Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Lake Tywappity

I have been looking at this lake for a year, online. It holds 6 geocaches on a 2 1/2 mile hike around it. I was not looking forward to it but it had to be done. Today was the day. January 31 and the temperature in the mid 60's. There was a special lady wanting to hit this lake with me, so today we did it.

7 year old Marci Claire was taking care of grandpa today. I had barely gotten out of the vdub before she had this one in hand.

Here is our trail for the day. This looks great. Those hills did not look so great.

Number two and we are rolling.

The girl is waiting for me at number 3.

Can you see it?

Number 4, life is good.

After a mile and half I am into shortcuts. So, we took a big one. Guess what? See the edge of that land sticking out into the lake? There is a cache right there. Our problem is we "shorcutted" right by it. Its nearly a half mile walk back over there. Ok, back we go. Girls don't like shortcuts. I should have listened to Marci Claire.

See the rock, it is in there. So, we logged the "shortcut cache" and off we go, over the same hills we just walked over.

2 miles and counting. We have done more than 2 miles because of "my" shortcut. You don't see her smiling, do you?

Oh boy, the bug is in sight.

We were so glad to see this for the second time. We did closer to 3 miles, thanks to grandpa.
Well, we grabbed all 6. I know where there is another one in another state park, back in the woods. We need this one to make us an even 850 caches. Off we go, 10 miles east then south.

1/4 mile hike and there it is. Marci Claire thought she needed to show you how worn out her grandpa was. I had had it by now. Well over 3 miles, up and down, end and out, we made it. Now to get back to the car again and drive the 45 miles back home.

Hey grandpa, wait up. I must admit, I got in a hurry after this one. I needed to get to the vdub and sit down.

Whew, we made it. Life is so good with grandchildren. I have 5 year old Rylan tomorrow. Where can we cache?
Thanks for cheering us on.
Dan

posted by Dan & Teri Gregg @ 7:25 PM 1 Comments

Monday, January 30, 2012

Columbus, Kentucky

Had never really heard of this place, much less been there. This afternoon Colsyn and I took off for Ky. We stopped at the most southern point in Illinois first. Also the lowest altitude at about 276 feet above sea level. This is a park just south of the bridge crossing the Ohio river. Had never really paid any attention to it before.

This is it. The place where the Ohio and Mississippi come together.

A place to watch the river traffic.

We grabbed 3 in the Il. park then crossed the river into Ky. Here we are on the east side of the river as we head south. I failed to get a picture of the gigantic cross overlooking the river.

Columbus, Ky. I would guess the population to be about 200. This town was actually considered once to become the capitol of the USA. DC won out.

Some information on how the yanks grabbed rebel ships heading up the river. They had a chain all the way across the river. I would estimate 1/2 mile wide. When the boat got close they pulled up the chain which stopped the boat. Pretty cool. Did not last long. The chain broke.

My kind of caching. I pull up, Colsyn jumps out. I never kill the car engine. Off we go.

We found a bunch of these today. These caches were hidden on fire hydrants. Magnetic. I had not seen these before today.

Here is a good one but it was water logged. Could not sign it.

Largest one we found today. Colsyn had help on this one from the buisness owner. It was fun meeting the owner of the buisness and letting him enlighten us a bit on Bardwell, Ky.

I was trying to get the internet up and Colsyn got camera happy.

Back up to Wickliff.

This is a cool little town. We found rv hookups in the city park. May check and see how much per evening. We plan to take the GMC over and do a couple of days caching. So many caches on east side of the river. This is a very historic area. Lots of things have gone on here.

Downtown Cairo. It is sad to see this place.

Buildings falling down. The main street has a gigantic sink hole in it. They have it barricaded off. Not sure what the population used to be but I know it was a fairly good sized town. The sign now says 3600. I can remember prior to 1968 it took us a good while to drive through here. Now, nothing here but 2 stop lights and lots of abandoned buildings. There is a Ford dealer in town. I see no industry left. Used to be a magor river town.
Was a beautiful day for geocaching the river. Windy but warm and sunny.
Thanks for riding along.
Dan

posted by Dan & Teri Gregg @ 7:29 PM 1 Comments

Sunday, January 29, 2012

Nimmons, Arkansas

Have you ever been to Nimmons? My first trip was today. Check the population sign. They can change the number every time someone moves or dies. I suspect this was a nice little town back in the 40's and 50's.

There are several streets. Here is a picture of the church building.

You are looking at a geocache. I doubt you can see it but it is there. Population of the graveyard is larger than the living, in this little town, just west of the St. Francis River. The town sits about 4 miles from a major hiway, 139, well major for Arkansas. There is even a blacktop that runs all the way to Nimmons and deadends there. If not for geocaching I would never have traveled here.

