All Good Things...

So in my last post I mentioned that for our 29th anniversary this year Tony & I decided to go back to Princeton. We went there last year but, because of the circumstances in our lives at the time, well... let's just say it kind of sucked. So we thought it would be good to go back and come full circle and put some closure on the past year. What a great idea that was I must say.

Thanks to the incredible Tulameen Turtles and many other awesome cachers we had so many places to choose from to explore. And you know how we love to explore! We missed the Great Coal Rush Event but at least we got to experience some of the fun albeit a bit late.

We cached our way through Manning Park (I love that area) and then, after settling into our motel room, we decided to not to waste any daylight and went up Whipsaw Creek. We travelled as far as we could before dark and found one cache (GC2AM74) "Strawberry Fields Forever". On the way back to Princeton we grabbed the flashlight and did a little night caching... (GC25NYK) "Entering Princeton From the West."



The next morning Tony decided to do some wildlife scouting and, according to him, you must be up before the sun to do this properly. Since it was our anniversary he did the gentlemanly thing and let me sleep in. Good man. I didn't sleep in too much though - Tony doesn't do urban caches, he refuses to "look like a dork" he says, so I figured I'd better grab all the 'in town' caches that were within walking distance of our motel. It was a Sunday morning and soooo quiet. I so enjoyed walking through the empty streets grabbing the caches at the fountain, museum, restaurant and high school.

Once Tony got back we had breakfast and made our way north along the Princeton/Summerland Road, headed West on the Belfort Road and then went north on 5A to just north of Allison Lake. Our plan was to explore the backroads in that area and come back out by China Creek. According the mapbook those roads should go through... they don't. Now maybe we missed a turn somewhere but we just couldn't find a way out (if you know where it is please let us know) and the roads drawn on the map just weren't there. Oh well... at least we know that area really well now!

The next day we went up towards the Copper Mountain Mine. I wanted to find the caches at Allenby so we headed in that direction. We found the two caches that were close to the road and then Tony noticed another old logging road heading down towards the river. "Let's go down here" he said. We drove down slowly, the new 4x4 faithfully navigating all the ruts and bumps and hairpin turns. When we got down to the bottom my Nuvi sounded with the now familiar "ding!" "There's a cache here?" I said. A quick look and sure enough we were right by GCQ3B1 'Standing Wall, Sinking Shaft.' I was so excited to be so close to another cache that I didn't read the cache page. BIG mistake! Tony decided to get me as close as possible, drove up the old hillside as far as we could go (very close to the 'wall') and then BANG... the truck's front wheel fell right into a hole... hence the 2nd part of this cache's name - Sinking Hole - well we now know what that means to say the least. The look on his face when he got out of the truck... well I knew it wasn't good. He did a little surveying, put the truck in 4 wheel drive, I said a big prayer and... it backed right out!! We couldn't believe it! We really thought we would be there for hours. What a huge relief and quite the excitement for our anniversary day.

After all that we finally got a chance to find the cache that we came for in the first place. Wow.... I know I've said it before but this is why I geocache... for places like this. You would never come to a spot like this otherwise... not in a million years. If you're ever in this area go find this cache (just not the way we did it)... pictures do not do it justice.

All too soon it was time to start heading home. We made our way on the connector road to August Lake, back into Princeton and then eventually back to the Valley.

They say that all good things must come to an end but for us it was a wonderful and incredible way to end a very eventful, wonderful & stressful year. And it's all good.

What a Year!

Wow it's been a loooooong time since I've written anything here. That's probably because I haven't done any significant caching lately. And why is that you ask? Let's see... an anniversary, a wedding, a baby, a wedding, a funeral and an anniversary!!

Yes, in one year we have gained two sons-in-law and one grandbaby and lost a beloved nephew. It has been quite the year to say the least.

And of course every time I want to sign up for an event it has happened during one of OUR major events.... the Tulameen Turtles Great Coal Rush happened on our daughter's wedding day (can't believe they didn't discuss the date with me first! lol), Teskelly & Curnew's Super Secret Hike happened on the day of my nephew's funeral and the Amazing GeoRace 2 is happening on our anniversary... for some reason I cannot convince my non-cacher hubby to spend the day racing against 19 other crazed geocacaching teams... if that doesn't scream romantic I don't know what does!?

So we've come full circle, my partner of 29 years and I, and this year we're going back to Princeton, Coalmont & Tulameen to celebrate the milestone that is most important to us. He asked me what I wanted for an anniversary present and I told him all I wanted was to cache all weekend with no complaints from him and he said "done deal."

Time to celebrate the year of changes and to play a little catch up! I'll keep you posted.

9 Pounds of Water

Today I went caching with my caching partners in crime, Nurse Hatchett and Lillooet Lady. We decided that we would try the Taggart Peak Trail. Carol (Nurse Hatchett) is an ICU nurse and her days off are scheduled long in advance so we plan our hikes long in advance and then hope that the weather will cooperate for that day. Unfortunately, this time it couldn't have been much worse.

The day started cloudy and progressively got worse from there. It rained and rained, soaking the forest like one of those misters you see in the produce section of the grocery store.

Now if you're not from the Pacific Northwest you have to understand what it's like to hike in a temperate Rain Forest when it's raining. Let's just say they don't call it a rain forest for nothing. By the time we had reached Taggart Peak #12 we were soaked to the knees. By the time we reached the lookout there was no point in trying to stay dry.

