Ahem....

Hello?  Is anyone out there?  For those who have checked this blah-g daily, desperately clinging to the hope that I would post something to amaze and astound you...the wait is finally over!

Truthfully, I don't have all that much to share - but I will say that posting here again has been on my mind for a week or so.  And here I am.  In all my "where the hell have you been for a year" glory to share with you a short little outdoor-related story. 

Tonight I was graciously invited to meet Sir Hucklebuckle of West Seneca at his palatial woodland mansion of Treestump.  According to Huck, Treestump is 70 or so acres that his Grandparents bought for a cool $7,000.  We are talking World War II era dollars, but still...these days a chunk of land as superb as Treestump could probably easily fetch a quarter of a mil without breaking a sweat. 

Anyway, it had been a difficult week.  You see, between the stressors of work and life, I attended a wake for a member of our WNY geocaching family.  Zoggy20, the son of Howie and Jan passed away at the far too young age of 30.  In fact, he was only two days older than Adam - my younger brother.  The amount of sadness in all that is far too much express, as I am only 7 or so months removed from losing my younger Cousin Tom.  Far too much sadness all crammed into the last week - and it took it's toll on me. 

So...Huck's invite came at an opportune moment as I was sitting at home alone not exactly crapping our rainbows.  Neat trick though.  I'll show you sometime.

I had to accept the invitation, as I have been to Treestump a few times but have not done too much exploration.  Off I went - and shortly after arriving Huck was giving me the low down to this exceptional track of land.  Crammed into these 70 acres are two rather large ponds, and tons and tons of tall hardwoods including maple, ash and cherry.  There are also several groves of pine that line the long drive back to Chateau H-to-the-Bizzle.  Pretty radical stuff.  So we wandered around, did some cache maintenance on the aptly named Treestump cache.  In the midst of all this good time exploration, we ended up along Schmuck Beach.  Here I discovered a very large and impressive beaver dam.  It's amazing to me what nature can create - such a complex and unique structure - and here it is in the middle of no where.  That's an amazing feat to me...but then again, I'm a pretty simple fella.  It was then Huck pointed out a beaver swimming towards us - a good 70-80 feet away.  He swam in circles, at moments checking out these odd looking creatures along the banks the pond.  Huck and I stood there in silence marveling at this impressive animal. At some point I went to swat away a few pesky bugs, and this motion was enough to cause him to slap his tail on the water (a signal to his nearby beaver folk that danger is afoot!).  The splash was huge - as was our unbridled giddiness.

Dusk began to settle down upon this beautiful little pond - so I had to capture this special moment, and I thought I'd share it with you:

Don't act like you aren't impressed.  Haha.  Pretty friggen' awesome right?

I could probably have set up shop here, had a little camp fire, and spent the entire evening gawking at this awesome sight.  Of course, that wasn't in the cards, and eventually we hiked back up the hill to our cars.  During subsequent conversations, the idea of getting peanut butter pie at the Eagle Inn was floated out and met with raucous approval.  Now that's how you put an exclamation point on a kick ass night kiddies.  :-)

Much thanks to Huck for showing me around, and inviting me out for a Friday night walk that was certainly needed. 

Side note to Cayuga: Dude, this fella is hella out of hiking shape.  It's time to slowly ramp-up my sissified hiking chops.

Puzzled and Lost in Stiggy Park

It was a zero day.  A zero day unlike any other.  Whoa…let me put the literary brakes on that…let’s not get too carried away just yet.  For most of the morning and afternoon, it poured out, just as it’s been prone to do every day this spring.  I was starting to think that the powers of nature were going to call my bluff (you know, the one where I flip the sky the bird and say I’m going caching come hell or high water.  Yeah, that bluff…)  Truth of the matter is, it’s mostly smoke and mirrors.  I would go hiking in the rain, but it probably wouldn’t be as much fun for me as it is for some psychotic bloggers I know.

So I sat there pouting, wondering if the clouds would miraculously disintegrate, while at the same time angels would fall from the heavens, choirs would sing, I would quarterback a team to the Super Bowl, I win a billion dollars, discover I was the Lindbergh baby, befriend the Cadbury Bunny and subsequently master Midas’ golden touch.

Believe it or not, I might be the Lindbergh baby, but in other news…the weather actually started to break!  According to Cayuga-Watch-4 reports from Amherst, he indicated that the sun did indeed still exist.  With a zero day cleaving a whole in my pocket, and the possibility of sunlight up north, I decided to head to West Seneca to try All is Not Lost by Hucklebuckle.  There was a smidgen of novelty attributable to this cache.  It has only 4 finders since being placed in January 2010, it’s considered a lonesome cache seeing as it has not been found in over a year, it’s a puzzle I actually solved (I’m as shocked as anyone), AND it’s placed by everyone’s favorite retired-twelve-times-over-but-still-caching cacher, H to the Bizzle!

