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Sunday, July 13, 2014

A Day of Geocaching

Yesterday I had plans for Shawn and I to get up early and go to a few yard sales, have lunch at Sandy's Pizza in Ft. Branch, and geocache along the way and into the afternoon and early evening.  

Well our "early" turned into getting up and leaving about 10:30 a.m.  We apparently aren't early morning people!  We stopped at a few sales and didn't find anything.  I don't really need anything when we garage sale, nor am I looking for anything specific, just something fun to do together.  But after about 2 or 3 stops of not finding anything, or the sales not being very big, I'm usually done with yard saling.  

We ran by the Farmers Market in Newburgh to pick up some Pampered Chef that I had ordered from the lady there a couple weeks back and to say hi to Bear's mom Jennifer ;)  We left there and stopped at the Pet Food Center to pick up the dogs' Tropiclean breath rinse (cause their breath always smells like they eat poop...and I'm sure it's cause they do!  Yikes!) and some treats.  

Before we left the house I remembered that there was a letter box at the Pet Food Center so I took my letterboxing stuff with us. I haven't letterboxed since last summer and forgot how much fun it can be.  At the checkout, I asked the kid if I could have the red bone box with a stamp in it.  He didn't know what I was talking about and asked the other kid working who was the manager; he didn't know either.  I thought well its been awhile since I looked that letterbox stuff up, maybe it's not there anymore.  While he was ringing me up, I started scanning the checkout area and sure enough, there it was up on a counter.  I pointed it out to them and asked if I could borrow it for a few minutes and bring it back in.  We took it out to the car and I stamped my "bone"!  In the excitement of it all, I forgot to stop Gavin's dinosaur stamp in the bone book when I was leaving my camera stamp, so we'll have to go back the next time I have him so he can find and stamp it.



By the time we left there, I was starving for lunch since I didn't eat breakfast and just wanted to get up to Sandy's since it was still a half hour drive away.  There was a couple geocaches I wanted to stop at on the way up there, but figured we could just get them on the way back down.  Well that was the plan at least.

Sandy's Pizza.

Ahhh.  Delicious Sandy's Pizza!  Sandy's has the yummiest pizza around and those sweet red peppers make it that much better!  A couple days through the week at lunch and on the weekends they have a lunch buffet.  I love their pizza and their Stromboli so the buffet is the best of both worlds!  We ate until we stuffed ourselves!  



While we were having lunch, Shawn was trying to figure out how to share the geocaching app between our two iPhone's and I was looking up letterboxes on my phone.  Since I had found the one at the Pet Food Center, I wanted to look for letterboxes instead of geocaches now!  Well OK, we could look for both.  I saw that there was one up at a covered bridge outside of Princeton.  I had been wanting to go to that covered bridge last time I was in the area and didn't make it.  So I put the coordinates in and off we went.  What could be better....a covered bridge, a letterbox, and I was sure there was probably a geocache there too!!

So off we went.  The GPS was trying to take us in a crazy direction, so myself and the GPS along with Shawn had some arguments discussions about which way to go, which was the right way to go, and where in the heck are we going!

We ended up stopping at the Princeton Visitor's Center.  I thought for sure someone there would know where it was at.  While there, we searched for a geocache, but came up empty handed.  (And later I realized there was a letterbox there :(  I'll have to go back now!)





Between the map above, some printed directions near it, the questionable GPS, and Shawn's and I's argument discussion on knowing North from South and East from West, we were on our way towards the bridge and our treasures!

On our way to the covered bridge, we found our first geocache of the day!



The Wheeling Covered Bridge.

Alas we made it.



  


Well at least we found the bridge.  We struck out on the letterbox and the geocache :(  And we looked for both for quite a while.  One out of three isn't bad!

We left the bridge and really had no plans other than to geocache, so we just started driving and followed roads to geocaches.  A couple sights along the way...



Yes, we drove through a coal mine :/  Is this legal?  HAHA!


We were a hit and miss with finding geocaches along the way.  Most that we didn't find was because we didn't want to we weren't prepared to traipse through tall grass, so we didn't get out and look for them.

Once we made it back out to the interstate I had told Shawn I wanted to drive through Bluegrass to sight see and to find more geocaches.

One geocache we found off the interstate near the entrance to the Rawhide Golf Ball place.  Too bad for Shawn, Rawhide was closed :(  Oh Darn!  Hee!



After that, we entered the Bluegrass Wildlife area and geocached away.  They were all quick park and grabs, but they definitely boosted my numbers.  We usually just drive through Bluegrass but this time we stopped at a couple spots and got out.  They have some of the most amazing scenery out there.  The ticks are really bad out there, so I think that's why we don't venture out into it much.  Hoping we don't find any from this trip either!  

Shawn's looking at his phone to find the geocache and I'm trying to get to that field to photograph some of those amazing sunflowers!  I also discovered there are a few letterboxes out there, but most were out through tall grass and trees.  I'll have to save them for the late fall/early winter when everything is died down.  I also realize I need to get me some cute tall rain boots to wear to traipse through the weeds.  HAHA!!  My flip flops and little tennis shoes weren't cutting it!















See you next time Bluegrass!  After that, we headed to the store to get stuff for supper then went home and grilled hamburgers and hot dogs and I made a squash casserole.  We had a great day together, despite the arguments discussions over directions.  I enjoy getting out and taking little day trips with Shawnie.  I know that he probably would of much rather been on the golf course with the 3 or 4 different people who asked him to play golf, so thank you for turning them down and hanging out with me while I drug us all over the countryside!  Love you pumpkin!


(A side note, I didn't start the day out in the Mario shirt, but was uncomfortable in the tank top I had on so before we left our neighborhood, we back tracked home to get the trusty Mario shirt!  LOL!!)





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