Today was Book Group day at Shir Hadash (Diane’s the coordinator); we discussed Everything Is Illuminated, a very interesting and worthwhile book. After lunch, we wanted to get some exercise, and Diane was going to go to the Y while Jeff and I were ready to walk to Jamba Juice — and then I noticed that our friend Sam had called and wanted me to call his cellphone.
So I did; he and his family were in Belgatos Park, geocaching, and wanted to know if we were interested in joining them. We were, and caught up with them in the parking lot. They had done two caches and were ready to drive to the other side of the park for a few more, but were willing to wait so we could pick up the caches.
The first one, Tarmac Trail, was only a few hundred feet away and took only a couple of minutes to bag. For the second one, Forest Stump, we had to get across a little creek (we took a route which was muddier than required…I didn’t realize there were two bridges within a three minute walk!) and then climb up a trail and around a few switchbacks. As we neared what we thought was the site, we noticed a few other people with GPSes in hand — two other geocaching groups were out on this beautiful Sunday, too. So we all logged the cache and chatted for a while (and our friends joined us while we were talking). The other groups had been on the other side of Belgatos Park and warned us that there was no parking available, so we had to decide: walk about a mile (plus about 400 feet of vertical gain) and return before it got dark in an hour, or do something else.
We chose to do something else, and picked up the first part of a multi-step cache, The Harry Surprise. By that time, it was getting a little dark, so we decided to call it an afternoon and went home.
There will be a Geocaching Dinner next weekend, and we plan to be there. It should be easy to find.