School Lunch

Laurie, Dick and I got sub sandwiches and went over to PCE to have lunch with Dylan! He was surprised! We also saw Kyle and Jessica over there. If you bring in food from outside, you eat at a picnic table in the courtyard. It was a lovely day, the sandwiches were yummy, Dylan was fun, and we were all glad that we did that!

After eating, we went to look at Dylan's classroom. I was so impressed - it was a big, square, light, airy, spacious room with lots of windows and only 18 desks (!!). Mrs. Oset has enrichment materials posted all around the room - I thought that it was very well done - a warm, inviting, enriching place for kids. Dylan is a lucky duck.

The rest of the day was spent running errands, watching TV, reading, eating at Too Jay's, working on my blog (which Dylan calls my blah blah blah), questing on WOW, and just generally hanging out. We stayed at Laurie's until 10 p.m.

We also Love Lake Placid !

If you're ever in West Central Florida, you MUST visit the charming town of Lake Placid! It's a small town that has everything. It's full of parks and pleasantries and especially murals! These murals adorn 42 different downtown buildings, and they are spectacular. The murals are very well done - captivating and unbelievable. One of them, the cattle drive mural, has its own sounds effects - the sounds of a round-up. There are so many awesome murals you really should click on the site above and see some of them. Some are done in trompe l'oeil fashion - a truck with a real bumper and real license plate for example.

In addition to the wonderful murals, there are also various waste receptacle containers which you have never seen the likes of scattered around the parks. Our favorite was the car - when you push in the driver's side window to deposit your trash, the car lights go on, the horn honks, and the engine starts!

We had lunch at Jaxson's, just as Capt. Bud suggested, and we enjoyed every minute of it. Thanks Don!

This was a most successful overnighter. We found 16 caches yesterday, 21 today, and only received minor nicks and scratches, and 4 fire ant bites. Hooray! HomeAwayFromHomeward Bound.

We Love Sebring!

On the advice of our friend Don (Capt. Bud), we decided to spend a couple of days west and north of Okeechobee caching, exploring and riding around. We had such a good time!
Sebring is a delightful small town with scenic lakes and nice shopping areas.
When this was built, it was a pier out over the water. Now, not so much.
On the way to Sebring, we stopped to do some caching at Lake Okeechobee. The Big Lake is down to about 10 feet deep over all due to the recent drought. Dick tried his delayed picture-taking on his new Nikon, and it worked well !
One of the caches that Dick found today was guarded by the biggest spider we ever want to see !
This was a magnificent tree by the Sebring Burger King. Could this possibly be a guava tree?
Cachers are So Clever! We got a kick out of the name of this one - "Get the F Out of Florida".
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Unfortunately, Lake Jackson is drying up also, just like Lake Okeechobee. The pontoon boat is high and dry, and the No Mooring sign seems a bit redundant! OK, so it's obvious that we're not in Michigan anymore!
This sign fascinated me! Please notice that in the English version "Cresent" is spelled incorrectly, but in the Spanish version, "Crescent" is spelled correctly. What could possibly be the reason for that??

We found 16 caches today!

We stayed at the Holiday Inn Express - really nice. I love their new linens - great pillows, towels, sheets and such.

On our way out of town the next morning, here's what we saw in the parking lot at Mac Land - try that at Chum's Corner!

The Morning After...

Big Play-Off party last night at Laurie and Chip's. Rumor has it that the party broke up at 4 a.m. Dick and I came home after the Patriots game, so we are well-rested.

The partyers survived and revived enough to go caching in Palm City this afternoon. Kids and grownups together, there were about 10 of us. We had one DNF in a kind of a creepy place - the kind of a place where you really don't want to search!

Dick's logs:

1/21/2008 You couldn't find Back road spillway hide (Traditional Cache)
Stopped by this afternoon with two carloads of cachers. About a dozen pairs of eyes. This is not a kid friendly cache. Lots of trash, broken bottles etc. This would be a great place for a CITO event.

Found it 1/21/2008 You found C.B. Parking grab (Traditional Cache) [visit log]
We joined up with the Sharkie Crew, the Splatt Pirates. and Hyatt Seek for a joint late afternoon excursion. While most of us were using our high tech devises to no avail, Mrs. Basswood made good use of her low tech appliance and quickly found the prize. Thanks for showing us this unusual bridge.

