Geocaching May 2022

On the second day of May we found two geocaches at the Patapsco Valley State Park. We initially went to find a virtual cache near the entrance but we didn't see any parking right in front. We drove further in, hoping to find parking nearby. We did not. The first parking lot did have a mystery cache starting with at the edge of the lot. We decided to work out the puzzle (taking numbers from an informational sign to find new coordinates) and made the short walk to the actual cache for FYC - Patapsco State Park.

Playing around after making the find

One side of the informational sign

We hiked around for a bit and then headed back out of the park. We stopped next to the entrance building and took our picture for the Latrobe's Folly virtual cache. As a virtual cache, there's no box or log to find out in the wild. Typically, cachers have to email some information about a detail in the area or take a picture at the area to prove they made the find. We did both for this cache. 

The caches's name is a reference to the Thomas Viaduct designed by Benjamin Henry Latrobe II and named after Philip Thomas, first president of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. When the bridge was built in the 1830s, people thought it couldn't possibly support its own weight, let alone the trains that were meant to cross it. Time has proven Latrobe right since it is still used for train traffic (with much heavier modern trains) almost 200 years later. We lucked out and a train came by while we were there!

The Folly and the Freight Train

Cute Children

On Cinco de Mayo, I found a hillside cache called Spring Snow Day. The vegetation is starting to get thick on this one, it may not be accessible in a month. Also, the lid was tricky to pry off. I had to experiment to get it open.

In there somewhere?

Filling in another day on the calendar, I went to a local park and ride for a park and cache--Miss Meshell. The container was cool and in an obvious spot.

View from the cache

After an unsuccessful search, the cache owner of From Early Times sent me a hint and a recommendation of an adjustment to the coordinates. The cache is a multi-cache at a historic church in Columbia, Maryland. I read some numbers off a sign and did the proper math to get the final location. The find was easy after that.

View from the cache, no spoiler here

The "Old Brick" church

Orange Flowers is located next to a restaurant. I managed to get there before the lunch rush to make the find without a lot of people curious about what I was doing.

Not the front of the Denny's

The Silver and Black Cache... is another of those ellipses caches that are in my area. Gorman Road has a bend with a small parking area and a spot for the cache. It was easy to find, even with the one lane road currently there. 

A nice spot

Another park and grab is Rt. 1 - Leap Day. It filled another day on my calendar, even if it was no where near February 29.

Another across-the-street photo!

No Overnight Parking is just where it say...well a little behind in the trees.

Like it says on the sign

My daughter and I found Kung Foo Panda behind a dojo. The cache container was quite awesome. It was also suspended on some fishing line high in the air! We had to reel him down, sign the log, and then reel him back up.

Hanging out behind the dojo!

In an office park, I found The Big Necessity, which is near a water treatment plant. I didn't see the conversion of used water into fresh water but I trust that they do a good job.

No water being treated...except by the ground, I guess

Nearby (but found on the next day to fill in the calendar) is Picture Perfect! This cache is right by railroad tracks and the cache hider encourages people to take a photo with a train in the background. I arrived and a train was there! A short train...by the time I was in position and my phone was ready for my close-up, the caboose had passed.

Or maybe I took a picture of the Emperor's New Train?

I had a massive day of caching with Grandpa (though he managed to dodge being in the photos). We were returning a rented lawn mower and found MERRY CHRISTMAS YOU GEOCACHERS across the street from the hardware store and STOP and grab a cache at the nearby Chick-fil-A (we did get strawberry shakes). 

It is Christmas-y at ground zero

View from Chick-fil-A (sort of)

Grandpa was ready for more so we went to a trail with three geocaches along the path. Treehanger was near a playground and Grandpa made the find before me. Swaggy was a bit of a bushwhack from the paved trail but a fun discovery. Bicyclist's Nightmare but not really IDK was much closer to the trail and was the 599th cache for the Dancing Gophers (our geocaching name).

Plenty of spots to hang from

Not sure if this was cache #2 or #3 since I came up short one picture!

We decided to go for the 600th cache on the same expedition. I picked Simpsonville Mill which is near the Robinson Nature Center. The cache is located near the remains of the Simpsonville Mill which dates back to the late 1700s. The nearby Middle Patuxent River supplied power. The area had a small town around the mill. A roadway was built over the mill site but they managed to preserve the ruins.

Mill structure

Me at 600

601 was a mystery cache called V-Day Quickie and was placed on Valentine's Day just to have a cache placed on that day. I was glad it was a quick find because the day was very rainy.

View from the cache

The next day I found RAKMD14:pay for a stranger's coffee. The RAKMD series is Random Acts of Kindness, based on a series the cache owner saw in California. These caches are the Maryland version. Columbia, Maryland, has dozens of caches from this series. Who knew there were that many acts of kindness? But back to the cache--I saw an animal's hole that looked really big right next to the cache hide. Hopefully other searchers do not try to look in there.

Enough vegetation cover to qualify as Adam West's Batcave

It was exciting to break into the 600s since I broke into the 500s back in August. More to come next month!