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CAM 2017 Logs — National Park Seminary

Discussion of CAM, the CAM caches, etc. NO SPOILERS PLEASE!
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Alzarius
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CAM 2017 Logs — National Park Seminary

Post by Alzarius »

You may post your CAM 2017: National Park Seminary logs here. No spoilers please! :shhh:
On May 6th you will be able to officially post your log on geocaching.com.
WJ family
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Re: CAM 2017 Logs — National Park Seminary

Post by WJ family »

We got to the grounds around 9am and started following the letterbox story. Ms W had been to this site before, but declanwj, Banjotramp and Josiefour had not. The architecture here is varied, but very beautiful spot. The letterbox story was very well done....this is one of our favorite letterboxes ever now! We passed several interesting places on our way to GZ. When we opened the logbook, we discovered we were FTF! wow!
Dazie62
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Re: CAM 2017 Logs — National Park Seminary

Post by Dazie62 »

This was a great place to visit and we enjoyed this one very much thank you for bring us here..However, Saddly we observed cachers on the buildings porches and disturbing the areas about the buildings -ruins- all are posted to not do this ( posted on grounds ) as well as on the cache page. ( So why are they doing this , do they not read ?) ..A few bad cachers will ruin this for the good ones..
.
.my log 3/25/2017..
TFTC & :) this one is our 4th C.A.M cache find on Day 1 "kick-off" ( 4 found today :-D ) ...this place is lovely , as it is today , I would have loved to have seen all these buildings and grounds in their glory days , how wonderful they must have all been then ...we arrived later in the day , after 5 pm . We easily found parking our only worry being we might run of time before the sun set to accomplish Our task . But happily the lateness of the day and fading sunlight only added to the beauty of this area I believe . We enjoyed our trek through the grounds and history here . The cache was found , signed , & traded swag ( thank you for the MD coozzie :D ) and replaced with care , better then found . ( someone just placed it back without cover ) we then went to find another cache in the area before ending our cache day ...Thanks for the fun !
Last edited by Dazie62 on Mon Mar 27, 2017 8:40 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Terri
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Re: CAM 2017 Logs — National Park Seminary

Post by Terri »

When I saw there was a tour I knew I had to take it. We got there around 1230, found the CAM cache and then took the tour. The tour was long but interesting. The cache was great. I really enjoyed wondering around this interesting area. Parking was a bit hard to find but definitely a fun cache and great location.
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CivilRightsCacher
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Re: CAM 2017 Logs — National Park Seminary

Post by CivilRightsCacher »

(CAM find 3/11, 3/26/2017)

I have been to this magical place many times, but I have never been able to make it to their once-a-month tour of the grounds and the buildings. So I decided that today was going to be the day! I was absolutely delighted to find other CAM geocachers on the tour with us. (It was so great meeting you Terri & Terri's husband!!)

Our tour guide Frank started by telling us the fascinating history of this property, he showed us pictures of how the buildings looked at the height of their grandiose period, and their vision for the future. He pointed out hidden statues, hidden benches, and architectural parts of the buildings that I have never noticed in the dozens of times I have been here. He told us funny stories about the girls who attended school here and the pranks they pulled, and stories about the strict dean. He showed us the ballroom, which is JAW DROPPINGLY GORGEOUS. I literally said "wow!!" as we walked in. It was three levels high with open alcoves on each level, a gorgeous wooden cathedral ceiling, and at the top were insets with beautiful statues and stained glass windows. It had beautiful chandeliers and a huge ornately carved fireplace.

Frank is house sitting for the people who live in the "chapel" which was the actual chapel for the school. He was able to show us inside this residence!!! It was AMAZING. Much of the house is circular, and almost every window is stained glass. The owner is a church organist, and on the raised platform where they use to hold service now sit two very old and very beautiful pianos for him to practice. I felt very special to have this added bonus on the tour.

After the tour, Frank took anyone who was interested down into the glen, which is where the geocache is. Many of those in the tour were curious about geocaching, so I offered to give them a geocaching 101 class as we walked through the glen. Frank and I went back and forth while I explained geocaching and he pointed out some interesting historical artifact hidden under thick vines, far into the forest across the creek, or strangled under the roots of trees.

While on this tour we saw dozens of geocachers following the letterbox instructions to get to the CAM cache. After the tour, while we were in the glen with Frank, we met four geocachers who joined us to hear some of Frank's history of the buildings, even though they had already found the geocache. (It was great meeting you ladies!) He pointed out things about the sculptures and the buildings that we would have never noticed.

I was happily surprised to see that in just 1 1/2 days of CAM, over 3 dozen people had already signed the log and wiped out all the swag. One of the cachers mentioned that muggle children were watching them at GZ - so please be careful if muggles are around in order to ensure that this cache lasts.

