A Week in Paradise: Vieques, Puerto Rico - Day 2

After our breakfast and my morning walk on our little beach, I walked up to the hotel office to inquire about getting ourselves to Culebra for a day sometime during our visit.  Culebra is the third island that makes up Puerto Rico. It is smaller yet than Vieques and we thought it might be fun to island hop to check it out. They gave me some information about the available flights and prices and I took that back to Shane to discuss.  It appeared we would have to spend a whole day on the island, taking a 9am flight and returning at 5pm, so we would want to be sure of our plan. While the woman spoke with someone at the airline (you have to take an air taxi to get there from Vieques or spend 3 hours on ferries each way - no thanks!), I noticed this great old sign with the original beach names and the new ones assigned by the NAVY during their presence.

Our first goal as we set out for the day was to check out the grocery store for a few things. We were looking for snacks, sunglasses for Shane (he forgot his) and sunscreen. We had made a couple quick stops the day before without much luck at local markets. Today, we found a much nicer, well stocked super market that actually had loose veggies (instead of having to buy two saran wrapped onto styrofoam - eww) and a nice selection of other things. The only snack we picked up were strawberries, but we got the sunscreen we were looking for. An employee suggested we try BlackBeard Sports for sunglasses, so we made our purchases and headed to downtown Isabel II.

A trip to Ohio leads to healthy meals

April 30, the chicks I ordered were hatching, so Mom and I made a day trip out of picking them up. The hatchery we ordered from was located in Polk, Ohio. I ordered 25 Cornish x Rocks for meat, 12 laying pullet chicks and Mom chose 8 layers to begin her backyard flock. Our route would take us near Milan, Ohio, so we made it a point to stop there along the way to get a few pictures and drop off my first travel bug in a geocache.

The town was adorable, quaint and even smaller than our Milan, Michigan. We wandered around, looking for a "hitchhiker" for the travel bug. I assumed that since Milan, Ohio is Thomas Edison's birthplace, there would be keychains or something with the name of the town on it available. 

Our first FTF!

Since our upgrade to Premium Member status, I have been tormented daily with seeing new caches posting in our area that we can not go search for because we have to go to work!  It's crazy how making a living can get in the way of all the fun! :-)  I have wanted so badly to be the first to find on a cache, but there are a few groups who tend to "hog" all the first to finds in the area.  It is fabulous these folks have the time to spend caching every day, but it becomes frustrating for those of us who seemingly never have a chance because we are racing those who are retired and have the free time.

Our first FTF!  Find #111 4/26/12

Recently, Shane and I had to spend a day working from home to take our car into the shop for maintenance.  We have two cars, but the one is much less reliable to make the trip all the way to the office than our daily driver.  It is used for short trips only.  We dropped off the car needing service at the dealership and headed home, with one quick stop on the way...

I noticed a whole series of hides by one team, and thought we might just have a shot at one of them if we caught it quickly.  The cache listing was published less than an hour before we made the grab, and it was located right on our way home.  We were so excited to be logging our first FTF, we practically sprinted down the trail to the GZ!  Shane made the find fairly quickly, so I logged our smiley and we headed home to get to work for the day.  It was an exciting, albeit quick, detour on our short trip.  It was tempting to try for a couple more in the same series, as it appeared no one else was out and about yet, but we made the responsible decision to get started with our work day promptly instead.

What a great way to start a day, with success, right off the bat!

Take me home

#108's awesome camo

On our way home from our 5 cache day, we noticed a cache that was recently placed in a park not far from our house.  We pass it everyday, twice a day, going to and from work and hadn't noticed its placement just a week or so before.  In it, there was a travel bug that was headed to its final destination, which happened to be Tecumseh, my hometown.  I made puppy dog eyes at Shane and he agreed to stop, even though it was cold and getting dark fast. We ran (literally) into the park to try to make the find before we lost daylight.  We were hugely unsuccessful.  I was so disappointed, since I so desperately wanted to take the TB to its home and deliver it to its goal.