This cache was a crazy wee puzzle, that required you to solve another puzzle, find that cache, and then get the coordinates for this puzzle.  Follow that?  The premise was based on the TV show Lost, which I know absolutely nothing about.  Normally I would treat you to a dweeby dissertation on important plot points, but I’ve decided that I can let Huck do that since he is now aware that this blog exists (and it’s about time he started pulling his damn weight anyway). 

All aspects of this cache were hidden in Stiglmeier Park (AKA: Losson and/or Stiggy Park).  THAT, is something I WILL ramble on about.  According to Hiking Trails in Western New York, Stiggy Park encompasses 308 acres of grounds, including nature trails and sports fields.  As geo-history goes, at one point in time this Park was a cache-finding oasis, to the extent that there were only a couple spots where you could put a cache that met Geocaching.com's distance compliance guidelines (which requires that all physical caches should be 528 feet (0.10) from one another).  Needless to say the park was pretty crammed with hides - but interestingly enough, almost all of them were decent and of the non-micro variety. 

Before caching, I didn't know this park existed - but since my first visit here (sometime in 2006), I've been here numerous times to hike and have wild and zany adventures.  Today was the first time I had set foot in the park in a couple years - so it was wonderful to return.  As I pulled into the parking lot, Huck sat there waiting for me.  Reunited (and feeling so good), we made our way to the first stop to retrieve the necessary coordinates for the All is Not Lost.

The great thing about Stiggy Park is that the trail system here is very well designed and even better maintained.  There are many wooden bridges, and the little swamps and other open hardwoods sections of the forest are exceptional.  Plus, the animals are really tame and often times deer will walk within 30 feet of you and not be bothered in the least bit. 

The trail in was pretty muddy - and since I was a dummy I was wearing crocs and not something more conducive to mud and water.  I sucked it up and soon we found the necessary information I needed to get to the final for All is Not Lost.

Huck striking a pose...I think.  Haha.

The view near our first stop!

After I had the coords, we returned back to the vehicles as we had to travel to a different section of the park.  This took us down a new set of trails, and some bushwhacking to get to the right spot to find the cache.  When caches aren't found for this long, I always wonder if they are still there - - but this section of the park was pretty remote, and upon our approach, I found the cache very quick!  The first finder in over a year...sweeeeet:

When I cracked the cache I was surprised to see some scribbles inside.  Then I realized it was something Chicky and I had wrote a few years back when Huck celebrated his "nearly" 1,000 cache find in 2007.  Apparently Huck loves the environment, so he recycled his golden ammo can.  :-]

Note the diverse amount of swag in this cache...
Yes folks, that's just about all of it.  Haha.

When it was all said and done, we returned back to the parking area and spent a hour and change chatting about the scene, politics, religion and all the other stuff you'd never expect to hear going down in Stiggy Park. It was good times, and a lot of fun.  This is how more zero days should be - fo' sho'!

My name is mud (and I love it).

Today was a good day full of frolicking in muddy snowless woods!  The plan was to chase after a couple ammobox caches with Chicky and Huck.  Clearly they get pretty excited about this stuff:



The first cache on our hastily and poorly Szuchie-planned docket was Old Shep by everybody's favorite retired cacher H-to-Das-Beeeeezuhle.  Most of the snow had been replaced by standing water and slop, but just seeing dirt and mud again was enough to make me about the most excited person on earth.  On top of it, there were tons of little mini-icebergs all strewn about along the creek and into the nearby woods.  Check 'em out!



All in all it was a really nice quarter-mile hike in the woods - and at the end of the trek there was a nice 50 cal ammo box.  It was a great way to start the day - and even though the weather was a little crappy (cold and some snow), I was pretty pleased with the hike.  So we made our way back and eventually made our way to Hero’s Quest: The Five Deadly Venoms by SwineSyndicate.  This is a "newer" caching family that has really impressed with creative/unique hides in the woods away from all the park and grab stuff most newbies get started with an then hopelessly emulate.  Lucky for me the Syndicate has a great knack for the kind of caches I like.  This cache is located in Mill Road Park in West Seneca.  This a super sweet place as it follows right along Cazenovia Creek.  They did a really good job with this one - and all in all it was about a mile or two hike in the mud.  It was heaven!  Haha. 

At the end of all things, I was a little tired as this was the first major hiking I had done in a while.  But it felt really good and is helping for me to prep for bigger and better things!  (*Hint*Hint*)  They are calling for 50-degree weather this coming week...die snow, die!!!  Yay!