MSPCGT: Sunday Adventure

We're looking forward to a few weekends ahead of us to enjoy a few more parks (as long as the State of Michigan government shut-down doesn't put the stopper to it). We spent last Sunday enjoying Island Lake, Pinckney and Waterloo — timed perfectly between two storms. We had to skip Brighton because of a mountain bike race.

ShelleyJean spotted these amazingly vibrant mushrooms in Pinckney. Coincidentally, speaking of hunter orange, we passed small-game hunters exiting the Pinckney trails as we were entering. Time to get the blaze orange out!

MSPCGT: Lower Upper Western

Oh, the texts are already flying around. ShelleyJean and I are getting the travel itch! Time for another Michigan State Park Centennial GeoTour adventure in the works!

We've completed 72 parks so far!

We’ve hit a few parks during the work week including Belle Isle (where I got FTF, remember?) I had to let me teammates into the act.

We also hit William C Stirling SP near Monroe. Surprising part? I kinda (shamefacedly) thought this would be a blow-off park, but we spied more wildlife here than any other park! And it was a beautiful walk! As we walked to the cache, the trail divided a clear lake on one side and a beautiful marshland on the other. Blue herons, cranes, swans, and many deer.

We also crossed paths with history. Haven Hill in Highland State Park was the summer residence of Eleanor and Edsel Ford. We hiked up the hill (yes, “hill” in “Haven Hill” should have been our clue!) to visit the foundation remains.

We also had a big weekend cache run in the Lower Upper Western (only a real MICHIGANDER will figure that out!). We headed up to Charlevoix to Traverse City and onto the Leelanau Peninsula before heading South.

Here are a few of my favorite photos or stops from that trip - with spoilers! BEWARE!

Halfway There, Almost Anyway Virtual GCGB0R

Traverse City SP GC801RA

Did some shopping at the Bear Den near Suttons Bay - LOVED IT! And then onto the Cherry Country Quilters Quilt Shop downtown.

Keeper of the Cache
Monarch season of Lake Michigan!

Grand Traverse Lighthouse at Leelanau State Park GC801NH

Buffaloed GC1R686

Interlochen GC801MN

Our favorite part of Mitchell SP was the nearby Earth Cache: The Mystery of the Clam Lake Canal GC1BJ3R. I actually learned something, and we had a lot of fun watching the campers enjoy the waterway. 

We crossed paths with the Linear State Parks, which meant they were stops along a rails-to-trail. Not much to report – no wildlife, flowers, points of interest along the way. Also no state park signs to pose with so we had to get creative.

Seen along the White Pine Trail

Although peaceful to cache together, the caches were getting a little unexciting. We were happy to find this “welcoming” smiley 😊

Lovely sunflower patch near the last Linear State Park

Can you read the badge?
Ionia RA GC801MQ

To supplement the State Park caches, we detoured for some quiet cemeteries, Virtuals, and "county caches" for SJ. I mean…. when else will we be this close to Belding, MI – home to two virtual rewards. My favorite, however, was the Virtual Reward – Clem Sohn GC7B6A0 – the grave of an Aviation Pioneer buried near Pewamo (no spoilers below).

Corunna Historical Village GC1YZ7N

Twenty-eight caches to go. I’m loving our pace because we are enjoying the sights and sounds and smells and tastes of each interesting park and town. Next up is Lower Middle Western Michigan, and the colors are already changing!

TaCat Tagging Along

If you cache in Southeastern Michigan, you don't often see "Scrapcat" or "TaGeez" on a log unless it's a challenge. Most often, for brevity, we sign as TaCat (TAgeez and scrapCAT - funny how often we are asked this).

When we were at GeoBash this year, (sadly) GXProxy was selling off their inventory. I loved ordering from them, and it broke my heart.

Looking at their clearance I found these blank disks and grabbed a handful. When we win promotional trackables we like to attach something personal to them before sending out. We used to add TravelFleas, but the last batch we ordered was a little disappointing - their name was much more apparent than ours on the customized tags.

Returning home, I hit on the idea to order some vinyl labels from Etsy to add a more personal touch to these blanks. What do you think? I'm geeked! We'll either used these as travelers in trackables or can send them out as proxies.

Ready to travel!

Streaking Success!

As I'm on a 7.5 year cache-a-day streak, I wasn't too worried about this one. 😜

Keeper of the Cache

Snapped this beauty while grabbing a geocache in Corktown. 