Found it 1/21/2008 You found Gone Batty (Traditional Cache)
We have found a number of these containers on this trip and it seems that they all leak. This was the driest yet. The log is dry and safe in its ziplock. Thanks for the hunt.

Found it 1/21/2008 You found Out of the Ballpark (Traditional Cache)
A tough hide, we had two carloads looking in vain until Mrs. Pirate scored the find. Thanks for the fun.

Summerfield

Our front porch
Our back porch and grapefruit tree
Yellow hibiscus outside my bedroom window.
Pink hibiscus outside the computer room.

Sharkie Crew and Basswood Too

An excellent day. We set out with Laurie and Dylan and we had a full day scheduled. First, we found a location for the new puzzle cache that Dylan and Kyle have been working on. It's called Dylan and Kyle Go Shopping. It hasn't been approved yet, but Laurie will soon be submitting it. The cache container has been set out with all new contents, first finder prize, and log book. The cache is by Sharkie Crew (Laurie, Chip and Dylan) and HYATTSEEK, their friends the Hyatts. We are all anxiously awaiting its approval, and we're making bets on when it will be found first.

Lunch at Duffy's in downtown Stuart - very much fun. Stuart was crowded on this holiday Saturday. There's no school on Monday because of Martin Luther King Day, so it's a 3 day weekend. Ran into a couple of friends of Dylan's - it was fun meeting them - Alexandra and her mom.

The Environmental Center Open House was so interesting - many, many things to see. My favorite things were watching the feeding of the loggerhead turtle, learning about the comedy fish and its excellent camouflage, and watching the sea horses move around the tank - their manner of moving is fascinating! There was a photography contest associated with the open house, and Dylan had an entry. He didn't win a ribbon, but his beautiful picture of rocks by the ocean was displayed, and it was fun to see it there.

We had another cache to place, and we chose Halpatiokee Park. It's a brand new cache with all new cache items in a newly painted ammo box. It has been carefully placed along a nice asphalt trail. Dylan decided to name it Picnic With Grandma. I wanted it to be named A Walk With Grandma, but that came in second. We did walk, but we didn't have a picnic, although it's in an area with picnic pavilions. The cache description hasn't been written yet, and so it hasn't been submitted, but it's good to go! It's by Sharkie Crew and Basswood Bend.

Back at Laurie's, we had chocolate sundaes and just kind of chilled out for the rest of the evening. It was a sweet day.

Pioneer Trail

We spotted this osprey nest on the way to the cache.

This little cemetery is in memory of seven individuals who were the first settlers in Port St. Lucie. The original grave markers are all gone. This is a nice, quiet and peaceful cemetery.

Dick's log:

1/18/2008 You found Spruce Bluff Pioneer Trail (Traditional Cache)
Mrs Sharkie Crew brought us up here today to share the history. We enjoyed the area and the cache was a bonus. Took nothing but left a mosquito head net and a Dora TB. Thanks for the fun.

1/18/2008 You couldn't find Spruce Bluff Historic Trails (Traditional Cache)
After our find at the other end of the park, we hiked back to this cache. We enjoyed the shell mound with Ospreys at their nest and a Gopher Tortoise at his home. We spent quite a bit of time searching but weren't good enough to log a find on this one today but thanks for bringing us back here anyway.

A Blustery Day

It was a beautiful day, but it was a little on the chilly side, and the wind was quite blustery! It was a great day to be out and about and geocaching in Florida with no fear of heat stroke!

Laurie was our chauffeur again. This time we wanted to explore northern Hutchinson Island. There are several parks along the beach there. Most of them have wooden walkways, stairs and platforms to get from the parking lot to the beach - and most of them have caches to search for. We found the caches to be in various states of maintenance. Some had been muggled, were missing, or had totally wet log books, and some were creative and fun.

At Pasley Park Dick took the above video - the surf was rough and loud - the wind was really roaring.
Altogether, we found six caches, with several Did Not Finds. It wasn't our best day - but for me it was totally enjoyable!

At Walton Rocks, we found a total of four caches. It's the only park on the Island that allows dogs - 3 dogs per person!! At the very end of the long park drive, there were several old rickety picnic tables - and on one of them there were 10 pennies lined up - for who know what reason!Quite the oddity! There was a penny on one of the other tables, and that was it.

