Find it... in Medina County GeoTrail

We find a lot of caches and have completed a far share of geotrails. We usually find the geotrail caches much later after the series has been out for some time. The one exception a few years back was the Backroads and Beaches GeoTrail in Lorain County which we found the same day as the kick-off event. Today was the second exception.

My work travel schedule made staying in Ohio for the weekend a good idea. I wanted a weekend where we could cache and be together without the dogs. The Medina County GeoTrail made the perfect opportunity with perfect timing. The day started with a kick-off event and the Wolf Creek Environmental Center. The building is nestled in the woods and was large enough to hold a big gathering of geocachers.

After visiting with friends, meeting some new people, giving away trackables, and publishing the caches, we were on our way. We really enjoyed the Strolling Stark GeoTrail because it mixed county history with visits to Stark Parks. This geotrail was like that only more. We were able to get our fill of nature enjoying multiple Medina County Parks and a stop at Cleveland Metroparks' Hinckley Reservation while enjoying a number of historical and interesting places in the county. In our first day on the trail, we missed only the bakery and the rail museum which were both closed by the time we arrived. We did manage a stop at a roadside Amish stand. They were out of fresh bread, but I was happy for a jar of elderberry jam.

It is a cicada year in Northeast Ohio. They made their presence known very loudly at a number of parks.

Our trip to scenic Allardale Park included spotting two blue birds. I was happy for the opportunity to capture an image of this bluebird on the nesting box. I was happy Ali spotted an indigo bunting during our walk, but disappointed I missed a rare opportunity to capture an image of a beautiful bird.

We tend to cache a little slower than most cachers. If there's something to see, we'll gladly give up a few finds for the day to see the sights. We could have pushed and qualified for the coin in one day, but we had a great time and decided to return the next day to finish the trail.

The return for a second day brought a happy surprise. When we arrived at Mapleside Farms for a cache, there was a car show in progress! I'm foolishly happy looking at other people's wonderful old cars. It was a good show.

We were able to visit with the happy owner of this 34 Chrysler. His all original car was impressive.

All things, including this fun geotrail journey, must end. We found twenty-four of twenty-five caches with one left behind for a future return to the county. Before our journey home, we made our way to the hotel redeeming coins for those completing the trail.

The image doesn't show how nice the coin is. It captures the county perfectly. It was given to finders of eighteen caches while the bonus pathtag was awarded to those finding twenty-two caches in the series. It is a very nice keepsake for us and a reminder of a very fun weekend.

Should you decide to visit the trail, there are plenty of other well done caches in the area to fill out a few days of fun. Hinckley Reservation has a number of caches. The Brunswick 200 series celebrates the city's bicentennial. There are eight caches in the Friends of Wadsworth annual series. Whatever your caching taste, the Find it... in Medina County GeoTrail is worth a visit and offers a coin worth adding to your geocoin collection.

Strolling Stark GeoTour

The Strolling Stark GeoTour is a ten cache trail in a county south of our Ohio home. We decided to make this tour one of our winter geocaching goals. In 2013 we completed the Marion County GeoTrail in the winter months. It was a perfect way to shorten the winter and get some exercise. Marion's tour was a lot of fun and is still a positive memory for us. The Stark GeoTour promised even more since the trail was released with the support of the county park system. Stark Parks is a scenic park system so the chance of winter walks in the park was enticing.

We started in mid-January with a trip to Stark Parks' Walborn Reservoir. Ohio can be quite grey in January, but walking the trails here helped move the winter along. With only ten caches in the series, we could have raced through the county and finished in one day. There are enough interesting things to see and caches to find that we chose to spread the tour over multiple visits.

Icy Walborn Reservoir from near the boat house. There is a cache on one of the islands and the park rents boats (non-motorized) if you care to add a T5 to your journey. Local cachers, thekamphs, made our planning easy. They have placed many well maintained caches in Stark Parks which give trail cachers a reason to stay at places like Walborn and enjoy the sights.

Our Deercreek Reservoir visit was the greyest, snowiest geocaching day of the winter.

The following weekedn, we returned for more of the trail and were treated to blue skies and sunshine.

We finished the GeoTour on a bright blue day in early February.

We made four visits to the county to finish the GeoTour. We enjoyed the parks, the history, and the caches. The coordinates were good. The locations were interesting. This is a first rate geotrail. Meeting the trail requirements also means a trackable coin.

Kinzua Valley Trail Coin

Our Kinzua Valley Trail coin has arrived. It's unique for us since this is the first trackable, wooden coin we've owned. It's a nice coin with some really well done packaging. We had a great time on the four-cache geotrail. If you want a nice, hike and you will in Northwest Pennsylvania, this is a good trail for you. You can check out our adventures on the trail at this post.

Marion County Geo Trail

We hadn't planned to spend a month outside of Pennsylvania, but a lack of heat in the house was enough to keep us away. We've been working toward the Great 880 Challenge which requires ten caches in each Ohio county. Our efforts last year to push Marion County over ten seemed to always meet with a mix of dnf's, muggled caches, and missing caches. We were both feeling snakebit in Marion County so a few weekend days with no snow flying and the lure of a coin at the end of a geotrail were enough to get us back to Marion to push this county past ten.

