Lakeland-Arlington, TN - 4/24/2011

Easter weekend looked good weather-wise for geocaching, but I hadn't gotten around to taking my car to the mechanic and didn't really want to do much driving until I did. Saturday, I got an invitation to have Easter dinner with my family in Rosemark, so I picked two nice parks along the route (roughly) to hunt a few caches before dinner.

On Sunday, I ended up leaving home later than I had planned. To complicate matters, I didn't have an up-to-date pocket query loaded on my GPS, so I had to print a couple of the cache pages to take with me. At least the weather was nice - and my car started.

My first stop was I. H. Managerial Park in Lakeland, TN. There were three recently placed caches in this park. My first find was fairly close to where I entered the trail system - CWL012.2 Lakeland Stash by CWL (GC2RF3R). I had found a number of CWL caches back when I first started geocaching (late 2004). He hadn't been out caching much in recent years, so I was surprised to see this cache come out. Nice first find of the day, though.

[ The entry to the trail system - at least it was one entry...]

The second cache I went after was She hates nature by kasitay (GC2TB9M). Getting to the area was a little tricky. My GPS needed recalibrating and it took a while to find an open spot in the woods. The trail system is also very strange. I crossed a number of trails, looking for the right one. When I got to the right area, I struck out. Lots of poison ivy kept me from getting too close to some of the possible hiding spots. I decided to catch a breather at the nearby lake before moving on to the next cache.

[ The lake was a pretty shade of blue. ]

[ One of many trails... ]

The last cache I went after here was Fairies Treehouse by GoreJess (GC2EN1J). It was designed to be easily spotted, but getting to the area was tough. I was tempted to cross a big ravine using a convenient fallen tree, but my experience told me to keep looking for a better way. I found the better way and the cache.

Afterwards, I wanted to avenge my one DNF, but I was running out of time. Fortunately, I did not get lost (unlike my previous visit) and managed to find the quick way back to my car.

After leaving the park, I headed east to Arlington to pick up two caches at the Arlington Sports Complex. It was quiet here as well. I was running behind on time, but managed to find both No squirrel's home. . . by 5sunds (GC2R9PR) and Girl Scouts Forever by 5sunds (GC2RPJK). The latter cache was a nice lock-n-lock with plenty of goodies to trade.

[ I only got to explore the southeast part of the trail. ]

Whew! Now it was onward to Rosemark, TN where I was supposed to be at 4pm for Easter dinner. I was only 5 minutes late!