It was really warm this past weekend in Metro Atlanta. We attempted to geocache through the heat, but couldn't seem to bare the sun beating on us and the thick humidity so we kept it to one and moved on. It is going to be a tough summer with the heat and humidity here.
On Saturday we went out to eat at our favorite restaurant. There will be a future cache here so I won't name the place. We thoroughly enjoyed our breakfast and our visit with the owner and staff. Its nice walking in and everyone knows your name... like Cheers LOL. When we were finished eating we decided to find a cache nearby. It was a pretty quick park and grab although it was a very small nano hidden in a place that could have been easily missed. We signed and as the sweat beaded on our heads we decided to go home and get into the cool air. We spent the rest of the day inside, watched a movie and I took a nap. That's the best thing to do on a hot humid day.
On Sunday it was still very warm. We went out to grab a cache close to home. It was just Taylor and I tackling a small hill of pine straw from the parking lot we were in. We attempted to climb the hill on a more steep angle and were having a tough time of it because the pine straw made it slippery. So we turned around to head back down when I so conveniently slid to my butt and slid ALL the way down like I was on ice. Taylor was laughing her butt off as she watched me slide to the bottom of the hill. When I reached the bottom and finally stopped laughing at my predicament I hopped up and we took a longer route to the area where the cache was suppose to be hidden. Taylor had on flip flops; not the most ideal geocaching attire. Needless to say I had to get into the woods without her to search. We found the cache pretty quickly and headed back towards the car. Again on the slippery pine straw which once again led me to my butt sliding. What a trip that was; very entertaining indeed, especially for Taylor.
The weekend ended and after a week away it was time for us to head back to work and school. It was much more fun hunting and being away from work! So after work on Monday I picked up Bailey from the office here at the apartments since she forgot her key. We headed to a get together with some people at work. I stayed for about an hour and half and then had to leave to get Taylor from her bus.We headed to a close by cache. This was Bailey's first time geocaching so I gave them a couple of ideas of where to look and Bailey ended up finding her very first cache. She was excited and wanted to do more. It was just too hot and I was ready to head home. We ended up having a line of pretty heavy storms go through the area last night and it cooled everything down so nicely.
With the storms gone we woke up to a nice cool morning and a perfect spring day. After work I once again had to get Bailey from the office of the apartments. She left her keys in her desk for another day! What am I going to do with her! We headed home so I could change and she could call her father. Then I told her to get her shoes back on, because we were headed back out. She saw me grab the new handheld GPS and knew where we were headed. There is a cache right outside of our apartment complex and I was determined to find it. Bailey and I headed in to this patch of woods searching. We must have searched a good 20 minutes with no luck. We headed out of the woods since it was coming up on time for Taylor to be picked up. We headed to the Moe's right next door and searched the area. Again we didn't have any luck finding the cache and Taylor had sent me a text to come get her. I told Bailey that we needed to look above the wall next to the road. So we headed to get Taylor and came right back to where I thought we should look at the Moe's. Taylor quickly found that cache; it wasn't even hidden. The log was wet so we re-hid the cache where we thought it would have been hidden instead of just laying on the ground and headed back to the woods. As we rounded the corner we saw Michael's bus so I followed it and grabbed him before heading in. There were four of us now, surely we would locate this cache in short order with all four of us looking. Well, we must have been in that patch of woods for a good 30 to 45 minutes before I finally located it. There was a small hollow piece of wood that I tried to push over with my foot to see if it moved. Sure enough it tipped over and there was the cache. It was a little micro magnetized to a nail that had put into the hollow of this wood. It was a very clever hiding place I must say. You couldn't find it if you didn't tip over or pick up that little piece of wood. And it is so satisfying walking out of the woods victorious. We decided to grab one more cache so we headed off across the street a bit. It was a quick find for Michael and his very first. Oh, and it was ANOTHER light post cache. I am amazed at how many of these are out there. Now I'm home settling down for the night.
Tomorrow is another day. I'm hoping we can stay on our roll of finding at least one cache a day. That's my goal for now. We'll just see what happens.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Friday, April 8, 2011
Friday Finds
Well, we are on Friday of our Spring Break vacation and it is coming to an end. I hate to have to put this one behind us and head back to school and work, but it is almost that time.
We made our way towards home this morning, leaving the city of Atlanta behind us. We made a quick stop off to pick up Michael from his fathers and then we grabbed a bit to eat and came home. We ate and unloaded the car of all of our things. Once we were finished with that we were on our way out the door again. I wanted to spend some time geocaching in the area before I had to bring the rental back.
We made a round of twelve caches. None of them were really hard today... a lot of park and grabs. There were a bit too many light post skirts. I promise when I put a cache out there to never ever, ever put one under a light post skirt. I think Taylor and I can be more creative than that.
