Where's 25? Locationless Cache

 Greetings from Michigan!

I’ve been excited for days since we heard the big announcement regarding Geocaching HQ's 2025 Locationless cache! I KNEW I wanted our picture on one of my favorite scenic drives: M-25 along the Lake Huron Circle Tour! ❤️

Yesterday the cache went live. TaGeez and I awoke to the warmest and sunniest days this winter so far. 

“Want to go for a drive?" LET’S GO!

We didn’t take the direct route. Instead, we headed due North first and drove widthwise across the thumb: looking for snowy owls, M-25 signs (hopefully with Lake Huron in the background), and flautas at our favorite Mexican restaurants! No snowies today, but we enjoyed the hunt along the way. 

We did find 4 different cache types including this Locationless, a long-forgotten puzzle, and a brand-new Virtual! Thank you, HQ, for creating this special cache, and we are looking forward to celebrating 25 years of geocaching!

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

Seneca County GeoTrail: Happy Caching on the Backroads

 So, what'cha doing this weekend? 

Funny how those words seem to get me and ShellyJean into the most trouble, isn't it? It's been a LONG winter with a lot of commitments so it was time to get away over Memorial Weekend. We had many options to choose from, but I'm glad SJ picked the Seneca County Geotrail (SCGT)!

Located about 1.5 hours south of Detroit (below Toledo & Sandusky), the SCGT runs from Fostoria to Tiffin to Attica. Honestly, I'm embarrassed to admit, I had never heard of these places, but I was game to SJ's suggestion. Turns out to be a lovely part of the state, flush with history, birds, and geocaches!

ShelleyJean and I setout early Saturday morning, with a plan to stay at the Hampton Inn in Tiffin overnight. 

There are 20 caches along the trail.  To earn the official Seneca County Geo Trail coin, you will need to complete 15 out of the 20 caches.  To receive the coin AND a trackable tag, please complete ALL 20 caches! [SCGT]

First stop was Fostoria, OH - originally famous for its Fostoria Glass.

Fostoria is now a destination for train-buffs as almost 120 trains passing through daily. We experienced their enthusiasm at the Fostoria Iron Triangle Railpark, families gathering with binoculars to watch the trains go by. Pretty fun listening to them reel off engine numbers and stats as we were busily groping the B&O Caboose for the geocache!

In addition to several caches around the small downtown, SCGT #6 was an Adventure Lab: Strolling in Fostoria. Not to give too much away, here are a few highlights from our visit: 

After a successful trek, we next headed to the Steyer Nature Preserve. To celebrate our arrival, the birds posed for pictures for SJ including two new "life list" bird, the blue bird and the yellow warbler! 

SJ took many beautiful pictures of the blue bird, so I hope she forgives me for picking "Mr. Grumpy Pants" for this post because I can't look at it without cracking up!

Photo by ShelleyJean

After the finding the cache, we sat on the picnic tables listening to the bird songs. This was definitely one of my two favorite stops - the other, Garlo Heritage Nature Preserve, happened to be a bird haven, too. SJ photographed 2 more "life lists" birds there, the Eastern Wood-Pewee and the Eastern Phoebe. 

Tiffin, Ohio, was a complete surprise! I wasn't expecting it to be so... established? Two Universities (Tiffin University and Heidelberg University), the lovely downtown including the Ritz Theatre (Michael Bolton in December!), and beautiful historic homes & parks along the riverfront. 

Here we spent the afternoon and the following morning completing 5 adventure labs, more geotrail caches, and several high-favorited puzzles. No GC codes here - I don't want to spoil these. 

East of Tiffin is the Attica-area, where we found the Garlo Heritage Nature Preserve, the geotrail Earth Cache at Seneca Caverns plus an Underground Railroad site while exploring the backroads of Seneca County! This was exactly the type of getaway we needed.

Dinner at The Wall Street Grill and an adventure through our first drive-thru convenience store ended our first night in Tiffin, Ohio. Sunday we completed the remaining Adventure Labs before turning home to Michigan. We had birding on the brain so we stopped at several Michigan State and Metro parks including the Detroit River International Wildlife Refuge.  SJ taking more pictures, but I sat watching the REAL wildlife, park visitors on a holiday weekend!

The geotrail was a lovely adventure, and I feel so energized! We were so impresses with the responsiveness of the CO (Seneca County) to our (probably too-numerous) communications. One of the last, included a message that they are working on a new geotrail (with a Virtual Reward) and hoping we will come back. Oh, we definitely will! 💚