ShelleyJean and I received our coins and t-shirts for completing the
23 geocaches and
11 adventure lab stops of the
Belmont County Bigfoot GeoTour GT4DD! It was a good adventure in October - our second time doing a Belmont County tour - even if the weather was a little trying.
Our three-day trip was bookended with several Roadside America-like stops, which lent an air of adventure to our journey. After grabbing a few new Ohio counties (lots of Amish riding bikes up and down the hills), we reached Mansfield and the famous Mickey Mouse! We found him!
The cache page had an interesting tidbit about the "Mansfield pictographic icon" and a
link to short video regarding it's history.
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| Mickey in Mansfield Virtual GC9P8CB |
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| cache seen nearby |
As you can see, sunny pictures! The only dry portion of this trip. We were enjoying the winding country roads along Ohio's eastern border when we happened up the birthplace of General Custer. Quite a nice little history here and worth the stop.
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| LOVE THIS SIGN! |
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| General Custer Virtual GC9P700 |
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| Custer's First Stand GC7M0DA |
With 23 geocaches, we were anxious to reach Belmont. The local tourism board did a very nice job last time so what do they have in store for us this time? First stop, a stunning view and....
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| BCBFT: Piedmont Lake Marina GCAEGDG |
we found Bigfoot! Literally. Ok, this is going to be a fun tour!
Belmont County is stunning, and we never lack for wildlife. The county is located along the Ohio/West Virginia border, divided by the Ohio River, and peppered with beautiful rolling hills.
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| BCBFGT: Zion Retreat & RV Park GCAEGD6 |
We ended our first day with the last sunny cache, a fabulous dinner at Longhorn Steakhouse in St Clairsville and then check-in to Wingate by Wyndham (highly recommend - nicest of the 3 hotels we've experienced in St Clairsville).
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BCBFGT: Belmont Classic Cars GCAEGCC
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Next morning found it pouring outside. It was a persistent, cold drenching for the next 24 hours or so. And throughout the day, it was almost blinding. Hard to appreciate the sites when you are squelching across open fields, tucked down into the hood of your raincoat, but we still enjoyed some fabulous views and new birds.
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| BCBFGT: Fox Shannon Park GCAEGBP |
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| Barkcamp State Park |
Funny story... even with all the rain, we didn't have enough water for this gadget cache so ShelleyJean had to return to the car while I stood plugging the pipe!
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| BCBFGT: Don't Get Wet GCAEG8G |
We made our way steadily through the Bigfoot caches and labs throughout the day. Many of the labs revisited the cache sites from the last tour so we were on familiar ground.
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| BCBFGT: A Dam Fine View GCAEGC7 |
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| BCBFGT: Ranch Hand Bigfoot GCAEGCN |
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| BCBFGT: Blaine S Bridge GCAEGB6 |
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| Waterfall under Blaine S Bridge |
After a little incident at the Fat Apple, we found ourselves unexpectedly in Wheeling, West Virginia. It was a fascinating little community situated on an island in the Ohio River.
"Wheeling Island has flooded many times over the years. The corner of the building stands as a monument to this."
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| The Flood of Wheeling Island Virtual GC9P4WE |
Returning to Martins Ferry in Belmont County, we headed up! Up! Up!
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BCBFGT: The View from Kirkwood
Heights Overlook GCAEGDT |
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| Ohio River and West Virginia |
Now that we've cached west to east, it's time to head south along the river road and the Ohio River. The Great Stone Viaduct was on the tour last tour, and the town really spent the money here. Unfortunately, for us, the cache was on top and, with the downpour, the gates were locked, which caused a little back-and-forth with the Tourism Board. I'm curious to see if it'll be locked for safety over the winter.
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| BCBFGT: The Great Stone Viaduct GCAEG9H |
WE DID IT!
With the completion of the tour, we headed over to the Hampton Inn in St Clairsville to grab our official trackable coin and then back to the hotel to dry out!
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| Belmont County Bigfoot Geotour GT4DD |
Day 3 found us heading back home, going the long way to grab a few more Ohio counties. We came across this little guy running down the center of a country road. He moved aside to let us pass and posed for a few pictures.
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| Little Church (SQ) GC59RH7 |
As we were driving down US 77, we saw a sign along the side of the road a sign in the middle of the field that proclaimed it to the the crash site of the USS Shenandoah. What? There's no way to stop and look so we kept toddling along. Later, we came across wreckage site #3 (there were 3 in total).
We stopped to pay our respects and read the history on the markers. This new bit of history was a complete shock.
The sign includes this very sad story about Lt. Commander Zackary Lansdowne.
"Fourteen crew members, including Lt. Cmdr. Zachary Lansdown, perished in the crash. Ironically, this Midwest flight of the Shenandoah was to have been Lansdowne's last flight: he was scheduled to report for sea duty in the fall of 1925 to meet the requirement for promotion to the rank of full commander."
Luckily, 29 crew members survived.
Further down the road was a surprise for SJ - she loves Roadside America as much as I do. Little did she suspect when she turned off this winding road and into a tiny park that a behemoth was awaiting us!
Big Muskie was the largest coal mining dragline excavator to ever exist!
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| The Big Muskie GC3YPMJ |
Last big stop for the day was the George Hutchins covered bridge in Fairfield County, OH. Fairfield County claims to have the most covered bridges of any county in Ohio. This one had an ammo can cleverly hidden in the siding. And, with that, I left the last of the dozen+ trackables we brought to Ohio.
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| George Hutchins Bridge GC7JG2W |
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Kudos to Belmont County Tourism for the enjoyable adventure! Good stops, fun caches, very responsive staff. With the completion of the adventure lab, we solved for the bonus cache, which included instructions on redeeming for the souvenir t-shirt (oh so soft!).
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| Adventure Lab t-shirt packet |
In addition to the GeoTour geocaches, side caches, Virtuals, and several adventure labs on this unplanned adventure, we scored 11 new Ohio counties, 1 official GeoTour geocoin, 1 adventure lab t-shirt, 1 geocaching.com souvenir and many wonderful new memories with my geocaching buddy, ShelleyJean. Priceless!
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