Geocaching – Summer Trip Part 4

I can’t finish the recap of our summer trip without mentioning the geocaching adventures we had. Don’t know what geocaching is? Go check here.

Dan bought a smart phone app for geocaching, and it has totally changed our ability to geocache. While we were on our summer road trip, we stopped in every state and found a cache. We started the trip with only two states under our geocaching belt. We finished with twelve!

Our first cache of the trip was in Metropolis, Illinois. Katie found this one after we searched around and around City Hall.

Our second cache was in a parking lot outside a Toys R Us store in Kentucky. We were stumped, until Katie had the brilliant idea to look under a piece of the light pole. Aha!

The third find was at a rest stop in Tennessee.

The fourth cache was a doozie. It was hidden extremely well in a parking lot near Stone Mountain, Georgia, and our entire family searched for a good 25 minutes in the heat. Three of us gave up, but Dan was determined to find it and went back armed with two extra GPSs, plus his smart phone app. He finally found it when a nice man nearby helped him see “the light.” (Pun intended.)

Dan found our fifth cache of the trip near a Starbucks in Marietta, Georgia. Katie put it back in its secret hiding spot.

All four of us found this sixth cache in the woods near a South Carolina rest stop.

Unfortunately, we don’t have a photo of the seventh cache that Dan and Katie found in North Carolina. (They were out hunting without me and Jackson!)

The eighth cache was Just Off the Exit of Interstate 77 in Chiswell, Virginia.

For the ninth cache, Dan gave me the smart phone compass and told me to find it. I am really bad at orienteering, so I dragged Katie down a muddy hill before he course-corrected me and led us to the cache. It was buried in leaves in West Virginia.

We should have stopped with nine caches, but decided to cross into Ohio for what we thought would be a quick stop to get our Ohio geocache badge. Uh, WRONG! We went a little too far out of the way and ended up selecting a cache that was hidden near some poison ivy. I think we avoided the poison ivy pretty well, but ended up adding at least an hour to our already LONG drive home from North Carolina. But, hey! We EARNED that badge and found the darn thing in a cemetery in Coal Grove, Ohio.

Whew. And THAT is our summer trip, geocache style!

Stone Mountain, GA – Summer Trip Part 1

Dan, the kids and I left Missouri ten days ago and headed south. We drove all day, stopping a few times for fuel, geocaches (more on that later), Superman…

…and the kids’ current favorite restaurant (there are plenty of these in the South).

We arrived at Stone Mountain, Georgia that evening. We checked in to the Stone Mountain Inn and unloaded our bags quickly so we could make it to the Laser Show on time. Whew… we made it!

I grew up in Marietta, Georgia – not far from Stone Mountain. I can remember going to the Laser Show MANY times as I was growing up. This year’s show is similar to those I remember from my past, with a new “MountainVision” feature, which is basically a video projected on the mountain along with the lasers. My Southern heart stirred as I watched the Civil War heroes march off the mountain to the tune of Elvis’ “American Medley.” It was surreal to do something with my kids that I remember doing as a kid myself.

We spent the night at the hotel then woke up Monday to spend the day at Stone Mountain. Our first activity was to ride a tram up the mountain (1,683 feet above sea level) and get a view of downtown Atlanta.

We started to search for a geocache on top of the mountain, then quickly realized it was a multi-cache (more than one stop on the “tour”) and the kids wouldn’t last long enough to complete it. So we headed down the mountain and went to the Sky Hike, an outdoor ropes course. Dan and Katie got in line while Jackson and I went next door and did the toddler version of the ropes course, called Camp Highland Outpost.

Dan and Katie’s line was really long, so Jackson and I headed to the Great Barn for some air conditioned indoor play.

We had some lunch and went back to watch Dan and Katie work their way through the ropes course. It was really cool. The climbers put on a harness that’s attached with a rope to a metal track that runs the entire length of the three-story structure. The climbers thread their rope through the track and confront obstacles like a balance beam, tightrope, or rope rungs.

Since the course was so high up, I thought Katie would have to fight through some big fears. She surprised me and was a champ! I  loved watching her brave the obstacles with nonchalance and confidence.

We ate a little more then took the kids to a short 4D Yogi Bear movie, which was fun and wet! The kids were tired after such an active day, so we finished up at Stone Mountain and skipped some of the other activities (the rock climbing wall, the Scenic Railroad, mini golf, the museum and the antebellum plantation). But before we left, we checked off another geocache in the parking lot. This one was HARD!

We drove back east a few miles to a hotel closer to my hometown, and checked in for the night. Since we were about 15 miles from one of my *favorite* restaurants (BEST. WINGS. EVER.), we drove a bit to Buffalo’s Cafe. OH BABY! It was worth every mile we drove to get there.

I ended the night with a full belly and a heart happy to be back in Georgia.