The Expeditionary Team trip report
I thought I would sort of give a brief trip report for our trip that we did Tuesday and Wednesday this week with The G Team and Mainiac1957. Mainiac1957 dubbed us The Expeditionary Team. We started by meeting at The Big Indian in Skowhegan and had breakfast up the road a little. The G Team brought there computer in because they had all the waypoints in it for the areas we were planning on hitting. So between The G Teams computer and Mainiac1957’s Palm pilot we were all set for the weekend. Boy I was impressed with his palm pilot. We had hit most of the caches from Solon to The Forks but after looking over the computer that The G Team brought I saw a couple I missed. There was still quite a few that Brad(Mainiac1957) and Mike(The G Team) had not hit so I did not mind tagging along while we did them. This was all about being together and having fun and spending time with good people.
On Tuesday we hit the following caches:
Big Indian Cache
Embden Petroglyphs
This was neat. There were old Indian carvings on the roack near by.
After the Fall
Half Here - Half There
Can You Gadabout Gaddis?
Houston Brook Falls
CARATUNK CACHE
WW II POW Camp
This was an old WWII German prisonor of war camp. There are some remains left over still.
Loose Moose
Top of the Valley
Mainiac1957 was supposed to leave after we did the cache “Top of the Valley” Tuesday afternoon and head home. But he decided to stay with us for the night. I don’t know if it was because he was having a good time or he knew we had decided to change our plans and cache the B52 Crash site Wednesday. I am hoping that it was that he was having a good time with us. LOL.
Tuesday night we stay at a nice place in Caratunk called Rivers and Trails. The owner Steve Longley has a couple cabins and you can pitch tents on his property for $7 per person. He has a fire pit and wood for use. I highly recommend this place to anyone. Steve is a very friendly person. He also runs the ferry service that shuttles Appalachian Trail hikers back and forth across the KennebecRiver by canoe during the day. So there are times that his store/business may be closed. If you would like his phone number I will let you know so you can make arrangements if you would like to stay there.
We set up campTuesday night and cooked hotdogs over the campfire and stayed up and sat around the fire for quite some time just talking and having a good time.
Wednesday we heated out at 7:30 for breakfast in Bingham and on to the Greenville area. We hit the following caches Wednesday.
Another Reason to Stop
Wyman view
KINGS BURIED TREASURE
Every Town Gave
B52 CRASH STASH
3 Michiganders in ME
Gateway to Moosehead
Twisted Sister Cedar Stump
The kids decided to go swimming here because there is a very nice swimming area near the cache until a leach was spotted. But we finally coaxed them into swimming.
A Clean Slate
When we got to the cache “Clean Slate” we had the opportunity to watch some local kids jump of the state quarry cliffs in the quarry that had filled with water. They said that the highest cliff was 55 feet. One of the kids jumped it. When we left another one was going to but he kept running back and for to the edge and stopping. He was scared. I don’t know if he ever did jump. But they did a lot of jumping at a lower level. Chris(Lil Devil) in our group jumped off two times but at a much lower level on the cliffs.
Heselton Street Walking Trail
Kennebec Banks Cache
Over all we as the Blazing Trolls had a great time. We had a very good group of people with us. I look forward to doing this again with The Expeditionary Team if everyone is willing.
Brad, you *must* be worn out!
I know we were! But we were back at it today--was hoping to hit number 50, but got a DNF on the final one of the day, so still at 49.
Seems we can't go anywhere w/o losing something LOL! Will make some arrangement to retrieve the radio--a good excuse for a trip up your way :-)
Rick, I *know* what you won on eBay! I've been scoping out software for my new iPaq and it seems that GPXSonar is the Pocket PC equivalent of CacheMate for the Palm OS.
I spent some time yesterday and got the "caching along a route" thing pretty squared away. Use GSAK to import PQs, then export waypoints to 1) GPSr, and 2) to Microsoft Streets and Trips. Enter beginning and destination of your route (for instance, beginning in Fairfield, ending in Jackman), and do a "find closest points" (say, within 2 miles). This will add every cache waypoint that falls within that distance to your route. You may then print the map and/or written directions (road names and turns and distances) to each cache--what a time saver!
Also found a website that has all the PDA to GPSr cables, adapters, etc. It is:
http://pc-mobile.net/home2.htm
I'll be ordering an iPaq to Magellan cable ASAP.
Michael