Pinellas Geo Event 4

Once again, we attended the annual geo event by the Pinellas Geo Team whic was held at Fort Desoto, and we had a great time.

Here is a picture at the pavilion. The geo-event had those bright orange shirts and we liked themm so much, we bought 2 of them.

During our hunt for geocaches at Fort Desoto, we came across this letterbox, which is a diffent kind of hide-n-seek game. Since we are also "Letterboxers" with Atlasquest.com, we signed and stamped the logsheet and returned the letterbox to its hiding place.

One of the geocaches required us to stop by the Quartermaster Museum building and we came across this sign. Hmmm, didn't know that...

In our travels, I came across this ribbon snake. Catching him was easy because he was sound asleep while sunning himself on the pathway.

After the photo session, of course we let him go.

When we stopped by the bathrooms, this paper wasp was guarding its nest. The eyes are amazing on this critter.

As we were leaving, this racoon stopped at the edge of the woods to say goodbye.

FGA Withlacoochee Geoevent Near Dade City

This was a statewide event held by the FGA (Florida Geocacher's Association), of which we are members.

Here's a picture showing most of the people that attended this weekend event.

These kids were having a blast collecting bugs and showing them to their mom.

One of the neat things about these geo-events is that you get to talk with other cachers to swap stories and techniques.

A view of the sign-up table.

We came across this cute little green tree frog hanging out nearby.

As we walked around looking for geocaches, we saw these mock-up buildings showing how Florida 'Crackers' used to live.

I also caught a Black Racer snake in our travels. I can't remember ever having caught a black racer before...

And... Off he goes!

Over by the Cracker buildings, we saw this small cemetary...

...which is right behind this mock-up church.

It even had this nice stained glass window.

Sometime in the middle of the event, we stopped by a nearby store to get some essentials, and came across this old, abandoned storefront, so we took some 'Urban Decay' shots before heading back over.

The irony of this image was definitely not lost on us...

We found a geocache that was specifically placed near this sign so we could discover this information.

After reading both sides of this sign, I made a point of reading more about this subject when we got home.

Well, we are just about ready to head out, so we'll take a few pictures of this river.

Yeah, this was neat.

I stepped onto this remote data collection station to get these shots.

Here is a close-up of the sign on the enclosure.

We were picking up geocaches on our way and when we stopped at this plaza to grab one, this hawk flew right by us.

It turned out that this was one of a mated pair of Red-Shouldered Hawks and they were so busy catching and eating anything they caught get their talons on, that they let us get close so we took some great photos. After looking them up on the internet, we found that these guys aren't all that rare after all... Well, this turned out to be a great photography day.

Geocaching And Canoeing Again

Ok, so we didn't seem to get enough of paddling the canoe around last weekend... When we were contacted by OldRocknMetal, fellow geocachers and 3rd place winners of our Zodiac Coin Contest, to go out and find 12 caches in a series, Karen and I teamed up again to have at it. Remember, 'Click-On-A-Pic' to see a larger view of it.

Like the previous canoe adventure, here is the track showing where we went with comments of what we saw on the way.

Here's another picture of our 'Redneck' method of transporting Karen's canoe to the launch site at Brasher Park which is just south of Salt Springs in New Port Richey.

Here is one of OldRocknMetal's vessels. I told them that they needed to remember that they will be tooling around in little sport-boats while Karen & I will be paddling the equivalent of a 'barge', so please wait up for us...

Ah, the Montgomery-Wards aluminum, flat-bottomed canoe ready for action. Hey, wait up for us! When we were setting up another geocacher, Postpile, started out ahead of us. We pretty much followed in his 'tracks' for most of the trip.

And there goes the 'Metal' half of OldRocknMetal...

You see, this is what it is all about. The views were great, and it wasn't hot at all. Many of these pictures were taken by Karen from the front of the canoe.

And what is it we are looking for? Geocaches, of course! It's amazing how well some of these can be hidden. Obviously, this one wasn't as tough to locate as the others.

And off we go, headed for the next geocache. There are 12 of them here, so we will have to do some paddling today.

Now, why did we take a picture of this white fishing boat? Perhaps it had something to do with the fisherman getting angry and proclaiming that if he cathes us in open water, he'll run us down... We couldn't help it if he chose to position his boat right in front of the entrance to a kayak / canoe trail we needed to head up into so we could get at the geocache.

Oops! Looks like we had a crash! Too funny...

This trip was simply loaded with all kinds of neat things to see, like this Snowy Egret up in a tree.

So, is OldRock taking a rest in the only available shade in the area, or what?

Actually, he found a cleverly-hidden cache container under this seldom-used dock.

Moving along again. How could anybody not enjoy themselves while looking for these geocaches?

What, OldRock is resting again? Well, if you had just found 3 geocaches in a row, 'you deserve a break today'...

Looks like the family tree-hugger is at it again.

I swear, it must be a disease or something, 'cause now she has OldRock doing it too...

Smile for the camera! (CHEEEEZE!)

When we finished up with signing the geocache, we heard a rushing-water sound. You know we just had to go over and investigate, and we found some pretty fast moving water coming out of a culvert at the end of this branch.

'Metal' takes a run at paddling up the mini-rapids, which turned out to be kinda fun.

Next was OldRock, and as you can see, it does get churned up a little near the culvert. When OldRock was done and turned around, a little of that fast moving water washed over the side of his kayak. His quick announcement let us know that the water was just a bit cold...

Ah the final area is in sight. The Salt Spring actually flows from this circular area, but since we have now signed all 12 geocaches on this kayak trail, all we could think about was paddling across the upwelling to haul our boats out on the other side.

And what a perfect little spot we found so we could exit the Salt Springs area without paddling all the way back. This opening in the back side of the springs leads right up to the road. That's why we had parked the van nearby so we could load up the van and then drive back over to the launch site.

Well, it's getting close for us to head back over to the launch site at Brasher Park.

While we were sorting out the boats at Brasher Park, Karen took some pictures of the murals on the bath house walls.

A close-up of one of the pictures depicting a stilt house. We could see the stilt houses out on the horizon, but we weren't sure what that was all about, so after some research, I came across this site that helps to explain them: Stilt House Info.

There's one of the stilt houses, way off in the distance.

More pictures of the bath house murals. They did a noce job of painting these.

Of course, we weren't exactly done with finding geocaches, so we moved over to a nearby park to look for some more. This is one that OldRocknMetal needed to check on, and it looks good to go.

The next one was hidden in this cactus plant. Yeah, we got the point...

And OldRock found it... Hoo-Ray!!

Well, we've done as much geocaching as we could stand for one day, so it's time to head home now. C-U!