It was a good day. We introduced Michael to geocaching and he seemed to have a good time. We got the car dropped off and they gave us a ride home. The man who drove us home was an interesting one, but that is a whole other story on its own. So, now we are home and it feels good. It will be nice to sleep in our own bed tonight.
Tomorrow we will do some more geocaching and maybe even stop by our favorite restaurant to see if we can leave a cache in that spot. Two more days left to get some more hunting in before its time to head back to work and school. I'm hoping we can make the most of it!
We made our way towards home this morning, leaving the city of Atlanta behind us. We made a quick stop off to pick up Michael from his fathers and then we grabbed a bit to eat and came home. We ate and unloaded the car of all of our things. Once we were finished with that we were on our way out the door again. I wanted to spend some time geocaching in the area before I had to bring the rental back.
We made a round of twelve caches. None of them were really hard today... a lot of park and grabs. There were a bit too many light post skirts. I promise when I put a cache out there to never ever, ever put one under a light post skirt. I think Taylor and I can be more creative than that.
It was a good day. We introduced Michael to geocaching and he seemed to have a good time. We got the car dropped off and they gave us a ride home. The man who drove us home was an interesting one, but that is a whole other story on its own. So, now we are home and it feels good. It will be nice to sleep in our own bed tonight.
Tomorrow we will do some more geocaching and maybe even stop by our favorite restaurant to see if we can leave a cache in that spot. Two more days left to get some more hunting in before its time to head back to work and school. I'm hoping we can make the most of it!
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Fun In Atlanta
Today was a lazy day for most of the morning and early afternoon. It was kind of nice just being lazy. Later in the afternoon Taylor and I decided to head out to see if we could pick up a few caches in Atlanta. And so our journey began...
We started off with Shopping Shortcut (The Dwarf Tunnel). It was a new cache that was put out today. We were not FTF, but for our first find of the day it was a pretty easy park and grab. It was really close to my sisters, so we didn't have far to go to pick up our first find of the day.
Next we decided to take on Kong Goes to Paris. We spend quite a bit of time looking for this one. I checked the spot when we got there that the cache was hidden in, but apparently not with enough force. So as we almost gave up Taylor tried that spot again and there it was! I took a picture of Taylor at this location. I will have to post the photos when we get back home. I enjoyed our trip to Paris on Ponce de Leon.
SBW: The Fallen Croissant is a series of 9 "StarbucksWars" caches named after Star Wars episodes. This was Episode VII in the series. It was a pretty easy find although I initially parked in the dry cleaning lot next door until I saw the sign that said not to park there as he would have us towed. So I went back and moved the car to the road and walked over. Taylor was closing in on the cache by the time I made it. We signed the log for our first "StarbucksWars" cache find and moved along to the next.
Our next cache, Moe Cache 8, was very close to this one. So we made our way and parked in the parking lot. We began to walk around the building and wound up running into a homeless man who had set up camp under the back porch of this establishment. He had a tool bag and told us he was ready to work... he had his tools. We just shook our head and kept moving. We followed the GPS which led us right to the location. Very clever hiding spot! And we continued around the building to get back to the car instead of back tracking back to the homeless gentleman.
For the next cache, H R Pipesnstuff, we traveled around the area several times trying to locate parking. Every where you looked the signs were all no parking. So I stayed in the car and Taylor hiked off into the park to locate the cache. It didn't take her too long to find it. She signed and made her way back pretty quickly. She did end up with some GeoStripes when she reached in for the cache. Another found... so far the day was going well.
On to the Caching Inn TB Bed and Breakfast. I had never been to the Carter Center so it was nice to find our way there. We didn't go inside but I wouldn't mind coming back one day to see it. Instead we parked and began our hunt. I managed to take a slide onto the ground, busted my butt! We managed to locate this cache and took the Mount Ranier trackable. We will find a new home for this one soon. This was a nice hide in a great location and we laugh so much when someone face plants.
Homemade Ice Pops from the King of Pops is where we were headed next. I think we had already passed him about half a dozen times. And this time our hunt led us right to him. I had no cash so had to go in and use the ATM, buy a small candy so we had some change and then we headed over to the King himself. I gave Taylor some money and tried to search the area without being too obvious. The King told me I was warm and I had already spotted what I thought to be the nifty hiding spot. I reached down and sure enough I had found it. Very nice hiding spot and we really enjoyed the pops. Taylor had a pineapple and cilantro and I had a strawberries and cream. He really stays busy too; every time we passed him by he had more people showing up to purchase his bars. And he was very nice too! He knew exactly why we were there.
