I was so glad when I woke up this morning to the feels of no back pain and a high level of energy. We got out of the house early to beat the heat and traffic for geocaching. Our original plan involved going to Manhattan to run a few errands, do some caching, and maybe play a round of mini golf. But we never made it that far, deciding to hit some caches going the opposite way instead.
Most of the caches were fairly easy, yet highly adventurous today. We drove a lot of dirt boards. We found most of them, so that was nice, and we were able to leave some treasures in the non-micro caches we found. We even sent our found geocoin back into the wild.
The first highlight was a cache near an old abandoned bus out on the plains.
The land is private, so the bus itself isn’t explorable, but the scenery is pretty and somewhat haunting. I feel I could write horror stories about that bus. Jon braved the bees to find this one, which probably gave him the advantage since he ended up finding more than I did.
The second cache of note was actually one we didn’t find, but it took us hiking up Mount Mitchell, a local area just outside Wamego. The term “Mount” scared me a little after our last climbing expedition, but I wanted to tackle it anyway. The log said the cache was halfway up but that if you climbed to the top, the view was gorgeous.
At the point where the actual cache was supposed to be, we rested and debated whether to go up the rest of the hill. This little hike had been difficult in the fact that I had to avoid small muddy areas and watch where I was going, but it wasn’t that taxing, so we went the rest of the way up to take in the view.
Kansas has a reputation for having ugly flat lands, and I’ve heard that parts of Western Kansas live up to that. But I believe the area where we live, near the Flint Hills and tallgrass prairie, is beautiful. Climbing the summit of this “mountain” was well worth it, not only to see this awesome angle, but as an affirmation of just being able to physically do this.
We noticed that red stone from one side of the hill (last picture, bottom right), so we went back down and took the trail the other way to see it from a closer view.
The picture doesn’t show the writing well, but this stone was in memory of a soldier, “Dodge.” He died in action on April 30, 1945 (my birthdate, though a couple decades before I came around) in the Philippine Islands, incidentally in the same area that Jon was born (a few decades earlier as well). Interesting coincidence.
The other caches were fun too, but the last place we stopped for the day just did me in. I couldn’t tell where the thing was, and I walked through the brush and ended up covered in little fuzzy plant seeds. It irritated me, and I figure when irritation sets in, it’s time to call it a day. We may go back to that one, though there were chickens in the area, and I feel the chickens kind of made it a little awkward. Silly chickens.
We came home, showered, and plan on spending the rest of the evening chilling, possibly getting a few things done around the house, but taking it easy for the most part.
Since I promised some pics from last night’s cache in the pretty hidden garden we found, here you have them.
I’m happy to see that my camera took decent pictures so I can use it more at Gen Con to save my phone’s battery life. We talked about doing more caching tomorrow, but we’ll have to play it by ear. The goal for tomorrow is to have everything packed and ready for Tuesday’s drive. Also, we’re planning to dog-sit for my friend during the day tomorrow, which means laundry and probably some much needed rest. I’m thinking I might hit the gym for a lighter workout, just to keep moving.
But for now, it’s off to find something on Netflix.
A.
The Romance Factor 