CAM 2018 LOGS - CAM 2018: Elk Neck State Forest Arboretum

[littleblkdog]

You may post your CAM 2018: Elk Neck State Forest Arboretum logs here. No spoilers please!
On May 5th you will be able to officially post your log on geocaching.com.

[lpaulriddle]

Similar to last year, we decided to head northeast to get started with CAM 2018. Elk Neck is a great park. I’ve been here a couple of times, most recently in November for camping. My son and I hit the road at 10:30 and arrived around an hour later, only to find the gates closed. So much for “open dawn to dusk”. There were a couple of cars parked in the grass along the road, but we decided to park a little ways north in a small gravel pull-off. We collected the necessary info at the first sign, and then caught up to joejackson and HAPPeMurphy at the second. A nice impromptu gathering of Howard County cachers if there ever was one! After running through the calculations, we all headed off to the final. It was a short hike, with just a little bit of mud along the way. The cache was a quick find. Great way to kick off our fourth CAM. TNLNSL.. TFTC!

[CodyHollowFarm]

The park ranger was notified and that's the best we could do. However I think because of all the snow that had melted that they had locked it but it should be addressed shortly.

Similar to last year, we decided to head northeast to get started with CAM 2018. Elk Neck is a great park. I’ve been here a couple of times, most recently in November for camping. My son and I hit the road at 10:30 and arrived around an hour later, only to find the gates closed. So much for “open dawn to dusk”. There were a couple of cars parked in the grass along the road, but we decided to park a little ways north in a small gravel pull-off. We collected the necessary info at the first sign, and then caught up to joejackson and HAPPeMurphy at the second. A nice impromptu gathering of Howard County cachers if there ever was one! After running through the calculations, we all headed off to the final. It was a short hike, with just a little bit of mud along the way. The cache was a quick find. Great way to kick off our fourth CAM. TNLNSL.. TFTC!

[sharkb8007]

We had finished up at Havre de Grace and stopped at Waffle House for breakfast. We seriously took our time getting over here. When we arrived, there were a couple of other cars parked not-so-legally so we just went with it - monkey see, monkey do style, figuring we'd come across other cachers somewhere along the way. The puzzle was easy to solve. The arboretum looks like it will be quite beautiful once the trees bloom, and even more so once they mature. We made our way over to the cache, and were surprised to see some snow still on top of it and wood very neatly stacked. It couldn't be, could it? Yeah, somehow we managed to get the {FTF} on this one. DLAnubus and Wolfspirit55 appeared literally out of nowhere right behind us, having made an error somewhere along the way. Went for the bonus caches afterwards before we headed off to the eastern shore for the rest of the day. TFTC! (Log signed as ENB608)

[wolfspirit55]

CAM 2018: Elk Neck State Forest Arboretum Second of the day. Arrived to a Jeep blocking the entrance, He is block by the locked gate. How to complete and now. We parked on the side of the road and walked in. Found most of the answers for B,C,D,E and moved to find the remaining answers to complete, A and F. Thanks for the company JoeJackson. Cache found after EnB608.

[joejackson]

First CAM cache for me for 2018 on Saturday, 3/24.

Had a little confusion here. I pulled up and found the gate closed with the standard “Don’t Block the Gate” sign. Drove past to see if there was another entrance, came back, and pulled into the area in front of the gate to try to figure out my next step. While I sat there, wolfspirit55 and DLAnubis pulled up. We parked on the other side of the road and collected the data for the cache.

Of course, we both put it into our phones wrong. Didn’t find that out until later. In the meantime, shorttrip pulled up and we scored co-FTF on the two bonus caches. Guess there weren’t a lot of early risers in Cecil County!

Met back up with wolfspirit55 and DLAnubis and we were about to head off for the final when the HAPPeMurphy family pulled up. Haven’t seen them in a while, so I decided to take the short loop with them. We were joined by lpaulriddle and his son at the second sign, and we all made the walk to the final.

CAM has officially begun for me!

[mrbee&willowtree]

Find #3 of CAM 2018.
Found with: Profbrad, 74vwBusFamily, and Superchucklez

What an epic 36 hours of geocaching and road tripping! We started out by driving from Altoona, PA to Salisbury, MD on March 23 and stayed overnight to be able to attend the kickoff event the next morning. After meeting with others and getting our .gpx files, we began our journey from SE to NW. All in all, we managed to get 7 CAM caches throughout the day. In between, we found some virtuals, a webcam, and a few other high-favorited caches in parts of DE and MD.

A very pleasant drive through Delaware via Ocean City landed us here. Parking was a scarce commodity, but we found an appropriate spot and walked to finish the field puzzle. Man there were a lot of different trees in this park! Thank you for hiding.

[soccertoa]

March 25
Out with MDSearcher and GVT1985 on the 2nd day of CAM and we decided to head north, this was our 2nd CAM cache of the day. We were fortunate that the couple cars parked in front of the gate were leaving just as we pulled up. The ground was very muddy and mushy here, probably from all the snow melt, but we were dressed properly and had no issues. We quickly solved this field puzzle and had the final in hand in no time. I enjoyed the puzzle, it was well done. Interesting area, just too bad they didn't open the arboretum for us this weekend. We grabbed the nearby bonus caches before heading off to go look for covered bridges. Nice puzzle.

