International Geo-Dog Day!

Yesterday was International Dog Day, and Cacher TinyFlufferino attached this log photo to my Fantastic Ferndale cache — LOVE IT!

GIFF 2019 in Ferndale

The *LIGHTS* were dimmed...

The *CAMERAS* put away....

As my fellow cachers enjoyed the *ACTION* at this year's Geocaching International Film Festival screening in Ferndale yesterday.

Always a good time with geo-friends and the movies were better this year. Hard to pick a favorite, but I went with "Geocaching Documentary from Finland - Being Stealth | weellu & Harjus (Finland)". 

Remember to vote here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/2019GIFF

GIFF 2018 - TFTC

There are harder ways to earn a souvenir.....

2018 GIFF Viewing Party! - Ferndale, MI GC7YJ68

... than spending an afternoon watching geocaching shorts.....

... at the Ferndale Library with friends.

There were several enjoyable films, but this one made me chuckle. 

Happy Easter, You Fools!

Today was no joke - I released two geocaches, and they couldn't be more different!

PLEASANT RIDGE WORMHOLE 2018

For the third year in a row, Team Gates pressed us into service to hide the annual April Fool's Wormhole cache! Wormholes puzzles are prevalent in Southeastern Michigan - when you access the geocache page, if you click the image (like the one below), you will navigate to the next puzzle in a series. Each of our wormholes features a specific city in the area. 

I've had no finders to date.

Funny thing, though. See those Indians out front of Hedge's Wigwam? Years before I knew Hedge's ever existed, TaGeez and WikidKriket ran across one (Chief Pontiac) outside the delicious Clarkston Union and posed with it! Nice bonus to the cache page :)

Chief Pontiac with WikidKriket and TaGeez.

FERNDALE RECYCLES

On the polar opposite side of the spectrum, this geocache isn't even hidden!

Yeppers! A Difficulty/Terrain 1/1 Large!

Not only that, but it's filled with stuff! As the sign says: 

This is not a "trade even or trade up" geocache. This is a "take it if you can use it" cache!  

This is how we recycle perfectly good stuff in Ferndale :) One man's trash....

Luckily, Tageez and I have really cool neighbors who will not only keep an eye on the house, but greet any new visitors to it. 

We weren't sure how the new neighbor from the North would take strangers showing up to our porch, but, when we told him about it, his face lit it! "Oh, you do that? I just saw that episode on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit!" Hey, maybe we can corrupt him!

Happy Easter, everyone! 

And don't let any fools get the best of you!

Gearing Up for HNY18

TaGeez and I were making rounds last night in preparation for HNY18 GC7DCAT.

This 9th annual event is held on New Year's morning, where Cachers from as far as Windsor and Ohio will attend. 

TaGeez and I annually hide 16 of the 300+ geocaches that are released that day. After a breakfast (proceeds go to charity) and a raffle (including several kayaks), attendees are released into the world to seek a day adventure of FTFs. 

Sometimes we're out all day with friends and sometimes we grab a few & head home to snuggle.

Last night we went for a several mile walk (can you believe it was 46° in December in Michigan?) and checked our caches in the area. All set for a good geo-holiday!

Who Let the Geo-Dogs Out?

With some recent changes in the neighborhood, TaGeez and I had a brainstorm about a new geocache hide.

Who Let the Geo-Dogs Out? GC77K1N

Oh, I wish there would always be…

Endless days caching with you and me!

Leave all your worries behind…

As I will make your geo-find.

Our caching count will go up-up-up!

Thanks to your loving geo-pup!

It was a lot of fun collecting photos from our geo-friends of their furry buddies.

ShelleyJean cracked me up with her comment about Chloe (lower left corner below). She said for a geo-dog, she was not very observant!

Makes you all warm and fuzzy, doesn't it?

Surrounded by Wormholes!

What a hoot! The geocachers of Southeastern Michigan decided to have a little fun with our fellow cachers. For April Fool's Day 2016 we released the third installment of the infamous 'wormhole series'!

What's a wormhole? It's a geocache puzzle series. Click on the cache page image and you will navigate to the next puzzle in line. Team Gates lined up around 15 geocachers from the lower mitten (plus one Canadian thrown into the mix for good measure).

Click it! You've been wormholed!

This one's mine: Ferndale Wormhole 2016 GC6CKP6. Wanna hear the funny part? I've been waiting for months for this series to release only to discover another cacher created her cache page the exact same day as mine and her solve it identical. What are the chances? I guess 2 in 15.

No April Fools joke here!

You Might Be A Geocacher If... NO BOOM!

