Caching Our Way North

Copyright 2012, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

As we work our way north towards the stick built, we are doing a bit of caching.  Part of the fun is to collect little state digital emblems.  Every time you find a cache in a state you have not found one in prior, you get a little emblem.  Since we have no idea when we will be back this way, we have attempted to collect a cache in the states we are traveling through.  We report:

Below:  St. Augustine Florida, very well hidden below a live oak and surrounding brush/weeds:

In the general vicinity of Savannah Georgia, tricky, hidden inside a light pole, sorta:

Missed South and North Carolina, sighing.

Below, near Timberville Virginia, a kids hide, as we are still newbies to the sport, kids hides are good practice, this one the GPS directed us across the street, but, I spied it with the hints available on the web site:

Below, in Broadway Virginia, ground zero for my family heritage:

We need to get a handheld GPS meant for this sport.  WHOOPEEE, more techy toys!  Also need to make up a small hunting kit, pencils, maybe a pair of tweezers for the petite mini caches, maybe some gloves, and for many, as taught to us by friends John and Donna, a walking stick to scare off the snakes and move the foliage around!  LOL




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Travel delights, 2 eateries, one destination stop

We tend to eat out a bit more when we travel, especially when we are at Rallys and with friends. It is one of our delights, discovering new, charming, and wonderful places to feast. Here are two that Moi missed discussing when we visited them.

1.) Preseau Family Fish Market, on the north side of Cheybogan Michigan. Some of us would describe this as a hole in the wall. It was brightly painted on the outside, and humble on the inside. They sold pasties (infamous all round northern Michigan) and fish dinners. We chose to dine in. Man had whitefish, I went for the yellow lake perch. Sides were good, fish was very good, served up in no time at all. Yes, we would go back!

2.) Darrow's Family Restaurant, Mackinaw Michigan. Much larger operation, lines outside, worth the wait. Believe Man had the whitefish again, and, yes, I had the perch. I would not have believed it could be better than Preseau, but, it was. Oh, my! Deserts were great too. Yes, we would go back!

Now for what I am gonna call a destination stop. American Countryside Farmers Market, Elkhart, Indiana. We visited yesterday and had a very pleasant afternoon of it. They have several mini restaurants, good eats. Had our lunch there. (May I suggest you sample the apple fritters, made fresh while you wait, served hot.)

Then we started the shopping and wandering. Vendors were pleasant to visit with, a great variety of goods to be previewed. Meats, candy, bakery, rugs, furniture, candles, fresh vegies and more. I found sugar free caramel liquid to add to my coffee, me thinks with a extra bit of hot milk, I can emulate, but not duplicate a latte. I am gonna try! Man got some homegrown tomatos, a mellon (so yummy, had for breakfast) and some tangerines. Easy to get to, LOADS of parking (even parking for RV's) and spectacular barn (largest woodpeg barn in the world, 3 stories, longer than football field, some of the largest timbers - from Idaho - are 16" by 16" and over 40 FOOT long - WOW), we enjoyed our visit and look forward to visits in the future.

* American Countryside no longer has a web site, and believe it has gone out of business. October 2018

GPS, Friend or Foe

If you have been following my blog the last week or so, you may have picked up on the fact that Man, Moi, Big Butt and Tana took a couple of detours. Detours encountered while more or less “relying” on GPS systems.

Gotta say I hate and love GPS systems. Love the maps on my computer, currently using Microsoft Streets and Trips, with GPS. (Man and Big Butt share a Garmin). I can zoom in and out, change the route while underway, lots of neat things. Man loves the voice commands on Garmin, I will admit, they are pretty good. Yep, Garmin beats S & T’s in the voice command arena.

However, maps are NOT up to date on either program/GPS. We have updated Garmin, not a cheap undertaking, but we have not seen any road changes. Friends tell us they have. They must be traveling different roads than we are! LOL We are not real happy with roads that change in concrete/blacktop, but not on GPS systems. Cannot tell you how many roads we have driven on that do NOT exist per GPS, looks like you are driving through a corn field, or maybe a sugar cane field, if you are in the Rio Grande Valley, Texas. It is a bit bizarre, driving on a road but GPS shows you floating cross emptiness.

I will fess up, I really need to get more practice with S & T’s. I don’t use it frequently or hard enough to learn all the tricks. Man, are you listening?? Moi thinks we need to travel more, so I can practice. LOL

When I set a route, like the other day on the run around Chicago, I sometimes force the route a bit. I wanted to go via McHenry County Illinois, and take routes further outside of Chicago. I did not want to go busting thru downtown Chicago. So to force the route, I said, take me to Woodstock, right in the middle of McHenry County.

GPS took us RIGHT to Woodstock via 47, then through it, around downtown and back out to 47. I am still trying to figure out why I did not realize that Big Butt and Tana should have just stayed on 47 and not taken the downtown route. We got lucky, no low bridges, all turns fairly easy to maneuver and no damage done, cept to Man’s mood.

Friends of ours traveling to Elkhart via Chicago same day had even more fun, their GPS put them on a dirt bumpy horrible road for a LONG time.

What happened in Milwaukee?? I still don’t know. What I do know is that we ended up in downtown Milwaukee, off the expressways and basically the same thing happened to MOC friends of ours. They were using the GPS systems as well to navigate around, errr, through Milwaukee.

Now, my memory ain’t what it used to be, but, I swear Man and I fuss more now over routes and turns. OK, to tell the truth, there is a lot more fussing now than before GPS systems. I had hoped to ditch paper maps. Now, I know better. DO NOT GIVE AWAY your paper maps. KEEP EVERY ONE OF THEM. You are gonna need em. Cause when the GPS systems fail, the paper ones are where you are gonna turn to get you out of the mess GPS just got you into.

So, I guess I need more practice with GPS and really need to study routes around cities, small and large very very very carefully. We have fallen victim to the hype about GPS, and depend on it too much. As nice as they are, if you do not master the GPS, it will take you places you really do not want to go when you are running Big Butt and Tana down the road, 53 feet and nearly 22,000 pounds. The reality is, they are either friend or foe, depending on how well you can make them work FOR you. And ya better compare them to your paper maps to be sure the road is there, or NOT.

*Photos have nothing to do whatsoever with this blog story, cept that they are from my family history files, and it seemed like a fun place to use them!
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