[WVKiwi]

3/25/18

Arrived here to find the whole area deserted and, like everyone it seems before us, the gate closed and locked. Looked around for parking and seeing nothing that would allow us to get the cachemobile off the road and avoid us parking in the grass where a sign said no parking, we ultimately decided to pull in front of the park closed sign so that we at least wouldn't block the sign saying 'don't block the gate'. Feeling slightly uneasy about the parking situation, we hurried through getting the info. collected and headed off to the cache. The path was definitely a bit wet and muddy in places, but the cache very easily found. We signed the log and now it's 4 down and 7 to go! Thankfully no one bothered us for our parking job, but I do hope the county can get the gates open for future weekends. The ground is currently wet enough where some vehicles are leaving behind signs of where they've parked and I'd hate to see anyone get upset with caching here as a result. I would have loved to have been able to take some time to read more and walk the rest of the newly developed arboretum. It seems like it's a lovely spot!

[polkadotmomma]

Our very first CAM cache! The gates were open today. What a cool place. Tftf!

[Georick402]

CAM 2018 - Elk Neck - 3/26/18 - Boy was I disappointed when I got to the front gate and had a jeep parked in front of a closed gate. Bad parkers as they parked dead center so no other car could park beside them. I drove a little farther down the road, and found a spot to park by another closed gate. The wife was with the car, just in case the police showed up, she could move it.

I followed the road behind me to get the bonus cache, then back to the main street. Walked it until I could cross over and into the park. The jeep owner blocking the gate was a husband and wife walking their two dogs. They are heading back to their jeep as I am heading towards the sign. As I get to the sign, I look at the jeep owners, and guess what they do? They swing open the gates, get into their jeep, and leave. Now why would they close the gate and block it with their jeep??? All I could think is that they didn't want anyone else in the park while they were walking their dogs.

I then ran back to my car, and drove it back over to the proper parking area. Went back to the sign, did what needed to be done. Went to sign two, did what needed to be done, and moved on to the final. Once again, I did everything correctly. From there, I ran across the street to the other bonus. AIO TFTC TNLN

[Run&Hike]

MARCH 27
On March 24 we found the two CAM caches on the Lower Shore. We left home today at 5:50am to get the two CAM's at the head of the Bay. After logging both CAM's, five Bonuses, nine other caches and three Benchmarks, we got home around 6:30pm, after driving 307 miles on our second CAM trip.
We got here at 9:11am and found the gate open. After gathering the information we found the cache at 9:27 and walked to the two bonus caches. To get all three caches we walked 1.22 miles. Thanks to MGS and the hiders for starting our day with nice walks and quick finds.
Three found, eight to go!

[hornowl]

Elezfun and I ventured to this one early Sunday morning. Enjoyed the walk to the cache, but I wondered why I left hiking boots and poles in car. Hoping someone brought along a roll of TP for the pit as it was almost empty.

[Awesnap]

ABOUT MY DAY:
I am working my way North from Northern Virginia today to join up with my family in Newtown, PA for Easter Weekend. Driving up a day later helped since I had to work Thursday, but also so that I could drop off Paddy the Geo-Dog at my Aunts house in Pasadena, MD. Driving solo also made it convenient to stop for the two northeast CAM caches ( CAM is for Cache Across Maryland for those of you not yet in the know! ).

On a side note as of this morning I was sitting at 296 Planetary Pursuit points, so grabbing any points along the way would help me get to 500 faster.

CACHE SPECIFIC LOG:
I ran into the Bellos at the parking coords. I have managed to meet cachers at all 6 CAMs I have done this year. As they left my journey began. This was a nice puzzle that was not as much of a time eater as other CAMs I have done this year. As a matter of fact this might have been the easiest and quickest to get out of the six I have completed.

Since I was cranky, wet, and battling a cold I decided to give up on some New Jersey caching plans I made and go straight to Newtown, PA.

TFTC

[flamingo_girl]

Rode up to this CAM location with Snowsox. Very muddy today with the weather, but at least it did not snow - which was predicted. Quick walk off the trail and the hint led us right to it. Took a more direct route back to the car and grabbed both of the bonus caches before wrapping it up and deciding to stay in the warm and dry car. CAM #7 done.

[sfcchaz]

4/1/2018 - CAM 2018 cache #4.

I chose to visit the CAM caches in this part of Maryland today as they weren't too complicated to get too. I was out of town last week and didn't have a lot of time to prep for this weekend's caching. I was also able to score a GeoVexilla Flag - Turks and Caicos Islands on the way home.

After completing the CAM 2018: Havre de Grace cache, I came up here to seek the CAM 2018: Elk Neck State Forest Arboretum cache. I ran into the ozzy1602 team as I was leaving the parking lot. They were about to seek one of the bonus caches. I'm so glad I ran into them as I had messed up my pocket query some how and didn't have any other caches in my GPSr. I joined them for the two bonus caches and then completed this CAM cache. Nice running into you guys again.

After returning to the parking lot, several other cachers showed up: seanchim with Morticia86, kbomb05 & yopedro, also rufnredy and BajaClan. After gathering the required information for the CAM cache I made the relatively easy stroll over to the final. TNLN TFTC

[TeamRedOak]

4/5 CAM #2 Mr TRO was caching solo today and headed north. He had a nice walk in the sunshine.

[MARYLANDCrab]

Monday cache run up to Elk Neck to pick up the CAM, one bonus cache, and 3 covered bridges. Mission accomplished.

[MARYLANDCrab]

Monday cache run up to Elk Neck to pick up the CAM, one bonus cache, and 3 covered bridges. Mission accomplished.

[Gcw151]

We got a REALLY REALLY late start this year! The health and weather just haven't been cooperating. The gang and I started with the arboretum, which is going to look really nice in a month or 2, before going down to the Turkey Point Lighthouse just to take a look around. I hope I can squeeze at least 10 of these in by the end of April!