CAM 2015 - Thomas Stone

[BladenV]

Out hunting the CAM caches with TheLoneBaker today. Bumped into another cacher re-hiding the cache which made for a quick find for us. I was pleased that this cache's location had some historical value for Maryland and was the home of one of our founding fathers. TFTC!

[WJ family]

Sunday, March 29

Came to the park with Banjotramp. Stopped to chat with the rangers before going on to the cache. Looked for the SSB and CJS caches (as well as the bonus) before heading home for the day. (Boy was 495 tough on the way back!)

[MDFirecacher]

3/28/15 - My young son SawyeRR and I hooked up with nomaland again and left our Hagerstown rendezvous point at 05:00. At the time of our departure it was 27 degrees with the forecasted high of 40 with strong winds. Through the entire five cache trip on the Eastern Shore, Lower Shore and Southern Maryland the temperature never got above 38 degrees with occasional snow flurries. The winds would sting our faces as we hiked in places lacking thick foliage or other wind breaks.

Our quest for five caches today was in jeopardy. The hikes were taking longer than planned. From our 12:44 find at Terrapin Beach, our next planned stop was Calvert Cliffs with the intent of working our way back North for Thomas Stone and Whitemarsh. We needed to get to Thomas Stone before 16:00 so we changed our route. Our calculation had us getting there at 14:39 which was good - the other parks are open 'til sunset.

What's worse than the traffic in Northern Virginia? US 301/MD 3 heading to Southern Maryland! Geeze - it was a weekend! The traffic added 20 minutes to our commute. We got to use the regular parking, making the trek, and signing the log at 15:07. I was able to snap one picture of the house. Dropped my pathtag and Sawyer's. Kudos to the one who got this cache in a National Park! Thanks for the history.

[mortards]

Found 3-29-15 at 4:30 pm, CAM #7

We had not planned on doing CAM caches today but as our weekend commitments wrapped up earlier than planned and we happened to be over in northern Virginia, we decided to head to this one to see if we could check another one off the list. We arrived just a bit after 4 and the gate was open but we dared not provoke anyone and parked on the side of the road.
First we hiked to the CAM cache and made that find, collected the necessary info and dropped off some stuff including a path tag. We then proceeded to the bonus cache. Once we finished up there we took some pictures of the mansion which was now perfectly in the warm light of the late afternoon sun. We noticed the remains of the walls so we can only assume the grounds and landscaping were much more extravagant back in its day. We also checked out the cemetery as well.

Thank you for bringing us to this great historical site and for placing the CAM and bonus caches here!

[zombieiz]

Found this one on the 28th. It was freezing cold outside but we made the find.

[ZombieLena]

28 March - COOOOOOOLD! WIIIIIIIINNNNNDDDD! I wish the weather would have been better to find this cache.

[LestISmiteThee]

Found Apr 2 in great condition! Met new cachers along the way that hadn't heard of CAM, so I asked them to check out MGS if they had time.

[Terri]

First CAM cache for the year! Lori of Lori and Amy and I made the find only to find a couple of cachers plus baby and brother heading our way. So nice to chat with fellow cachers. Found the nearby bonus and then back home. I'll have to come back up here another time.

[lpaulriddle]

I was not expecting to find any CAM caches this weekend, let alone this one, which was the farthest from home we hadn’t yet found. But we got out of church at 10:00 and found ourselves with no other plans today, so decided it was high time to chalk up Thomas Stone. The drive down from Howard County was uneventful. We pulled into parking, ate a quick lunch, and set off on the trail. We began our bushwhack at around 250’ out, and spotted the cache from a pretty good distance. I signed in and recorded the clue, while the kids traded some swag. Afterwards, we spent a few minutes at the visitor center and stamped our National Parks Passport, and then took a walk around the grounds and found the other caches in the area. Very nice location; thanks for bringing us here!

[coupleocachers]

Found on 4/4/15

We were going to hit this CAM cache last weekend with the Zombie Horde, but it was too cold and AmeliaGrace fell asleep after the Easter Event they had and it was bothering her. So today was a nice day and we came here after doing an Easter Egg Hunt on the nearby farm from our house. Walking to the CAM cache we ran into Terri of Terri & Billy and Lori of Lori & Amy. They were returning from the CAM cache. AmeliaGrace had a fun time walking to the cache. After finding the cache we walked into the Visitor Center and AmeliaGrace became a Junior Ranger and we picked up the National Park Service Passport. Then we hiked over to the Bonus Cache.

