April 2023 - Michigan Waterways Adventure COMPLETED!

Winter has come and gone so we're back on the road to complete the Michigan Stage Waterways Adventure Lab. 

To help you explore Michigan's waterways and maritime heritage, we have seven adventure labs that each feature 10 locations. The adventure lab originally kicked off as part of the 75th anniversary of the waterways program in 2022. Thanks to MiGO and Jay's Sporting Goods.

We set out on this rainy day with 6 labs completed (Southeastern, Lower Michigan - East, Lower Michigan - West, Upper Michigan) and now Lake Michigan! Off we headed to the Waterways of Allegan Ottawa!

Not too many pictures today. We're visiting beach towns along lower Lake Michigan, but it's so cold and bone-chilling drizzly. I couldn't help but take this one, though... ShelleyJean and TaGeez trying to find a final clue in Coast Guard City! I swear, SJ, that WAS a little road down there!

It didn't rain the entire time so we did snap a few pictures at the various boat access sites. These were great havens for new birds, and we added a few to our life lists including the house finch and pine warbler. 

With that, we have completed the geotrail and can claim our rewards: 1 coin and 4 path tags. It was another enjoyable Michigan geocaching adventure, and we can't wait for the next one!

Geocaches, Pizzas and Friends - Seneca County

TaGeez, ShelleyJean, and I headed to Seneca County with our new friend, geostasee. For today we are enjoying the Slice of Seneca County Geotrail!

geostasee, ShelleyJean, scrapcat, and TaGeez

Under clear blue skies and with a lovely breeze, we spent our Saturday finding 19 traditionals, letterboxes, multis and a puzzle from Fostoria into Tiffin and out to Attica. Each cache was associate or located near a different pizza place, and, with every find, we punched or wrote a passcode on our passports to earn a really cool (2-piece) Pizza Tour Geocoin served up in a mini pizza box!

Seneca County is very friendly to geocachers - this is not the first tour we enjoyed here. As we stopped at the Caverns, walked the trails of the preserves, or stood outside the parlors gathering puzzle clues, friendly locals cheered us on and were fabulously positive.

We lunched at a Tiffin diner, but dinner was a highlight at Reino's Pizza & Pasta in downtown Tiffin. Founded in the 1950's, the staff was friendly, and the owner stopped at our table twice. Dinner for us was a delicious Hawaiian Pizza Foldover and Garlic Bread with cheese! Next time we visit we'll return to try the pasta.

Our favorite geocaches of the day were the SSCG 04: 🍕 Here Today, Gone Tomato GCA9D2T at the local library and Iron Triangle Rail Park Caboose (Webcam) Virtual GC9P8VX.

Thank you to Seneca County for another fabulous experience. We appreciated the well-maintained caches taking us across the county plus the ability to pick-up our geocoins at the local hotel at the end.

International Geocaching Day - 2023

March 2023 - Happy Birthday To Us! A Snowy Adventure!

 

Rolling into the new year, TaGeez and I ruminated how much of the last 3 years we lost to the Big 3 C's. One goal that fell to the wayside was our Fizzy Grid. We are Jasmer, not Fizzy, cachers so we had decided we needed to finish our Fizzy before we got too old for the terrains. 

With age in mind, we decided our joint birthday adventure was the perfect time to knock off some of our Fizzy squares. At this point in February, TaGeez needed 4 and I had 3 to go. Looking at the maps, it seemed like an adventure to Shipshewana, Indiana was in order!

It has been decades since I've been to Shipshewana. This was the perfect central point for our 3 target Fizzy fillers: Shipshewana, Grant County (IN), and Niles (MI). The drive out was a lovely, and we rolled into town in early afternoon. The skies were blue, and we were blessed with a sunshiny day during the last days of February into March.

Not too many pictures of Shipshewana. We had a huge room at the Farmstead Inn, and there were a few nice shops (including quilt shops) downtown. We enjoyed an Adventure Lab, but we felt we had done all we could do in Shipshewana by early evening. 

TaGeez promised to make me this birdhouse
Look at the doorknobs!

We left early next morning to head to Grant County, Indiana (so TaGeez would qualify for another challenge) via Fort Wayne. 

Tommy GC528J3

We love Virtuals! Especially because they take us to the oddest and interesting places! Such as pulling off into a Fort Wayne park, walking up an apple-tree lined path to the gravesite of Johnny Appleseed! Oh, this must be beautiful when the apple blossoms are in bloom!

Apple of My Eye Virtual GC890MY

While grabbing a few more caches including this new Virtual (doesn't the umbrella add to the effect?), the rain started to pour down! WOW! This was a sign of things yet to come!

Note to self... on a road trip, you should actually checkout the weather report at some point!

77 Steps Virtual GC9P64H

Travel Bug Hotel Out Back GC98PY1

So, we were heading to Grant County, Indiana for TaGeez. We needed a D/T 1.0/4.5 cache for our Fizzy and decided qualifying for a challenge would be more manageable than a cliff climb or scuba cache. TaGeez needed one more cache in a county named for a President and Grant County was the closest from home. 

