Salem

Cloudy, 55-60°F. The whole day, it looked like it was about to rain but didn't. I didn't have any geocaches in particular that I wanted to do today, so I just went to Salem County nearby. I figured I might as well do as many as I can in that area before the biting flies come out. So I was at Fort Mott State Park, a few Alloway Creek natural areas, Abbots Meadow, and the Mad Horse Creek WMA. Those were mostly walks on flat paths and dirt roads since there are no hills in the marsh areas.

In the evening, I returned to "Welcome To Travis Cove". I actually stopped by this cache site earlier in the day but found that the water level was too high. The cache is on a peninsula in a tidal area in the Delaware River. At high tide, the beach is completely underwater, so there is no access to that location without trespassing. I checked the tide tables on the phone and low tide was just after sunset, so I figured I should leave this cache for the last of the day. I returned shortly before dusk and had no problem walking on the beach to the cache site. I was surprised the cache hadn't washed away since it's just sitting under a small rock and not anchored to anything.

( The caches... )

Rainy Dover

Rain, 55-60°F. Today's outing started when I noticed that I already qualified for the "Year 2000 Cache Challenge" geocache. The prerequisite for this cache is you must have already found 10 caches that were published in the year 2000. I have 14! Well, back when I started geocaching in 2001, those were pretty much the only game in town. So I found most of the 14 in 2001, shortly after I started. Anyway, it was raining, but so what? I went to Iron Hill Park in Newark and took a 1.5-mile round trip hike to find the cache. After that, I went to the bank to get the NY state unclaimed funds claim form notarized. Then, since I was out anyway and since I realized I could also do some of my errands down in Dover, I went for some recent geocaches in Smyrna, Dover, and Little Creek.

Lunch was a Sidewinder Chicken Sandwich at Lone Star Steakhouse in Dover. Yes, Lone Star is still mailing me coupons. The catch is these are now lunch coupons. I couldn't use those on weekdays because I brought lunch to work anyway. I couldn't use those most weekends either because I'd be geocaching in an area with no Lone Star Steakhouses. So this was a rare occasion when I could take advantage of the discount. I still prefer Lone Star in New Castle though. Service at the Dover location is slow and this is yet another restaurant in the chain that has stopped serving peanuts in buckets. They still have buckets but the peanuts come in plastic bags. It just isn't the same! :) On the other hand, they do have the knifebread that I've come to know and love.

After lunch, I did one more geocache, "Get your kicks on Route 66", in the rain on the way home. I thought this one was the most interesting one of the day and it'll only become more difficult later in the year when the vegetation greens up.

( The caches... )