Geocaching April 2023

The month started for us in New York, where we found Bonus cache for Adventure lab: Historic bridges. The cache is on a bridge over the Ausable River in upstate New York. The adventure lab has geocachers visiting bridges in the Keeseville area. We haven't started doing adventure labs yet so that cache will remain unfound. This particular bridge had a fun hiding spot and was over a dramatic bit of the river.

The bridge

The river

We did some geocaching while in Canada. Our first find was in Montreal, our base of operations, near our rental. The neighborhood looks a little sketchy, especially where the cache was. The find, Putsch/Poule, was a lot of fun with its secret and original hiding place. My eldest was with me and he noticed the neighbor across the street looking out his window at us. I hope it was the cache owner!

Somewhere on the back of this building

We went to Mount Royal (after which Montreal is named). While admiring the view at one of the overlooks, we found PFC Virtual Reward Mont Royal. As a virtual cache, there was no log to sign but we did have to find a fact only findable there, along with posting a picture of us at the overlook.

My son at the overlook

In Quebec City I found Porte Sainte - Virtual Reward 3.0, a door on the Notre-Dame de Quebec Cathedral Basilica. It's the holy door that is only opened during Holy Years or Jubilee Years declared by the Catholic Church, like the year 2000. Usually they happen every 25 years, though special years are declared every now and again.

Hard to get close with the snow

In Montreal, I found the Basilique Notre-Dame du Montreal Basilica, another virtual cache that required answers about the basilica and a monument in front.

Monument, basilica, me

Back in the USA, we had another bridge cache in New York--Virtual Rewards: Walkway Over the Hudson. The bridge was built in the late 1800s for train traffic and was ruined by a fire in 1974. It was refurbished and opened in 2009 as a pedestrian/cyclist bridge. It reaches 212 feet above the Hudson River and is 6,768 feet long (or 1.28 miles), making it the longest elevated pedestrian bridge in the world. The cache requires visitors to take a picture in the middle, which I did.

This guy again?

Keeping with the river theme, I found Rollin' On The River! in Columbia, Maryland. It is by the famous (on this blog) Middle Patuxent River. The cache itself is in bad shape--the log was too wet to sign. I let the owner know.

Cache contents

Nearby lake

Why is the tree wearing a mask?

On a trip to our local Scout Shop, I went over to the nearby VFW to find Cold War Bull Fighter. The cache is an easy find on the missile in their front yard. It's a TM-61 Matador, the first surface-to-surface cruise missile developed after World War II by the United States. It could have a conventional or a nuclear warhead.

Why can't I have one of these in my front yard? Stupid HOA...

ADOPT A ROAD? - I WANT TO ADOPT CACHES is a geocache in Clarksville, Maryland. The name is a very big hint to where the cache is hidden.

View from the cache location (not a very big hint)

My son had a tennis lesson in Cedar Lane Park, so I found two caches there. Meatball Sandwich is a small container hidden just off one of the trails. I am not sure why the cache has that name. That part of the park is lovely with no sandwich shops in sight and the container is too small to hold a sandwich (you shouldn't leave food in geocaches anyway).

Maybe some plant-based meatball?

The other cache was the mystery cache HC Soccer Series - Cedar Lane Park. I had to solve a puzzle involving the name of a famous female footballer from twenty years ago. I had to do a little bit of internet research to find the name. There are other HC Soccer caches (HC=Howard County), so I may find more in the future. This one had some interesting swag that I did not take--a bowling pin pen and a geocacher card. Maybe I should make cards for myself?

Interesting contents

After donating blood at The Mall in Columbia, I found What Could Be Making That Sound?!?! It's right across a busy street from the mall. Happily, a crosswalk lets pedestrians make it to the other side safely.

The donation center is above the pub, not at it!

At the end of the month, I have another full month of cacheing on the calendar, with only two days to fill in for May. I had 12 caches this month, raising my total to 797. I am sure to break into the 800s next month!

Current calendar grid