MOGA 2021

Covert Camping on the Ohio

Ever year I look forward to the MOGA competitions, a fun geocaching race that I've done well in the past. Last year, due to the pandemic, I did not attend. I was actually kind of surprised that the event happened at all. The original date in April was called off, which was right around when everything shut down due to COVID. But they re-scheduled MOGA 2020 to occur in September in a time when many states still had serious restrictions and warnings about travel. As 2021 started, it wasn't clear to me whether it would be reasonable to attend MOGA 2021, which was being planned. So I didn't post a Will Attend log on the web-page, nor did I make plans for forming a 4-man team. I did keep an eye on the event though, which was to take place in Owensboro, Kentucky, only 3 hours from home. As vaccines became available, and COVID infection rates began falling throughout the country, I started giving it more thought. A week before the event, I learned my friends Tom and Kim, former Team-mates of mine who won the MOGA Cup, would be going, and I started to think more seriously about attending. Friday before the event, I was still waffling about going. I would be deciding last minute, not having any plans for lodgings, not have a team put together, and not be sure about how comfortable I would be gathering in a large group in this post-pandemic world we live in. But in the end I decided to just go for it. I packed up a tent and sleeping bag, and a change of clothes, briefly looked at the geocache map of Owensboro and the MOGA home page, and then got in the car at noon on Saturday to drive down.

I timed my drive down so that I would arrive at the tail end of the Saturday MOGA event, which had something to do with a Geotrail launch. Unlike previous MOGAs I have been to, this year's MOGA competitions were to be held on Sunday rather than Saturday, which worked pretty well since the weekend they chose for the event was Memorial Day weekend rather than the 2nd weekend in April. This choice of dates made for a more drawn out mega event, and in many ways was probably easier for planning a big geocaching convention like event. From my perspective, it meant more weeds and undergrowth would be present on the race courses, and also we would have to contend with warmer weather. I pulled into Owensboro an hour before the Saturday event was ending and was able to park right on the nice river-side park in town. Geocachers were immediately obvious everywhere, gathering in small groups at different locations along the river park. I hopped out of my car and made my way over to one of these locations where I found my first geocache and ran into some nice geocachers from Hannibal, Mo. We chatted a bit, and then I slowly made my way to the event. Turns out the event was mostly over. The launch of the new Geotour included giving away 300 geocoins, but they had all been snatched up in the first hour of the event, so all that was left was a single folding table manned by a woman trying to sell geocoins leftover from the give-away. We chatted a bit and I was able to learn that I needed to register for the competitions online this year. In the past, there has always been a table set-up for folks to register in-person. not this year. I quickly signed myself up for the individual competition, and then I got in touch with Kim and Tom to see if they wanted to form a 4-man team. I had mentioned this to the before, but the unexpected death of our fourth team member, Marty, aka LostSole, after the 2019 MOGA was still painful for them and they had always said that they weren't interested in competing again. Something must have changed though, with them actually being at the event, because suddenly, Tom was telling me that they would like to compete and was asking me if I wanted to run with them. The answer was of course, yes. I didn't have any leads on getting a 4th person for the team and left this up to Tom.

Owensboro Riverfront Park

Champion Sassafras Tree in Town

I spent the afternoon doing some of the geocaches and running some of the Adventure Labs that they had set up for the event. For someone attending an event on their own, this is a nice way to get a tour of the town. I ran into friendly geocachers and just about every location I visited. I don't know if it was because I was on my own, or just feeling plucky, but I struck up conversations with every geocacher I ran into. It felt weird having all this social interaction, after over a year of not interacting with hardly anyone. No one was wearing masks (hopefully everyone is vaccinated!), everyone was friendly and in high spirits. It felt like how a geocaching mega-event should feel. Simple, good fun. As it got later, I started thinking about where I would try to spend the night. There were a few camp-grounds outside of town, but when I looked at their websites, it looks like they were geared exclusively towards RVers. I decided to simply drive out of town along he Ohio river, and try to find a quiet spot along the river where I could pitch my tent. It was a bit of a risk, seeing that I would probably be trespassing on some farmer's property, but I figured that being just one guy out in the country, I could keep a low profile. After an hour of driving around, I finally found a spot that I thought would do. I marked a waypoint, and then drove back into town to get some famous Kentucky bbq for dinner. Some of the geocachers I had met raved about this one BBQ restaurant called Moonlite so that's where I went. Got my fill of some fatty smoked meats, and sure enough, found other geocachers to chat with while I ate. It probably helped that there was a geocache and Adventure Lab at the restaurant. After eating my fill, I drove ou to my secret secluded camp spot, pitched my tent, and snuggled up in my sleeping bag. Some people were out in the iver on a sand-bar setting off fire-works for the holiday weekend, which gave me some entertainment, but after that, it was just me and the occasional river barge, chugging through dream-land.