These photos are for Teri. She was busy cleaning the house and could not go with me. I ran 2 teenage love bugs off to grab this cache in Campbell.

This one is cool. Holcomb, Mo.

There it is.

Take a look at this one. I have found several like this across the USA. The log is a bit hard to sign but I made it. I slid it behind so no one puts a wrench on it.

I nearly gave up on this one. The gps said it was here but I could not find it. Last place I stuck my fingers was hiding it. A good hide. Never give up.
I was rolling down 139 toward Paragould. Grabbed one more just a couple of miles west of this one. About 5 miles on south there starts a run of 12 caches, ending just east of Paragould. I had to make myself turn around. Soon, I am heading back down there to knock them off.
I hate caching by myself but did not have time to feel lonely today. Was about 2 hours of caching and heading south. Took me one hour to backtrack home.
Oh well, I did pretty good. Averaged a cache for every 12 miles. Got 6, was batting 1000 today.
Hope you made as much of your weekend as we did.
Dan

posted by Dan & Teri Gregg @ 8:46 PM 0 Comments

Saturday, January 28, 2012

Quality Time

We had 3 grandchildren spend last night with us. 2 of them were here so we could get a really early start on a geocaching day. Some very nice folks put on a geocaching seminar for youngsters in Poplar Bluff. Here is a picture of some of the kids honing their skills. Our 2 really enjoyed their time.

A burger at Wendy's and we were off to the woods. There were several caches out north and west of Poplar Bluff that we had not searched for. Today was the perfect day. Sunny and only a little chilly. Can you spot this one?

Second cache of the day, not far from the first. Now, I love thes big buckets. Sure beats searching for something smaller than a dime. The next one, dime size, and we missed it. Oh well, we will go back later.

Never did find the "smaller than a dime". But, now I know where it is. Next time.

A quick one for Marci Claire and Teri. Colsyn was aggrivated because he jumped in the car with me and missed it.

Really deep into the Federal Forest. When these two's mom was small, she, her brother, and I used to ride motorcycles and three wheelers all over this place. It has not changed much in 30 years.

Teri beat them to this one.

Colsyn and Marci Claire found this one with no help.

A hollow tree. Great place to hide a cache. Wonder what the squirrels think?

Finished off our day with another geocaching get together, at the Bread Company in Poplar Bluff. Was a great day. I am telling parents and grandparents, this is great quality time with the kids. They catch on quick and just eat this up. I did not get pictures of all of our caching today but you can see, we were "remote".
As always, thanks for stopping by. Life is very good today.
Dan

posted by Dan & Teri Gregg @ 5:39 PM 0 Comments

Friday, January 27, 2012

Geocaching Cape Girardeau

Oh wow, it has been two weeks since we were here. What is wrong with me? Oh well, I am back.
Last Friday Teri and I took Marci Claire to Cape for a little shopping. Then we mixed in some geocaching. It was really too cold but we made a few finds anyway.


They are on one of the walking trails in Cape. Several of them have been hidden along the way. Some have gone missing. We did locate all but two.

The girls off the walking track and headed to the cache site. We are enjoying the new Garmin Dakota 10 gps unit. It downloads the coordinates directly from the geocaching site. There have been units capable of this for many years but we are just now coming into the 21st century with our geocaching equipment.

See the pink coat? Teri is in front.

They found it.

More my kind, no chiggers, or at least fewer. I would not have thought there were chiggers out this time of year, but I would have been wrong.

Our last cache of the day. This was a boy scout cache. You can see it on the wall next to the garage door. Very few people would recognize this thing. Pretty cool but was a little wet.
The wind was kinda chilly. We only missed 2 caches. I am sure one has left the area. We got cold searching for the other one. Will look again next time we are up that way. Still have 20 or so caches to log in Cape.
Got to eat at my favorite place. Sam's Club serves great pizza.
Teri and I both have new internet tablets. Her's is a 10 inch and mine 7. I love the little thing and have ordered a "book cover" for it. We have downloaded the New King James versions on both. I am getting pretty good at locating scriptures fast for bible classes. Just need to protect the thing in case I drop it. Wifi works great on both.
Well, thought I would do a little caching today but Teri had other plans. I did run down to the spring and grab 5 gallons of fresh water. Paid a bill or two around town. The vdub is great for just scooting around town. Get lots of waves when driving it.
So, hope you are enjoying your weekend. Looks like a sunny one here in Dexter. Hoping for a mild winter since we are stuck here for the first time since 06.
Dan

posted by Dan & Teri Gregg @ 1:05 PM 0 Comments