[ameliagrace]

Found on 4/4/15

We ran into Terri of Terri& Billy and Lori of Lori&Amy returning from the Cache. Mommy and Daddy let me walk to the cache from the parking lot. When we found the cache I couldn't help but like the pink hat. I didn't have my trade bag so mommy and daddy didn't want me to have it but I couldn't let them put it back so they swapped it out with some cache for the hat. Thanks for who ever placed it. Then we made our over to the bonus cache. On the way I became a Junior Ranger. So now I get to where my patch at these parks. Its awesome.

[spikep]

4/28 - Never had we seen such cold conditions during CAM. It was like 30 degrees and high winds. I actually put on my Zombie mast just to stay warm. We made the find and even the bonus in the frigid weather.

[zorrobarnes]

Decided to complete CAM 2015 on this gorgeous, warm, sunny day. We went to Calvert Cliffs first and then went to this one. The park was of course closed and we parked to the side of the gate and walked in. We were the only ones in the park and we had a very pleasant walk to this one after getting the new one. (I had previously gotten the 2 older caches in this park). Left my personal pathtag which I received recently. TFTH.

[Bocco]

4/7 #1
We finally got our foot in the door. We have had to delay our CAM start this year, but this cache totally put us in the spirit. The Thomas Stone Historical Site was an absolute pleasure to visit. The park was closed, so we parked outside the gate and enjoyed the easy stroll on the dirt road to the CAM cache near the visitor's center. The placement was the perfect kind for my six and eight year old grandsons (K9 Geep's) to make the find. Our eight year old Geep was delighted that he singlehandedly decrypted the hint and knew just where to look. We all brought swag to trade, and each of us discovered a special treasure to trade for.
After we collected our CAM passport information we headed over to the bonus cache which took us all the way around the manor, giving us the opportunity to see all of the beautiful home. The boys had lots of questions about Thomas Stone.
Thanks so much for both of these terrific caches. We thoroughly enjoyed our visit.

[soccertoa]

4/11/15 Met up with Braxpack on a beautiful Saturday morning to get this one and the other Southern MD CAM caches plus a few bonus caches along the way. Found this one very quickly in a very likely spot. Then we went and found the rest of the caches in this park. Nice park, easy hiking.

[hunterKat]

4/11/2015
Hitting the southern MD CAM caches today with alikat17. As we pulled into parking for this one, we saw a car with FL plates and 4 travel bugs in the window. While we collected what we needed for the hike, a family came out of the Visitor's Center and said "Hey fellow cachers! Of course, that's because I had a bug on my back window, too. We started talking, and all 6 of us headed off together down the trails. It was a fun time hunting with the HAPPeMurphies, and they kept us moving along at a good clip. Of course, we were racing the gate-closing time to get back to our cars after 3 finds, and we made it without getting locked in - just barely! Weather was great, getting home to Frederick was a bear - 301 and 495/95 were parking lots. Nice park for caching!

[sfcchaz]

#24 of 45 caches found today. I spent the day caching with Dixiegurl Suzanne, wizardofmd69 and CodyHollowFarm. Our goal was to find the two CAM 2015 caches in southern Maryland, the one in Whitemarsh Park and grab as many others as would could on the way. We signed the logs with a variation of Team CAM to save space.

This was our first CAM find of the day. [:D] We made the quick trek out to GZ and grabbed the required code. This is a nice little park. We also grabbed the other caches while here. TNLN TFTC

[davee-n-cachincarrie]

Found on April 11, our 10th CAM cache!

We arrived here at about 4:10 p.m. and parked by the road, where two other cars were already stationed. We hiked in and made the find without too much trouble. We ran into Snurt at the cache and chatted for a while, then we headed off and did a couple other caches on the grounds before calling it a day and heading home.

Thanks for the cache!

[NetworkCacher]

04/12/15 - First stop this morning and my final push to finish up this year's CAM caches. The drive here was remarkably quick early this morning. So much so, that my geo-pup and I arrived at the gate with bright sunshine just starting to illuminate the field and the house. I parked to the right of the gate and we shimmied under to start a nice quiet walk. Off in the field was a small group of deer grazing. They spooked and ran off as we came to visitor center driveway. Snapped some photos by the family graveyard and then headed for the cache. Hard not to smile at such an easy, traditional hide. I snagged a pic of the lid, left a signature and tucked it all away again. CAM 2015 - 9 of 10 complete.

[Zepp914]

We did this one a few days ago. I ran into UFF298 as I was heading to one of the nearby caches. There was a nearby cache by a tobacco barn. I hate the smell of cigarette smoke, but the barn smelled really good.