It was around this time that Lillooet Lady imparted us with one of her famous wise thoughts, one that made us go hmmmmm..."Why don't they make towels out of denim?" she said, "Because I'm sure I'm carrying about 9 pounds of water in my jeans!"

It never fails to astonish me what I will go through and put myself through to get a couple of smilie faces. If you're a cacher and you're reading this maybe you have an insight into this phenomenom? Why do we do this to ourselves? Why is that when I came home today I was soaked to the skin, shivering and miserable yet completely happy?


Hmmmm?
Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to wring out my jeans.

Watch Lake - Camping with Our Friends

Every year, on the first weekend of May, we go camping with the Veers & Klassens... and every year we try to go somewhere different. Seven years ago when we first started this tradition it was to find some pictographs in Lillooet near Seton Lake. The second year we decided to explore Hedley. We stayed at the Colonial Inn, saw all the ancient paintings on Old Hedley Road and took the tour up to the Mascot Mine. It was incredible.

But then the boys (Tony, Terry & Werner) decided that this holiday needed something more. Something they'd enjoy. Apparently pictogaphs and historical tours weren't cutting it for them. They needed something else...like fishing.

So we added fishing to the mix. The boys were happy. And let's face it ....if the men aren't happy no one is happy.



Around the same time I discovered this wonderful little thing called GEOCACHING. And, lucky for me, the girls (Joan & Carol) really enjoy it too and love going caching with me...so now we had to add geocaching to the holiday!! This is getting complicated!

Fortunately British Columbia is loaded with history, fishing lakes, pictographs (though they are trickier to find) and caches....loads and loads of caches!

This last trip we spent at Watch Lake where, much to his amazement, Tony caught his biggest Rainbow Trout ever - 10lbs and 30 inches long! What a happy man. Terry and Werner caught some nice fish too. We sat around the campfire, listened to the loons and ate, alot! Carol, Joan & I had a blast exploring the Painted Chasm, Clinton, Green Lake & 100 Mile House. We cached and explored for two days straight and I found my 1500th cache at Crater Lake... with my two awesome friends!



So once again we had another great holiday with our kindred spirits. Thank goodness BC is a big place... it's nice to know that we will never run out of places to fish and to hike and to cache and to explore.

New Truck! Let's Go Caching.

I have to admit that I am so jealous of those lady cachers out there who have a husband or significant other who loves caching as much as they do. Because, let's face it, a woman caching alone, on a trail, in the forest is just not a good idea. I miss so many FTFs because I'm just not comfortable going alone, especially when Mtn-Man is busy publishing at 11pm! So frustrating.

My husband does not get the whole "searching the forest for tupperware thing" but he does love the outdoors. He just loves being out there exploring any backroad that we haven't yet been on. Our two passions aren't exactly the same but they go hand in hand pretty well.

Last week we bought a new 4x4. I knew it wouldn't be long, I hoped it wouldn't be long, before he'd be ready to take it out on a real test drive. Then last Friday he said, "Are there any caches you'd like to find on some mountain road? "Let's take the truck for a real ride." Yah!

I had been waiting for a chance to travel up the West Harrison Forestry Service Road for so long so that's where I suggested we go. There is a series of caches that tjguy98 has placed at a bunch of interesting points along the road and a few others as well. We found all but one of tjguy98's caches. Just want to say here that I LOVE ammo boxes in the forest. Saves the environment from getting torn to pieces... but I digress....



Tony's favourite cache was called "Playtime" (GC1B0FE) - perfect spot to try out the 4 wheel drive - works great apparently. One cache by DanG took us to the most incredible view of the lake and then we paid tribute to Mtn-Man at GC1DCJ4 - another awesome cache!

There was also the fossil bed that we had heard about but never seen. We both love finding these kind of unique places. I had remembered that someone had placed the FVRT cache there once quite a while ago and so I looked at the past logs and found the co-ordinates. We found the site easily enough but then Tony remembered that someone had said they were also lots of fossils at a landslide. We kept going, about 6km, down the road and came to a shale slide. Almost every rock there had a fossil in it! Very cool.

So as you can tell we had such a great time. He got to put his new 'toy' through its paces and I found 8 awesome caches. For about the millionth time we commented on how glad we are to be living in British Columbia.

Thanks honey for the awesome day!
So glad you bought that truck.

Too Busy Caching!

I know it's been soooo long since I last wrote here but I've been too busy caching to do any writing! I guess that's a good thing and a bad thing!

In the last few months I've had the opportunity to do some caching in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Washington & California! Tony & I went on our annual trip to Texada Island and we enjoyed caching all the way there, up the Sunshine Coast and all around that beautiful island. And I had the honour of caching with "goinggone" as they reached their 2000th milestone at BC's Oldest Cache in the UBC Endowment Lands. Of course our favourite place to explore is our beautiful home province!

And yes I love caching at home. The green, moss covered forests smell so rich & earthy and are so beautiful to look at and it is where I feel most at home - but it sure is fun to experience hides in other places and see how caches are hidden when there are no stumps or roots to hide them in!! The Prairie cachers are so creative in their hides (my dad was so impressed) and caching around Disneyland is pretty amazing... you'd think they'd all be teeny nanos in such an urban muggle-rich environment but one of the largest caches I've found in a long time was just metres from the Disneyland Gate!



This incredibly mild winter may not have been too great for the Vancouver Olympics but it sure has been great for caching. We've done some awesome hikes, seen some amazing places and, in general, just enjoyed being out there. I hope you have too! Cache on!! I know I will!