Mr. GeoK and Youngest GeoKid enjoyed a bike ride through North Glenmore Park last Saturday, finding 4 geocaches (and losing one walkie-talkie) during their outing.
Today, Mrs. GeoK had about an hour and a half to search for and finish GC1HHX2 The Puzzling Puzzle. After her unsuccessful attempt (in snow and ice) on February 19, she was determined to come away with a smiley today. And she also came away having smiled several times…
The wildflowers are showing their colours in this area: the last of the purple crocus, some early violets, little white wild strawberry blossoms and sunny yellow buffalo beans all brightened the landscape today. There were a couple of empty birdhouses hanging off the fence along the park boundary and several chickadees were busy investigating these and other potential nesting sites. A faded orange gas pipeline marker also stood out today.
After reaching the posted coordinates for the cache, Mrs. GeoK searched for several minutes. She had a preconception of what she was looking for that turned out to be quite wrong and she was getting just a bit concerned when she spotted the first stage of this puzzle / multi-cache about 10 meters east of where her GPSr read "0 meters to destination".
There was a park bench located conveniently a few meters away, so she sat down to enjoy the view of the Elbow River while completing the puzzle and making note of the coordinates for the final cache. After replacing stage 1, she slowly made her way back along the path, chatting with a dog-walker about the low level of the Glenmore Reservoir and then meeting up with a class from the Calgary Science School, out making observations about the different plants coming back to life.
The final cache was a quick find, and it’s always a joy to find a nice big ammo can (although this one still has its original markings). There was even a geocoin, which was swapped out for a travel bug.
The trails in this part of the park are nice and dry and with the wildflowers in bloom but the grasses and thistles not yet grown out, this is a great time to get out and find "The Puzzling Puzzle" if you haven’t already done so.