As the number of Corona Virus cases and deaths around the world continues to rise, we are still at 19 confirmed cases here in Carroll County, New Hampshire. A friend of mine who lives in Louisiana and has a confirmed case is on oxygen at home and not in need of a ventilator. They’d rather have her home than at the hospital, if possible. I’m keeping her in my prayers.
Entertaining my four year old granddaughter has been a challenge. Now that I have more free time I can take her geocaching with me during the week when my daughter has to work from home and needs time without interruptions. Today we went to the Nature Conservancy Trails in Madison, New Hampshire. It’s off of Route 41. The trail here is wheelchair-friendly. It goes about a mile from the parking area to a viewing platform. There are five geocaches from the parking lot to the platform.
There was only one other vehicle in the parking area when we arrived. I had found the cache located near the parking area over the weekend, but I showed it to Boo and signed her name so she’d have an idea what to do. We walked along the trail to the first cache and couldn’t find it. We moved along towards the next one and found an interesting spot with a sign about how fire helps plants in the pine barrens. There was also a bench here and a post with an attachment to balance a camera phone for selfies. We tried several times to use it and it kept cutting off my head. Finally we got it right when I knelt down, but getting up was hard.
We found the next geocache and I let Boo write her own name since the log sheet was big enough. The next one after that we found easily too, and it had a dollar bill in it. She was thrilled. I always carry some swag with me since I leave something in any geocache that’s a decent size. The final geocache was at the viewing platform. Boo really wanted to find it on her own. I gave her hints that directed her where to go and she found it! She was so proud of herself. The viewing platform is a beautiful location with a view of Mount Whittier and a stream that runs between Silver Lake and Lake Ossipee. There’s an information board here too.
Mount Whittier used to be a ski area many years ago. I can remember coming up here and seeing the gondolas crossing Route 16. The cables for the gondolas are still in place, but the ski area has been shuttered since 1985. The forest is reclaiming many of the ski trails, but the cable going up the mountain is still clear.
We looked for the geocache we couldn’t find on the way back to the parking area and still couldn’t come up with it. Sometimes that happens. Maybe we’ll go back and look for it another time. Meanwhile, Boo very much enjoyed looking for geocaches so it’s an activity we can continue on some short trails nearby to get some exercise.
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Categories: Geocaching, Personal Stories, Recreation
You are fortunate to have that. The parks here in California are closed. The park a couple blocks from the house where I usually go walking is blocked off. Gyms are closed—not that I went to mine often anyway. We’ve been walking around a couple of blocks.
When this is over, I swear we’re going to throw the biggest block, city, county state, nation, world party. It will be like Prohibition has just been repealed. And (so I tell myself) I’m going to the gym every blessed day.
They closed my gym last week. I haven’t gone in about 10 days now. All outdoor recreation is open. There are so many trailheads that I don’t think they could block all of them off. I don’t see the sense to it anyway. We are supposed to exercise outdoors – they are advising people to social distance on the trails if you run into someone else. Some popular trails have had a lot of people on them, but people want to get out.
how fun to teach when she’s young! Most of my hides have small logs. The one that is kid friendly needs maintenance. I replaced it once before but the other day some guy found it and said it he was glad he was tall. I was like huh? (it’s under a tree). I went to look at it – the original container was wedged between 2 branches about a 15 inches above my head. I’ll have to go back with a walking stick to knock it out and put it where it belongs. I have no idea where the replacement disappeared to.
The one she found was a soda bottle preform, so it had a rather wide log in it at least. The lack of kid-friendly caches was one reason my older two gave up on it. Have to watch for good ones for her when I take her out.