Rocks and Rocks

Once again I was out and about exploring areas that I never would have gotten to without being involved in geocaching.  It also helped to get a suggestion from David that I look at 'favorites' among other cachers... so I did.  I got out to a place called Boat Rock Park which is just full of huge, massive, incredible rocks that just kind of take your breath away.  I mean what are these big suckers doing here?  Won't bore you but took a few pictures to show where I was wandering.  Oh yes, I did find the cache after a good deal of searching the area.

Just a few steps from where I parked this group shows up.  These suckers are BIG!

 

Same group... a little closer.

 

I came across this one on the way back to the car.  This is the kind of thing that just captivates my attention, and thoughts.  I mean the smaller rock is probably 6 feet high and for the most part is pretty rounded all the way around.  How did it get up on top of this other rock and how did it stay there?

 

Good to be small

In the previous post I mentioned that after going out to find Hannah's cache, David took us to find a few more, one of which was a find of a cache box that was actually air dropped to it's location!  David had done the math and searching for it before so it was just a chance for me to see what he had found previously.  As we got nearer to the location David mentioned that he would not be going to it because the underbrush (overbrush?) was quite low and he couldn't make it with Riley hanging on his back.  Hannah had absolutely no problem at all... she could just walk under it all and continue on her merry way.  Well, Hannah lead me to it and it was pretty darn interesting to see.  We turned to walk out and Hannah lead the way.  This brought about a 'happening' for grandpa that obviously amused David enough to take photos of it.

Hannah was leading and had just walked under this tree.  I guess I was just kind of looking down, kind of looking at Hannah's back, and ducking things as I followed her out.  Hannah was able to just walk normally, blissfully able to pass under any obstacle.  This photo was taken just after I had looked up/forward and in so doing had walked right into this tree, face first, hard enough to actually bend the nose pieces on my glasses!  Granted, David did call out to ask if I was all right but he was laughing when he did.

 

There she is... marching in the lead as grandpa tries to regain his senses and tries, in vain, to get his now bent glasses to stay on his face.  Hannah had picked up a stick to use as a walking stick and she kept it with her the rest of the day.  When we got back to the house David did a good job wrapping a cord handle onto it... pretty nice.

 

Great shot here.  Note how that tree is at perfect face height!  How I got the marks along the length of my jacket arm I don't know but again, David and Hannah got a kick out of it.  I was delighted to bring them such happiness :)  Being smaller during this little adventure certainly had it's advantages!

Best Geocache Ever

Since I got involved in geocaching I've walked some pretty great distances over some pretty rough and steep terrain.  I've gotten to the area of a geocache and spent considerable time trying to find the dang thing.  Well about a week ago I had the most wonderful geocaching experiences and found the best geocache ever!

I headed over to NC to visit with the kids and the only thing that I had mentioned that I simply had to do while visiting was to get out to find Hannah's geocache.  There was a bit of rain the first couple of days but Saturday turned out sunny and not really cold so we set out for a bit of fun.  David loaded Riley into a backpack type of carrier and Hannah can trudge along with the best of them.  Hannah hid her cache in a forest that pretty much runs along the border of Fort Bragg and has to be the 'cleanest' forest I've ever been in.  It was like a forest with no underbrush... just trees and pine needles.  The walk wasn't too far or difficult and getting to the cache area didn't take very long but I felt so darn good being out with my son and grandchildren.  As we approached the cache area Hannah gave me a few clues to help me find it and what a nice find it was.

Is there anything better than finding your granddauther's geocache with your granddaughter???  I don't think so!!!

 

After dropping off a couple of items in Hannah's cache, and taking one piece to move to another cache, we headed back to the car for more exploring.  David did a great job of heading out on the exact type of geocaching I like to do... walking through the woods.  I've really forgotten how many locations we stopped at and how many caches we found but it was a very, very good time and I am eagerly looking forward to the next time we're out.