Famous BBQ

Sunset on the River

I woke up early and had my camp all packed before 6am. I was slightly alarmed to see another car parked next to mine on the side of the road, who would be out in this area early on a Sunday morning? I never found out the answer, because I was packed and gone before anyone came into sight. I drove over to the Individual Competition location, a park called Yellow Creek on the East side of town and started getting prepped for the race. There I ran into a friend from Tennessee, Ol'Fogies, which was going to be competing. We hadn't talked since I moved away from TN back in 2016, and it was good to catch up. I also met the 4th member of our team competition, a 19 year old, tall skinny runner looking guy from West Virginia named Mark. He looked like he would be serious competition for the Individual comp. But that wasn't all, the closer it got to race time, the more people were there, until there was a pretty giant crowd of contestants. I think maybe this was the largest group of competitors I have seen since first doing MOGA back in 2016. And there were other fit, runner-types as well. The race officials passed out the course for this year and it looked like it was going to be another fast course similar to the race back in Manhattan, KS in 2015. the whole course was maybe a mile long and caches were densely packed. I plotted my route and waited for the start. The race officials gave their shpeil about rules and warnings, and then we were off! I took off heading ENE along with about a dozen other racers. My plan was to make a kind of figure eight on the course, with the larger loop run first while I was fresh. I had decent speed and was able to reach the first location before the pack, but then could not quickly located the hide. A dozen or so other geocachers showed up and started looking, and finally someone spotted it. I got in line to punch my card, and then was off quickly again. Again, I was able to pass those who punched before me and reach the next cache ahead of the pack, but once again I couldn't make the quick find. People caught up and combed out to search again and someone else made the find again. Rinse and repeat.... it wasn't until the 5th stage that I started putting some distance between myself and the pack, thanks to a couple geocaches that were quick finds and also a bit of a run to get to. I started hitting my stride and was feeling pretty good. I completed the first half of the course and was making good time. The second half of the course gave me more difficulty. This half of the course had a stream that cut through it and some of the hides were right on the stream. The bank of the stream was pretty steep and with GPS-bounce, it wasn't always clear which side of the stream the hide was on. My plan was to do a loop, getting all the caches on one side of the stream first, and then crossing (hopefully at a bridge) and getting the rest on the way back. But right off the bat, I ran into trouble at Punch #8, which looked like it should have been on one side of the creek, until I arrived at GZ and my GPS pointed to the other side. After a bit of searching I opted to skip this one and get it when I returned on the other side. Things continued pretty smoothly until I was on my last leg coming back towards the finish line. Again, there were a few caches right along the stream-bed that were giving me difficulty. And not just me, other geocachers were at those spots as well, trying to find the well hidden geocaches. At one, I ended up crossing the creek and searching the other bank, only to hear another geocacher make the find on the side I thought it was on. At another, punch #20, there was a large group of people looking but none of them had been able to fnid anything. I looked for a while, but wen they gave up and moved on, I decided to do the same. In the past, sometimes punches go missing, nd I knew would need a good time to beat some of the competition. This happened to me again at punch #21. What are the odds that two punches went missing? Probably not good, but I decided to take a risk. #8 gave me a lot of trouble. i knew this one had been found but I just couldn't find it. turns out I was o the wrong side of the stream, and the cache was back on the side where I had first looked. It was hanging from an overlook  deck, which maybe wonky coords. That was my last one, and I raced to the finish line to turn in my card. To my dismay, Mark was already there and I knew I had lost on time. To make matters worse, he had also found #20, meaning I didn't even match him on points. At that point it dawned on e that even though I had a good time, it was likely I wouldn't even place. If enough other geocachers found more punches then me, I was totally out of he race. I lingered at the finish area a bit longer to see someone come back who had found both #20 and #21, and then it was all over for me. Word was getting around to those who had missed those earlier that they ha been found and they were heading back out to complete their cards. the nature of the course being short and compact certainly allows for you to head back out to caches you missed earlier and still get back in time to not be disqualified. I must say, I was a bit miffed. After having one the individual competition for three consecutive years between 2017-2019, I guess I had pretty high hops that I would win again, or a least place high. But the more people that rolled into the finish, the more it became clear that I had totally mis-played this competition. My desire to turn in with a fast time was my downfall. And I kept this carefully in mind when thinking about the team competition for later in the afternoon.

