We were happy to see that the Easter Bunny had made his rounds, and were well started hunting for eggs by a bit after 6am...
...were enjoying the fruits of Ben's efforts not much later...
...and were done with the hunt by quarter to seven...
We then got back into bed to watch a bit of "Lion King 2: Simba's Pride", an Easter tradition we're starting this year...
A while later, we got up and Ben requested special eggs, in the form of "toad in the hole", a trick of mine that Ben enjoys...
He cleaned his plate in short order, and even ate one of the "oatmeal bread cookies" that are a byproduct of the manufacturing process...
Another new tradition we've added this year was an Easter coconut...I don't know where the demonic grin came from, but Ben liked the process much more than coconut milk it yielded...why the coconut was in one of my bureau drawers to begin with is a whole different story that we won't get into here...
We next headed out to do some geocaching in the Lake Placid area...we were stunned by the fact that even though it was a beautiful day (clear blue sky to the horizons, 20 degrees, not much wind), there wasn't anybody out on the trails except for us...
We grabbed one of the maps of the Peninsula Trails area, to help us figure out how to get from the parking area out to the geocache...we took different trails going out and coming back so that we could see as much of the trail system as possible...Ben is getting really good at helping me with map-reading...
In the clearings I was able to read 9 satellites on my GPS, which ended up getting us within a couple of feet from the geocache...
We also stopped numerous times along the way to read the interpretive signage about the flora and fauna to be found along the trails in these spectacular woods...
Ben got a kick out of sitting on this mostly buried bench...
Believe it or not, the above is a picture of a picnic table in a large clearing...yes, the snow really is that deep...
I saw this cool fungus on a dead birch tree, and wanted to record all of its colors and textures...
We went out a ways onto Lake Placid (not Mirror Lake, which is the lake that the village of Lake Placid adjoins) and could hear the lake-ice shifting and booming...I wasn't worried, because on the way over I saw some fishermen with their trucks parked on the ice, but it gave Ben a chance to feel adventurous...
He then took off running ahead of me down the trail, following the map and my GPS towards the geocache...
It was a lovely day, and we had a great time enjoying the walk...
We got to the dam and bridge that the geocache is near, and Ben went across in front of me...it was slippery from frozen spray from the spillway, so we took it slow and I was glad to be across...
We found the geocache in short order, did our signing/trading, and headed back out to the car...we went to lunch in town, enjoying a McDonald's lunch in front of the fireplace in the LP McD's before heading out to the next geocache...
We started out from a parking area, and took a wrong trail at first and had to double back...when we found our way back into the woods, it was without benefit of a trail, but the GPS was more than enough to show us the way...unfortunately, when we got close, there was a steep hill and a river to cross between us and the geocache...
We slid down the hill together, but the river crossing seemed a bit more than I wanted Ben to try in the winter...he waited on the shore of the pond outlet while I leapt across the gorge like Carl Lewis...
It was beautiful and sunny on my side of the pond/river (Little Cherrypatch Pond is really just a wide spot in a river on its way to the Ausable river), but Ben assured me that he was warm, and that he wanted me to find the geocache...he played with sticks and rocks and pine cones and sang the whole time I was, incredibly unsuccessfully, looking for the geocache...
I didn't find it, even after 20 minutes of looking, mine were the only tracks in the area (not counting the numerous animal tracks like in the picture above), and the snow was drifted high and frozen hard all over the place, so the geocache may in fact be there, but we'll have to come back in the spring to find it...
It was fun anyway, Ben and I had a great time exploring the woods, and, as always, enjoyed finding our way to new places thanks to geocaching...
1 comment:
I caught your blog from a Google search on geocaching. You have a great blog! I love all the pictures. My wife and I hid a geacache today. I thought we were the only ones out there. It looks like you two had a good time. Congratulations on the new puppy. When you pick her up, I'll expect to read about that.
If interested, we're on Blogger too. Stop by and sign our log. (Just like a geocache.)
The Northwoods Geocats
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