102 - 18 hours

What a busy hectic week I've had! Back to work last Monday (with a new 2 month old baby girl!) then straight from work to Vacation Bible School. That was the schedule pretty much all week, the days I didn't work I had errands and other activities to fill the day, then VBS in the evenings. I led the 2nd/3rd grade group and also presented the lesson on Wednesday and Friday.

So this is the first chance to blog since my big day last Saturday (a week ago.) Since we returned from vacation in time, I was able to keep my plans with three other geocaching friends to attempt a 100-cache day.

We all met at my house (farthest east) at 5:30 a.m., loaded everything into Joe's car and headed east. First cache about 6:15 a.m., we had to drive a ways to find caches that none of us had found. We all had assigned tasks to make the day more efficient: Joe of course was the designated driver (and we even found him an official pin in a cache); Joel was the navigator; Linda was the "secretary," keeping track of finds, and I was the "labeler" applying the special label that Joe had made with our names and the date, to the cache log. Definite time-saver! We of course all had the job of looking for the cache, I would say we each found our share of them.

The day kind of blurs together now but we found a lot of caches throughout the morning, mostly quick ones out of necessity. We were eventually headed for Sleepy Hollow State Park where there were quite a few caches. What hadn't been taken into account was that there would be more hiking between caches here. In a couple of hours, I think we only got 5 caches. So decided to move on to the M-52 Pick-up series, a set of 52 caches along M-52. We also thought these would be easier but many of them turned out to be small tubes hidden in pine trees. We ended up with about half of them before we realized that we wouldn't finish the series and needed to find some easy quick ones.

By now it was getting dark, so we became limited in our choices. No cemetery caching after dark, and no park caching. So mostly near (closed and open) businesses or park & rides. We finally stopped in Portland, Michigan for our last few caches and found #100 at 11:50 p.m. We found one more just before midnight for a total of 101 for the day. 20 minutes later, we stopped on the way home and found #102 for the trip, a challenge cache for those who've found 100 caches in a day. We were second to find since it was a pretty new cache. Home just before 1 a.m., about 18 hours of caching.

I don't think I'll ever attempt something like that again. The caches started to blur together, and I found it hard to write logs on some of them as I just didn't remember much about them. And logging - because of my busy week, it was Thursday before I finished logging. Of course, part of that was because I'd brought a traveler that was in a race home from Ontario and I logged it into every one of those caches before leaving it at the challenge cache at the end of the day. The owner was quite appreciative, even thanking me in his traveler's listing and he is going to send me a pathtag from the caching organization up there.

But all in all it was a great day spent with good caching friends.

Lake Superior Circle Tour, Part 6

Here's the scoop on the last part of our trip. We woke up in Marquette, had breakfast at the hotel, and headed down the road. Stopped in Au Train, Michigan, where I was able to find a cache in Alger County which completed my MiGO 83-County Challenge. It was an interesting cache in that the "treasures" were all polished rocks. So I have a nice polished rock as a souvenir of finishing the challenge. The challenge took almost five years, starting with my first find, in Mason County, on June 29, 2005. I realize I probably would not be finished without Steve. Much as he is not crazy about geocaching, many of my farther away counties were found on motorcycle trips, especially our three circle tours of Lakes Michigan (2007) Huron (2008) and this trip around Superior (2010.)

After the cache find, I knew there were two waterfalls not too far away. Yes, they had caches hidden nearby, that's why I knew they were there! Anyway, the first - Scott Falls - was just a few miles down the road and right alongside the road. Small rest area across the street, we parked and crossed the road to see the falls. The cache was still about 20 feet away and there was a small creek in the way. I said to Steve that I didn't think I should try to cross it in full riding gear. We went back to the bike, and THEN he suggested that I take off my boots and socks and wade across. He gave me a polishing cloth to dry my feet and back we went. I crossed the cold little creek and found the cache, while Steve took more pictures of the falls.

On down the road we went, about 10 more miles away was Wagner Falls. This one had about a tenth of a mile gravel path/boardwalk to the falls, which apparently was an Eagle project. Beautiful falls, unfortunately I couldn't find the cache.

After that we rode the rest of the UP without stopping, but just admiring the scenery along the way, mostly Lake Michigan this time as we were following the southern shore of the UP. (We'd done the short stretch from Munising over to Sault Ste. Marie before so didn't have to do it again.)

