corner rock, and was able to find it. i went to pretty much the only rock in the area but couldn't find it. i did see an empty zip lock baggie though. my thought is that the cache was there but has since been destroyed, why else would there be a ziplock baggie in the middle of nowhere? so i couldn't find the cache but i did find this cool old wine (?) bottle on my way to the area.
reflections
now this is a real "corner rock" however nowhere near the cache so named
rays of early sunlight