There were a 3 hours or so to kill between the individual competition and the team event in the afternoon, and I opted to do a few more of the Adventure Labs in the area to pass the time. I met up with a nice older woman geocacher from TN/NV to walk around the botanical gardens. And then I teamed up with a guy from Indiana to walk on the lovely elevated trails in Panther Creek Park. I was having a good time, being friendly with strangers who shared the same hobby. Swapping geocaching stories and sharing beta on hides around town. Maybe other people were feeling a similar way as I was, a need to socialize after a year where in person socialization has been scant.

Panther Creek Earthcache

The team competition was in a mountain bike park West of time at the site of an old coal mine. I showed up nice and early, and started looking through the course map which had been emailed out. Again, it looked like it would be a very fast course. the furthest caches were about a mile away, all the caches were fairly close to trails, and they were densely packed. It actually looked doable for someone to complete the whole course on their own, something which I don't think has been feasible for the team competitions in the past. Except for possibly the Manhattan year... The size of the park simply wasn't large enough to spread out the caches a lot. The rest of our team arrived and we divided up the course. Mark and I would be taking the further caches, being the stronger runners. We were each going to find 7-9 geocaches and unlike the individual competition, we were adamant about not missing a single punch. Our plan was to make sure that another team member could come and help if any one person was having difficulty finding a cache. It was pretty clear that if we didn't find all the punches, we would not have a chance at winning. Compared to the individual competition, it actually seemed like there were less people competing. There were certainly less 4-man teams, I heard only 9 had been entered, which meant that just about every team had  good chance at placing, especially if you weren't in the largest age-bracket (which we were of course). Our team name this year was 4 Lost Sole, in honor of Marty Christensen, who was on our winning team in 2016, 2017 (we didn't win the cup in 2017, but still won a medal) and 2019, and who had suddenly passed away from a heart attack shortly after our win in 2019. We were going to be running hard and racing for him. The race kicked off and Mark and I both took off for a nearby road which would allow us to run to the further parts of the course quickly. This seemed like a good idea, but we both encountered some nasty bush-whacking to get back onto the course. Unlike the morning's competition though, I was pretty much running all on my own. And I was having a much easier time finding the caches, In fact things went so well for me that I finished all my assignments. After quickly contacting the team, I ran north to help Mark with his punches. The first one I showed up to was giving me a hard time, and it wasn't until another geocacher showed up, BlandestK (also from Ohio) and found the cache that I was able to move on. the next cache was Mark's last one, and he had been stuck on it for 15 minutes already. I joined him in looking and again, it wasn't until BlandestK showed up and made the find that we were able to get it punched and start running back. By the time we had found this one, we got news that Tom and Kim had also completed all their punches and were heading back to the finish line, so mark and I both egged eachother on to run back the final mile on mtn bike trails and to the finish line. We made excellent time and soon were gathered with our team-mates where we did a quick huddle to read off all our punches to ensure nothing was missed.... a thrilling minute of shouting out numbers... and then we slapped our cards down on the race table, clocking in under 57 minutes! It was pretty clear tat we would be taking home the MOGA cup this year.

Team 4 Lost Sole after completing our run

Usually, after the team competition I would head back t my hotel room and shower and get clean before dinner and the awards ceremony. But this year, I was roughing it. Tom and Kim offered to let me use their shower, but I was planning on driving home that night anyways, so I declined their offer. Instead, we all got dinner out. The awards ceremony.... was long. The MC was AFK, the same Mc when MOGA was in Cincinnati in 2016, which also went very long. There were some grumblings in the crowd, but really there is not much you can do but sit and wait. One fun thing to learn about was the MOGA puzzle. I guess every year there is some kind of event puzzle to solve with prizes for teams that are able to complete the challenge, and this year, part of the puzzle involved going outside at night on the river park and noting flashing lights on the bridge over the Ohio river. Somehow, MOGA organizers were able o collaborate with the city t get them to program the bridge lights in a certain manner just for us geocachers. Which is awfully cool. The theme of the puzzle was looking for evidence to exonerate bigfoot who was accused of stealing... something. I might need to pay more attention to this aspect of MOGA, since it sounds like it could be pretty fun to try to figure out. Eventually the awards were announced for the competitions. A I suspected, I didn't even place in the individual. The guy who won this year is a young fellow from South Carolina. Pretty far to come for a geocaching race, but then, I've come out from New Mexico before. Finally, the MOGA cup was announced, with a little tearful tribute to Lost Sole, and we went up to collect our medals and hoist the cup.