We stopped in St. Ignace at Big Boy for a late lunch, then crossed the Mighty Mac once more - again on the grate, doggone that construction - and headed west toward the Lake Michigan coast so we could enjoy the "Tunnel of Trees" road which is about 20 miles of twisty turns under a canopy of leaves. Very nice motorcycling road! Then stopped in Petoskey for a drink/gas, then for gas again in Big Rapids. Home about 8:30 p.m., after 2018 miles on the bike in seven days.

A very nice trip.

Lake Superior Circle Tour, Part 5

Just re-read my last post, realized it had been after midnight when I posted. So it looks like I've posted twice in one day, but not really...

We got a "leisurely" start today - it was after nine before Steve woke up. We got ourselves together, ate a scone from the office of the hotel, then ate breakfast at the cafe next door. By the way, if you ever find yourself in the Keweenaw Peninsula, two words of advice: make sure you have a full tank of gas; and stay at the White House Motel in Mohawk.

Headed down the road after our breakfast (it was almost noon by then) and stopped in Baraga for another cache. We had thought about trying to get to Mt. Arvon, Michigan's highest point, and started up the road in that direction. After about 10 miles, we had to turn off onto a road that had less than optimum conditions for a touring motorcycle. Knowing we still had about 7 miles to go and the roads were only going to get worse, we opted to turn around. Back to L'Anse and on to Houghton. We followed 41 down to 141, where we turned south so that I could pick up caches in Iron and Dickinson Counties. Not part of the circle tour, but definitely part of finishing up the 83 county challenge. It was great that Steve agreed to go two hours out of the way for nothing but two caches. The Iron County cache was at a memorial for Airborne veterans. Would have probably not known it was there except for the geocache. After finding the Dickinson County cache, headed north on MI-95 and joined up with 41/28 just west of Marquette.

Found my Marquette County cache at a Gander Mountain store that had a little pond in front with a fake birdhouse where the cache was hidden (by the Gander Mountain people, apparently.)

Then we stopped for a relatively early dinner at Big Boy just down the road, and found a motel just east of Marquette. It has a pool and wifi so even though its a bit rundown IMHO, it'll do for the night.

Tomorrow we plan to stop in Munising so that I can find MY LAST CACHE for the county challenge. Ok, you just get a little pin for finishing but to me it's an accomplishment. Took me almost 5 years to do - June 29th will be my 5th caching anniversary. Looks very much, almost certain, that we'll be home tomorrow night.

Lake Superior Circle Tour, Part 4

Yes, I know. Where is Part 3? Wrote it up in Word last night since I didn't have any wifi at the hotel. Tonight when I have wifi, blogger won't let me paste it in. It's late and Steve is already asleep so not gonna mess with it tonight. Will post it when I can.

We started out this morning in Ashland, Wisconsin, where we'd spent the night. Had planned to have breakfast at Country Kitchen but it was drizzling and decided to get going and hopefully get ahead of the rain. We continued east until almost to Michigan, when we headed north on a county road, destination Superior Falls (in Wisconsin) and a cache named Push the Michigan Limits - West (in Michigan, of course - the westernmost cache in the state and my Gogebic County cache for my nine remaining caches.) The falls are on one side of the Montreal River, the cache on the other. The road leads to Michigan just before the cache. Had to go down some unpaved road, then a steep trail down to the rocky beach. Not so much fun on the rocks in motorcycle boots! Found the cache, discovered the last previous finder was vj24, a cacher I know from Holland. Small world! Dropped a traveler, then back up the steep slope, saw the waterfall from the viewing area, then on to Ironwood, Michigan, just over the border about 12 miles away.

We stopped for a late breakfast in Ironwood where I found that the restaurant we ate at had wifi. I was able to download my gsak files, check my email, and log the trackables that I'd placed yesterday. Also quickly updated my facebook status and before you know it, we were done eating and time to move on.

We next stopped in Bergland, Michigan, in Ontanagon County - found another cache. 2 down, 7 to go! Then headed north to the Porcupine Mountains and the Lake of the Clouds. Beautiful scenery along the way and it only got better at Lake of the Clouds. There was a virtual there so a bonus : )

Continued on to Houghton - where I found a micro in an Applebee's parking lot which counted for Houghton County. Last previous cacher, also today, was another cacher that I knew from west Michigan - andrewceturner. Tempted to go into Applebee's to see if he was there but we moved on. Stopped just north of Houghton at a scenic area to take bike pictures. Another couple on a Gold Wing Trike stopped about the same time, they were from the Racine area.