We made three journeys to Marion before returning victoriously with our coin. We found some really nice caches, and spotted a few areas that may offer additional chances to view prairie wildflowers next summer. The geotrail caches were really easy hides but they were all interesting because they gave a view of some piece of Marion County history. I really enjoyed chasing through the county and learning while geocaching. In the end we pushed Marion way beyond the required ten finds of the Great 880 Challenge and now stand at 43. We were also able to visit a couple dozen waymarks on our journey. It was a super way to help push the calendar towards spring.

Merry Christmas

May all your caching dreams come true.

GeoWoodstock Swag Sale

If you want to buy some trackable swag at a great price, now is the time to buy some of the GeoWoodstock swag that was not sold at the event last month. There are limited items of most goods that were sold at the event with the exception of the pathtag set. These are all sold out. You can still buy some quantities of the official geocoin, the bear and eagle cachekinz, and the event lanyard with the event pathtag. There are also some trackable shirts, lanyards, and USB drives.

This is a chance to buy some great swag at a reasonable price and do some good by helping the GeoWoodstock IX Committee convert the items back to cash so they can close the account. If your interested, please contact Wes of kcepenn at wes.kce@eaglezip.net

New Cameron County Geotrail

Cameron County just released their Cameron County Sesquicentennial Geotrail. The trail is supposed to have 33 caches with 15 finds required for a coin, but so far only 24 caches are out there. No word on whether the coins are trackable. I hope so. It is a nice looking coin.



One of our favorite caches, Dobby's Home, is located in Elk State Forest in Cameron County. The county is also home to a large elk herd. It's a fun place to cache. We look forward to hunting this geotrail (despite the trackable question about the coin).

On the way to Dobby's Home



Looking out from near Dobby's Home



An elk we spotted along the way



If you visit this geotrail and haven't gotten an AGT coin for this county, there's some nice caching and a coin available. It is also a great place to get started on the Pennsylvania DCNR Legacy of Conservation Geotrail. There are 30 caches in the series.

There's more images of Cameron County posted on my AGT blog and my regular blog.

Geocoins

We've been geocaching for over five years now. We've accumulated a lot of geocoins. I say accumulated, because we haven't bought many. We've limited most of our purchases to groups in which we belong and events or places where we've attended or cached. The rest have come mostly from friends, a few from prizes at events we've attended, a couple found in caches, and a number from geocaching promotions and challenges. Last week I was activating a few coins to share with attendees at our event. I was searching in the geocaching forums to find a way to retrieve an activation code for one of the coins when I noticed a Tardis geocoin! If you've never watched Dr. Who, this portion of this post will be lost on you, but the Doctor, Daleks, the Companions, K-9, and the Tardis have been a favorite for me for a long time. I started watching this BBC series years ago when PBS showed it regularly. Now it has sadly slipped into the world of cable, and we are not that interested in television. Yes, it is a geeky show, but I am one of the few people to have my own Dr. Who BBC record album. You don't remember record albums? Maybe some other posting in one of my different blogs... :-)

Anyways, the arrival of the Tardis coin and activating a few for the event got me thinking about a few of the coins we have and where they come from. We have a small box of stuff we have traded from caches. Our coins stay in that box. The stuff is silly including small toys, signature items from the days when geocaching wasn't about the numbers and people left sig items in caches, and the coins. They are memories of the times we have spent together and with friends on the trail. Many coins have special memories.

The Year 1 Millennium Cell Coin came from a cache during a 2007 vacation to the Delaware Water Gap and Pine Creek Gorge. We cached in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. We hiked the AT and visited Wellsboro, Pennsylvania. The coin isn't trackable, but it's a much different coin and part of a great memory.

Delaware Water Gap

Pine Creek Gorge


Eleven coins in our collection came from our adventures in the Allegheny Geotrail. The AGT spans ten counties with up to twenty caches in each county. All the coins are well done, but my favorite is the Warren coin. It is simple and elegent in its design. It is also a place we call home. From caching through Warren, McKean, Clarion, and Forest Counties with friends to caching together on a vacation in 2008 through Elk, Cameron, Jefferson, and Potter Counties, each AGT coin has its own memories.

Tanbark Trail... Warren County AGT


It was really a strange coincidence for us to find yet another edition of the Millennium Cell coin while vacationing for AGT caches. We made a trip from Potter County to Pine Creek Gorge and a few caches when we found this nice coin.

Leonard Harrison State Park



We have completed the five state park series in the Ohio State Parks each year caches have been placed. This year, the five park series was joined by a nineteen park series with 100 geocoins being awarded to those completing the series. It was a little pushed trying to visit more state parks than usual, but we had a great time.

Tinkers Creek State Park



We would probably have never completed the New Jersey County Challenge if Ali's sister had not gotten married this summer. We had a few counties near her sister's home from visits and a couple counties from our last trip to Delaware Water Gap, but it wasn't until the wedding date was set that we decided to make New Jersey a vacation spot this year. I was glad we did. It is a super state with amazing variety.

Monmouth County New Jersey


It was really strange to find yet another Millennium Cell coin during this trip. We don't cache eastern PA and New Jersey that often.

Sweet Arrow Lake Park


Soon the snow will be low enough to return to the woods and create more memories.