The Glazed Tree

Since hearing about Stage 2 of Anchors Away, GCZOTX, our older son has wanted to see the "glazed pine tree." So after our trip to the Boy Scout Store, we stopped at the cemetery mentioned in an earlier post. I erased the waypoint from my gps unit, but we were able to find it without a lot of trouble.

Well, the tree wasn't shiny and multicolored like it was back on our first visit here. It was definitely not as impressive looking as it was back in April. I am guessing that is because the weather was not freezing at night. Hm, maybe that is just for maple sap. Anyway, the icicles of sap are still there, and the ground around the tree was built up and discolored from the sap. "C" was impressed, even after the initial let down of not seeing a shiny tree trunk. The boys managed to find some sap to take home to show Dad. You can see some of it here. The samples went home in an empty peanut butter jar that we had in the van.

On the way out of the cache site in Glendale Cemetery, we drove by Mason Made Me Do It, GC119ZT. My youngest and I tried to find it, but we grew increasingly uncomfortable with all the people walking by. "E" found a pale blue egg shell to show everyone, but no cache. We were there between after school and dinner hours. On top of that, I stepped in a huge pond of water. It was really a grass lawn, but with the 3.1" of rain that fell in the last 48 hours, there was no where else for the water to go. So we left. More caching tomorrow. Actually, probably caching on Wednesday.

Pleasant and Unplanned Sights due to Geocaching

Today we had to return our library books. I wanted to just return the books, then visit a different library where we could check out videos -- free of charge for three weeks -- YAY Clive! So 3/4 of GAIN and I hopped in to the van. ("N" and Matt are away at a Boy Scout camping weekend.) I asked if we could find just one geocache, GC119ZC, after we visited the book return. They agreed to it.

After nearly getting an arm cut off with all the joshing around at the book drop, we headed over to the other side of the fence to the cemetery. Yes, a geocache at a cemetery. Glendale Cemetery happens to be where my maternal grandmother's mother, father, and step-father are buried. We've been here before, but Glendale is such a large cemetery that I never explored much of the grounds. I usually get down to business when I come here, visiting the places on the map that the office people kindly marked for me, then leave. Maybe if I walked my dog there, I would know more about the things you can see, but we don't have a dog.

We got near the cache, a part of the grounds that I had never seen before. "A" quickly found the geocache. The younger two were off like shots through the dead forbs and grasses. "I" used her baton to clear a path because she hadn't seen the pre-existing path, and "G" found an empty nest of some sort. (I'll get a photo here after I figure out how to get it out of my camera; that is usually Matt's job.) It was open and cup-shaped, completely made of grass, and rather close to the ground. I'll look in our Bird Nest book. (I know, Iowa isn't east of the Mississippi River, but I have yet to find a nest that wasn't in here.) I was unsuccessful in removing it from the plant it was built on. I think mice and voles and such have spherical nests. Stay tuned for an update.

Once we got back in the van, I noticed that our gps-r showed that we were close to stage two of a multi-cache, GCZ0TX. This lead us to the area where Great-Grandma Ross's stone is located, near the boundary for the Masonic Cemetery. We found an evergreen tree that was thickly coated for at least the bottom 15 feet with sap! We stood in amazement, because we thought our old tree, removed in 2003, was a leaky old thing. Never would have seen that unless the gps-r pointed us there! Everyone enjoyed the creativity of stage two. I saw that we were close to some other geocaches, but looked at the time and told everyone that we needed to go.

The kids were quite reluctant to leave, having found interesting large family plots and tombs, Spanish War cannon, and a sticky tree, and positively identifying the call of a northern flicker for the first time, but since the library closes at 5 on the weekend, we headed west for the library with the free videos. The ride home was silent, as is our custom after library visits. The next hour or so was also quiet, everyone engrossed with a book or video. A wonderful way to close the day.