Continued on up the Keweenaw Peninsula - turned west to Eagle River where we stopped for a great view of Lake Superior and another bike picture opportunity. This time two Gold Wings stopped about the same time as we did. They advised us not to miss the Brockway Mountain road at Copper Harbor. We took their advice and had a great view of the harbor. Found a cache coming down the road after the top of the mountain - Keweenaw County off the list! Had wanted to get the northern most Michigan cache but it wasn't to be. Copper Harbor didn't have much to do, so we headed back down the peninsula. Only problem was, we needed gas and there was none to be found.

The tank headed onto the reserve setting, and we were obviously getting concerned. Not sure what we would have done if we'd have run out of gas. Prayers worked - as we came across a bar at a crossroads that had a small sign "Premium Gas available" on the side. I almost didn't see it, Steve didn't believe me at first that a bar would be selling gas. We turned around, and Steve sent me inside to check. Gee, thanks for letting your wife go into the biker bar by herself....
Anyway, nobody inside but the owners, who turned on the pump and we pumped $11 worth, payable in cash only thank you, at $3.37 a gallon. We'd have probably paid $10 a gallon at that point!

With gas in tank again, we continued down. We arrived in Mohawk, Michigan, where Steve spotted the White House Motel. $55 for a very nice room, even decorated in the America theme. And free wifi, hence this timely post. We ate dinner at the White House Grill across the street, where they had some very interesting "themed" mixed drinks - the Monica Lewinsky, the Watergate, the Obama Mamma. All a bit strong and pricey for our tastes, we didn't partake. Just a nice big chicken dinner for Steve and steak for myself.

Our weather today, after the drizzly start, was probably the best of the trip. Not a lot of outright sunshine, but I would call it partly cloudy. We'll take it! Forecast for tomorrow calls for rain again, but it did for today so I'll take it with a grain of salt. Plans for tomorrow - the last five counties, I hope, or at least four of the five. Thinking we'll be home Thursday or Friday at the latest.

Lake Superior Circle Tour, Part 2

Report for Sunday, June 13. We left Wawa about 9:30 a.m. after joining the rest of the group for breakfast. Overcast but not raining YET. Stopped for gas then just drove north and west, enjoying the scenery along the way. Beautiful --breathtaking--no simple way to describe it. This picture is of Aguasabon Falls and Gorge near Terrace Bay, Ontario. Between Wawa and here it was just intermittent sprinkles, nothing to get worried about. After lunch in Terrace Bay after the falls, rain started becoming a bit more regular. By the latter part of the afternoon, it was pretty steady and just barely light enough to avoid stopping for our rain gear. We passed up Rainbow Falls because of the wetness.

For those who don't ride, when you run into rain on a motorcycle, it's not so bad as long as you're moving. Once you stop, though - you tend to get wetter, as does the bike unless you're still sitting on it or you take the time to put the cover on. So quick stops generally don't pay. I did have to take a bathroom break at a visitor's center at Nipigon which just happened to have a cache there as well. By the time we were getting close to Thunder Bay we were both ready to stop for the night. Ended up at a Days Inn where we were able to use some of Steve's Wyndham Rewards points to get the room for free. He accumulated a LOT of them a few years ago when he had to work in Detroit for many months during the week.

We spent the evening just relaxing in the room. Steve fell asleep relatively early, and I'm still using the wifi with my netbook at a later time than I should. Take advantage while I can!

Lake Superior Circle Tour, Part 1

We left the house at about 7:15 a.m. on Friday morning, riding the Gold Wing, headed for a rendezvous with three other Gold Wing couples at a restaurant in Cedar Springs. Arrived, had breakfast, and then just escaped the beginning of rain. Cloudy for a while then clouds went away and it was a nice sunny day. We crossed the Mackinac Bridge around noon, and hit the international bridge about an hour or so later. Had to wait a bit for Canadian customs, then showed the passports, and our registration (since we couldn't remember our m/c plate number) and answered a few questions regarding when we were last in Canada, etc. Then off we went - about a mile away to the hotel where we had reservations in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. It was only 2:30 p.m., pretty early to stop, but when you're with a group, go with the flow. Actually glad we did stop as it was raining within a few hours.