The next tour is Saturday April 22 - I highly suggest it!
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Death Wish Dave
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Re: CAM 2017 Logs — National Park Seminary

Post by Death Wish Dave »

3/25/2017
Shrinerr and I made it down here after dropping off Snowsox who had a previous commitment and had to quit early for the day. Parking was quite the challenge but we persisted. Thankfully, it was much quicker than we expected. We met up with Dudley Grunt, who we saw at GZ. We may have not made it there so easily without seeing him as we were ready to go behind the Castle instead of to the left. These statues were fantastic. Very cool area that I'd never been to. Thanks for bringing us here.
==============================================================================
The geocacher formerly know as CacheSKing.
devildog1540
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Re: CAM 2017 Logs — National Park Seminary

Post by devildog1540 »

3/25/17 I had visited this magical place last year and was enthralled, so I was very excited to discover it was on this years CAM adventures. Got a late start, so did not arrive until the afternoon but the weather was lovely and there was some daffodils blooming along some of the old paths which just added to the nice hike on the grounds to the cache. I wish I had known about the tour ahead of time- I would have loved to see the inside of some of the buildings, but they were still something to admire from the outside. Lots of history here. If you have time you should also check out the medical museum across from the seminary grounds. It is free and had a lot of fascinating things to look at.
ksullivan
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Re: CAM 2017 Logs — National Park Seminary

Post by ksullivan »

3/25/17 #4 CAM cache
WOW! What a neat location! I enjoyed this geocache so much. The storyline was so fitting of the environment! I enjoyed walking down the stone steps,seeing the ruins, and walking through all the amazing parts of the area. It was like being in a fairy tale! On our way out, we met the man that does the tours each month. He was very kind and shared some of the history with us! Very cool! This one gets a favorite point when it goes live for sure! Thanks for bringing us here! SL TFTC
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thewoodenradio
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Re: CAM 2017 Logs — National Park Seminary

Post by thewoodenradio »

Way back, don't ask me how far 'way back', I flew over the Walter Reed Annex, as it was called at the time. Although I'd driven past it I had no idea of the architecture of the place. My thought was that I'd made a wrong turn and was over Disney Land. Once I realized that I was looking down on a real place I always wanted to explore. But back then Geocaching and MGS were not even in anyone's mind. So today's walk through the renovated parts, and exploring the hidden pathways was a thrill I'd only dreamed of. This is a place I definitely want to put on my 'come back again' list.
Profbrad
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Re: CAM 2017 Logs — National Park Seminary

Post by Profbrad »

This was stop #3 on our CAM road-trip. We parked in the open lot down the street and then proceeded to tour the sidewalk a few times in each direction before we woke up and got to the right place (I blame sleep deprivation and road noise). This was a very cool place. Loved the different architectural stylings of the buildings on the site. Thanks to my partner we got an oldie find along the way too. Very peaceful place. Thanks.
davee-n-cachincarrie
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Re: CAM 2017 Logs — National Park Seminary

Post by davee-n-cachincarrie »

This was our fifth and final find of the first day of CAM. We weren't quite sure what to expect here and we were even less sure when we pulled into a residential subdivision. As we started following the directions, though, we were surprised around every corner by awe-inspiring sights. I can't overstate how much we enjoyed this cache. There were several other groups of cachers here as well, but we were spaced far enough apart that we didn't bunch up. The directions are perfect on this one. Really easy to follow and they tell a great story involving the strange and eerie structures around us. We made the find without any trouble and then headed back to make the trip home. We ran into the caretaker on the way back and he told us about the tour. We'll have to try to get back here for that someday.

It's too bad to hear about the people disrespecting the site. I hope that behavior was an anomaly and it doesn't cause this cache to be removed, like we saw with the CAM cache last year.

We got home and slept like logs. We had another long day ahead of us Sunday!
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MARYLANDCrab
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Re: CAM 2017 Logs — National Park Seminary

Post by MARYLANDCrab »

We decided to stay close to home today and do National Park Seminary and Sykesville wherigo together. Picked up mdfroglover about 9:00 am and headed for the Seminary. Who knew this was there? mdfroglover says that she visited here as a teenager living in College Park, but we had no idea this was here. A very well done letterbox. After the cache, we had a long talk with some workmen working on one of the residences.
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mortards
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Re: CAM 2017 Logs — National Park Seminary

Post by mortards »

Found March 29th at 7:00 PM, CAM #5
What a unique adventure!
Since this CAM cache is probably the closest to home, we decided to grab it after work one night. Both mortards had been here for different reasons earlier in our lives but had never seen it in quite such detail.
The Letterbox journey was easy to follow and was quite an adventure that blended nicely with the story. I don't want to go into any detail here to spoil it for others, but this surreal adventure was like being transported back in time into a fantasy world. And to think you can find this only a stones throw from the Beltway in an otherwise dense urban area.
Thank you for the great adventure and for bringing us here and providing the detail necessary to truly appreciate this historical treasure. TFTC! This is definitely one of our favorites so far.
-mortards (Al & Michelle)

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zorrobarnes
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Re: CAM 2017 Logs — National Park Seminary

Post by zorrobarnes »

