One of the kids' caches was near a picnic pavilion in Long Lake...Ben thought the stage was awesome, so after finding the cache, he went up and performed a little dance for me...
On the way to another cache, Ben found this great rock to climb up on...he likes climbing and jumping off of every big rock we come across while exploring the Adks...
The next cache we found was cleverly hidden in a cluster of trees, but Ben spotted it from about 40 feet away...he's developing what we in the business call "Geo-Sense"...this particular cache required us to come up with an original limerick involving geocaching...
There once were two boys from Lake Clear,
who went caching without any fear,
they roamed hither and yon,
climbed tall mountains, crossed ponds,
and in general were glad they live here...
Geocaching with Jamie and Ben
can be dangerous now and again,
we slip and we slide,
lose small bits of our hide,
and have oft poked ourselves with our pen
We left in search of the next set of caches, and found our way out towards the Buttermilk Falls end of Long Lake, which was a treat...with a gorgeous river running by a couple of remote lean-tos and a great array of glacial erratics (which I love just as much as Ben does, although I seldom do the scale-and-leap thing off of them...)...
We climbed over and under big downed trees, and found the caches without a hitch...having a great time along the way...Ben loved his trade...a squirting pen...
I am completely in love with my "back-up" (moving in on primary) GPS unit...it's a Garmin Foretrex 101...it leaves my hands free, runs for 24 continuous hours (weeks of caching) on 2 AAA batteries, and has fun bells and whistles like time until arrival at my destination...
We found this cool gravestone down by the river/lake, between a pair of leantos...no cemetery, just the one stone...Ben asked if we could look at his bones...
Our Pal
Robert Chapman
December 20, 1936
A Real Woodsman
A Native of Hoosick Falls
Robert Chapman
December 20, 1936
A Real Woodsman
A Native of Hoosick Falls
After finding the 4th cache, Ben and I found this huge Birch tree grown and wrapped around an enormous erratic...he wanted to crawl into the gap you can just see between the tree and the top of the rock...
After a successful morning of geocaching...we headed, of course, to Ben's favorite restaurant, "Woods" (aka the Long Lake Diner) for a spectacular lunch (as always)...the pictures below shows you some of what he likes about the place...tree infor trim around the wall, warm wood paneling, USGS maps of the Adks under glass on all of the tables...
Hand-cut sweet-potato frieds, nice salad on the burgers...
Home-made chips and yummy grilled ham and cheese sandwiches...
After lunch we went to the nice little playground for a quick play to settle our tummies before the drive back to our neck of the woods...Ben braved the climbing wall again, but was nervous about going down the tunnel slide headfirst...next time maybe...
a man's (or little boy's) reach should exceed his grasp, else what's a heaven for?
After the playground, we stopped at the beach for a little fun down by the water's edge...what a view!!!
The Long Lake town beach is in a beautiful spot, and will be a fun visit next year once it gets warm again...although Ben assured me today that he would be ok if we went in...
Our last stop before getting home was Shaheen's Market in Tupper Lake, it has lots of great stuff, including a butcher's department to die for...the only oddity is that they are a cash only store...but knowing this, I always make sure to have some cash on hand so that we can enjoy some great steaks (as we did tonight...)
All in all, another wonderful day exploring the Adks with Ben through geocaching...
2 comments:
Ben is the most fortunate little guy I know. You are teaching him so many things as he's just enjoying life and learning. What a blessing and what a beautiful relationship is developing.
Would love to do something like this in the future with my 7 month unborn son. I'm sure Ben will remember the times spent with his dad as some of the best days of his life.
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