Spring CITO Season

With all the pain and strife in the world, geocaching is the perfect escapism. And, as Mr Rogers said, "Always look for the volunteers." So TaGeez and I took CITO season as the perfect opportunity to get out and give back. We not only did one but four! 

Spring Pool Party 2025 GCB2Y1W

Ah, the annual pool party outside of Kensington Metropark. It was a park & ride that had a pretty rough winter. Beforehand, we headed to the Nature Center and spent some fabulous reprieve watching the swans and herons.

CITO Great Lakes National Cemetery Stone Cleaning GCB4Z76

This was a unique experience! GLC hosted a CITO at the Great Lakes National Cemetery outside Holly where we went to clean headstones! How humbling cleaning headstones in Section 4! I was so impressed with the number of volunteers! After we earned our volunteer patches, we headed over towards Independence Township for a challenge cache trail.

NOMAG spring CITO 2025 GCB4Y1D

You can always count on Syfun to host a fun event. This one was a roadside clean-up that spanned about a mile and a half outside of Pine Knob. For as often as we cache it, it was time to show it some love. As with all the CITO spots, there was so much winter debris.

Belle Isle Spring CITO GCB525M

We attended the last one today, and, for the first time, we had rain. We have been so lucky with weather these last 2 weeks! As per usual, TaGeez and I trekked several miles down the backroad behind the Nature Center. Collectively, we filled 6 bags, mostly of bottles versus trash. 

It was so great seeing old friends and getting fresh air after this long winter! Now that we've cleaned up our gameboard, time to get back to working on our puzzle lists! We have found 25% of our solved puzzles since the new year!

The Wormholes have Published!

April 1st is big in Southeastern Michigan! The annual wormhole puzzle caches published promptly at 8am! 

Wormhole Cache List

The first generation of wormhole caches were published in 2010, the series started with three caches. Fast forward to now, and a tradition continues to carry on. We hope you enjoy this April Fool's Day prank!

Basically, it is a variety of puzzle caches that span our little corner of the mitten. Each one contains a picture that, when you click it, will navigate you to the next one in the series.

Check it out! I always make mine easily solvable to attract newer caches. 🔍

I headed out early yesterday and scored 3 first-to-finds! ❤️

Treasure Hunt

Anyone hunting for treasure? The new geocaching.com game-in-a-game? It is kind of fun getting back to basics. We've completed the first collection but low difficulty caches are running a little scarce around here.

Piney Adventures with TaGeez

It's in there somewhere! Keep looking!

We Like Pi! A Pi Day Adventure

 

March 14th was Pi Day, and Team-Gates hosted an event in St Claire Shores. Looking for some escapism and sunlight, TaGeez and I trekked across southeast Michigan to see our friends!

Have you ever been to Wahby Park? We've passed it for decades without knowing its name. It's on Jefferson, just off Lake St Clair, and very busy with post-work activity.

Typically, Team-Gates went all out. He released an Adventure Lab, several FTF puzzles, and handed out pies! Good turnout on a Friday evening.

Credit: Team-Gates

Still in the thralls of freedom from work, TaGeez and I couldn't head home. Instead, we solved some of paldog0603's newly-published puzzles and headed off to Moross for 2 new FTF's! 

Have you seen the art work on Moross? Great place to explore in Spring.

With victory in hand, we headed off to Pat O'Briens Tavern for a Lenten fish dinner during St Patrick's Day weekend. The place was booming!

Happy Pi Day!

Walking Around Milwaukee - Our Birthday Adventure

 A little-known fact: in non-Leap Years, TaGeez and I celebrate our birthda ys two days apart! This year we decided to celebrate our birthday adventure in Milwaukee! ShelleyJean and I enjoyed exploring Milwaukee last year, and I knew it was TaGeez's kind of town.

You know we love a good road trip!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, TAGEEZ!

Michigan to Indiana and Illinois to Wisconsin. Traffic was so bad in Chicago that Waze detoured us to Chinatown in Chicago! What a cool energy! We will spend more time here on our summer visit to Chicago.

And we detoured ourselves to downtown Highland Park. It's nothing like the one back home. Here's another area to explore during the daytime - there are so many restaurants!

HAPPY SATURDAY!

Saturday morning found us explore Lakeshore Drive in Milwaukee. What is it about Lake Michigan and our birthday adventures? Not really much ice on the lake after an unusually warm day the day before, but this morning the wind was brisk! Perfect day to visit a historic cemetery, water tower, lakeside park, and lighthouse. 

And part of the charm of this adventure is our antics in front of THREE webcams! Again, that wind was harsh, but we love a road trip! 

Milwaukee webcams

We are cold and hungry so it's time to turn inland and head for some food. No trip to the area is complete without a stop at the Tardis cache! It deserves the 1100+ favorite points!

We found out later that our good friend from back home, GeoConsumer, visited this cache just a few hours earlier!

Hey, TaGeez, I think it's time to head out for some food. Any idea where the spy bar is? 

This door looks promising!

The Safe House is definitely a place to spend the afternoon exploring! Check out this 1,000+ Fave point geocache, watch the magician at the bar, and visit all the rooms, reading the walls. Happy Birthday to us!

The Covert Cache

Afterwards, we explored the ladybug building, the Milwaukee Riverwalk, drove by the yacht-shaped art museum, sought the Pabst Mansion, and visit the Lego Store on release day!

One last sweet cache before we headed to our temporary home with some takeout.

Story Time

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SCRAPCAT!

We are starting early heading home so we can make many stops along the way. First stops were different travel bug hotels to drop off our birthday trackables. Then we found the Frank Lloyd Wright houses on the Burnham Block before heading to the Third Ward neighborhood for the Milwaukee Public Market!

We picked up vegetarian samosas and birthday cupcakes for a picnic lakeside before heading home.

TaGeez loved Wind Point Lighthouse in Racine - we had the place to ourselves! Too bad too cold for a quick dip!

We stopped in Portage, IN for caching and then dinner at Quaker Steak & Lube! We wrapped our caching adventure at sunset by grabbing Adventure Labs and puzzle finals at the Pure Michigan rest stop across the Michigan border.

What a glorious weekend! We drove 1,000 miles, sang in the car, enjoyed good food & great experiences. What more can you ask for? 

White Whale Captured!

That feeling when you find your white whale! 5 years since this puzzle's last find and 4 years of us DNF'ing it!

 

It only took us 4 hours of searching this week, 1 bag of trash plus some blood, scratches, & snow to make the claim!

Equinox Souvenir