As we ate our pops we made our way to our final destination of the day, I Am The Way Into The City of Woes. We had a hard time finding a spot to park for this cache and ended up back at the Paris on Ponce de Leon parking spot that we had stopped at before. We had a bit of walk on the BeltWay, but we made our way there and began our search. Taylor located this one in a spot where we had both looked. Another great find and our final cache in Atlanta. Tomorrow we will head north to Marietta and out of the city.
I decided to call my 11 year old son, Michael to see if he wanted to go with us tomorrow. So tomorrow we will head out some time in the morning, pick up Michael, get our stuff home and then head out for some local geocaching in the rental car before I have to return it. We started our geocaching experience on our travels this week so we have not even begun to find our local caches. I'm excited to get Michael into it and I think he will really enjoy himself. The only one left after that is Bailey. She will be playing with friends tomorrow at her father's house so we will bring her into it later on.
Taylor and I have also talked about finding some locations to hide some geocaches. We will be keeping our eyes out for some nice local areas that we think will make good caches. We already have one spot in mind and have to go speak to the owner of the shop to get permission. We will let you know what happens! Now its time to say goodnight. It has been a fun filled week with Taylor and the start of a grand hobby. We have had so much fun and look forward to many fun filled days ahead.
Happy Hunting!
We started off with Shopping Shortcut (The Dwarf Tunnel). It was a new cache that was put out today. We were not FTF, but for our first find of the day it was a pretty easy park and grab. It was really close to my sisters, so we didn't have far to go to pick up our first find of the day.
Next we decided to take on Kong Goes to Paris. We spend quite a bit of time looking for this one. I checked the spot when we got there that the cache was hidden in, but apparently not with enough force. So as we almost gave up Taylor tried that spot again and there it was! I took a picture of Taylor at this location. I will have to post the photos when we get back home. I enjoyed our trip to Paris on Ponce de Leon.
SBW: The Fallen Croissant is a series of 9 "StarbucksWars" caches named after Star Wars episodes. This was Episode VII in the series. It was a pretty easy find although I initially parked in the dry cleaning lot next door until I saw the sign that said not to park there as he would have us towed. So I went back and moved the car to the road and walked over. Taylor was closing in on the cache by the time I made it. We signed the log for our first "StarbucksWars" cache find and moved along to the next.
Our next cache, Moe Cache 8, was very close to this one. So we made our way and parked in the parking lot. We began to walk around the building and wound up running into a homeless man who had set up camp under the back porch of this establishment. He had a tool bag and told us he was ready to work... he had his tools. We just shook our head and kept moving. We followed the GPS which led us right to the location. Very clever hiding spot! And we continued around the building to get back to the car instead of back tracking back to the homeless gentleman.
For the next cache, H R Pipesnstuff, we traveled around the area several times trying to locate parking. Every where you looked the signs were all no parking. So I stayed in the car and Taylor hiked off into the park to locate the cache. It didn't take her too long to find it. She signed and made her way back pretty quickly. She did end up with some GeoStripes when she reached in for the cache. Another found... so far the day was going well.
On to the Caching Inn TB Bed and Breakfast. I had never been to the Carter Center so it was nice to find our way there. We didn't go inside but I wouldn't mind coming back one day to see it. Instead we parked and began our hunt. I managed to take a slide onto the ground, busted my butt! We managed to locate this cache and took the Mount Ranier trackable. We will find a new home for this one soon. This was a nice hide in a great location and we laugh so much when someone face plants.
Homemade Ice Pops from the King of Pops is where we were headed next. I think we had already passed him about half a dozen times. And this time our hunt led us right to him. I had no cash so had to go in and use the ATM, buy a small candy so we had some change and then we headed over to the King himself. I gave Taylor some money and tried to search the area without being too obvious. The King told me I was warm and I had already spotted what I thought to be the nifty hiding spot. I reached down and sure enough I had found it. Very nice hiding spot and we really enjoyed the pops. Taylor had a pineapple and cilantro and I had a strawberries and cream. He really stays busy too; every time we passed him by he had more people showing up to purchase his bars. And he was very nice too! He knew exactly why we were there.
As we ate our pops we made our way to our final destination of the day, I Am The Way Into The City of Woes. We had a hard time finding a spot to park for this cache and ended up back at the Paris on Ponce de Leon parking spot that we had stopped at before. We had a bit of walk on the BeltWay, but we made our way there and began our search. Taylor located this one in a spot where we had both looked. Another great find and our final cache in Atlanta. Tomorrow we will head north to Marietta and out of the city.
I decided to call my 11 year old son, Michael to see if he wanted to go with us tomorrow. So tomorrow we will head out some time in the morning, pick up Michael, get our stuff home and then head out for some local geocaching in the rental car before I have to return it. We started our geocaching experience on our travels this week so we have not even begun to find our local caches. I'm excited to get Michael into it and I think he will really enjoy himself. The only one left after that is Bailey. She will be playing with friends tomorrow at her father's house so we will bring her into it later on.
