Worked in Philippi yesterday (Sunday) and was at 91 finds on Saturday night after picking up the Arnettsville Cemetery Cache on way home from WVU that evening. I was at 15 days in a row at that point and figure I can't lose a day AND I wanted 100 finds, so Philippi was exciting to me for Sunday drive to work!
I had not gotten any of the exploreWV caches, wanted to make the Mother's Day house for the centennial find! You have to understand I work practically everyday so my time to and from work is major caching time for me. Now this is an activity that fits more my schedule! Shed antler hunting takes out entire days away from the family and my family learned logn ago that going hiking with me means 10-12 mile days with maybe 2 or 3 stops for food and water out of a backpack. Geocaching I can either include the family on days off, or do quickies here and there on way to and from work which I love. Geocaching is a major stress reliever for me on my trips home. Love those cemetery caches and I find myself deep in thought and sad contemplation looking at all of those headstones thinking of their days alive and what it must have been like both to live and die.
So back to Sunday.....left at 5:45am in the pouring rain to clean up the muggle rich areas in Fairmont I had been neglecting. Nothing like a desolate rainy street at first light in Fairmont. Very cool! Red Red Wine was picked up first, then the Main Street Challenge and then finally the one at the rescue squad. Thank God for hints on that one! Very cool hide and loved it! Off to Philippi I went for my day at work. After seeing the Tygart River overflowing the 250/50 intersection area I had to turn around. Thanks to a nurse I knew that worked at Grafton that morning on the same road, she unrolled her wondow as she was backing away from the torrent showing me the way to get over to rt50 without wallowing through the water! Ford Focuses dont have water compatable engines or huge mud ripping tires and how many more videos have to show a person attempting to ford a river that ends up floating downstream needing rescued....I did not want to be a statistic.
Did my day at Philippi and left work at 2p and took my coworker with me who had never done geocaching before and picked up the ones around the covered bridge and did the main street challenge with her. She was fascinated to be out there helping me out and amazed people hide tupperware, aluminum waterproof capsules and key magnets o nvarious objects so geonerds like me can walk up to it and sign my fake name. We walked the whole thing, from the guardrail in front of carwash to the Main street challenge! Very cool! She then came to the clever conclusion that, "you know Craig, it's not all about the actual find, its about the walking around, gettign exercise and seeign new places".
I like when people come to that conclusion on their own!
Picked up a few more after she left (north and south Blue vs Gray) which helped me clean up Philippi area now of all caches.
So on way home I picked up Mother's Day House Cache and actually turned back to grab the Mansion on the hill cause I wanted Mothers Day house to be my 100th! My logs look a little messed up as I lost track of my Phillipi Bridge cache and had to log it last as my 101st and my Mansion on the hill got into the 95th slot, but as long as 100 is correct thats all that matters!
Wanted to share my joy of being out there and sharing stories of what it's like in a typical day for me. Still havign fun with it and thanks for listening....