Scott County Park

Yesterday, it was a little cloudy but I had some puzzle caches figured out, and knowing me, I'll lose the info before I get to look for them. So I took a round about trip and made a side stop at the Herbert Hoover Site in West Branch. I had to visit the tomb of Herbert and his wife and get a picture of me there to get credit for the virtual cache. As many time's as I've been to the museum there, and caches there, I never knew about the tomb's. It was kind of neat to see.



I show how missed my exit's and crossed over into Illinois, and snag one in the parking lot where I turned around at. Then I was headed back in the general direction. A little side road's here and there looking for a few on the way. I finally made it to the park about 2 in the afternoon.

I've been to this park once before, but never really realized it's size. It's huge. I can see where if you know the layout of the park, the parking area's, and the trail's it would help out alot. I parked on the south east side and started off on a trail. As soon as I hit the wood's it started raining on me. As I kept going the trail's seemed to become shallow stream's. But I pressed on. I got near one cache but could see it was on the other side of the real stream. So I crossed on a log. I'll bet it was like the movie "The Goonies". Trying to cross a wet log, with muddy and wet shoes. But I made it, found the cache, and realized I had to cross it again.

Then I picked off another geo-cache, and then headed off trail and up a hill out into a kind of open field for a terra-cache. The whole time I was out in the open it just poured on me. Then after that I headed towards another geo-cache. As soon as I got back into the wood's, the rain stopped. In fact in less than a half an hour the sky's where clear. This is the area I wasn't sure what was smarter, turning around, and heading back to the car. Or keep going on the path I was on. Well, I was soaked from head to toe, so might as well just go with it. I pressed on. Just to find a parking lot. Go figure. I headed back to the car to move it.

I worked in another terra, and on my way to that one, well I was walking along in some ankle high grass, and just as I put my foot down, a three foot long snake goes, flying across the ground right between my leg's headed towards the lake. I'll bet I was a .10 in 3.2 second's. I still am not sure what kind of snake it was. It was a solid dark color, almost black, but not quite. It was a good three inches around, but I never saw it's head. I was thinking a bull snake, but I think those are more of a brown or tan. UGH!!!






I moved on and worked on a geo that was listed as a traditional but really was a two stage cache. It was an easy first stage as just get some number's from a sign and put them in for the final cord's. But I spent a good while looking for it, finally I looked up at previous log's, and saw a string of DNF's. So I bailed on that one.

Then I found another parking area. There was a terra and a geo way back from here and I though I could slip by and work another geo in if I went this way. Looking back at it now, that was a dumb idea. I took the deer trail, heavy bushwhacking (yup even this time of year), fought off some man eating plant's. But I finally made it. In fact I was so intrigued by the area, I walked right by the terra cache and had to turn around. I looked for that one for a long time but couldn't find it. I know the owner and I'm sure it's well hid. My GPSr was bouncing all over the place while I was there. So much I just put it down and starting thinking ok, where would I put it. That didn't work eather. So I figured I head down to this last geo then head back and take a fresh look for it.





I made it to the last planned geo in the area, but then realized if I took this other trail, I could start looking for the first stage of a 5 stage muli cache. So I went that route. After locating that I got the info needed, but got a phone call from home sawing some bad weather was coming in. So I kept going on that trail, and figured out just where I should have parked. Oh well, if one always stuck to the main trail's they would miss all the neat thing's out on the side trail's. Which I almost forgot I stirred up a turkey out of it's nest. Three egg's in there. I didn't bother them, just neat I was about 10 feet away when it took off, and if you've ever heard a turkey taking off from a few feet away, they sure can startle you.

I made my way back to the car. I didn't get to the puzzle in the park I had figured out. But there was some puzzle on the way home, I had figured out. Can't you tell it's been raining out a lot? I've been working on puzzle caches. I was about half way home and two caches left to go, and go another phone call from the wife saying about the tornado near Central City. So I figured I'll be driving right into it. I picked off the last couple and got three TB's to move along through the day.

As I drove home, I got a little rain but not much. But very shortly after I got home, oh yeah the rain broke lose. But all in all I'd have to say I had a great time and got to see a lot of Scott County Park, but I've still yet to scratch the surface of it. I can't wait to go back. I only picked up two tick's, and there was a few sketter's out. Gonna have to dig out the bug spray.