100th Find

100th Find

January 22, 2012

 

Like with any “sport” when you make milestones you must make it memorable. It is no different with Geocaching. We were nearing out 100th find marker and wanted to try to hit it on something special. I have been looking at one called Teran which was suppose to be a historical location of the Old Fort Teran. 
I plotted our course to end at Teran at precisely the 100th find. This could be tricky if we ended up not finding enough caches before we got to Teran so I made sure we had enough to spare a few DNF (Did Not Finds).

 

Our first stop on our adventure was at Mt Hope cemetery. It had a nice mausoleum for the Masons here. We all peeked in the windows.

After looking around the place a bit we started to look for the cache. Adam was quiet pleased with himself for finding our first one for the day.

 

 

Next on our list was Peach Tree Village. We looked high and low but no luck in finding the cache. We did enjoy the old buildings.

 

 

Inside the building was a beautiful painting of a Baptism.

 

 

We headed to a cache called “Nameless” and figure out why once we got there. It was a cemetery without a name.
Next we headed another cemetery called Lilly Island and had to log another DNF. At this point with two DNFs already I was beginning to worry that we wouldn’t hit our target 100th at Teran.

 

 

Two more cemeteries and thankfully two more finds putting us at number ninety-nine and landed us right by a nice little roadside park just in time for lunch and so of course we picnicked.

 

 

This park had some big beautiful oak trees which of course my monkeys had to climb!

So here we were on cache 99, fat and sassy from a yummy lunch and ready to head out to Teran for number one hundred.

 

 

 

Now the hard part of geocaching is having a cache (top right hand corner) quiet a distance away from any real road with what seemed like hundreds of  little pigs trails that “might” lead to it but we are not sure which one to take because they all seem to end before ever getting to the actual cache. I knew if it had an Historical marker that it would have to have  a road all the way in, (right?!) We drove for over a hour down each little pig trail, driving up to peoples houses just to have to turn around, through hunter camps where people are looking at us like we were crazy, and down obscure little roads that apparently just intersected with the other roads to form a web of loops. Having all but given up we headed down a road, (the last road possible)

 

I was not sure if this sign looked promising or discouraging at the time but it was our last option so we took it. The road was rough to put it mildly. A car could not have made it to Teran. At one point I got out and let hubby drive the Tahoe over a deep rut in the road because at this point my bladder couldn’t have handled that big of a bump. (Isn’t that always the case, you have to “tinkle” out in the big middle of no where and no bathroom in sight) The farther we drove the smaller the road got. I was to the point of telling hubby to just turn around and give up when we finally arrived!

 

A quick look around Anna spotted a gallon bag under some pine straw. It had a travel bug in it, that I rescued because I know that bag would not have withstood the weather or environment very long and I did not have anything to put it in to help it persevere.

We walked down to the edge of the cliff and looked out over the water it was very peaceful. We thought back to the pioneer days and wondered what it was like.

Austin sat and looked across the river, I know he longs for the days where life was not so busy, where the world was not so full of evil. Was there ever a time? He wishes he was born a few hundred years before now before the earth was being destroyed buy greed and industry, before it was taken over by commercialism. Back when people still had deep morals and values. I wish for him, that he was an 1800’s baby but alas there is nothing I can do to change that for him. I only try to encourage him to change what he can to make it a better world.

 

His siblings are not as deep as he is. “Oh look daddy a boat, can we use it?” Anna shouts as she scrambles down the hill toward the boat someone had tied off on the shore.



We climb around on the rocks near the rivers edge.

  

Austin investigates the small cave wishing he had a light and could climb off in there to explore.

 

My littles start playing that they are pioneers and shooting at the bad guys and panning for gold. Such beautiful imaginations they have.

 

Someone left our mark on a nearby rock (I won’t mention who) but they felt that after all it took to get us here they needed to be memorialized a bit.

 

 
Austin was again in deep thought, wishing he could buy this place and live here undisturbed. I agree, it was a very blissful idea to be out here and forget the world is beyond the tree line.

 

It was growing late and we needed to make it out of the bad roads before it got dark. We had managed to make it down to the bottom of the cliff but forgot we had to make it back up the very steep incline. The kids are a lot more agile than Stewart and I are and had little problem ascending the cliff. I however had to try a different technique. I would scramble from tree to tree and when I would reach each tree I would stop and catch my breath by leaning on the tree then go again. I wish they had got a video because it was quite comical looking I am sure. It was as if I was playing pioneer lady too and hiding behind trees as I climbed to keep from getting shot at by the “renegades” below!

 

The adventure was over and we made a very memorable 100th find at Fort Teran. I had the kids pose making a “100” on the marker with their hands.

 

This was one of our very favorite places we have visited thus far on our geocaching adventures!

~THE END~