Taylor and I have also talked about finding some locations to hide some geocaches. We will be keeping our eyes out for some nice local areas that we think will make good caches. We already have one spot in mind and have to go speak to the owner of the shop to get permission. We will let you know what happens! Now its time to say goodnight. It has been a fun filled week with Taylor and the start of a grand hobby. We have had so much fun and look forward to many fun filled days ahead.
Happy Hunting!
Dillard to Atlanta
Wednesday morning we headed out of Dillard towards Atlanta with a quick stop off in Athens. We got up at 7:30 am and started to get our stuff together and loaded in the car. We spent a little bit of time finding some cache stops along our route today. Taylor wrote down some codes, we turned in the key, Taylor said her goodbyes to the animals at the petting zoo area and we headed out of Dillard sometime between 8:30 am and 9:00 am.
Our first stop was a cache in Demorest, GA. This cache all about a baseball Hall of Famer by the name of Johnny Mize, aka The Big Cat. This was our first multi-cache and we had no idea what to expect so we made our way to the first location. The first location was his house in Demorest and this is where we got some information to work out the coordinates for the second location. The second location was a nearby building that was dedicated to him and also the location with the information we needed to get to the third and final stage of the cache. We had so much fun working out the puzzle and finding our way to the final cache, which we located and signed, posted to the web. It was also the very first geocache added to our list of favorites. We had an absolute blast doing this well put together multi-cache. All of the stops were well thought out and close together. Thank you EBBJr for a fantastic cache run and a great introduction to multi-caches.
Our next stop was in Cornelia, GA and it too was a multi-cache. The first stop had the most amazing view! We got a picture and I will have to post it later. The view was magnificent, the history was interesting! Definitely one of those places that I would never have found. Thank you Ent of Spades for a fantastic cache. So we made our way from the first spot to the 2nd, working out all of the coordinates. Then we made our way to the final destination and we searched and searched and came up empty handed. We were so disappointed that we could not find the final cache to sign. We have war battles from the search too! Scrapes on legs and knees; we spent a good amount of time there. It was worth the trip for the great scenery and the puzzle work to find the different spots. So even though we failed to locate the cache at the end, we had a really good time hunting.
Next we stopped at a little place called MaddWackers. It is a little barber shop in Commerce. It was a great find in a little out of the way spot. We wanted to stop in and say hello to Jeff, but he was not in at the time. So we signed the log and headed on our way. We really loved the name of the shop too!
Our next stop was also in Commerce I believe, or right outside of Commerce. We made our way into a really nice local park. We parked the car and started off trekking in the woods. We were in the woods a bit with cows on the other side of a fence right where we were searching. It took a little bit of work, but we found our cache, signed the log and replaced it in its location. Really nice hide a bit off of the beaten path. It was good to have another find to add to our list for the day! I told Taylor that I find myself putting my hands in places that I would NEVER have put my hands before to find caches. Kind of funny when you think about it. I bet all you geocachers do the same thing... hands in places that you would have never put them before!
We decided after this stop that we really needed to get to our Athens, GA destination so we drove for a while. Our trip to Athens should have been 2 hours, but ended up 5 1/2 hours long because of the many detours we took. We sure did have a lot of fun along the way though. We made one quick stop right outside of Athens. It was at the Girl Scouts of Historic Georgia. This was a quick park and grab and we were back on our way to the University of Georgia (UGA).
As we got closer to UGA, Taylor got us lost once again. Most of the time she is an excellent navigator, but when she gets us lost she REALLY gets us lost! So we eventually made it back to the correct area and found our way to the UGA campus. Wow! That place is absolutely beautiful and highly intimidating! It it a really large spread out campus. The buildings were amazing and there were tons of students out and about! We found our way to the School of Veterinary Medicine and drove around that building. It was really big and really beautiful. I would love to go back and let Taylor get into a tour of some sort to really be able to see the campus.
We left the campus, heading right down Greek lane and decided we would just keep driving until we got to our destination, my sister's place in Atlanta. When we arrived we unloaded the car and tried to decide on what we would have for dinner. My sister told us that there was a barbeque place just down the street that was really good so that is where we decided to go.
First we would stop at a cache, En el lado del Cafe or "on the side of coffee". We had to run the title through the google translator to see what it said. We were at the location, but until we knew what the title said, we had no clue where to look. Then with the translation complete there was only one place to look and that was the Starbucks right there. We searched and searched. I had a good idea where the cache was, but didn't find it the few passes that I made. My sister and I were sitting down having a nice chat when Taylor found the cache and got so excited that she yelled out. So much for inconspicuous-ness for the muggles in the area! This was my sister's first time geocaching. So we signed the log, returned it to its well hidden location and moved on.
