“During your life, everything you do and everyone you meet rubs off in some way. Some bit of everything you experience stays with everyone you’ve ever known, and nothing is lost. That’s what’s eternal, these little specks of experience in a great, enormous river that has no end.” American Writer Harriet Doerr
From my last entry, you know we have had an early, and very warm spell. Besides us people being confused about what the calendar should say– the plants are just as confused. The forsythia is in full bloom, daffodils are everywhere, and even the huge willow trees are almost all leafed out! Unfortunately we are under a freeze advisory for tonight, I am hoping that not too much damage will be done to these tender blooms.
Since we were supposed to have a beautiful sunny day today, we decided to break out the GPS and get our first geocaching day of 2012 in the books. I picked 17 caches in the Au Sable River/Oscoda area, since we didn’t have much snow all winter and this spring has been fairly dry, I figured the back roads wouldn’t be too bad. We packed up our lunch and hit the road.
Our first few caches were found very easily, that is always good, since we goofed a little with our GPS unit, after all, it’s been quite a few months since we’ve used it! We then headed to the Old Five Channels Bridge for a cache. We walked out onto the old bridge and found out immediately that the bugs are also confused as to what season it is. Swarms of small gnat like flies engulfed us and almost drove us off the bridge! Thankfully, it didn’t take too long to find the cache, it was well hidden, but with my husband’s clever eye, he picked it out.
Our next cache took us to the north side of the river to a small park and boat launch area that we had stopped at a couple of years ago. The reason I remember it so vividly is that as I was standing there, reading some informational signage, I heard a ruckus above my head, and as I turned around to see what it was, a fox squirrel fell out of the tree and almost landed at me feet! I laughed so hard that I had tears streaming down my cheeks! So from that day on, we have always referred to that place as the “Squirrel Falling” place. When I noticed someone had placed a cache in the vicinity, I was very glad to go back, today unfortunately, so such event took place. After finding the cache, we were walking back to the picnic area and as I looked down, I spotted a small garter snake slithering away, I felt bad about disturbing it’s ‘sun bathing’ session and just a few feet away, I also noticed a little lavender colored butterfly flitting about. I had to keep telling myself that it is still March, not late April! I was amazed at what we were seeing. We decided to eat our lunch there and enjoy the beautiful scenery.
We then moved on farther down the river to a cache that had us a little stumped on how to get to, so we found a two-track and drove down as far as we could and figured we could hike the rest of the way. It was after all, a beautiful day, and getting a hike in is just icing on the cake! After a short way, we came to a paved road and a very nice parking area and scenic overlook that highlighted the Bald Eagles in the area! Ok, so we pooched that one, but the hike was still nice. As we were looking for the cache, a beautiful eagle flew over us and landed not far away. I crept out to the clearing and was able to get a couple of good pictures before it flew off. How cool! We determined it was a juvenile, no white on it yet. So I figured that if we had driven out there, we wouldn’t have seen the eagle. Right?! After getting back to the car, another couple drove up and we chatted with them and they were also cachers, looking for the same cache that we just came from. We hinted to them that there was an easier way to the cache, but didn’t want to spoil it for them, just in case they also wanted to do a little hiking.
Our next cache took us to the Foote Pond area. There is a paddle boat called the Au Sable Queen there that gives cruises and such, but currently still out of the water, it is after all, only March! After locating the cache, I noticed a couple of swans in the area so I crept down to the bank to get some pictures. Boy was I shocked that when they noticed me, they actually started swimming towards me! I’m thinking they are residents and that they have gotten hand-outs from well-meaning people. Unfortunately for them, the only thing they received from me, was a spotlight in my blog! At first we thought they were Tundra Swans, but after looking in my bird book, we noticed they did not have the yellow smudge on their bills that the Tundra Swans have, it was then we realized that they were Trumpeter Swans! What a surprise, I didn’t think Trumpeters were in this area, but from what we’ve learned, this is a summer breeding area for a small number of them. But since they swam right up to us, I think they are residents at the Foote Pond. What a great day!
Our remaining caches were quickly found with no such surprises and we finished our day around 5:00 pm, grabbed a quick bite and headed home. For our first day out, it was a great one! Our wildlife spottings were: 1 Hawk, 1 Garter snake, 1 lavender butterfly, 1 juvenile Eagle, and 2 Trumpeter swans. A very good day indeed.
Happy Caching,
Sheri