Bay's Mountain Trail Mix

Another week has come and gone. I worked, I cooked, I cleaned, and I cached! I love geocaching events. They are an awesome way to get out there, meet new cachers, and grab a few more caches. This particular event was hosted by my friends the Cache Cracker Jacks. You can still view the log book at GC3PJYC if you don't believe me when I say that events are great!

The weather was perfect, but I left my good camera at home. I didn't think juggling two kids, an anxious boxer, a backpack, and a camera would be feasible. Unfortunately the pictures aren't that great of a view, but I hope you consider giving Bay's Mountain a chance. It is a 3, 550 acre park located in Kingsport, TN. A short drive for us, but it is always worth it. This park has a little something for everyone. There is an adventure course complete with obstacles and zip lines, animal enclosures, and even a planetarium. There are also miles of trails for hiking, a beautiful lake, and a little waterfall or two. Everytime we have ever visited the park we have had a great time. Batman and Thunder love to visit the animals which currently include some birds of prey, wolves, deer, racoon, a bobcat and otters I believe. I hope I didn't leave anyone out. There is a reptile exhibit with snakes, turtles, frogs and other things of that nature. Also, the park includes a nature center with a watershed area and even a cross section live bee hive. It is a very interesting place, but I have to say that I really believe the city needs to provide a bit more funding for the upkeep of the animal exhibits, especially the indoor ones. It does take away from the expereince slightly, but it's not  deal breaker by far.

Anyway, back to the event. We met up with a wonderful group of cachers at 9:00 AM.....lets be honest about 9:13 for us cause we were late....but better late than never! We finally met all the people that we have been talking to on Facebook for months and finding all their caches for the past year, and what a great bunch of people they were! I really enjoyed getting to know everyone there. We headed out on our 4.5 mile hike around the lake at about 10:00.

The weather was perfect, cool and crisp but still warm enough to enjoy ourselves. We completed the whole Lake Road Trail which consists of about 32 caches but there are many more nestled throughout the park. We found traditional, puzzle, Earth, multi-stage, and even a few incredibly creative field puzzles. This is certainly a great place to introduce someone new to the geocaching sampler platter. Best of all we spent a day with one of the nicest groups of people I have ever encountered. We joked, we talked, and we cached. We enjoyed the beautiful sights of fall all around us.