time between hospital visits to do something for me. Dave was available today as well, so we decided to go to French Creek State Park and do some hiking. Dave has hiked (and geocached some) here in the past, but it was a completely new park for me. I was looking forward to this very much; days at Dad's bedside have been draining, and anything other than the cycle of work-hospital-sleep, work-hospital-sleep... is nice.We met at Dave's house at 8am, left my car, and got to the park by 8:45. The hike he had selected for the day was one he had done before but liked a lot and didn't mind doing again. As a bonus for me, there were two geocaches that he had found before but would be new for me, so we would try to get those as well. Finding something today would be 89 days on my quest for a 100-day streak, so that was pretty much a necessity for me.
It was a beautiful late fall day; sunny with temperatures in the high 40's. The hike itself was not particularly strenuous, just a nice path through open woods with some moderate up and downs, but nothing difficult compared to our Port Clinton hike a few weeks ago. Only one climb out of a stream valley to the top of a hill really got my heart rate up. It was very nice though, and similar in landscape to most other Pennsylvania hiking I have done; nice woodlands with some rocky patches. Sort of like upstate Pennsylvania but on a smaller scale. We also had some of the same rhododendron patches, which are one of the few things holding their leaves at this time of year. At several points, we crossed small streams, which are always a scenic highlight for me (I love water), and there were a couple of instances of a feature that I especially like - streams running under rock fields that you can hear below you but cannot see. My first experience with this as an adult was at Hawk Mountain last fall, and I have really liked stumbling on other such places ever since. It is apparently more common in this area than I would have thought. When passing by the streams, a few times I went out of my way to dip my toes in the water, a habit I have noted before, and Dave chuckled and remarked on one of these instances, commenting that Leo and I have been getting wet in streams since maybe 1969. True enough... and good memories. I think maybe I am at my happiest when wet.
The caches we found were perhaps my favorite kind of caches - regular sized containers (nothing ridiculously small) hidden out in the woods. Not very difficult to find if you are willing to invest the walking time in getting to them. The only unfortunate part of the day was that our good family camera went to north Jersey with the rest of the gang, so I was left with the 3 mega pixel camera on my phone to try to commemorate the day with. It's funny how we have gotten spoiled with advances in digital photography over the last couple of years. A few years ago, a 3 mega pixel camera would have been at least decent, but these days you can probably get a 12 mega pixel name brand point-and-shoot for less than $200, making the pictures shot from my camera and emailed to myself seem extremely inadequate.
After our main loop of 6.1 miles, we got back to the car and drove to another parking spot so that we could get a cache that Dave wanted to get. This was another ammo box hidden in the woods, but one that would have been much harder to get in the summer months. Leaving the car in one of the newer parking areas, we set off for 1.1 miles roundtrip of pure bushwhacking, with no trails anywhere. We got to the cache and made the find easily, but I wouldn't have wanted to do this in the summer.
We were back in the car and on the way home before 1:00 pm, so the whole little trip took only about 4 hours on site. It did exactly what I hoped it would; it recharged my batteries a bit for the week ahead. Things will get worse with my Dad in the coming days, and anything that takes my mind off of this for a while is a blessing. And spending time with my brother out in the woods is a good thing no matter what the circumstances.
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