Saturday, April 1, 2017
On a cool, slightly breezy, partly sunny day, we decided to go get this CAM cache that's about 2 miles from home. We took geodog Kacey and she had a great time romping through the glen and of course wading in the creek. I had been here previously for the older cache and today ran into some cachers looking for it; they apparently were getting some signal bounce and so I was able to direct them to the GZ area.
I had also been here on a FTF run at a now archived cache. I was successful on that one, but managed in the twilight to sustain a bad fall resulting in a gashed arm (A Magical Walk In The Woods GC632JD). Compared to the other times I was here, there was very little foliage, so much more was visible from a distance than when the vegetation is in bloom.
We really enjoyed the journey along with the great narrative. Jeanne has been dealing with a bad back, but except for a few challenging spots she was able to navigate well.
Very nicely done instructions in a very cool spot. Definitely will be in the running for favorite CAM 2017 cache.
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TeamRedOak
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Re: CAM 2017 Logs — National Park Seminary

Post by TeamRedOak »

4/1 I don't even know where to start. Other than to say thank-you for placing a CAM here and bringing me to such a great place. This why I enjoy caching. When we started caching this is the kind of cache that excited me and made me want to do more. In recent years I feel I've cached because it was something to do there are so many caches in the area it is difficult to tell the good ones from the run of the mill caches and I've hidden run of the mill caches too. But this one brought me to a place I had no idea existed. I wish I had known about it the summer we spent at Walter Reed. I'm sure it looked very different in 1990. So far this year's CAM caches have all been excellent but this one is my favorite so far. I met up with Ezio10 on the trail and on the way back we met up with another family near the older cache.
Last edited by TeamRedOak on Sat Apr 01, 2017 9:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.
flamingo_girl
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Re: CAM 2017 Logs — National Park Seminary

Post by flamingo_girl »

TFTC! This was my third of five CAM caches today. Harford County, Biscoe, Friendship Farm, and then here. Team Red Oak knew my plans for today and called just as I was leaving Friendship Farm to alert me to an accident that was on my way. She gave me some alternate directions and I ended up going through Virginia to get back to Maryland to save some time. An hour and 20 minutes later I was looking for a parking spot to start my journey. This place is fan-tas-tic! What a magical place! I really enjoyed the walk, the statues, the unique buildings, and my new goal is to live in a windmill! This is my favorite CAM cache so far and will be given a FP when it publishes. I really want to go back for one of the tours this spring, hopefully in May.
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sfcchaz
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Re: CAM 2017 Logs — National Park Seminary

Post by sfcchaz »

I spent this second weekend of CAM 2017 caching with Dixiegurl Suzanne, Subfamous and wizardofmd69. We signed the logs with some form of Team CAM to conserve space. I had a great day with 17 finds (6 different types) and no DNFs as well as 1 GPSgames.org GeoVexilla flag find (Macedonia). We finished the day with finding 3 of the 11 CAM 2017 caches.

We saw a lot of geocachers at this location as well as a few of the very nearby caches. This was a very well done letterbox hybrid. We had a fun time seeing the sites and reading the story. I'm giving this one a favorite vote. I traded pathtags in this cache. TFTC
LynchTrekkers
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Re: CAM 2017 Logs — National Park Seminary

Post by LynchTrekkers »

Found on 3/25/17 #1 of CAM 2017.

Not far behind the FTFs I suspect. Guess I wasted too much time at home gathering up all my CAM kit.

Had planned on making an early morning run out west since the weather was so nice but just as leaving got news from family that would have made being that far from home in case of emergency foolish. So, not wanting to waste day one of CAM, I grabbed the cache that is right around the corner. So close I was able to bike to it. Ran into a group leaving as I was partly through the course. Maybe the FTF crew. This place is awesome. Feels like you're stepping back into time. I've visited here a number of times before the renovations. Hard to believe with its location it was allowed to fall into such disrepair. So glad to see it revived. Hoping it will all get done at some point. Grabbed the bonus as well and headed home. TFTC
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joejackson
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Re: CAM 2017 Logs — National Park Seminary

Post by joejackson »

Started off alone on this one. Finished with a decent-sized team! At the grotto, I looked back and saw a few more cachers heading my way. I think this is somehow the first time I’ve met Wizard and Suzanne. Ultimately, the group ended up with me, sfcchaz, Wizard and Suzanne, Subfamous, Candybear118, byrdd364, and anitajforever looking for this and a couple of others here.

Nice to learn another piece of Maryland history.

TFTC!
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Bocco
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Re: CAM 2017 Logs — National Park Sem

Post by Bocco »

CAM #9 04/02
Who knew this was here! What a fabulous discovery!! The letterbox walked us through a magical and enchanting place. We were a little intimidated by the logistics, but intrigued by the destination.
It turned out that following the instructions was easy and led us through an amazing journey. How cool to see the Japanese Pagoda, the Windmill, and to climb down the old staircase to see the Italian Villa and the English Castle, while also seeing Lady Liberty and Minerva.
Thank you so much for placing this exceptional cache!!
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