Mini-Adventure November 7, 2009

The day was so nice, and I noticed a new cache listed hidden in Barbour Brook State Forest near Masonville, New York. I called Luckless and asked her if she was free, and it turned out that she was. I was getting ready to leave my house when I got called into work for a four p.m. shift. I decided that there was enough time to get to Masonville, find the cache and return to Oneonta in time to start that shift. I grabbed an extra set of clothing (just in case) and put that in my car, too.

We found the road to the cache. Since it was steep and looked like it was getting narrower, I parked my van and we started to walk up to it. It was only supposed to be .2 of a mile, but we never seemed to be getting any closer....perhaps the road was twisting and turning just enough so that we really weren't. After a few minutes we realized the road was probably OK and we walked back to my van and got in and proceeded up. There was a small parking area near where our GPSs' told us to go. I parked and we grabbed our gear and headed into the woods. Just before entering, another group of geocachers arrived. We talked for a minute, but we did not enter the woods together.

Getting to this cache site involved a LOT of bushwhacking, since we never found the trail that was mentioned in the cache information page. We finally got to the area of the cache and Luckless found it right away. She backed off and let me find it on my own. It was a large cache, AND we were first to find!!! We signed the log and started back to my car. It was a good thing that Luckless has a good sense of direction, because I would not have known which direction to head. The other group of geocachers were heading towards the cache when we got back to the road.

As we went through Masonville again on the way back to I-88, I noticed a very interesting appearing general store right at the four corners. Unfortunately, we didn't really have time to stop and check it out. I got back to Oneonta in time to pick up a take out meal from a chinese restaurant to take to work and I arrived at exactly four p.m. for my shift.