Team 4 Lost Sole

It was past 9 pm when the award ceremony ended, and I had a three hour drive home. With the time zone crossing, I wouldn't be home until after 1 am. And as things would turn out.... hot water heater trouble at home would keep me from getting that much awaited for shower. but that's a story for another blog post.

Caving and Hiking in KY

  Levin's class has been doing a module on geology and learning about caves and karsts recently. If a pandemic weren't still happening, they would have gone on a cave field trip, but that is out of the question right now. Instead, I planned a caving adventure for just me and the kids, to explore a wild cave in Kentucky.

Liz was pretty anxious about this trip, since caving is inherently a bit of a risky activity. more so when you have little information about the cave you are going into. My initial plan was to drive 3 hours down to an area near Somerset Kentucky, where I knew about some cave entrances from a geocaching trip I did there back in 2014. But then I got in touch with someone who knew about  cave a little closer, called Pine Hill Cave, and after talking with him, got enough information about this cave to plan a trip there. Having a map and some idea of what to expect in the cave helped reduce anxieties a bunch. Still, the kids, especially Levin, were not too excited about the trip. They had done some caving previously when we lived in Tennessee, but that was a while ago. Back then we also had a knowledgeable guide, my friend Natalie, which removes a lot of the uncertainty and danger. This trip would by nature of us visiting a cave we'd never been in before, would be more of an adventure and exploration. This can be thrilling or terrifying. I was hoping the kids would find it more on the thrilling side of things, as I usually find this kind of activity.

We left at a reasonable time and got to the parking spot in a reasonable time, a small pull-off on the highway just outside of Mount Vernon, Kentucky. We sorted through all the gear we would be bringing, plenty of light sources, elbow and knee pads, hard hats, and clothes we wouldn't mind getting muddy, then set off to find the entrance to the cave. This turned out to be very easy, thanks to the info I had gotten from another caver. At the mouth of the cave we put on all our gear, and sent one final text to Liz telling her we were going in.

Clean cavers, about to enter the underground realms

The cave entrance was nice and large, and looked to have several little branches to explore, but quite soon we were crawling on hands and knees towards the sound of rushing water. The main trunk passage of this cave is an underground stream and once we reached it it became clear that we were going to get wet on this trip. We would be traveling upstream, in the water for most of the passage. This slowed progress down a bit, and also dampened spirits. You could say it adds to the spirit of adventure to be slogging through a stream, but the kids were already a little nervous about being underground and completely on our own, and having soggy feet and chilled toes did little to make them more comfortable with this fact. We passed a couple side passages and eventually came to a spot where we either had to crawl in the stream, or take a dry looking side passage that on the map was labeled "mid section bypass". We opted for the bypass, which was easier going since it was dry. Towards the end of the bypass, where it seemed like it should reconnect with the main stream, there were two dry passage ways that had spray paint telling us they were both dead ends (which agreed with the map), but the way back to the main stream appeared to be a tight crawl under some break-down and the kids absolutely did not want to investigate this at all. The idea that we didn't really know if something connected, or even know exactly where we were on the map was dawning on them, especially Levin. Levin was getting freaked out, and was starting to whine about turning back and getting out. The more I poked around looking for the main passage way, the more vociferous he became. Ada, who up until this point had been really excited about exploring the cave, and was often out in front, started to join in with Levin about wanting to leave. Not seeing a way forward at this point, we turned back and headed to the place where the main passage was faced with a low crawl through the stream. At this point, it looked like the only way forward would be to take on this crawl in the stream, and both kids were distressed and getting close to tears about wanting to leave. We had been in the cave a little over 30 minutes. There was still so much more to explore, but I could see we were not going to get further in without a serious change in their mindset, and I didn't know how to calm the kids down. So we started heading back the way we came.

Levin looking longingly at the exit grafitti

One of he only cave formations we found, partially defaced

Navigating slippery rocks and streams

Fossil Ada spotted in the ceiling

Popcorn formations on the ceiling

Once we were heading back, Levin calmed right down. I don't think he was all that scared to be underground,, but the idea of exploring simply was not enticing him. Instead, the fear of the un-known had been firmly planted in his mind. Going back the way we came was now calm, because we knew this passage already. He happily scrambled over the rocky obstacles, and negotiated the slippery mud as we headed back to the cave entrance. He was quick to point out the landmarks we had observed on our way in, keeping us on the right path. And soon enough we were back at the cave entrance, exiting into the sunlight.