We had lunch at Mangrove Matties - loaded with atmosphere and local color. There were great views of the Indian River and the many boats that went by while we sat by the window. One of them was a freighter which looked a lot like a Great Lakes freighter except it was shorter.

After lunch we went to Jetty Park in Ft. Pierce to walk it off! There was a very stiff breeze off the water - we're lucky we didn't get blown off the jetty! The first thing we noticed was that many of the riprap rocks had memorial plaques on them - memorializing people who had enjoyed fishing from the jetty during their lifetimes. It seemed odd, but somehow fitting. One was for a man called the Snook Master, and there was a bench dedicated to Big Al the Fisherman.Here we are trying to look warm and not windblown!
Another truly memorable day in Florida!!

Ocean, Turtles, Dunes, and Caches

January 10, 2008 - whatta day! In the morning, while Dick was scrubbing floors, I played WOW and completed a couple of really fun quests. One of the rewards was a new high quality fishing pole - I know that sounds silly, but in the game it's a Very Good Thing!

I wanted to go for a ride to see the ocean. Laurie came over and chauffeured us around all afternoon - and we had the Perfect Afternoon! We drove south to Jupiter, and along the beachfront there you can park and use boardwalks to get to the beach. It was another gorgeous day - the whitecaps were beautiful, the waves were crashing - some waves make a kind of a cracking sound!

We stopped in at the Loggerhead Marinelife Center - we just walked in as confident as you please, and were stopped at the door by folks saying "We're closed today - we're having a special event tonight." Laurie spoke to a really nice gal at the door, and lo and behold, the gal said "OK, you can come in and just take a quick look at the turtles!" So, feeling really privileged, we went to the turtle tanks and saw the loggerhead turtles, ranging in size from a dinner plate size to a coffee table size.



Dick's favorite was Jonah, who had been caught up in a fishing net - inside a fish! The fish coughed him up. He had been swallowed, hence the name Jonah! When he was brought to the center, he weighed .1 lbs. Now he's the size of a big lobster.

We were approached by a man who wanted to know if we were with the event people, and we explained that we were just visitors from Michigan who had finagled special treatment to get inside. Then for the next 10 minutes he wanted to talk about Gordie Howe, who used to live in Traverse City. This guy was a serious hockey fan - his name is Howe also, and when his son played hockey, he wore the number 9 - it was a fun conversation.

There was a cache next door at the Juno Dunes Natural Area, and another one across the street behind a shopping plaza. The last one was one of those that's back by the dumpsters, and you wish it was somewhere else! But we found both of them.

We toured Jupiter Island to see all of the big homes - it's an amazing place. The road is very narrow with no shoulders. Many of the homes have a second driveway with a "Service" sign by it - so no service people would actually come to the front door. The speed limit is 30 mph for most of the drive, and you share the road with golf carts.

We stopped at the Hobe Sound Beach, which is in the center of the island. It's a wonderful Martin County park - nice facilities, picnic pavilion, short walk to the beach, and great people-watching. It's a controversial park because the Jupiter Island residents don't like having the hoi poloi so close to their property. Dick and Laurie found a cache there, too.

Farther down the road at Blowing Rock, they found an interesting earth cache. The rocks were not blowing this day though.

Dick's logs:

Found it 1/10/2008 You found Sugar 'n Spice 'n Everything Nice (Traditional Cache)
We came down today to look at the ocean and to see the turtles. The recovery center was closed but the supervisor recognized Mrs Sharkie and let us in for a quick look. Afterwards we took a short walk to find the cache. Traded a TB for a coin and left a Geopatch and a star toy. Thanks for the fun.

Found it 1/10/2008 You found Faux's parking only! (Traditional Cache)
Came down with Mrs Sharkie Crew to enjoy the scenery and to look at the turtles. If it were not for Geocaching I know we would never have found this place. TNLNSLTFTC

Found it 1/10/2008 You found Ocean to Lake Trail #1: Hobe Sound Beach (Traditional Cache)
Out with part of the sharkie crew looking at the ocean. We think that this is one of the nicest beaches we've visited. Lots of folks enjoying the sun and sand today but we were here either to early or too late to witness any criminal activity. There were people fishing outside the park boundaries however. I guess they could spoil a homeowner's view. Found cache, signed log. Thanks for bringing us here.