Amazing weather and a great start for the weekend!

Streaking for a Souvenir

I'm sensing this will not be a problem for the group I hang with 😜 #streakingforsevenyears

MWGB19: Knights That Go Nano

In town with my knight-in-shining armor, TaGeez, for a wonderful weekend at Midwest GeoBash (15 years - congrats!) We enjoyed 3 days of camping, seeing old friends, finishing 45 Adventure Labs, attended 5 events and finding 31 geocaches. 

TaGeez had to work Friday morning so we didn't arrive and setup camp until Friday afternoon. Making short work with camp, we were soon off to explore and make great memories!

I think the theme this year lent to some pretty fun geocaching! We expected Medieval Renaissance, but it actually followed the lines of Monty Python!

We met many knights seeking the reward in the field...

scrapcat - ProBob - ACLCoordinator - TaGeez

This was our first Favorite -- it took more than the knights of the round table to figure this out. There were like 20 of us :)

Excalibur

Dragon's Breath

HE SAID HE'D SHARE! TaGeez found the food trucks! Excited to find that Outlaw Smokehouse opened a brick-n-mortar in Napoleon, OH. Oh, so dangerous!

He promised to share!

Did someone say "Tin Foil Hat Night"?

Fire made a friend

Saturday morning found a big surprise - friends from Chicago! ShortyKnits and ScottBerks swooped in on their bikes and stopped for a hug, a picture and some trading. Have you checked them out? They did an episode on the Midwest Geobash here. I'm a proud Patreon member!

ShortyKnits - Scrapcat - ScottBerks

Besides many creative geocaches, MWGB created 50 (yes, 50!) Adventure Lab Caches this year! They created 3 (sets of 10) featuring the Fairgrounds, 1 (set of 10) on the history of Wauseon, and 1 (set of 10) for the Poker Run. We arrived at the end of the run, but we managed to grab a few of those before heading home.

The Knights who say ni

If it's Saturday then it's Treasure Hunt! Purchase a ticket and try your luck in the show ring. Each ticket earns you a few minutes with a metal detector. Listen for the beep to win a t-shirt trackable and a raffle ticket. Show your trackable to the nice people at the table and you could win again! AND WE DID! A Garmin Vivofit 4!

As the heat rose on the fairgrounds, we decided to head into town (and the glorious AC in the car). Time for the History of Wauseon Adventure Labs and highly-favorited geocaches. Oh, I LOVED this first one!

Take And Read Diverse Intriguing Stories

Do you have NANOCACHEPHOBIA? This will either cure it or make it worse!

NANOCACHEPHOBIA

Back in time for some vendor shopping, finishing our Adventure Labs and closing ceremonies. TaGeez couldn't help making a new friend.

Official Midwest GeoBash Photo

This is genius! We bought this battery-powered Ryobi fan during our power outage several weeks earlier. TaGeez packed this - thankfully! Spangler Arena during closing ceremonies was in the high 90's + humidity. Pack hundreds of bodies in the stadium seating with no air movement is normally Hell! Now we had friends stopping by and standing conveniently behind us to cool off. 

Closing ceremonies were over, but the day was not cooling as the sun was going down. With only 10 minutes to get there, we made a break to the local movie theater for the latest Spiderman movie and AC. Made it! And we had time for popcorn & drinks, bathroom breaks, and sitting our butts in the best seats! We saw the last Spiderman in this same theater, too.

Sunday arrived to a deflated (and dead) air mattress, a pancake breakfast and packing our wet camping gear. With the day already getting steamy, we headed for a final cache and then home.

Not before stopping (again) at Mama C's Donuts in Maumee! On the way in to Bash, we had stopped at the Quilt Foundry when we had a sudden urge for donuts. Lo! Here's a donut shop near the highway so we decided to give them a chance. HEAVEN! The freshest, tastiest donuts! So turning out  of the fairground gates, our car magically headed back that way for a dozen more. 

Mama C's Donuts - Maumee

We decided to make an adventure of our trip home by grabbing a few more caches and a stopover at Libbey's Glass Outlet in Toledo! Later that night, I finally succumbed to watching Monty Python and the Holy Grail -- now some of those caches made sense!

MWGB 2019 swag

Hard to believe I've logged 8 Midwest Geobashes so far! 

But here's another one in the books!