We thought, no big deal! 2 hours down and 2 hours back. And then the plan went out the window...

Grant County is the birthplace and final resting place for local resident, James Dean. Perfect! This Virtual will fit the bill!

James Byron Dean Birth Place Virtual GC9P4VF

It's pouring so hard we almost didn't get the picture!

This made us curious, and we discovered he was buried about 10 miles away so off we went to Fairmont!

Not James Dean's Grave - but close by

Little disappointing isn't it? GC10MBZ

Garfield is also from Grant County!

We headed back as scheduled, but we REALLY should've kept an eye on the weather! The 2-hour drive took us well over 4 due to the blizzard that swept across Indiana and lower Michigan! There were power outages all the way to Detroit. The highway from Fairmont to South Bend is not protected by trees so the wind buffered us and the roads were horribly slick due to the snow covering the rain-slick roads from earlier. No exaggeration, but there was a ditch between the Northbound and Southbound freeway, and, for a long stretch, we saw cars crashed in the ditch every few feet! Nerve wracking!

The view from our hotel doesn't do the storm justice

And then, the next morning, it was like the blizzard never happened! Leaving the hotel, we grabbed our priority challenges between South Bend and Niles. This included a D/T 4.5/5 and 1.0/4.5. We even grabbed an FTF in Niles! Woot!

Last days we found ourselves in St. Joseph in Michigan for a little water and lighthouse therapy. It seems to be our tradition over our birthday adventures over the last few years. 

So cold, but we're happy campers. It was both a fabulous and a scary trip. 

We made it home safely, and, after logging our caches, we found we had only 2 caches left to go! 

In case you're wondering, after a quick trip to Toledo and an FTF in Warren, we completed our Fizzies on April 6th - 1 month after this trip!

Fizzy Completed! 04/06/23

Feb 2023 - Snowies in Rudyard

 

February found ShelleyJean and I flocked to the Upper Peninsula because we heard the Snowies were in town!

The snowy owl, also known as the polar owl, the white owl and the Arctic owl, is a large, white owl of the true owl family. Snowy owls are native to the Arctic regions of both North America and the Palearctic, breeding mostly on the tundra. Wikipedia

And they will Winter in Michigan! Bags packed for the weekend, we headed to Rudyard, Michigan, the "Snowy Owl Capital".

Our first Snowy!

Lucky for us, ShelleyJean has done her research. They like high places and farm equipment and we quickly found our first one on South Centerline Road. So beautiful, but also so hard to photograph the white on white. 

We pulled off the side of the road, behind other idling cars. Rolling down the windows to take photos into the wind with the ice pellets stinging our fingers. What fun!

Rudyard had just hung new Snowy Owl signs on all roads leading into town. We stopped and snapped pics at each one. The snow was so deep and so cold!

We were also lucky on South Hantz Road, too. Anytime we saw cars pulled off the road we pulled out our binoculars to catch a glimpse of those amazing eyes. Our cameras were not completely up to task, but, even blurry, the owls are still beautiful!

Finally, time was up in Rudyard so we headed to Whitefish Point. This was a sweet little park roadside. Again, no camera was able to capture this stunning landscape. 

Whitefish Point was deserted and almost snowbound. The snow was too deep for the Adventure Labs and birding so we'll have to come back another time. Sitting on the boardwalk, looking out at Lake Superior, your heart goes out to the poor sailors who lost their lives in these brutal waters. 

Time to head home, but Mackinaw City has new Adventure Labs so we detoured there for pasties and smilies. So much fun taking pictures at the Mighty Mac! I've never been here in Winter. 

ShelleyJean

Such a memorable experience, and I don't think we appreciate Michigan enough in the snow. 

Our bird count for the weekend 

12 Hawks

30 Turkeys

1 Deer

2 Eagles

7 Snowy Owls!

Oct 2022 - Upper Michigan Waterways Adventure

Life, school and Album Archive got in they way of my blogging. Which is a shame, because TaGeez and I have had many adventures in the last year. 

ShelleyJean reminded me why I do this blog - so we can share some caching amazingness and relive our adventures. Seneca County is a case in point - we're going to do their newest geotrail, and this blog post reminded us what a jewel that area is!

So, bear with me as I do a little catch-up because we have more amazing adventures in our near future. These catch-up posts may not be text heavy, but sometimes you have to let the pictures do the talking. 

Geocaching 101 - Our Obsession

I'm in a certification program for Adult Learning Design and had to do a presentation last night with specific logistics and engagement requirements. So I decided Geocaching 101 as my topic, and I taught a virtual synchronous session using learning theory.

I knew I had hooked my audience when I showed these slides! I watched them as a group lean forward towards their screens and OOH! They came to learn "learning design theory", and we left with several new geocachers!