Found it 1/10/2008 You found Blowing Rocks, The Anastasia Formation EarthCache (Earthcache)
We have been following the turf war over public beach access on the island and came down to see what the squabble is all about. We have visited and donated to many Conservancy areas in the past but I don't remember any others that had a fee. That was reflected by the fact that there were only 4 others enjoying the beach today.

Gee, I had a good time. And to cap off the perfect day, we all went out to dinner at Shell's, and I had great fish and chips. Dylan sat by me and did his homework - he's so cute!

Hutchinson Island

We went to the beach this morning to enjoy the ocean. It was a beautiful day. The ocean was rather calm for an ocean, and we had fun people-watching. There was a bonus, too. Dick found two caches on the Island.
I want you to notice in this picture how you can see the rain falling into the sea from the darker clouds, but above the clouds you can see the bright blue sky and the tons of sunshine. Wow. Florida is a very interesting place!
We had yummy burgers with L,C, and D in the evening. It was a Good Day.

Dick's logs:

Found it 1/9/2008 You found Elliotts Back Forty. (Traditional Cache)
This was a great day to spend some time at the beach. The red tide that was causing us some respiratory distress a couple of weeks ago seems to have dissipated. All in all it was a very pleasant day. Lots of sunners and fishers, no swimmers. Found the cache quickly. We have tried this type of container but have given up on them. Even with a liberal coating of Vaseline on the threads, they still leak. Despite the owner's instructions, the container was replaced square side up. The log is damp but still usable, the baggie is torn and it leaks. Poured out the water and put the log in a new ziplock. Left a glass lady bug. Thanks for the fun.

Found it 1/9/2008 You found Seaside Park (Traditional Cache)
A fire ant feast! Signed the log whilst stompin' and slappin'. We did enjoy the beach though. We will have to come back for the other cache nearby. Today was landscape maintenance day at that end.

PCE

Palm City Elementary is the best school in the world, according to Dylan! Today was his first day back to school, and we went along because Dylan was the TV announcer this morning. Every morning they have a child announce the date, weather, special events, lunch room menu, etc. Dylan's been doing it for the last few weeks. He's pretty good at it too. (I may be prejudiced.) Today's announcement was pre-recorded before vacation.Dylan also had art (inspired by Henri Matisse) displayed in the office. His is the one in the upper left corner. (Brag, brag)

Drew Christopher

Today is the birthday of Drew Christopher Charland, son of Shelly and Chris.

7 lbs. 13 oz., born Jan. 7, 2008

This baby has been eagerly anticipated by the whole family and the whole Central Grade School!

Congratulations to Shelly, Chris, grandparents, and especially to Drew. Can't wait for the pictures!

Here in Florida it's Dylan's last day of Winter Vacation. The thing he most wanted to do was to play miniature golf (he has always called it immature golf!). So Laurie, Dick and Dylan went off to do the golf thing, with a stop at Dairy Queen afterwards. I stayed at Laurie's and read my book (Secret Life of Bees) and watched Guiding Light for the first time since Dec. 18th. Nothing has changed much on the show!

Laurie and Dylan helped me do about six quests on W.O.W. It was very much fun, and Dylan is very, very helpful - thanks Mister D.

We watched the National Championship Game until it became obvious that LSU was going to win. Those Buckeyes were supposed to uphold the honor of the Big Ten, but they failed us miserably!

Okeechobee

Lake Okeechobee

The Big Lake

Lake O

There are many names for Lake Okeechobee. We drove out there today to do some serious caching in that area. Laurie has been there before, and she knew where some good ones were. I think we found about 10 altogether. It was a nice day - cool temperatures and only a few sprinkles. There were spectacular clouds - Florida has great cloud displays.

There's one place by the lake where bikers like to congregate, especially on Sunday - Port Mayaca Lock. It was really shocking to see so many bikers in that one area. I'm not sure what the attraction is, but one of the fish camps out that way looks like a dealership - there are so many bikes parked there. I think they all just like to look at each others' bikes or something.

