Mystic Forest/Hamden New York Adventure: June 19th, 2009

I picked Leslie up and we headed out to the small town of Hamden, beyond Delhi, New York. I had never been to Hamden, but my friend Connie had become acquainted with the owners of the Lucky Dog Farm Store, when she attended an earth day event. She and I talked about going out to Hamden together but she was never available when I suggested it to her, so I decided to ask Leslie.

We had found some information about a couple of very interesting sounding geocaches hidden at West Branch Nature Preserve located between Walton and Delhi on Route 10. We found the area easily enough, it was past The Lucky Dog on our right hand side and there is a small parking area. We had just starting walking the trail when we disturbed a family of wild turkeys. We found START YOUR JOURNEY HERE. There is an absolutely incredible HUGE old tree right near to this geocache. Attached to this entry is a picture of that tree.

Then we continued UPhill to look for the Mystic Forest. My asthma kicked in and I was only able to walk slow, so Leslie got to the cache first. The Mystic Forest indeed is something to experience. Its hard to explain. I will try to get a picture on a day when my asthma is not acting up. We signed the log and headed back down to the parking area.

We went to the Lucky Dog next. It is in a circa 1870 classic general store building. We looked at the merchandise before going to the rear of the store for lunch at the Lucky Dog Cafe. The dining area has several very old porcelain topped kitchen tables, like the one in my house when I was a young child. We had soup and grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch. The food was very good.

The HAMDEN INN is across the road from The Lucky Dog. It appeared to be closed, but hopefully I can return and have lunch there someday.

We then headed back towards Oneonta, stopping to see the eagles nest that is on some protected property. Without binoculars, I could just make it out. On the way back to Oneonta, we looked for possible places to hide future geocaches. We may go back to an interesting old cemetery we saw on the road between Delhi and Oneonta. All in all, it was a short trip, but interesting and fun, and it included a nice lunch!