Adventuring Elf Sisters

Oops, forgot to blog this earlier this week. My dad (Yosemite1) and I went caching around the Swarthmore College campus on Friday- this was one of those times were I'm incredibly not suspicious looking. I mean, a girl in her 20's carrying a schoolbag? Yup, fit right in. My dad joked that there aren't a lot of college students with huge Yosemite Sam mustaches, though, so he was a bit out of place. ;)

The first cache we hit was called Horton and the Tree Swing. This was a nice easy find without much walking- just the kind of thing I need. :) The reason for the name? The cache was in a bush/tree that looked rather elephant-shaped. Silly me forgot to get a picture of it, though.

Here's what the inside of the cache container looked like:

The logbook was full, so someone had added a new piece of paper to sign.

After this we headed to the other cache of the day- Shhh!...It's a secret! This one I really liked- not only was the cache hidden around my very favorite plant:

English ivy! :D (Yup, that's the cache hidden in there.)

The theme was actually "Cornus Florida" ("Flowering Dogwood"), but after poking around said type of tree:

(And yes, I got a kick out of the fact that EVERY plant seemed to have a nametag. It must be some sort of study for the school, but it made me laugh anyway. "Hi, my name is Flowering Dogwood, but you can call me 'Cornus'.")

I got distracted by all the ivy and went to poke someplace else. Which was dumb because I had been poking right next to where the cache was. Thank goodness dad was there to find it. lol! (He actually was suspicious that he was in the right place because he found a sharpie lying on the ground. Not a lot of sharpies in the middle of a wooded area, normally. Marker trees aren't too common around here.) ;)

We signed the log and headed to what we'd seen coming over to the cache- the Whisper Bench:

Yeah, it just looks like a stone bench, but when you sit on it, it's like the person across from you is talking into a microphone or something. We didn't try whispering, but dad was talking to me normally from across the seat and his voice was really loud and clear. It was neat!

I forgot to get a picture of the really nice inscription on the bench, but I got a picture of the sign next to it:


And dad and I got some pictures of us on the bench, of course. Here's dad:


And here's me:

Why yes, I am wearing a kitty hat. This was the first time I had to wear a coat caching since our first adventure in May- can't say that I'm a fan of being outdoors in the cold, as much as I love geocaching. (How the heck did I ever manage to get used to going to college on a mountain, anyway? I hate the cold.)

I'm hoping for some warmish nice days this winter so that dad and I can find some of the ones that were too overgrown for him to find in the summer. :)