Just a week after heading to the Allegany State Park GeoBash, a few of us ventured up across the border to cache and attend an event in Brockville, Ontario. Heck, if we couldn’t make the super-long roadtrip to Bell Buckle, Tennessee for GeoWoodstock 7, we needed to hit some sort of an event, right?
Also, this was toward the end of the no passport needed for getting in and out of Canada, so it was good timing. As of June 1, the passports are needed. Thankfully I have mine, but I also think I’ll be getting the smaller passport card as well. Easier to use and carry.
But, I digress.
The plan was to basically drive straight up into Canada and then do some caching en route to the event. We stopped in one spot — in the Syracuse area — to hit one cache where one of the others picked up one of my travel bugs that was in a cache and moved it to Canada. Outside of that, it was to the border and across with pretty much no problems.
You’ll remember last time we did the Canada thing for geocaching, we got brought into customs to be checked over. No problems, of course. This time, straight sailing. Though the GPS that was our navigator didn’t have maps loaded, so we were going old school. Follow the aarow and do your best!
What was nice is the first one in Canada was one that we had DNFd in January — and it was found fast this time. With all that snow, I can see how we missed this one!
We soon came upon an interesting location for a cache where you had to go over this old wood bridge. It was a very gool bridge to check out. I took some photos after we found and signed for the cache.
One of the areas we stopped soon after was at a very nice garden area. That followed with this one spot where we found duck eggs, so we quickly got out of there. The owner soon disabled that cache for a bit so the ducks won’t get disturbed. Very good move!
From the garden:
The duck eggs:
One of the caches we hit soon after that was in an area where there was an old beat-down car. Guess where the cache was? Interesting little hike and end point!
We soon were on our way again and made our way to a series of cemetery caches. These were quite interesting for sure. It was almost a mix of old and new cemeteries. What was really interesting about these was how they were all attached, named differently, and yet basically in the same spot (though a few were across the street from one another).
Here are some images from these areas:
After these caches, we stopped at a store to grab a few things to bring to the event for the potluck part of the dinner. I will say this — when Canadians put on a potluck event, they come packing some awesome food. Everything from chicken, to hot dogs, to all the trimmings and some amazing deserts (the maple sugar pie was incredible).
The people I had the chance to meet and talk to at the event were incredibly welcoming. I also had the chance to place second in the GeoGolf game and got a geocoin out of it. Pretty cool stuff. Everyone there also won something in the raffle, which was pretty impressive with everything they had there. I don’t know if I have seen this many raffle items at a major event, let alone a smaller one. Well done!
The event was here:
During the raffle:
After the event, we cached for quite a bit longer. In all that day, I got 40 and I was exhausted at the end. Slept well in the hotel and we started back the next day.
The way home included going a different way from Canada — crossing in Ogdensburg. The goal here was to cross off several DeLorme squares (which we succeeded in doing).
Before leaving Canada, however, we hit caches along the way to the crossing bridge. Some of the images at caches we stopped at:
There were no problems in crossing the border, which was nice. One of the coolest Earthcaches I’ve ever been to was in Alexandria Bay, which made that day so much better. The cache — called the Frontenac Arch. This spot gave some incredible views of the area and was a wonderful stop on the trip home.
One of the final caches of the day was at a waterfall below Watertown. Makes me wish I had the tripod and main camera. Good falls for sure.
In the end, the weekend netted 66 finds in two countries. I had the chance to meet and chat with several great people and it was an interesting trip overall.
A special thanks to Geogranny and Binrat, who we visited with Sunday after the event for a bit. We left with several ammo cans and carabiner buckets — and have a cache in the works in honor of all of our new friends in Brockville. Thanks again for the hospitality Sunday morning!
Final count: 2 countries; 66 caches (1 event, 1 multi, 2 letterbox hybrids, 4 earthcaches).
More later!
