We have recently gotten involved with a new hobby called GeoCaching. We been hearing a lot about it for several years now. I have heard my Buddy Nick Russell, editor of Gypsy Journal talk about it and earlier this summer Ellie Meacham showed us all about it while she and Jim were staying at Broken Arrow Campground. She got Ms Pat "hooked"..... soon Pat had a GPS and has us chasing all over this area looking for hidden Caches. Kind of a neat way to hike, looking for a hidden treasure.....Puts a new BANG in it! We've found several in this area.
We decided that we would set up and establish our own "personal" Cache out at our favorite Hike at Stockade Lake in Custer State Park. We love the Park so much and the Stockade hike is one we do almost every morning, In fact we hiked it every morning this week !! Six days in a row at 7:30 am....
We decided that we would set up and establish our own "personal" Cache out at our favorite Hike at Stockade Lake in Custer State Park. We love the Park so much and the Stockade hike is one we do almost every morning, In fact we hiked it every morning this week !! Six days in a row at 7:30 am....
Pat has the Cache and we are headed to the top to secure it in a hidden spot and record the exact coordinates. The first half of this hike is tough, it really makes the ole heart pump!
This is near the top, now to find a good place.
We found a neat place to put the hidden Cache.................placed it there in a hollow log, went home and advised the special website "Geocaching - The Official Global GPS Cache Hunt Site" and requested it be put on the public listing.
Can you see it???? Hidden in the hollow log in a green coffee can, just beneath where Pat is sitting....Look close!
We waited a couple days and received notice that we could not place a Cache on SD State Park Property. Hummm.... so we called the Superintendent in charge of the Park...an old friend. He promptly referred us to one of his people who politely told us "No", they do not allow the public to place caches on their property. Don't you just love it when the "head honcho" doesn't have enough fortitude to tell you NO... he has to have an employee do it...? Ya, that's the way he did it. OK, enough said... bite my tongue! So the next day we went back on our favorite Stockade Lake hike, found our own hidden cache and removed it...LOL. Oh well, I learned a long time ago that getting forgiveness is a lot easier than getting permission. ;-)
But "lo and behold", we found an even better place!!! Pat and I were out riding our 4 wheeler way back in the woods when we ran into this old Gold mine. It is neat!!!
The old fire road that I was following hadn't been traveled much and I suddenly came to a dead end. I looked up and saw this "opening" in the rock.
"This is interesting....lets take a look!" I wish our friends Roger and Susan Haddix from Florida could see this. Roger.....wait until you SEE IT!!!! Gotta be GOLD there somewhere...
Wow, it goes back a ways,,,,,they have removed a LOT of rock. They surely HIT a good vein of Gold here to remove this much rock!
You could tell this was a man-made hole.
As we were leaving, Ms Pat found a small rock that was "glistening" and she said " Now this IS GOLD, I just know it is"! " I said "Well, I doubt it, laying out here in the open, I don't think so!" She brought it home, anyway. We'll wait for Roger to get here to tell us if it is really gold. (-:
"This is interesting....lets take a look!" I wish our friends Roger and Susan Haddix from Florida could see this. Roger.....wait until you SEE IT!!!! Gotta be GOLD there somewhere...
Wow, it goes back a ways,,,,,they have removed a LOT of rock. They surely HIT a good vein of Gold here to remove this much rock!
You could tell this was a man-made hole.
As we were leaving, Ms Pat found a small rock that was "glistening" and she said " Now this IS GOLD, I just know it is"! " I said "Well, I doubt it, laying out here in the open, I don't think so!" She brought it home, anyway. We'll wait for Roger to get here to tell us if it is really gold. (-:
So we decided to hide our personal cache there. It's only a few miles from our place. Now we will wait approval on this one!!! We'll see!!!
Yesterday,Pat and I took a nice 75 mile trip out through the Custer State Park on the Harley. It was an extremely enjoyable trip...beautiful day, light traffic, wild animals all over the place, including 2 herds of buffalo. We are both getting more and more familiar with riding again and with this nice Big Beautiful Bike, it is OH, SO ENJOYABLE!! This is the first belt drive I have owned... all my other Harley's were Chain drive. This is so SMOOTH, and it is So POWERFUL at such Low Torque. I finally got it into SIXTH gear!!! Yes, "Scooter", it is a nice Scooter!!!
It was a GREAT WEEK!!!!!!
Thanks for stopping by, please come back! We enjoy your comments.....
God Bless you all!!
Mike
This Blog is Published every Sunday and Wednesday..
5 comments:
Sounds like you both had a great adventure. I love how you and MS. Pat get such joy out of life!
Del and Berta at Retama are also into Geocaching and have a few hidden around the area. You'll have to check them out when you go home.
I loved the pics of that gold mine, Mike - good job! I'd seen the term 'geocaching' before and always assumed it was simply a misspelling of 'geocoaching' which I assume, maybe mistakenly, has something to do with motorhomes!
So, thanks for enlightening me on this new hobby. I'll have to look for something I don't want anymore so I can hide it and not feel guilty!! LOL - seems like a great way to get rid of some of the junk hiding under my desk!!
Great pictures and story... I have never heard of this before and it really sounds like fun... It is much better to be outside enjoying the beauty of our nation... I love Custer State Park and I know how beautiful that is to ride through... Have Fun!
Travel Safe
Donna
I think it is funny that you can't put anything in the state park. Who the heck pays the bills to support that park?? Cheech! And I will NOT get on a soap box.
I will forward this to Bruce. He love to hunt for the gold too---maybe we can get him up there that way!
Miss you both! :)+
How fun! Getting out is one good thing, getting out with a purpose makes it even better!
Hey, you didn't show up in our reading list this week! We had to come find you. Wonder what's up? At least we did find you, so our week can be complete.
Post a Comment