Howard County Scavenger Hunt 2024

This year, we participated in the Howard County Recreation and Parks scavenger hunt. The hunt sent us all over the county, sometimes to businesses, sometimes to historic sites, sometimes to just plain fun sites. 

One of the challenges was to have a little dance routine. We did one at our studio, That's Dancing.

Posing with our teacher

The North Laurel Community Center is part of Howard County, so we fulfilled two other objectives by getting a snap at the skate park and one with an employee inside the center.

Luckily, we did not have to actually skate

At the front desk

By a sculpture

We were supposed to get pictures at outdoor art installations. The center's parking area has a spot that has hosted many different sculptures.

Another challenge was visiting libraries, which we did at the Savage branch. They have a nice garden.

Library garden

Pic with a "fREADom" sticker

At Savage Mill, we found more outdoor sculptures and a dog to pose with (finding five dogs was another challenge).

Outdoor sculpture #2

A dog in the game store

More outdoor art

We went to the lakefront and put our hats on the statues of the Rouse brothers. James Rouse was the real estate developer of Columbia, Maryland.

Join our team!

Playground by the lake

Another statue

Right by the lake is the Central Branch of the library, so we got some more pictures, including a stack of books sorted by rainbow color.

Reading rainbow!

Indoor art!

Not far away is the Charmery, an ice cream store, and GameOn, an arcade and bar combo.

Enjoying ice cream

Enjoying video games

GameOn's sign in the background

We were supposed to get pictures with a musical instrument and with a classic car. We found the car in our neighborhood and a uke in our house.

Strumming!

Carefully obscured license plate

We donated food at the county food bank, checking another item off the list.

Proof of generosity

Another business we went to was Black Flag Brewing Company. We got another picture with an employee there, along with some tasty beverages. The kids were with us and she asked them to tell jokes. Two of the three children complied! We also made a flag that did not come out well in photographs.

Employee and our flag

Our flag outside!

Next door was a dog training school which was closed on Saturday night.

No late night parties here

The next day, we went to Centennial Lake to get a picture by their amphitheater. We didn't get too close because some people were doing meditative yoga inside.

Rocking out at the amphitheater

We visited one of the old house of the county, Waverly Mansion. It is mostly used for events like weddings. It is also claimed to be haunted so we took a picture with a picture of the ghost.

Not quite visible

We also visited the Alpha Ridge Park and the Howard County Center for the Arts.

At Alpha Ridge

More outdoor art

In Ellicott City, we visited the Patapsco Female Institute, a boarding school from two hundred years ago. Since it was Sunday morning, they were not open.

Let us in!

We also visited the B&O Museum in town and took a pic with the train bridge from the early 1800s.

Museum entrance

Train bridge

The Robinson Nature Center was having a plant sale, so we bought some stuff and took some pictures there too.

I'm Spider-Man!

Photo with employee

Animal pic

Another animal pic

Back at home, we made dino puppets for a puppet show, another challenge we met.

Dragon, snake, or dinosaur?

We submitted our pics and videos. Later in the week we found out that we won! We got our picture at Parks and Rec HQ and on their Facebook page, along with a bunch of gift certificates to Howard County businesses.

Yay us!

Geocaching February 2023

My first cache for the month of February was HAPPY THANKSGIVING GEOCACHERS. I found it inbetween dropping off my daughter for Algebra II and picking up my son from Debate. It was a quick cache for which I was happy. It's in a parking lot for a restaurant that's closed, which explains the darkened sign.

A shopping center full of muggles in the distance

I found an unsignable log at Mad Skillz #5 Academy Junction. The trail leading to it was almost already overgrown with thorns and other winter shrubs, I can't imagine what it would be like in the summer!

The lid from the cache proves I made the find!

A fun find on a very cold and windy day was Lamby. The cache was on the side of the road though I could not park right next to it.

My car barely visible over the rise

On a frigid Saturday morning I found Our Anniversary Cache... in a nearby park. Thankfully, the find was quick because the temperature was below 20 degrees. Also, it was the cacher's anniversary, not mine!

More woods

I found another of the Random Acts of Kindness hides, RAKMD26:compliment someone to their boss. It's another hide along a stream, this time the Little Patuxent River.

Actually, it looks bigger than the Middle Patuxent in this picture!

A fun puzzle cache not far from home is The Golden Cache, a mathematical mystery that I solved quickly thanks to a lucky guess. The hide is on one of the many walking paths of Columbia, Maryland.

Some people go both ways!

I went to the Robinson Nature Center to find Mica in the Middle Patuxent: A Kids' Earthcache. I was not with the kids since they were in school. The weather was so nice, I couldn't wait. The walk was easy and I picked up some information for another cache that I will find on another day. I was worried when I got to the beach and saw a fence in the way! Luckily, it was only protecting an area just above the beach.

The nature center

The fence!

Behind the fence

Me with the river (and a hanging tree! How does it stay there?)

On the next empty day empty on my caching calendar, I went back to the nature center to find the final stage of CAM 2022 Bonus: Robinson's Trees and Trails. The hide is just outside of the nature center in a unique container. I made the find quickly and had the combination to the lock thanks to finding a series of trees at the center.

Not much to see

I found The White Christmas Cache... in the middle of February on a cold and windy day. The church where it is located was totally quiet on a Friday early afternoon.

More like "Bleak Midwinter" than "White Christmas"

On another miserable day I found Grunge is so Grungy!, a mystery cache that involves knowing lyrics from the band Nirvana. I don't really know their lyrics. The internet saved the day on that front. 

This nearby pond is kinda grungy

My fabulous wife cleverly solved the puzzle for Omnicache, which involves Perl programming. I have no programming skills, so I had no hope of coming up with a solution. We went to find it on a cold Saturday morning. The area was surprisingly busy--there's a dance studio and a small gym right nearby.

Emptiness

The next day I found two caches. On unofficial trails in Columbia, Maryland, is littleblkdog's letterbox, a hybrid between a regular geocache and a letterbox cache. Letterboxing is another form of outdoor activity using clues instead of coordinates to make the find. Also, a letterbox will have a stamp and ink pad so finders can leave their own stamp and get a new stamp in their book. I don't have a stamp or a book for stamps, so I just signed the log and moved on. On the hike in, I saw some deer across the way.

We stared at each other

More Patuxent water

At a nearby park and ride is Not Pricky and pokey? Aside from the weird capitalization, the cache is a fun multicache and has a super-powerful magnet holding it in place. I thought about finding a tool to pry it off its spot but eventually slid it around until I could get a finger underneath part of it.

The cache location looks a bit run down

The parking area looks normal

The Silly Rock... was a quick find on a cold day that threatened rain. When I got to ground zero, I looked around and the cache container leapt out at me. Not literally, of course, but I recognized it as soon as I saw it. 

The weather doesn't look so bad

I end the month with only two holes in the calendar--the fifth and...the twenty-ninth! Couldn't fill that one this year, but I will make double sure (maybe quadruple sure) next year! The total cache finds is 761, so I feel confident that 800 will be achieved this year.