Saw this truck at the Ferndale Dream Cruise, an antique police, fire and rescue car show that kicks off the annual Woodward Dream Cruise.  This was the first vehicle we saw and immediately TaGeez and I started taking a mental inventory of all our local caches.  We're good.

After spending time with the vintage LEO's, we headed off for photos with the novelty cars!

TaGeez with the Batmobile

scrapcat - Munster Car

Have a good weekend, everyone!

Where In The World... Are All The Cemeteries?!?

Another adventure before TaGeez returns to work.  We had heard a rumor that mmc881's Where In the World? caches were being archived and decided, after all that work, that we needed to go on a puzzle run.

You might think, "No big deal".  Right?  But it was.... We drove from Troy to Ortonville to Fenton to Milford to Ferndale.  It took us 10 hours and 147 miles to grab 9 WITW caches... plus a few extra!

Our WITW target caches

Have I mentioned I like cemetery caching? Southeastern Michigan has some fabulous old cemeteries.

This was an interesting stop..... TCO SQ - Pet Sematary GC34VZJ.  It's along the main road in Ortonville, and it was established in 1962 by a husband and wife who live next door.  We ran into the owner as he was cutting the "sematary" lawn.

Pet Memorial Garden

This, by far, was the most curious piece of swag I've ever spied.  It was an animal skull in the cache container.  TaGeez and I are wondering if we should've removed it before re-hiding the cache?  We shared this picture on Facebook and the first response back was, "I thought Groundspeak disapproved of cash in containers?" - oh my.

Um... swag?

On an unrelated note, the prior "searcher" decided not to search for this cache for fear of "catching malaria".  That made me chuckle - it was really an easy, skeeter-free find.

After grabbing a few more, we started heading West.  We were glad to finally make the find at SQ - Hadley (my sister's last name).  The family had been here before.  This was our first zinc find of the day.

Still grabbing the Where in the World caches and any other interesting one in our path, we discovered a hide in the Lake View Cemetery sign.  Talk about taking you places you'd never knew existed... who knew this was just down the road?  We were surrounded by many zinc stones including this Civil War monument.

The cache is called Freedom Isn't Free - Gettysburg GC3GCNH

The find definitely deserved the Favorite Point

Another Zinc nearby

Zinc detail

Warren Mausoleum

Warren Mausoleum - stained glass

Warren Mausoleum - door detail

Bissell Mausoleum

Bissell Mausoleum - door detail

Seen near Bissell Mausoleum

We finally hit Fenton - the northwest point of our journey.  They were having some kind of summer art/music festival, but you couldn't hear it here.  Oakwood Cemetery and Old Prospect Hill was peaceful and fascinating.

Oakwood Cemtery

Oakwood Cemetery - at the gate

Oakwood Cemetery - in the newer section

Wonder what was here?

Attached to Oakwood Cemetery was Old Prospect Hill Cemetery. Many of the Fenton founders and notable men, including the Founder of Dibbleville, are buried here.

What do you do on YOUR dates?

Very well-tended spot

What an epitaph! That's it?

Ok, the 3 year old came out in me. What's funnier?
"Cockawasaw" or Dibbleville?
I couldn't find anything, really, online about either.

Continental Army - Revolutionary War

If you make it to Fenton (or Imlay City or Davisburg or Clio or Bay City), definitely stop at Lucky's Steakhouse!  The meal was FABULOUS!  TaGeez had the chicken & shrimp pasta while I enjoyed the grilled pork chops.  AMAZING!

We decided since we were so close to stop at the Tyrone Memorial Gardens.  I told you all about the history of this gem during our February 2013 visit. We were geeked to see it not covered in ice but surrounded by lush greenery.  We were excited to see the stones without having to chip away at the snow and ice.  We were excited until we saw that the bridge is missing (winter fatality?) and the stones buried in a see of tall grass.  Hopefully it will be repaired on our next journey out there.

The Angel weathered Winter well

This was the last solve and the last find in the Where in the World? series.  We had a great time, but those last few caches were a little more challenging with the uber tall grass and skeeters the size of crows. TaGeez laughs - he says my "speed of find" is directly related to the "plethora of skeeters" - there's something in that.

Hot, sweaty, and victorious, we stumble into another festival in downtown Milford while looking for drinks.

Milford Flatiron Buidling

Milford Water Wheel Sculpture

Our final total was:

2 cachers grabbing 22 caches over 147 miles

9 Where In The Worlds/Out Of This World

14 Spirit Quest caches in 11 cemeteries

8 Zinc headstones/monuments

3 art festivals 

2 deer & 1 low-flying duck

2 1897 cannons

2 silver lion heads & 2 stained glass windows

1 skull as swag

1 sunken garden with a sunken bridge

1 fabulous adventure.... priceless!