The lower peninsula is done...

(would have been written on Friday, October 23)

I'm headed for COAST (the new name for our outdoor leader training course) today. In geocaching, I'm heading both toward my #2200 milestone and the completion of my lower peninsula county challenge. Only Oceana County to go. Both will happen this weekend, it's just a matter of deciding which when.

Earlier in the week, I realized that I would be near to Entmoot, the oldest virtual cache in Michigan. So I decided that I would make that my #2200, and pick up Oceana County on Sunday after leaving Camp Gerber.

This morning, the weather was wet and cold. Not really good to plan a two mile hike, so scratch the plans for Entmoot. Back to plan A, picking up Oceana County. So after taking my time packing up last minute stuff, got on the road about noon.

Finally got to the rest area cache right inside Oceana County and parked. Very light rain - so didn't feel I needed rain gear. You guessed it, heavier rain almost right away. That hindered my GPSr reception as well as my searching skills. I finally found the cache and with that completed the lower pensinsula county challenge. That means that I have found at least one geocache in every lower peninsula county in Michigan. There is also an upper peninsula challenge as well as an all of Michigan challenge. I still have seven UP counties left and don't expect to get them this year.

It's been quite the journey. Started caching almost 4 1/2 years ago with a cache find in Ludington State Park. Steve was along for the start, though he soon declared his dislike for geocaching. Oh well, his loss. The next day brought my first Kent County find, just a few miles from home. The surrounding counties were picked up over the course of the next few years, and most of the rest of the counties were found while on trips for other reasons. Four trips to Mackinac Island (three with scouts.) A day long trip around the thumb, on the bike with Steve. Three trips to Midwest Geobash. A circle tour of Lake Michigan, and another of Lake Huron, both on the bike with Steve. The last trip (the thumb-day tour) just a week ago was about the only trip that I made purely for picking up counties. The others were well-planned routes while on other journeys. Sometimes I would travel through a county. Other times I traveled just inside a county, long enough to find a cache then turn around and head back the other way. I've seen so many wonderful places that it would take too long to list them.

I can't think of a more satisfying way to spend time outside with nature. I only wish my family shared that feeling.