We made one more stop in the Virginia Highlands area. It was a quick park and grab and now it was time to go eat. So we made our way to D.B.A. Barbeque and had an amazing meal! I would highly recommend stopping by there if you are in the Virginia Highlands area.I know Kevin would love that place. There is a lot of Blues history, with pictures and autographes. He would absolutely love it. After dinner we headed for some frozen yogurt at Yogli Mogli. Lora took us here a few weeks ago when we came down for a visit and couldn't wait to get back. Its a self serve frozen yogurt shop. It has so many flavors and toppings. I had a little bit of Heath Bar flavored and a little bit of Peach. The yogurt is amazing. If you are in the area you should definitely stop by.
We thought we would make one more cache stop in the dark. It is in a small park nearby. Well, that didn't work out so well. This small park didn't have any lighting and although we had the flashlight with us the cache is around some fallen down logs. When Taylor spotted what could have been a lizard or snake tail in one of the logs we decided we would come back in the daylight to pick up that cache. So we will head back there today and see if we can locate the cache in the daylight.
We came back to Lora's to get cleaned up, do a load of laundry and we were absolutely exhausted from the driving all day and geocaching. I can't even remember my head hitting the pillow. I must hae slept pretty well, because I don't remember anything before my wake up call from Kevin. And now I am up and we will take our time getting going this morning.
Our first stop was a cache in Demorest, GA. This cache all about a baseball Hall of Famer by the name of Johnny Mize, aka The Big Cat. This was our first multi-cache and we had no idea what to expect so we made our way to the first location. The first location was his house in Demorest and this is where we got some information to work out the coordinates for the second location. The second location was a nearby building that was dedicated to him and also the location with the information we needed to get to the third and final stage of the cache. We had so much fun working out the puzzle and finding our way to the final cache, which we located and signed, posted to the web. It was also the very first geocache added to our list of favorites. We had an absolute blast doing this well put together multi-cache. All of the stops were well thought out and close together. Thank you EBBJr for a fantastic cache run and a great introduction to multi-caches.
Our next stop was in Cornelia, GA and it too was a multi-cache. The first stop had the most amazing view! We got a picture and I will have to post it later. The view was magnificent, the history was interesting! Definitely one of those places that I would never have found. Thank you Ent of Spades for a fantastic cache. So we made our way from the first spot to the 2nd, working out all of the coordinates. Then we made our way to the final destination and we searched and searched and came up empty handed. We were so disappointed that we could not find the final cache to sign. We have war battles from the search too! Scrapes on legs and knees; we spent a good amount of time there. It was worth the trip for the great scenery and the puzzle work to find the different spots. So even though we failed to locate the cache at the end, we had a really good time hunting.
Next we stopped at a little place called MaddWackers. It is a little barber shop in Commerce. It was a great find in a little out of the way spot. We wanted to stop in and say hello to Jeff, but he was not in at the time. So we signed the log and headed on our way. We really loved the name of the shop too!
Our next stop was also in Commerce I believe, or right outside of Commerce. We made our way into a really nice local park. We parked the car and started off trekking in the woods. We were in the woods a bit with cows on the other side of a fence right where we were searching. It took a little bit of work, but we found our cache, signed the log and replaced it in its location. Really nice hide a bit off of the beaten path. It was good to have another find to add to our list for the day! I told Taylor that I find myself putting my hands in places that I would NEVER have put my hands before to find caches. Kind of funny when you think about it. I bet all you geocachers do the same thing... hands in places that you would have never put them before!
We decided after this stop that we really needed to get to our Athens, GA destination so we drove for a while. Our trip to Athens should have been 2 hours, but ended up 5 1/2 hours long because of the many detours we took. We sure did have a lot of fun along the way though. We made one quick stop right outside of Athens. It was at the Girl Scouts of Historic Georgia. This was a quick park and grab and we were back on our way to the University of Georgia (UGA).
As we got closer to UGA, Taylor got us lost once again. Most of the time she is an excellent navigator, but when she gets us lost she REALLY gets us lost! So we eventually made it back to the correct area and found our way to the UGA campus. Wow! That place is absolutely beautiful and highly intimidating! It it a really large spread out campus. The buildings were amazing and there were tons of students out and about! We found our way to the School of Veterinary Medicine and drove around that building. It was really big and really beautiful. I would love to go back and let Taylor get into a tour of some sort to really be able to see the campus.