Steve soon fell asleep in the room so I decided to check for nearby caches. Yep, there was one within a tenth of a mile, and an earthcache two tenths. Went for the close one first, it was a fake electrical plate on a lamp post. Easy when you've seen them before. Then the earthcache, which was about the rapids on the St. Mary's River (where the Soo Locks are.) Then stopped at the little mall next to the hotel, got some munchies at Steve's request. Choc. chip cookies, and a kinder egg for me. Haven't had one since Germany. Plus some Lime/Salt microwave popcorn. Too bad we didn't have a microwave in the room. Should have for the price we paid...anyway, it was raining by the time I left the mall. Came back to the room, everyone was meeting for supper in the restaurant downstairs. Good dinners were had by all. Steve had a dinner with four different kinds of shrimp. Since it was an Italian restaurant primarily, I had pinwheel pasta, which was filled with meat and cheese, one big roll, with alfredo and a light tomato sauce. Went back to the room, I worked on the computer and Steve watched TV. About 9 I decided to go down to the hot tub, Steve decided not. Only spent about 15 minutes, when I came back Steve was already asleep.

Today - woke up, got going - heading up the Trans-Canada Highway 17. Stopped about an hour up the road for breakfast in this little restaurant. Good food, friendly waitress. We had just passed an overturned semi on the road, guess he had pulled over to talk on his cell phone and the side of the road was just too soft to support the truck. Would hate to explain that to his boss!

We made several stops for pictures along this very nice stretch bordering Lake Superior. There weren't any caches near the first stop, but the second did have a cache there. Unfortunately, with 7 muggles, 6 of whom don't even know that I geocache, it was hard to be doubly discreet and I couldn't find it. Oh well.

We also stopped to see the Agawa pictographs. Had to walk down this fairly steep, rocky trail, then at the bottom, if you wanted to see the pictographs, you had to cross this section of rock that actually had chains installed to help you walk across. Also there were ropes installed in case you slipped and fell into the water. Somebody actually did just before we arrived. He didn't seem too upset about it, though. Steve went across, as did Jason, one of the other wingers. I tried but it was just too slippery, I didn't feel secure enough. Steve did get pix though. One is at the upper left side of this post.

Went on and arrived in Wawa, Ontario late this afternoon. Wawa is known for its giant goose statue as you head into town. (middle pix at the top) We picked up some necessities in town, then went out to our cottages just south of town. We are sharing with another couple tonight - it has a deck, kitchenette, bath, living room, and two bedrooms. We had a nice dinner in the adjoining restaurant. It specializes in Polish food. None of the Polish specialities sounded good to me, so I had a bison burger. Then sat around on the deck and talked, all 8 of us. I also had wifi here tonight (obviously - I'm using it to blog!) and also got to FB chat with Judy, my sister. Now quiet as Steve and the Mrs. of the other couple have gone to bed. The other Mr. is reading, and I'm on the computer, soon to take a shower.

Tomorrow morning after breakfast we part ways. Everyone else is headed back towards home, and we are headed west toward Thunder Bay. There will be many beautiful sights ahead, we are told. Looking forward to them. And also to being by ourselves. Group travel is interesting, but the rest of these people have more expensive tastes than we do. Hope to at least have wifi later in the trip though!

Caching with Cub Scouts

Yesterday was a long but fun day. Cub Scout Extravaganza - a day for new Cub Scouts to explore Cub Camp at Gerber. One of the fun things they could do was explore camp by finding geocaches at each camp area. That was my responsibility. Set up 11 caches - next year though we will hide less caches so that more kids can enjoy the fun.

10 p.m. on Friday night. We had returned from the Eagle Court of Honor and I expected that my MiGO contact would have dropped off the GPSrs. Nope. So I'd taken a shower and had just gotten out when he called, he was at my front yard cache and wanted to make sure he had the right house. So a big sigh of relief and thankful - and he brought me 10 GPSrs, not just 5 as I'd expected. Great - but now I had 11 sets of coordinates to enter into EACH one of those...got half of them done before I went to bed. Got up at 5:30 a.m., got ready to go, then waited for my friend to come who was going to help. Well, she didn't arrive until almost 6:30 so I had time to get two more GPSrs ready with coords. 3 to go.

We took the 1.5 hour trip up to camp, stopped for breakfast at Arby's drive thru, then had about an hour and a half to get the caches hidden in the places I'd already marked. About a mile and a half of walking. I left my friend at the starting place for the caching in cub camp, and went back to the boy scout pavilion where registration was taking place. After the opening, led scouts over to Cub Camp. They could go fishing, geocaching, crafts, ball fight on the pirate ship, or just explore camp on their own. We ended up with about 20 kids and their parents who wanted to geocache. Plus there were a few small groups that just took the coords as they knew how to geocache and had their own GPSr.