I couldn't hide my disappointment that we hadn't spent more time in the cave. We barely saw any cave formations that Levin had learned about in his class, and there were literally miles of passageways more to explore. The really cool things about cave exploration, discovering beautiful formations, seeing rare subterranean wildlife, figuring out how to overcome obstacles, we really had only just got glimpses of. Our hour underground left me wanting more. But the kids were totally fine with being back outside. I texted Liz that we were out, and got a reply that she was glad we were all safe. We shucked off our muddy caving gear and I started thinking about how to salvage our adventure. Had we really just driven over two hours to spend only a hour underground? Were we just going to turn around and head home? I think not!

Post cave portrait

Obligatory butt-shot showing who has the muddiest bottom (Ada wins!)

Looking at my geocaching map, I knew there was some interesting locations to explore a short drive north from where we were. We could travel some back roads through rural Kentuckian hollows to a places of more springs and caves, possibly scout out another cave to explore in the future, and look for a waterfall to hike to. The kids thought this sounded reasonable, so off we went.

I was pleasantly surprised by how beautiful the backroads north towards Berea were. The roads followed ridge tops and hollows, and there were signs of waterfalls, limestone bluffs and possible caves everywhere. I am not at all surprised to learn that this county has a huge concentration of caves, although I bet most are on private lands. We stopped at Climax spring, which is a beautiful small waterfall along the side of the road, with a drinking pipe set up.

Climax Spring/Falls

Levin has a taste of Climax Spring

Just a short ways past this was a geocache placed near Climax Cave, another little cave system that might be worth exploring some time. This cave is on property owned by a nearby church, and I'd want to contact them before making a trip inside, as there are a bunch of "No Trespassing" signs posted around the cave entrance. After finding the geocache nearby, we poked our heads into the cave and immediately there were more cave formations, stalactites and stalagmites than in Pine Hill Cave. Ada seemed like she would be interested in grabbing our helmets and headlamps and exploring a bit, but Levin wasn't having it. Instead we chose to drive a bit further north to the trailhead for Anglin Falls.

Ada checking out the small entrance to Climax Cave

Anglin falls was another place I only knew about because there was a geocache there, but I am sure glad we stopped for a visit. the geocache was right at the trailhead, but we set off up the trail, about a mile, to check out the waterfall. There were spring wildflowers along the trail )white and purple bloodroots), lovely limestone bluffs and the waterfall was running well and just beautiful. The uge boulders around the waterfall were fun to scamper over, and best of all for the kids, was catching salamanders in the pools beneath the falls.

This last little hike to Anglin falls really redeemed the trip for the kids. They were so excited about catching the salamanders, and just boisterous about playing around the waterfall and the rocks. This was more in line with what they want from an adventure trip. Somewhere to run around and climb on rocks, catch cool amphibians, and enjoy a little hike. I'll have to keep that in mind when I plan our next outing.

I would still really love to do some more caving, but I'm not sure I could get the kids, or Liz that interested in exploring a cave with me. So for now I'll have to content myself with the little taste of caving we got today. 

Spring at International Friendship Park

 I visited the International Friendship Park for the first time here in Cincinnati, and what a lovely little park it was. I had a goal of finding the Whereigo cache there, as well as a puzzle cache that was a little past the boundaries of the park. It was a cold Sunday afternoon, but there were plenty of people out on the nicely landscaped paths. This was a really cool park, with interesting plants, sculptures and views of the Ohio river. I was able to find all the geocaches too!

The park should be even more beautiful when things green up and bloom. I'll have to come back here with the rest of the family to show them what a nice park this is.

Paint Creek Hike

  It's been a while since I dragged the family out for a hike. I think my birthday was the last time... so with the carpet just installed, and a bunch of work in the attic complete, I unilaterally decided we were all going on a geocaching adventure in Paint Creek State Park. The area I had in mind is not in the main visitor area though, and is in a corner of the park that does not have maintained trails and is used mostly for hunting and fishing. This area has some natural rock arches and small caves. And geocaches to lead you to all these cool features.

The hike was pretty short, which gave us plenty of time to explore the rock formations. Liz had researched online and determined that the caves were closed to the public to protect the local bat populations. I think maybe her research actually was mistaken, and I was pretty grumpy about this, as I really wanted to explore the caves a bit. I did poke my head in the entrances a little, and spotted a few bats. Liz wouldn't let the kids enter, and didn't want me going in either, so I grumblingly assented.

The rock formations were pretty cool, and we at a picnic nearby and explored them for a bit. All in al, a good outing in a fun area.