We left the campus, heading right down Greek lane and decided we would just keep driving until we got to our destination, my sister's place in Atlanta. When we arrived we unloaded the car and tried to decide on what we would have for dinner. My sister told us that there was a barbeque place just down the street that was really good so that is where we decided to go.
First we would stop at a cache, En el lado del Cafe or "on the side of coffee". We had to run the title through the google translator to see what it said. We were at the location, but until we knew what the title said, we had no clue where to look. Then with the translation complete there was only one place to look and that was the Starbucks right there. We searched and searched. I had a good idea where the cache was, but didn't find it the few passes that I made. My sister and I were sitting down having a nice chat when Taylor found the cache and got so excited that she yelled out. So much for inconspicuous-ness for the muggles in the area! This was my sister's first time geocaching. So we signed the log, returned it to its well hidden location and moved on.
We made one more stop in the Virginia Highlands area. It was a quick park and grab and now it was time to go eat. So we made our way to D.B.A. Barbeque and had an amazing meal! I would highly recommend stopping by there if you are in the Virginia Highlands area.I know Kevin would love that place. There is a lot of Blues history, with pictures and autographes. He would absolutely love it. After dinner we headed for some frozen yogurt at Yogli Mogli. Lora took us here a few weeks ago when we came down for a visit and couldn't wait to get back. Its a self serve frozen yogurt shop. It has so many flavors and toppings. I had a little bit of Heath Bar flavored and a little bit of Peach. The yogurt is amazing. If you are in the area you should definitely stop by.
We thought we would make one more cache stop in the dark. It is in a small park nearby. Well, that didn't work out so well. This small park didn't have any lighting and although we had the flashlight with us the cache is around some fallen down logs. When Taylor spotted what could have been a lizard or snake tail in one of the logs we decided we would come back in the daylight to pick up that cache. So we will head back there today and see if we can locate the cache in the daylight.
We came back to Lora's to get cleaned up, do a load of laundry and we were absolutely exhausted from the driving all day and geocaching. I can't even remember my head hitting the pillow. I must hae slept pretty well, because I don't remember anything before my wake up call from Kevin. And now I am up and we will take our time getting going this morning.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Discovering Dillard
Our adventures continued in Dillard, Georgia. Last night we endured some pretty strong storms which consisted of some bright, light up the sky lightning and some really rumbling thunder. The power went out some time around 11:30 pm and did not come back on until after 5 am this morning. I slept really horribly, waking at least once an hour I believe. Made for a really long night. Taylor seemed to sleep well but woke really early.
We got up this morning and went to have breakfast at the Dillard House Restaurant. Breakfast was just like the dinner we had the night before. They brought out everything on the menu. We had blueberry muffins, biscuits and gravy, chicken, sausage, bacon, eggs, baked apple, cinnamon rolls, grits, potatoes. I can't even remember everything. The food was great but its so much food! When we finished there we headed towards the petting zoo area. I signed up Taylor for an hour horseback ride and she fed the animals. She was like a giddy little kid! With the bull sticking his tongue out at her to get food and the mule turning his head sideways to catch the food she threw in his mouth I have to say it was very entertaining. Then at 10:30 am she climbed on a horse and headed down the trail for her ride. I headed back to the room to have a nice visit with Kevin online before he went to bed for the night.
After Taylor returned from her ride we just layed around the room for a while relaxing and watching a little tv. I think I even fell asleep for a bit. I think it was a little after 3:00 pm when we decided to head out. We wanted to see if we could pick up a couple of caches today in Dillard.
Our first stop was the The Cupboard Cafe. We found the cache pretty quickly and then headed inside to have a bite to eat. Taylor ordered a chicken quesadilla and I ordered a chicken caesar salad. When the quesadilla came out I was a bit worried that Taylor wouldn't like it. It was loaded with tomato and pepper and onion. Both the salad and the quesadilla were amazing and Taylor ate a lot! She loved it! We would definitely recommend The Cupboard Cafe for a bite to eat.
After having a bite to eat we headed to another cache in the area that was suppose to be located in a small local park. We walked the trail and looked in every nook and cranny that we thought could hold the cache and ended up leaving empty handed. No luck on that one. Then we headed back to The Dillard House. I needed to wake up Kevin and I wanted to spend a little bit of time with him. So we spent some time talking and he fixed his salad for work tonight. Then he headed out to get some shopping done and we climbed back in the car to see if we could locate another cache or two.
We went looking for two more cache locations and managed to find one and not the other. Taylor managed to get injured at one. She slipped on the gravel heading back to the car scraping her knee. Climbed in and put down the pen. She thought she would go see the little creek behind us. As she backed out she bumped the back of her head on the car door, then she flung her head forward taking another smack to the front of her head. We had a bit of a laugh as she endured the pain of her injuries. If you know Taylor then you already know she is injury prone. Then back home to say goodnight to Kevin and see if we could relax a little. We wanted to watch "The Bucket List" on tv. We saw that it was coming on tonight. So here we sit watching the movie and ready to lay down.
