Back in Cookie Town

Monday, September 28, 2009

 Thanks to Fellow Cachers

We are back at home, what a weekend!  We had an absolute blast up in Michigan.  After finding all of the great caches up there, we realized why we love geocaching so much.  These are sights and areas we would have most likely never visited without the help of geocaching.  Without fellow geocachers placing these caches many many more people, even locals probably would not know about these places.  So, thank you to all of the cachers out there who do the work and put in the time to make this such a rewarding hobby. 

Iron Mine Tour

Today was a totally cache free day, which is fine, because we did the great iron mine tour this morning.  After that it rained the whole way home anyways.  Not that we don't like caching in the rain, but after the long weekend it was nice to just chill out on the way home.  The iron mine tour was only about 40 minutes long, but we learned so many things about the history of iron ore mining.  I could not believe the things these men and boys did so long ago.  If you are ever in the Iron Mountain area, do yourself a favor and visit the Iron Mountain Iron Mine, you will not be disappointed.  Here are a few pictures taken on the tour.

Riding the train over 1/4 mile into the hill.

Here is a diagram of the mine we toured.  On the diagram we were standing at the observation area.  Immediately next to us was a 1,300' deep lake that was formed after mining was done due to ground water filling the void that was formed by removing the ore.  The hole is so large it took 2 years to fill it back level with the water column.

This picture contains a rainbow trout...underground you say?? Yes, to monitor oxygen levels while mining, fish, parakeets and rats were used. If the animals became sluggish or died, the miners knew they had to head to the surface.  This underground stream had rainbow and brook trout in it, with access to the huge underground lake.  It may be hard to see, but you can see the glow of its eyes, it came out real quick when the tour guide tossed in some food.

Milestone not Reached

We ended up not getting our 200th find this weekend, which is totally fine for one main reason.  When we arrived in Iron Mountain and started looking for what caches we wanted to do, we realized we had to focus on quality rather than quantity.  We knew we could not come this far, and be so close to so many quality caches, and then do a quantity run!!  We figured we would be cheating ourselves by driving this far to find a bunch of 1-1 caches.  I am glad we made that decision.  Now that we are home, we will plan a day real soon to find seven more caches, and then the 200th milestone cache.  If you have any recommendations let us know.