We left home and began on our way. By the time we got to Springfield we were ready to get out and stretch our legs. We managed to get 4 quick finds on the edge of this wonderful town. Thanks to geojeeper74 and schnauzermomx2 for putting these caches out for us to find! The day was sunny and warm but not hot and there was a slight breeze. I even managed to drive this portion of the trip and I must say I was pretty proud of my self. Normally any chance I have to pass the driving on to someone else I will do it! None of the caches were anything extraordinary in Springfield. We enjoyed looking for them but no huge challenges.
So we got back in the HHR and off we went toward Hannibal, MO where we were going to buy our groceries for the three days. We managed to get our turkey sandwich supplies along with everything we needed to have breakfast in the room. All this means that we only need to buy supper out in the hopes of saving some moola toward our next possible geo-trip. Hannibal is still flooded in the downtown areas and we were looking forward to caching in the old MOGA areas so off we went. We checked into our hotel and changed clothes for caching in the woods. This involved long pants, hiking boots, sunscreen and LOTS of bug spray for me.
Upon arriving at Mark Twain Lake we were informed that the area that hosted the 2008 MOGA event was closed due to high water. But the area from MOGA 2007 was still open so we got our bright orange Geo Caching hangtag and off we went to find parking. We set off to find Becky Thatcher Cache this required a tromp through a quarter mile of knee high grass. But Ahhhh we found it! Upon finding it I had to make a quick trip to the nearby bathroom facilities. While in said bathroom I found 3 large ticks on myself. This took me back outside where I found my caching buddy, God’s lil Cache, was picking what she hoped was little “spiders” off her legs. But these “spiders” had the clinging power of a cocklebur and were also strangely flat bodied. I calmly tell her that, “Ummmm, I think those be ticks hon.” And so began our tick picking party….. In all between the two of us over 40 ticks were found. Most of them were found on God’s lil Cache. Did I mention she was wearing shorts?
And so what have we learned?
- Long pants are a MUST in the forest.
- Bugspray helps with mosquitos but not much with ticks.
- Light colored long pants make the ticks easier to see.
- Husbands back home are really nice about looking up info on the net for you about how to make SURE you get all the ticks off the clothes you were wearing.
- From now on Bren1273 will be doing her forest caches in the frozen months of the year!!
So Day 2 of the Geo-trip will be re-planned tomorrow. We will need an internet connection and I think we’re going to try to do some urban caching in Hannibal. Our dreams of searching for lots of caches in the same area are dashed at least until the next freeze. More tomorrow…….
