Went out to Middletown, CT today for FurFright. Picked up a few geocaches before getting there.
George's Beautiful Land (Connecticut)
Machamux Park in Westport. I wonder if this is one of those virtual caches can't be approved if a micro can be placed there so let's place a micro. Interesting history.
TURTLE Kids Cache (Connecticut)
Middletown Nature Gardens in Middletown. Short walk on flat path. Would almost be handicap-accessible if it weren't for that last part.
Millers Pond (Connecticut)
Millers Pond State Park in Higganum. Walked all the way around the pond because I wanted to see how the other half of the trail was. I think both halves were about the same length except one half was rocky and hilly and the other half was wet. Devious cache hiding technique.
Bear Rock (Connecticut)
Bear Rock in Durham. Nice walk up to a large erratic presumably known as Bear Rock. Good view from there.
FurFright was either a mini-con or a large gathering, depending on how you look at it. I think there were at least 100 attendees. It was held at Falcon's Grove at The Pavillion on Crystal Lake in Middletown. Not sure what that property is. It's a building in a wooded area with some cabins nearby. Presumably there's a lake and lake beach further in although I didn't go and check it out.
Weirdest thing about the place is all those trophies, some of which dated back to the early 20th century, which were dumped in a trash barrel outside. It's sad and quite a bit creepy that no one was taking care of those. Some defaced trophies were in a shrine next to the picnic pavillion. I'm pretty sure we didn't do that so who did? Crazy stuff.
Since it's a one-building convention, everything was packed into the hall. Dealers were on one side, next to the kitchen, where the food was. Registration was by the door. The fursuiters lounge was a space at the end that was partitioned off. The rest of the space was occupied by games and the DDR tournament. Spent most of the afternoon chatting with friends, between visits to the kitchen for bites to eat and drinks. Didn't suit up until the evening when the weather got a bit cooler. Then the fursuiters wandered around the hall a bit and hung around outside where it was cooler. (And yeah, that CSI episode did come up in a conversation. Oi!)
Ob-shoutouts to everyone I met there, in no particular order: Wally Wabbit/Fox,
skorzy, was1, sushimare, quentincoyote, canj, jbadger, Smrgol, punktiger, arrowtwolf, twitchwolf and many more.Sunday: Central Jersey, Staten Island
Went geocaching out to Central Jersey and Staten Island today with my parents. With 3 people poking around, a different person is bound to find the cache each time. And the searches are quite a bit faster. Also kept running into C+E, a geocaching team from Pennsylvania. They were doing a Staten Island cache dash too.
The Toy Box (New Jersey)
Milton Lake in Rahway.
Mount Doom (New Jersey)
Bike trail in Edison.
Cacheus Clay (New York)
Clay Pit Ponds State Park in Staten Island. Very convoluted trails in the area so it was basically a game of follow and hope it is the correct trail. Multistage with a very tricky first stage but the hint says it all. Ran into C+E, another geocaching team, there.
The Mount (New York)
Mt Loretto State Park in Staten Island. Supposedly the ivy-covered ruins used to house the Immaculate Virgin statue. Saw some woolly bears on the path along the way.
My Blue Heron (New York)
Blue Heron Nature Center in Staten Island. Very close to parking.
Yacht Club Cove (New York)
Great Kills Harbor in Staten Island. Another location where parking is near the cache. Beach area.
Clove Lakes Park: Brian's first hide (New York)
Clove Lakes Park in Staten Island. Judging by the packed parking area, this is the most popular park in Staten Island. Lots of scenic lake views. There was a turtle sitting on a rock near the cache the whole time. There was also what appeared to be a cross between a wild mallard and a larger domesticated duck at lakeside. It was large and had a muddled mallard coloring and orange feet.