Tomorrow we will head out towards Athens to visit the University of Georgia campus and then continue on to Atlanta. We plan to get a little geocaching done along the way. Happy Hunting!
We got up this morning and went to have breakfast at the Dillard House Restaurant. Breakfast was just like the dinner we had the night before. They brought out everything on the menu. We had blueberry muffins, biscuits and gravy, chicken, sausage, bacon, eggs, baked apple, cinnamon rolls, grits, potatoes. I can't even remember everything. The food was great but its so much food! When we finished there we headed towards the petting zoo area. I signed up Taylor for an hour horseback ride and she fed the animals. She was like a giddy little kid! With the bull sticking his tongue out at her to get food and the mule turning his head sideways to catch the food she threw in his mouth I have to say it was very entertaining. Then at 10:30 am she climbed on a horse and headed down the trail for her ride. I headed back to the room to have a nice visit with Kevin online before he went to bed for the night.
After Taylor returned from her ride we just layed around the room for a while relaxing and watching a little tv. I think I even fell asleep for a bit. I think it was a little after 3:00 pm when we decided to head out. We wanted to see if we could pick up a couple of caches today in Dillard.
Our first stop was the The Cupboard Cafe. We found the cache pretty quickly and then headed inside to have a bite to eat. Taylor ordered a chicken quesadilla and I ordered a chicken caesar salad. When the quesadilla came out I was a bit worried that Taylor wouldn't like it. It was loaded with tomato and pepper and onion. Both the salad and the quesadilla were amazing and Taylor ate a lot! She loved it! We would definitely recommend The Cupboard Cafe for a bite to eat.
After having a bite to eat we headed to another cache in the area that was suppose to be located in a small local park. We walked the trail and looked in every nook and cranny that we thought could hold the cache and ended up leaving empty handed. No luck on that one. Then we headed back to The Dillard House. I needed to wake up Kevin and I wanted to spend a little bit of time with him. So we spent some time talking and he fixed his salad for work tonight. Then he headed out to get some shopping done and we climbed back in the car to see if we could locate another cache or two.
We went looking for two more cache locations and managed to find one and not the other. Taylor managed to get injured at one. She slipped on the gravel heading back to the car scraping her knee. Climbed in and put down the pen. She thought she would go see the little creek behind us. As she backed out she bumped the back of her head on the car door, then she flung her head forward taking another smack to the front of her head. We had a bit of a laugh as she endured the pain of her injuries. If you know Taylor then you already know she is injury prone. Then back home to say goodnight to Kevin and see if we could relax a little. We wanted to watch "The Bucket List" on tv. We saw that it was coming on tonight. So here we sit watching the movie and ready to lay down.
Tomorrow we will head out towards Athens to visit the University of Georgia campus and then continue on to Atlanta. We plan to get a little geocaching done along the way. Happy Hunting!
Monday, April 4, 2011
New to Geocaching
Welcome! We are Susan and Taylor... mother and daughter geocaching team. Well we are very new at this. Today is our third day of geocaching and we are having a blast.
It's Spring Break week here in a lot of Georgia counties and we decided we would head towards north Georgia. The goal was to visit a couple of college campuses since Taylor is a high school junior. So we headed towards Dahlonega, Georgia to visit the North Georgia State College and University campus. Along the way we decided we would start our geocaching experience.
Our very first cache was in Cumming, Georgia. We decided to stop and try to find our first one along our way north. It was successful! It's always nice when you start something new to have success right off. It was a bit of a challenge trying to get the GPS figured out, but we did. After Cumming we decided we should get to our final destination in Dahlonega, so we headed on our way.
We arrived in Dahlonega somewhere around 3 pm on Friday and got checked in to the Long Mountain Lodge. It was a delightful place with the most AMAZING breakfasts each morning. The owners were very nice and I would definitely recommend a stay and we would definitely go back. The most amazing place to eat was at the Long Mountain Lodge for breakfast. The other restaurants we visited were: The Porter House (the steak was great, the onion rings had weird sauce, the fish and chips were okay. Nothing great but a good eat), The Crimson Moon (wonderful food, great atmosphere; we would definitely eat here again), Pueblo's (the food was great! We would recommend and eat there again).
Day two in Dahlonega was an early morning tour of The North Georgia State College and University and then a full day of geocaching. We had many successes and our first unsuccessful find. We were not the only one to not find that one.. someone even said it must have been muggled. We get very frustrated when we can't find a cache and we are so competitive that we will spend hours looking. I have always said we are competitive to a fault.