My group consisted of about 10 boys, their adult partners, and two 12 year old Boy Scouts who knew how to geocache and were there helping us. We had five GPSrs so the boys only had to share with one other. They had a lot of fun finding the caches, there were some who were getting frustrated that they weren't making the find so I'd occasionally slip the parent a hint to steer their child in the right direction more quickly. The group finished in about an hour and a half then we went to lunch. After lunch, went back to Babe where our Geocaching HQ was and waited around. The second group reported back soon thereafter and we stayed there for a while. Finally, with about 45 minutes to go, I had just sent our three Boy Scout helpers out to pick up the caches when a group came in and wanted to go caching. By that time there wasn't time for a full tour anyway, so I took them down to the waterfront cache that we'd planned to pick up on the way back. These boys had a blast just finding one cache. Collected the GPSrs - 9 of them get kind of heavy around your neck! (Had 8 plus my own.) We closed down Babe and went back to the registration area where we drew names for five of the Get in the Game geocoins. I was able to connect with three of the winners while still there, so still have to get ahold of the other two winners.

On to home we went. You can tell I'm tired out when I don't even feel like stopping for a cache on the way home. And there's a new series out with a pathtag reward for finishing. Oh well.

Looking forward to a busy week, then on Friday we leave for Wawa Ontario with the Gold Wing group (on the motorcycle) and then the plans are to complete the circle tour of Lake Superior. This will be our third completed circle tour of the Great Lakes.

I'm hoping and praying that it will be a good time spent together. Things have been rocky lately as regular readers well know, and perhaps it will be a time of renewal for us both. Time will tell.

Oh, and I've been promised that I can stop for at least 10 geocaches. One in Minnesota since I don't have any in that state yet; and one each in the 9 upper peninsula of Michigan counties which I don't have any cache finds in. If I'm successful, I will have completed the 83 county Michigan Challenge. Not a big deal to non-cachers but it is to me. I of course have many other caches loaded up in my GPSrs and if we happen to stop in a place that has a cache, I'll be prepared....

Hope to have wifi access along the way so I can post blog updates.

update

Guess I'll call this an update. Things are better between Steve and I. Not great, but better. Wasn't looking forward to this last week too much as Friday was our 27th anniversary. Not a whole lot to celebrate right now. And with Steve's recent track record on special days, didn't expect much. Weather was too hot and humid on Friday to take the kayak out. And we were planning a ride the next day, so ended up going to dinner and a movie. Iron Man 2, wouldn't have been my choice but whatever. It was better than I thought it would be. At home, 11:30 p.m. by now, finally gives me a card (no actual "happy anniversary" from him all day. It was a cartoon card with two bears in a hot tub. Marriage is like a hot tub - I like being in it with you.
Now bear in mind that he doesn't really like going in hot tubs. So take it as you will. I had struggled with a card choice. I am one that really reads what the card says and if it doesn't say what's in my heart, it's not the right one. Finally found one that expressed my thoughts and feelings at this time. Kind of a "no matter what, I will still love you" type of card. So gave that to him as well. So much for anniversaries...

Tuesday was our first appointment together with Dr. W., the counselor that our family doctor had recommended to Steve. It was ok. Not impressed with his office. Ok, you don't need anything fancy but this was all torn up and just messy. And for me to notice messy says something. Plus he collected the co-pay, did paperwork - no office staff. He talked to us together for a while, then myself for the rest of the time, mostly we were talking about Steve though.

After we left we went home, picked up the loaded trailer, and headed out to Grand Valley. Yep, Eric has moved into his own (ok, 3 roommates) place. Nice apartment, hope he does well. He's more than ready to be out from under his parents wings, especially given the recent circumstances.

Yesterday was my first appointment with my counselor, Dr. U. After our time together, I'm certain that this is the direction the Lord wants me to go as far as counseling. Dr. W. seems to be a good enough fit for Steve, and we may accomplish some healing together once our selves individually make some improvement. But I'm going to stick with Dr. U. Definitely a Christ-centered perspective on the situation. Even ending in prayer.

Today I am sitting in the waiting room while Steve has his colonoscopy. Not fun for him. Hope it goes well. A blessing to have wi-fi, glad I brought the netbook.

Tomorrow is the Cub Scout event up at Gerber. We'll be having the kids geocache their way around Cub Camp, hope all the details get worked out. Caches aren't yet hidden so I have to get up really early to get up there and get it done. Plus our reserved GPSrs haven't yet arrived back in Jenison so I can pick them up. If they don't come today we'll have to do without them.