At Port Mayaca: Reflections, and a huge alligator!
At one point in our drive around the area, we found the Basswood Estates. It was hilarious because the B had been removed from the signs on each side of the road, and another B had been painted onto the concrete to take its place. Try to steal that! Dylan figured out why kids would steal that B :)

Here are Dick's logs:

Found it 1/6/2008 You found 'Buster' Ferrell (Traditional Cache)
We joined the sharkie crew for an afternoon at "The Lake". Although, like everyone else in America, we had heard much about Okeechobee, we had never before visited. We greatly enjoyed the experience. Your caches gave us a wonderful feel for the history of the area. We ran out of time before we could do them all. That just means we will have to schedule a return trip during our Florida stay. Thanks for adding to our fun afternoon.

Found it 1/6/2008 You found 'Buster' Ferrell (The Next Generation) (Traditional Cache)
We didn't stop in, the owner was much too busy this Sunday afternoon. Just signed the log and drove on. TFTC

Found it 1/6/2008 You found Okeechobee School #1 (Traditional Cache)
When we planned a caching expedition with the sharkie crew, this was our main target cache. Mrs Sharkie had scored this cache some time ago and wanted to show her retired school teacher parents the two caches at schools out here. We enjoyed scoping out the names of the graduates and agree that the Board of Ed blew it when they cut off the owner's class from being listed on the sidewalk. After our exploration we signed the log and drove on. TFTC

Found it 1/6/2008 You found Underwater Damage (Virtual Cache)

We joined the sharkie crew for an afternoon at "The Lake". Although, like everyone else in America, we had heard much about Okeechobee, we had never before visited. We greatly enjoyed the experience. The youngest sharkie enjoyed "firing" the ordnance. We spent quite a bit of time enjoying downtown Okeechobee. Thanks for showing it to us.
Email with answers sent.

Found it 1/6/2008 You found Williams Family Cattle Drive 1937 (Traditional Cache)
Found it and signed the log. Not my favorite type of hide. [The clue was "You will not be shocked, even though it may seem like it" - we're all thinking that this sets a bad precedent.]

Found it 1/6/2008 You found 'Mater Ditches (Traditional Cache)
Found it, grabbed it, signed the log, and ran. The lawn maintenance guy was watching. When he was distracted, found it, grabbed it, signed the log, and ran.

Found it 1/6/2008 You found The Speckled Perch (Traditional Cache)
A quandary, how does one hide a regular sized container in an urban area, highlighting a specific location? We liked the history and the location, just didn't love the hide. Probably just a squeamish snow bird. Signed the log and left our card. Thanks for more of the history of this unique part of Florida.

Found it 1/6/2008 You found Okeechobee Cowboys (Traditional Cache)
Didn't understand the clue but found it anyway. Signed the new log (Thanks Butterdish)and left a lady bug. TFTC

Found it 1/6/2008 You found Tantie Schoolhouse (Traditional Cache)
The second schoolhouse cache that were the main goals of our caching afternoon. We enjoyed the visit. We found the plaque from the boat launch amusing and the school interesting. The cache was a disaster, the contents were a sodden mess and the area is crying for CITO. We threw out the old soggy and unreadable paper and left a new log in a small zip lock. Also left a glass lady bug and a pencil. Took a bag of trash from the area of the fence row. Thanks for another history lesson.

At this last cache there was a huge hill of fire ants - one of several we saw today. It's fascinating to watch them when the hill is disturbed.

Summerfield

This is the entrance to the Summerfield community - there were beautiful Christmas lights all around the entrance area.
Please note that the entrance gate is closed, but he exit gate on the other side stands wide open. Anybody could easily drive over there and enter without a code.
Here's our place - 6900 Warwick Lane - with Subie in the garage.
The backyard has its own grapefruit tree - we haven't tried it yet.
We have a long list of complaints about our place (and I don't think we're particularly picky, either!) Let's see - off the top of my head...ants, spiders, dirty and dusty bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, living room, ants in microwave, food particles in microwave, no internet upon arrival, broken sink in 2nd bathroom, broken floor mop, defective dishwasher, and if I thought longer I could come up with more.

This is the first time that this elderly lady has rented out this place - I think there should have been more oversight by the real estate agent before it was approved for rental. We're basically happy because we're only 10 minutes away from Laurie and we spend a lot of time over there, but let's just say that it could be better.