Catching up.

Two weeks ago I pinky swore that I would have a post of substance up by the end of the week. Seeing as I totally blew that deadline, I guess I have to sever a pinky or something?  Not quite sure if that's how it works, though...  I suppose I'll check with Jack.  7 year olds seem to know all of the rules about jinxing and swearing and stuff.

I'm taking the upcoming week off from work, as Jack is on spring break and I have massive amounts of unused vacation time.  The downside to taking the time off is that I have had to spend every day at work glued to my computer finishing projects, and have been too burned out to work on the blog.  Hence the delay.  I did manage to pick up a few caches in the last two weeks, though, so that's a plus.

I found a neat one this morning - Leiper Railway Cache II.  The Leiper Railroad was the first documented railroad in the U.S.  It was a horse drawn railway that operated from 1810-1828 that transported stone 3/4 of a mile from a quarry to a nearby creek.  It was eventually replaced with a canal and ultimately a branch of the B&O railroad (like from Monopoly).

I've passed the historical marker for the railway numerous times, but never had the time to go after this cache.  I ended up with an hour to kill this morning, so I decided to give it a shot.

The first thing I noted when I parked my car was that GZ was .4 miles from the parking area.  This was nice, in that most caches around here are parking lot micros and lamp post skirt hides, so I was in for a neat little hike.  I had scouted out Psycho Suburban Cache #1: Abandoned Springhouse (Street View shown below) across the creek a little while back and saw some people riding ATVs on a trail, so I had an idea about what sights I'd be seeing on my hike.

I can't wait to check this one out.  I'll need a caching partner (bigger than Jack), though.

The trail first parallels, then crosses under the Blue Route.  Lots of graffiti and trash (And car parts?  I saw enough parts to cobble together a mean little go-kart) but still pretty neat.  I drive past this spot daily, and it's neat to see things from the other side.

Looking south.  Blue Route on the left, Rt. 320 overpass crossing the path.

I've been under parts of the Blue Route like this before.  Smedley Park has several paths that cross under the highway.   Same kind of thing here, but nobody was around.

See the Pac-Man graffiti?  Makes me want to work on my next Video Game History hide.

Someone did some climbing to get that Skate! graffiti in place.

Once you cross under the highway, it's basically a nature walk.  The only "fun" thing today was that all of the tire tracks from the folks who ride dirt bikes and ATVs back here have flooded out, so there was a good amount of hopping around to find dry spots.

Tire ruts full of water.  There are fuel pipes and sewer pipes under this area, so those trucks just add to the ATV and dirt bike tracks.

It's actually a pretty little area back here.  There is a creek that parallels the trail, and the Thomas Leiper House (built around 1785) is right across the creek, past a little park.

Creek, then park, then house.

I left some abnormally large footprints along the path.  It's pretty obvious a large person with size 16s walked this way...

My nickname used to be "Bigfoot".

The cache itself was a quick find, and almost directly across from the Leiper House.

A short hike back to my car, and I got my exercise for the day!

That was all I was planning to do today, but I got a new cache alert in the early afternoon from the same park where I hid my Local Movie Locations / Celebrity Stalker Memorial cache.  Since that park is only a few minutes from home, I grabbed Jack with the intent of letting him get his first FTF.

We arrived at Bird Castle / Hangin' Out At The park and almost immediately made the find... only to see that we were the second group there!  We missed FTF by about five minutes, but got to meet the cachers who made the first find.  This was the first time I have run into other cachers, and it was great to meet people who have the same hobby!  We got to speak for a few minutes before heading our separate ways, and while Jack was originally disappointed that he didn't find it first, he was thrilled to meet cachers as well.

When you think about it, I drag him around to participate in a hobby that none of his other friends understand, so I think seeing other folks doing the same thing helps him understand that other people do this, and it's not just his crazy dad doing some crazy hobby that nobody else knows about.

That's really it.  It's supposed to be sucky weather this week, so my original plan of hitting some parks with Jack will all depend on how wet things get.  If we do get out, we'll try to get a few caches and post about them.