Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Traverse City Adventure: From Troy to Traverse City


WOWWEE!!!  I had the most awesome time in Traverse City this weekend!  Kriket called and said she had the opportunity to go up to that gorgeous town and did I want to go caching with her?  WOOT!

We left early Saturday morning – it was so amazingly blue and the weather had finally cooled down.  It took awhile to get up there.  Why?  Because there are caches at all the rest stops, and I’m still working on The Big Flush Challenge (GC2QNJD). 


Luckily, Kriket was a good sport because I kept “forgetting to use the facilities” so we had to keep stopping at the next one and the next one…. Along the way we came across a 1 FTF for 12 Months Challenge (qualified) and a fabulous LARGE cache in the woods filled with kid’s coloring books and toys.


Right before we excited the freeway in Grayling, we realized there was a Virtual cache nearby.  Michigan Firefighters Remembered (GCGB72) is in Roscommon and only about a mile off the freeway. 


I’m sure we’ve passed the highway sign many times, but I never noticed it.  We pulled it and it was so quiet after several hours of highway noise.  We spent some time walking around, reflecting, taking pictures. 


Back on the road to Traverse City.  We had a very special stop after Grayling: Geocache 612 (GC36) – Michigan’s 2nd Oldest Geocache!  We were told that you can “practically pull right up to it”!  NOT!  First our car GPSr had us turn down this sandy logging road.  FOUR MILES LATER, we try to turn onto a dirt track only to be stopped by a group of bikers. Lots of them.  But on dirt bikes.  They warned us the trails were filled with riders and gave us two bits of advice (“turn on your headlights” so they could easily see us and “if you run one over, back over them again so they die quickly”).


Our cache was a tenth of a mile away, but we drove past it so we wouldn’t block this “road”.  Just as we turned off, we discovered that this was another trail.  Much smaller and bumpier, but my sister handled the road magnificently!  Finally, finding a place to park, we got out and walked .13 miles to the cache.  VICTORY!  It’s the oldest cache I’ve ever handled! 


We dropped a trackable & some path tags and I grabbed a rubber cat stamp.  Seeing over  a decade worth of names on a log – knowing how many people have preceded us – living the history. Between that and the adventure there – this is what geocaching is all about!


With just a few stops along the way, we finally made it to Traverse City where an even bigger adventure awaited! 

More to come….

Elisa


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