Fun Despite the Rain

The rain couldn't keep us in this weekend. While I played in a hockey tournament on Saturday, Ken and Sidney went to Cumberland Museum to see our friend Todd with his first photography exhibit. The museum is Cumberlands best kept secret! It is something to see with a large scale model railroad, a town recreated from buildings and houses from the area and because of the festival Tony D was there to entertain with his phenominal guitar playing. When I got home from hockey, Ken took us all back to the festival for a bbq dinner and music. It was overcast so few people were out and we were able to enjoy Tony D up close and personal. Befoer it got too dark Ken and Sid went on a train ride. It was awesome! The skies did eventually open and we all fled to our cars and called it a night.

Sunday brought the threat of more rain so we went out early and took Sid and the dogs geocaching again. It was a beautiful trail not too far from our home. Mosquitos were held at bay by the cooler temperatures and Sid was thrilled to find a park so close to the cache.

Rain again tomorrow so we will go for a car ride and then get two more caches if we are lucky.

Mother's Day

Happy Mother's day to all! Sid and I began our day with a hike in the woods to find a cache. The dogs come along and help out by pulling the wagon. It was a warm Spring day with a strong breeze but the mosquitos were out and were hungry. We found the cache in 20 minutes and were quickly on our way back to the car.

After our hike we joined the rest of the MacNeill family for brunch with the cousins. It was a delicious meal followed by picture perfect weather on the golf course. The kids ran around with sticks and climbed on rocks for a good hour before we left. It is so great to see the kids all together. Sidney just adores time with her cousins.

Wishing all mom's of two and four legged kids a wonderful day!

Airedales LOVE Geocaching

Geocaching (pronounced "geocashing") is the official global GPS treasure hunt. (http://www.geocaching.com/) You log into the website and you can enter a postal code or address and a list of all hidden caches within 100 km are displayed. You pick your hunt and off you go with your GPS to find the buried or hidden treasure. Caches come in all different shapes and sizes and usually have items in them. IF you take an item, you must leave and item and you always sign the log book. Following your GPS through the woods is only the first step. Actually finding the cache is the second. It isn't as easy as you would think! What I found most surprising was that there are over 6000 caches hidden within 100km of my house!

Today, the Groovy Gang headed out into the Cumberland forest for our first hunt. We had two GPS devices to try and find out which one would work better. Ken had his Lowrance Airmap 100 and I had our Tomtom One. Ken's gps is his nav unit from his airplane and the Tomtom is my street GPS. The Airmap was a bit overkill and more difficult to work but was able to pick up 9 satellites even in the middle of the woods. The Tomtom was much easier to program but likes to take you back to the road! Once I figured out how to zoom in with the Tomtom it worked like a charm.

The cache was buried under at least 6 inches of snow but my GPS indicated I was within 15 meters and the clue said it was in a multi-branch tree so I started digging and couldn't believe it when we actually uncovered it! Do you know how many multi-branch tree's are in a forest??!!!

Here is Sid uncovering the cache. She was very excited to find the treasure but still kept looking for the "X"

We found all kinds of goodies hidden inside. Sid decided she liked the frog so we took the plastic frog and left a little teddy bear dressed in a winter coat.

Even the 'dales LOVE geocaching. The family goes out in the woods and digs around trees, what could be better than that?

1 down, 5000 more to go :-)