Our first geocaching adventure

A week ago, the weather finally started taking a turn toward spring.  We still had a pretty deep layer of snow around, but it was a warm and sunny Saturday -- a great day for a walk in the park!  We decided to try our hand at geocaching, so I located 3 caches in the local Metropark and figured out how to load the coordinates into my GPS.

We loaded Casey into the car and took off!  The first cache was supposed to be located near the playground, so we walked in that direction, following the GPS right to the location of the cache.  Nicolas quickly spotted it -- Yeah!  Our first ever geocache -- success!!

The route to the 2nd cache took us through the woods, across the disc golf course, along a cross country ski path and a nature trail, and finally to the paved bike path that circles the park. 

We zeroed in on the location, and the kids spent about 30 minutes searching in the brush for the cache, but we never did find it.  The snow was still really deep off the paths, so we're thinking that's why we couldn't find it.

We were a little discouraged by our failure, but followed the bike path for an easy walk to the location of the 3rd cache. 

This was a virtual cache, and we knew we were looking for a historical marker.  The GPS took us down a side path where we had never ventured before, and we easily found the marker.

(I think Tom is trying to find ME!)

2 for 3 for the day -- not bad for our first attempt!  We walked the rest of the way around the bike path to the parking lot, and then headed home.  3 hours of hiking in the woods, and we were nicely tired . . . even Casey was exhausted!

We've had really warm weather for the last week or so, and all our snow is now gone . . . Bryce wants to know when we're going to go back to find that other cache!  We're loving this weather -- I hope it stays!!

AutoRama

Last weekend, the boys wanted to go the the AutoRama to see all the old cool cars.  It's like a big, indoor car show, and Tom's brother had a car entered, so we decided to go.  Tom had to do some plowing in the morning after all the snow we had gotten on Friday, so we got a late start, but we finally made it down there.  Our first stop was Bryce's favorite -- Lafayette Coney Island -- for a quick lunch.

Once inside, we were surrounded by bright lights and shiny metal!  It was difficult to choose our favorites . . .

Was it this shiny red corvette,

or this Shelby Mustang?

Maybe it was the Shelby van . . .

or maybe Herbie!

Personally, I favored anything orange, including this Firebird!  I remember my Sister having one just like it when I was a little kid!

But . . . the apparent favorite of most of the men there, including my men, was Tom's brother's car.  It's a 1988 Mustang -- Outlaw Drag Radial class (street-legal 7 sec. car), and he won 1st place in the show for the 1984 & newer class!

We saw several unusual vehicles, too.  Like this old Ford tractor,

a Twin Pines Milk truck (complete with milkmen!),

and the Blues Brothers' cop car!

There was also an area of custom bikes . . .

including this Orange Krate!

Tom even found something he could carry in the toy hauler!

$27K each . . . I don't think so!!

They even had a superstar --  Henry Winkler

but he didn't look much like "The Fonz" in his corduroys and cardigan sweater!

After a LONG day of walking around looking at cars, we hopped on the PeopleMover and went to Greektown for dinner.  We humored Tom by going to one of his favorite college hang-outs for gyros and flaming cheese.

It was a long and tiring day, but we all had a good time!