Day 3 was geocaching in Helen, Georgia. That is one beautiful place. It was full of motorcyclist and it was a beautiful day. Our first cache was one that Taylor found out about from a friend. We found the cache, but it was soaking wet and we couldn't find it on the geocaching.com. Our second of the day was unsuccessful. We knew we had to be in the right spot and we spent a LOT of time looking and left extremely frustrated. We say that one must have been swept away down the river. After our defeat we decided to do a little shopping and eating. We had German food and it was very good. We got gifts for the family, especially for Kevin ... My Aussie Love. He'll be getting a nice package soon. After our shopping excursion and belly filling we decided to try hunting again. Maybe a full belly and good shopping would help with the good charma. Think again! We headed over to the park for a cache. We checked the possible hiding spots with no success. We were grumpy now! After that we headed to the Black Bear exhibit, stopped for some shopping at the Biker shop, grabbed a quick cache there and headed back to the Lodge. Day 3 was not a good day for our geocaching adventures and we sulked back defeated.
Day 4 finds us checking out of the Lodge. We are heading further north into Georgia. We stopped at the square in Dahlonega for some quick shopping items, but the shops weren't open so we decided to see if we could get a couple of caches to pass the time. We went to two, the first was successful, the second not so much. After spending a good amount of time looking at our second stop we headed back to get our shopping done and began our trek north. We stopped off at a couple of places along our route, Cleveland for a couple of successes. It was getting later in the afternoon so we decided to head on to The Dillard House where we will be staying for a couple of days. We may go out tomorrow and see if we can locate a couple around the area. If not we will be relaxing and enjoying the scenery.
It's Spring Break week here in a lot of Georgia counties and we decided we would head towards north Georgia. The goal was to visit a couple of college campuses since Taylor is a high school junior. So we headed towards Dahlonega, Georgia to visit the North Georgia State College and University campus. Along the way we decided we would start our geocaching experience.
Our very first cache was in Cumming, Georgia. We decided to stop and try to find our first one along our way north. It was successful! It's always nice when you start something new to have success right off. It was a bit of a challenge trying to get the GPS figured out, but we did. After Cumming we decided we should get to our final destination in Dahlonega, so we headed on our way.
We arrived in Dahlonega somewhere around 3 pm on Friday and got checked in to the Long Mountain Lodge. It was a delightful place with the most AMAZING breakfasts each morning. The owners were very nice and I would definitely recommend a stay and we would definitely go back. The most amazing place to eat was at the Long Mountain Lodge for breakfast. The other restaurants we visited were: The Porter House (the steak was great, the onion rings had weird sauce, the fish and chips were okay. Nothing great but a good eat), The Crimson Moon (wonderful food, great atmosphere; we would definitely eat here again), Pueblo's (the food was great! We would recommend and eat there again).
Day two in Dahlonega was an early morning tour of The North Georgia State College and University and then a full day of geocaching. We had many successes and our first unsuccessful find. We were not the only one to not find that one.. someone even said it must have been muggled. We get very frustrated when we can't find a cache and we are so competitive that we will spend hours looking. I have always said we are competitive to a fault.
Day 3 was geocaching in Helen, Georgia. That is one beautiful place. It was full of motorcyclist and it was a beautiful day. Our first cache was one that Taylor found out about from a friend. We found the cache, but it was soaking wet and we couldn't find it on the geocaching.com. Our second of the day was unsuccessful. We knew we had to be in the right spot and we spent a LOT of time looking and left extremely frustrated. We say that one must have been swept away down the river. After our defeat we decided to do a little shopping and eating. We had German food and it was very good. We got gifts for the family, especially for Kevin ... My Aussie Love. He'll be getting a nice package soon. After our shopping excursion and belly filling we decided to try hunting again. Maybe a full belly and good shopping would help with the good charma. Think again! We headed over to the park for a cache. We checked the possible hiding spots with no success. We were grumpy now! After that we headed to the Black Bear exhibit, stopped for some shopping at the Biker shop, grabbed a quick cache there and headed back to the Lodge. Day 3 was not a good day for our geocaching adventures and we sulked back defeated.
Day 4 finds us checking out of the Lodge. We are heading further north into Georgia. We stopped at the square in Dahlonega for some quick shopping items, but the shops weren't open so we decided to see if we could get a couple of caches to pass the time. We went to two, the first was successful, the second not so much. After spending a good amount of time looking at our second stop we headed back to get our shopping done and began our trek north. We stopped off at a couple of places along our route, Cleveland for a couple of successes. It was getting later in the afternoon so we decided to head on to The Dillard House where we will be staying for a couple of days. We may go out tomorrow and see if we can locate a couple around the area. If not we will be relaxing and enjoying the scenery.
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