Logs for momof6furrballs 

Down from snowy and cold South Dakota for this week, staying in Akumal. Took the half day tour to see this amazing, historic location. Being able to log this old Virtual cache was the icing on the cake! Thank you. 

Find #6,000. We started planning this journey months ago, as we still needed a couple holes filled in our Jasmer calendar. We figured this one was pretty much the easiest to get to from South Dakota, given the other 2 choices. Our trip started yesterday morning from Rapid City with zacknmom, stopping at enough caches along the way to make this one a nice round number milestone. At one point in time last night we almost didn't make it. Heading down I-80 into the SLC valley, we had an collision event. It was... car v. deer. The deer lost the battle. Fortunately for us the car was only damaged but still drivable, nobody was hurt, and we were able to continue the trip. It was close, and could have been much, much worse considering the surrounding high speed traffic conditions.

We left Payson around 6:45 am, and headed out to the Ponds. As warned, our Nuvi wanted to route us down Skyline Drive, but we ignored that and went to Miller Flats instead. Once past the Skyline turn off, "Samantha" came to her senses and lead us down the correct road to GZ. Miller Flats road was in pretty good shape, a bit washboardy but nothing out of the ordinary for areas like this that get lots of traffic - especially ATVs on the 4th of July weekend.

Arrived and parked near the gate. Loaded everything that we needed, water, bug spray, a few TB to drop, GPS with fully charged batteries, then headed out and up. Found the fallen tree "bridge", and crossed it with ease. From here we decided to head up the hill, not direct, but until the cache was to our 90 degree left and about the same elevation, then turn to the cache. The hike was as expected, encountering many fallen trees, having to divert around the huge ones. The skeeters were thick in places. Good thing for the DEET. It really wasn't that bad, just slow going. We finally arrived at GZ, and after a real brief visual search the cache was revealed, hidden well but in the most obvious spot. Spent a few minutes looking through the logs (both logbooks), then signed both of them with our name and milestone number, just to be sure it was on the record. Dropped 3 TB that came from Nebraska to continue their journey elsewhere. Re-hid the container, rested and re-hydrated for a bit, then made our way over to the Hot Wheels cache.

Thank you. Thanks to the CO who originally place this cache, and the other locals that help keep this maintained and active all these years. Thanks to the previous loggers for good hints and other vital information. This was a great and memorable trip. Now to find a few more this afternoon, and head back home in the morning.


 

After failing miserably at another cache down the road, we stopped at this one to save the day. Nobody in the parking, so it made the jaunt much easier. Figured out where we needed to go, and made the scramble down to the cache. Found it in short order, hidden very well. Took the Dutch Domino TB to move on to another cache soon. Thanks! 

In the area this afternoon and notice we hadn't found this one yet. So a quick side trip over to the bridge, we started looking for it. Found it right away in the most logical spot. But... the best part was, the incredible sound of dozens of frogs singing under the bridge. WOW. In 3 or 4 part harmony. Just amazing. Spent a few minutes after signing the log to enjoy the sounds of nature before heading out. Took the 2 TB that were in the cache to move along. Discovered however, that one of the TBs was marked as missing over a year ago in another Black Hills cache, and the other one was placed in another cache months ago and never properly retrieved or logged into this one. Will "dip" the TBs back into this cache to reset the mileage accordingly.

Thanks for bringing us here today. 

Fairly quick find off the beaten path this afternoon during our Memorial Day jaunt around the Black Hills. Cache is in great shape and hidden well. Thanks! 

Quick find on our way home from North Dakota. Cache in good shape. SL, thanks! 

Quick find on our way to Bismarck. Honest... we had none. 

Found while in the area doing cache maintenance. Parked at the highway and walked in.. Path very slick and icy, but we found the cache in short order, hidden well. Thanks! 

No cookie smell today, but found the cache after a couple minutes of searching, right on the coordinates. Thanks! 

Stopped and left after seeing the bloated dead deer at GZ. Not a good stop. Sorry. 

Quick find while on town. All 6 of our furrballs are rescue and adopted cats. Nice cache, what a great idea. Thank you. 

Heading to Glacier Park from the Black Hills and dropped down the interstate to get this one. Thanks for keeping this VC alive. Answers on the way. 

On our way back home from Geocoinfest 2012 picking up a few caches here and there. Interesting spot, had no idea this was even here in town. Thanks for the cool history lesson! Answers sent. 

What a cool spot! Wish we could have wandered around looking at the stuff, but time was getting away from us and we needed to get back home in South Dakota. Thanks for the virtual cache. Answer is on the way! 

The trip ends here. The Furrballs and zacknmom spent an entire week doing the Rt 66 series, then heading up north to totally blow the lid of the ET hiway caches. Our last night in LV we picked up a few virtuals, then headed to the hotel for an early night before our VERY early flight back home.

Interesting area this is. Wish we could have spent a few minutes doing what people actually do here, but at this point we were fried. Thanks for the virtual cache! Answers on the way either by email or pony express, whichever method ends up being faster. }:)] 

What a crazy week. Winding down our visit to the area, we made the small trip down here to see what the virtual was about. During the last few miles, speculation ran back and forth inside the vehicle as to exactly happened here. When we got here, we found out that one of our guesses was spot on.

Thanks for the peek into Nevada's past. 

Solved (by Dadof6Furrballs), according to Evince.

Well, next time we're visiting Australia, we might see if we go can find the cache and claim the smiley. It might be a while though, as we are in South Dakota, US and a trip half way around the planet isn't quite in the budget this year. But hey, it was a fun and easy puzzle to solve! Thanks...

Oh... and p.s... the 2.5 Difficulty rating is pretty much right on.