We had stepped right over it

Shane, being the real trooper he is, agreed to get up with me in the morning to try again.  I woke with the chickens, so to speak, and greeted him with coffee to get him going.  We went back to the park and, after quite a hunt, he made the find.  It was brilliantly camouflaged and we suspect we likely stepped on it without knowing the night before, given its location.

Afternoon with a view

As always, be aware, this post may contain spoilers. In most cases, we try to keep things vague and non-specific, but occasionally there may be pictures or descriptors that give some secrets away.

Saturday, April 21, was an afternoon that just begged to clear our minds and spend some time together outside.  How could we resist?  We ran some errands and stopped at a park right behind the grocery store we found ourselves shopping at.  There were a couple hides in the park, so we figured, why not?

As we walked past the playground and picnic areas, we encountered this manhole cover.  Since Lexi was with her mom, Shane decided to take the obligatory bow in her honor.  It was fantastic!  I am guessing there were a few folks wondering what he was up to that day.  :-)  (It was totally worth it to bring Lexi with us in spirit.)

Another milestone, 100!

Easter is one of the holidays we alternate with Lexi's mom, so we were excited to have her this year.  She arrived in the morning, searched for the eggs the Easter Bunny had left around the house for her, and even stumbled upon a basket of goodies as well.  :-)

Easy grab for #99

Since we weren't having a big elaborate meal for the holiday, we decided to go out and hit our milestone of 100 caches found as a family before returning home for homemade pizza - Lexi's favorite meal to help prepare. We headed for Tecumseh and let her make a quick grab for our #99.

A little pick me up

As always, be aware, this post may contain spoilers.  In most cases, we try to keep things vague and non-specific, but occasionally there may be pictures or descriptors that give some secrets away.  That said, enjoy the read about what was intended to be a quick trip out to lift my mood!

#82 was found near this area

Friday, April 6, we were off work for Good Friday, and I found my self in a bit of a funk. I couldn't seem to get my mood to match the gorgeous day outdoors, so Shane suggested we go out and grab a few caches as that always seems to fix it!

Geocaching offers me an escape from whatever is worrying me at the time.  If work is tough, or money is tight, it all melts away when we are out in nature on the hunt. We see beautiful places, we clear our heads and life finds some perspective. This day was precisely what I needed!  We started out near home with a guardrail find and discovered a serene piece of road that was therapy for the soul. There were remnants of some sort of structure, and a beautiful bit of the Saline River to admire from the road.

Frank and Beans!!!!

Once Josh got bitten by the geocaching bug, there was no stopping him.  After the 19 cache adventure, he wanted to get out for more. I had a couple of errands I had to run but knew that with Josh taking the day to get some errands run himself, there had to be a little caching in the day. After setting up his account the night before, where he used name made from his nicknames from his youth, we hit the road with the monkey for a little more "treasure hunting". The group consisted with two-thirds of the Unlikely Family and the newest member of the group, Ralph J. Beans.

Find #77

I needed to head to the local hardware store to gather some ideas for a project I am working on, so I checked the app on my phone to see if there were some caches in the area. Sure enough, right next to the store we were headed to there was a cache.  That was where we were going to start.  The GPS showed where the location for   You Silly Skirt Lifters are the Lowest was, but as we hit the zone, we had trouble finding it.  We searched some places where a cache normally would be hidden; there was a hollowed out tree nearby, a couple of light poles with "skirts", even a pine tree.  None of the tricks I had learned from past caches helped find this one.  Back to the drawing board.

A short trip out, er, um, April Fools!

As always, spoiler alert!

Looking back to April 1...
After a marvelous time with family, Lexi asked those who could to join us for a little geocaching so she could share her love and skill for it with them.  Unfortunately, most everyone had pressing plans, with the exception of her "Uncle Joshy."  He had expressed interest earlier in the day, so after a little clean up at the party, we headed out to see if we could show Josh how to cache.  We figured we would catch a few smileys and he would want to head home before it got too late in the evening.  After all, we didn't set out until after 3:00 in the afternoon...

