Skeet and Caching Saturday.

Monday, September 27, 2010

Saturday was a perfect day, for a few reasons...one, the weather was beautiful, two, I shot some skeet, and three, we did some caching.

We started the morning off with some breakfast at our favorite local cafe, we go to Kristinas every weekend.  It is the place where everybody knows your name, and the cooks come out to say hi to us every time.  We love living in a small town.

After breakfast we headed to Oshkosh to shoot a few rounds of skeet at the gun club we are members at.  I am pretty new to skeet shooting, I shot my first round in June.  I have not shot a 25 yet, but I do have a 24, and shot 17,19 & a 23 on Saturday.  I absolutely love skeet shooting, it is such a challenge, and every shot poses a different challenge.

Here I am about to shoot the high house bird on station two.  The bird in the picture is moving away, and requires about a 2 foot lead.

In this picture I just shot high house station 8.  This bird literally passes right past the barrel, and you shoot it from about 10 feet away.  You have to be super super fast, and lead the bird by only a few inches.  I dusted this one pretty good, you can see the dust cloud, and most of the right side of the picture is filled with chips.  I love station 8.  If you have never shot skeet, or any clay target, do yourself a favor and give it a try.


After the skeet range we headed out to do some caching.  Our first few caches were DNF's, we are sure the caches were missing.  They were caches along a "rails to trails" abandoned railroad bed.  It seems the DNR did some major tree trimming because GZ for the first two caches was completely leveled, and the took down some pretty substantially large trees.

After the two missed caches we were able to find 7 caches.  A few nice walks, and few cemeteries, and a couple nice multi caches.

Here Ruth is looking for stage three on "Flat Jack Goes For a Nature Walk".

 Here is a view from the same cache.  It was a great walk.

 

The leaves are sure changing color, and actually starting to fall from the underbrush and smaller trees.  What a great day!

This is what a freshly trimmed ground zero looks like.  Not a friendly sight when looking for a cache!

We are hoping to get out again this weekend, and hopefully I will have more to post about, and more pictures of the changing fall scenery. 

#600 and The Tunnel Of Terror

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Yesterday we finally made the drive southwest to grab our 600th cache.  It was an absolutely perfect day for caching...low 60's, and sunny.  We started the day with 583 finds, which meant we had to find 16 caches to reach 599 and set ourselves up for #600.   It was a fun trip with a great mixture of cemetery hides, park hides, a few guardrails, and a few hikes.  We usually aren't big fans of these park and grabs, but when we have a milestone in sight, and shorter days, we do what we have to, and a numbers run is always fun. 

We finally got ourselves to 599 and headed our way to New Glarus for #600.   Finally after watching the cache for a long time, waiting for the time we could make the trip we pulled up to the parking coordinates for "The Tunnel of Terror".  We love the hikes on the old railroad bed trails, and this one happens to run through a tunnel built in the 1860's.  This will go down as one of our favorite caches, and will be added to our top 5 list here on the blog!  We spent over an hour exploring the tunnel, and the area around and above it.  What a perfect setting for a cache! 

Enjoy some pictures taken throughout our day of caching!

 

 Just after we started the hike, a sign lets us know we are not far!

 

 We are just about to hit the entrance as a few bikers make their way out.

 

Throughout the tunnel there is allot of brickwork and repair jobs that have been performed through the years.

#600

 

 This picture was taken in the very center of the tunnel.  There was just a shade of light from behind us.  We put the camera on the tripod, and set the shutter speed very slow.  Just enough light got through to make a pretty sweet picture.  You can actually see our shadows while standing behind the camera.  We could see absolutely nothing, it was pitch black, but obviously enough light made it through...good stuff!

 

The view from the top of the tunnel.

Here is a plague at a site of an earth cache we did later in the day.  If you can't read it, this spot was washed away during a flood.  The breach allowed Lake Delton to completely empty into the Wisconsin River.  Homes were destroyed, a highway washed away, and a lake was emptied to just a muddy hole.  It was interesting to watch this unfold on the news.  A great earthcache!

The grassy area where the deer are standing is the new fill added when the breech was filled.  In the background is the Wisconsin River Lower Dells area where the lake emptied into.  The water carved a 300 foot wide, 700 foot long, and 30 food deep gorge.  The lake took only hours to empty its over 600 million gallons of water.  This is one of the most beautiful areas of the state.

Adult Novelties and Bakery??? Really??? Only in Wisconsin!

Finally a little caching.

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Right now I am sitting in a hotel in Marshfield WI, we attended a birthday party today, and Ruth's grandparents are celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary tomorrow.  Today after the party and after checking in we were able to go out and grab 3 quick caches.  It is not much, I know, but we have not gotten any caches in the last two months, well besides the one across the street from my buddies house.  It felt great to sign a log again. 

Both of us really hate hot weather, so, I am sure we will get much more caching done from now until next summer.  It was a busy summer, that is for sure, but every time we had a little free time, walking in the woods with the bugs and the heat did not sound like a good idea.

We were already talking today about finally, after flirting with the idea all summer, of getting out next weekend to knock out our 600th cache.  We really want to work our way down to New Glarus to find the Tunnel Of Terror.  With the nice weather, and some free time next weekend, I think it is finally going to happen.

Stay tuned, as we are sure to grab some great pictures in the next month of caching...the colors are really going to start to pop soon.