#58, finally!

Conveniently, there was a cache hidden right outside our picnic location.  We had made an attempt on it before, without luck.  In fact, we had met a nice man and his two delightful daughters one evening while they were making an attempt on the same cache.  They were newer to caching than we were, and very excited.  We exchanged information and we shared with them our blog so they could follow along our journeys.  I am excited to say they have started a blog of their own,  Adventures in Geocaching, which you will see in Our Favorite Blogs to Visit list to the right of this post as well.  I encourage anyone who is excited about caching to follow them too.  They actually found the hide outside the brewery before we did - Go Cache Kids!  On this day, we made the find with a brand new cacher in tow.

A shot at redemption

With a bit of time to kill on a Saturday, what do you suppose we turned to?  I will tell you - redeeming ourselves.  We have been unable to find one cache in particular on more than one occasion so we decided to make a quick trip out and try to find it again. This cache is a micro (small but not tiny) that is supposedly hidden in plain sight, but cleverly so.  After a great deal of searching, confusion and walking in circles,we came up empty handed once again.  We will have to take another shot at redeeming ourselves another day, I guess. We didn't want to simply go home with tails tucked in failure, so we decided to attempt another to end on a high note.

More after work fun

As always, this post may contain spoilers!

#51, first in a parking structure

Hitting a milestone like #50 didn't slow us down.  On the contrary, we were even more excited to get back out there.  On lunch, I decided to check the area around the office for caches, and, what do you know!? There was one located in the parking structure adjacent to our office building. I told Shane about it and we decided to make a quick trip over to locate it before it was time to get back into our day of meetings.  We had never located one in a parking structure before, so we weren't sure of the hide technique.  Being multilevel, we found ourselves searching several floors once we pinned down which side it was on (thanks to the satellite imagery on the app for our phones).  Shane made the find without too much trouble and we were logging another smiley.  There was a trackable inside this particular hide, but it had a huge laminated photo hitchhiker that would have been difficult to place in another cache, so we passed on it.  It was neat to score a find on lunch and leads me to think that we may have to plan a little picnic lunch caching later in the season.

A nice round number, like 50!

After being so close to our 50th find, we couldn't wait to go out and hit our first milestone! March 18, we headed out with just that goal in mind.  We didn't have a lot of time, so we got right to it to get the two finds we needed.  We found yet another local park we never knew existed, and wandered in to check things out.  There were some teenagers that acted very suspiciously when we arrived who made haste in departing at the same time.  Maybe I am getting old, but A LOT more people behave suspiciously to me than what I used to see. However, in my defense, it is also in the news a lot more than in the past as well. :-)

#49 just waiting for Shane!

With all the rain we have had this season, the trails were pretty muddy and soft.  When we realized how far off the path the cache was hidden, Shane decided to grab it himself while we waited on higher ground.  It was tucked under a log and just waiting for him.

This one was one we had saved for some time, as it had the requirement of swapping out ONLY dinosaur prizes.  We had to wait until we found one in another cache to move to this one before we could hunt it.  Today was the day!

St. Patty's Day hunt for treasure

Find #43

As always, WARNING, this post may contain spoilers.  I do my best to conceal the actual location and name of caches to keep from giving too much away, but beware as you read on: :-)

Shane was presented with the opportunity to golf with a coworker from his department St. Patty's Day morning.  OF course, he jumped at the chance.  He rarely spends time "out with the guys" like that, so I was all for it.  I had some errands to run, including a manicure appointment, so I just took the little monkey with me and started the day.  When we were done with our nails, we ran a couple more errands and Lexi thought it would be a good idea to do some "treasure hunting" until Daddy was done "playing with his friends." :-)  Sure do love that little girl!  I agreed, so we headed out.
I spotted one that I thought would be an easy park and grab for Lexi, so we drove up to this light post. I was wrong.  It was not at the base like I expected.  We couldn't find it quickly, so we took a few minutes for a bathroom break and returned to take a second look. With more careful inspection, we found it in that metal box that was hanging on the side of the pole, in a magnetic key holder.  Sneaky! We logged our find and moved to a less populated area to avoid the prying eyes of "muggles."

Just a fun Friday

Another beautiful day greeted us on March 16.  Lexi had a half day of school, so Shane picked her up and spent the day with her until I could get out of work.  They washed the car, ran an errand or two and set out to log a couple smileys.  They discovered a sweet little natural area nestled between office complexes and searched for the cache that was supposed to be hidden there.

Lexi really enjoyed the opportunity to sit and admire the view.  It was a marshy area with lots of "locals" (ducks, geese and other critters).

#35 - It was all her!

They searched for quite some time with no luck, so they decided to move on to another hunt and to come back with me in tow to help out.  Lexi's special skills came in handy at the next stop.  It was in a place that required a small person to maneuver over some rocks UNDER a sign.  She was extremely excited to make the find herself.  Find #35 goes to her!

A little jaunt after work

Shane meets regularly with Lexi's mom so that they can work together on cohesive parenting in two households.  This often happens on one of our evenings which means that the little monkey and I get to hang out for a while, to let them talk business.  March 13 was one of those meeting dates and it happened to be a particularly lovely afternoon, so we decided to grab a few caches.

The first park we navigated to was gated off and closed for one reason or another, so we headed out to another in hopes of finding some success. As we pulled in, I recognized it as one we had been to a few years ago when Shane and I first started dating.  It's a nice park and appeared to have several caches ready for a hunt!

Mild March weather in Michigan makes for great times outdoors

The title sounds a bit like a headline, but nevertheless, it's true. We have had a remarkably mild March.  The whole winter was much more mild than any I have ever lived to see so far, for that matter.  What this has meant for us is that we have gotten to feed the need to Geocache even more.  I suspect we will likely stop going quite so often when the weather gets really warm, as we will then be busy in the garden, and the bugs will likely give us cause to stop visiting so many remote locations.  Mosquitoes here breed and multiply with great fervor, so they tend to discourage much time spent in overgrown and moist areas like many we have been visiting as of late.  After about 3 weeks off the geocaching trail, we made our first night time find (cache #21 for us) on 3/9/12.  It was an easy park and grab, part of a series we are familiar with, so we knew right where to look to pick it up.  Even so, it was fun to log our first night time find.  It made us all want to try caching similar hunts at night again soon!

Geocaching: at it again in 2012

#14 was tucked under a log

This entry will share with you finds #14 through #20 for our Geocaching Team - Unlikely Family. If you want to read about the first 13 finds, you can do so here. Warning:  This post may contain spoilers if you haven't been out to this location yet, so please be aware before reading further! :-)


The bug bit us to geocache again in February.  The weather was mild and we were sad we hadn't done more of it last year.  So, we started thinking about where we could go as a family and walk around outdoors to cache for an afternoon.  On February 12, 2012, we got ourselves packed up with pencils, the camera, the toy/trinket exchange bag and bundled up to head out.

What to do when not in the garden, canning or sewing? Geocache!

Last year, we picked up a new hobby that we have recently fallen back in love with.  It's called geocaching.  What is it, you ask?

Cache #1, surprisingly hard to find

From www.geocaching.com:

Geocaching is a real-world, outdoor treasure hunting game using GPS-enabled devices. Participants navigate to a specific set of GPS coordinates and then attempt to find the geocache (container) hidden at that location.

There are some rules for geocaching though: 

(Again taken directly from www.geocaching.com)

Lexi loves exchanging toys!

1. If you take something from the geocache (or "cache"), leave something of equal or greater value.
2. Write about your find in the cache logbook.
3. Log your experience at www.geocaching.com.

I encourage anyone who is curious to go to the website and check it out. There is a ton of information there for the learning! BEWARE! You will want to get out your unused GPS and get hunting before you know it! Once you begin, you won't want to quit!