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CAM 2019 LOGS - CAM 2019: Steppingstone Farm Museum

Discussion of CAM, the CAM caches, etc. NO SPOILERS PLEASE!
littleblkdog
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CAM 2019 LOGS - CAM 2019: Steppingstone Farm Museum

Post by littleblkdog »

You may post your CAM 2019: Steppingstone Farm Museum logs here. No spoilers please! :shhh:
On May 4th you will be able to officially post your log on geocaching.com.
HalfwayHome2014
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Re: CAM 2019 LOGS - CAM 2019: Steppingstone Farm Museum

Post by HalfwayHome2014 »

My daughter hasn't cached in a long time but I was able to get her to go today. She and I had so much fun at stepping stone.

The only issue we ran into is that we think a= windows minus five and then second digit minus farm equipment. Otherwise check sum never added up correctly.
J.J.PEW
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Re: CAM 2019 LOGS - CAM 2019: Steppingstone Farm Museum

Post by J.J.PEW »

Having lived in this area for most of my life, I have never taken the time to come here. The tour was great and we hope to come back when everything is open. We found this on March 16, 2019. Thanks for bringing us here.
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TeamRedOak
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Re: CAM 2019 LOGS - CAM 2019: Steppingstone Farm Museum

Post by TeamRedOak »

3/17/2019 CAM #3 2313, This cache was so much fun Gracie and I did it 3 times! I did the CAM first then I looked at the bonus caches UGH so I did walked around again for 2 of the bonus caches. Today was a work day to get the grounds ready for opening so there were people raking and tidying things up a bit. Then I was near the parking lot on my way to the other bonus cache when I realized I dropped something. I saw Cody Hollow and her group making their way from the CAM. I asked if they found it, I was hoping maybe I dropped it over there but I was pretty sure I had to go back to the cannery. We walked together to the third bonus then parted ways as we had to go back to the cannery. You know it's bad when your dog starts giving you the side eye! The volunteers tidying up must have wondered why I kept walking around. I met the caretaker and another caching couple who just happened to drop part of a moonpie on the ground which Gracie was kind enough to take care of so he didn't need to bend down and pick it up. Thanks for the fun day and a nice tour of the grounds and the chance to explore another place I've never been.
Georick402
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Re: CAM 2019 LOGS - CAM 2019: Steppingstone Farm Museum

Post by Georick402 »

Today we headed to the North East. It was not a good day for geocaching, as it rained ALL day long, and at times it was coming down in ammo cans. But this is what we geocachers do.....we get wet, or should I say soaked. This was our first CAM 2019 for today, but not our first cache or first CAM cache as we made some detours on the way to get some older CAM caches and some old virtual caches. By the time we got here, my raincoat was no longer keeping me dry.

After parking at the coords provided, I started my tour, and wondering why I didn't bring my umbrella for this cache, as all of it was out in the open. As always, took lots of pictures, which was hard as I had to keep drying off the phone. Taking notes was a pain in the rear as the paper was soaked and the ink was running.

After gathering all of the required information, I was going to go into the bathroom to work on my answers to get out of the rain, but they were closed. Dang it. Behind the building containing the bathrooms, there was a small opening, with enough room for a body, so I ducked inside there and worked on the final. The check sum matched my sum, which doesn't happen most of the times, and the final looked to be in a good spot.

Back out into the rain, and worked my way towards GZ. As I was walking, I peaked at the hint, to help with a quick find, as I wanted to get back to the car. Saw the hint, and once I saw GZ, it made sense. Good news about GZ, there was a spot nearby where I could open the cache and sign the logbook and be out of the rain.

Really enjoyed my time here, but it would have been much better without the rain.
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MDscramblers
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Re: CAM 2019 LOGS - CAM 2019: Steppingstone Farm Museum

Post by MDscramblers »

Kicked off our first CAM in several years last Saturday (3/16) with one not too far from home. Nice time of year to visit Steppingstone, and a fun puzzle cache. Made one mistake in taking the numbers from our answers down to the coordinates, and that had us wandering around for a bit before double checking and realizing our mistake! Saw a couple of other groups out that day, but didn't get close enough to meet. Enjoyed three bonus caches, too!
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joejackson
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Re: CAM 2019 LOGS - CAM 2019: Steppingstone Farm Museum

Post by joejackson »

Tough mental debate with myself last night about what to do today. All sorts of half-made plans, looking at weather, ended up deciding to come northeast to Susquehanna State Park for this cache and BOOM! Pulled into the parking lot just as GardenNClay and I am just the driver passed by me after counting up stage 1. I tried to take a look over the million cars parked here for some insane uphill/downhill/road/trail/stream crossing 50K (you read that right - fifty K) race, and decided that their answer seemed about right, and we headed out. We had a short delay at the blacksmith shop when we came up with a couple of different answers. Double-checked, reached consensus, and moved on.

When we got to the final stage, we were so focused on the goal of the CAM cache, and on the crazy wind, that it never occurred to us to look for the bonus caches. We ended up doubling back to pick them up.

On our way to the final, we turned a little too early and came up against one of the walls. Trying to be at least half-way decent geocachers, we backtracked, looped around, and found the CAM cache pretty quickly.

CAM cache #3 for 2019!
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MDFirecacher
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Re: CAM 2019 LOGS - CAM 2019: Steppingstone Farm Museum

Post by MDFirecacher »

CAM Cache #2 - 3/23/19 11:28 - Pretty cold and windy day (but at least it wasn't raining). My daughter and I were at the final step calculating the final coordinates. Joe Jackson, I'm just the driver, and Garden-n-clay approached. We traded pathtags and small items then went on together to grab the bonuses. We peeled off momentarily to grab the CAM cache - Dropped off a personal pathtag and some Smokey Bear memorabilia.

I forgot to mention, this was the BOO for a 50K run taking place in the park. The parking lot was overflowing and there were runners throughout the park.

We then met up to complete "BOOM" and a couple of nearby caches. Thanks MGS - this spot is truly a gem.
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sfcchaz
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Re: CAM 2019 LOGS - CAM 2019: Steppingstone Farm Museum

Post by sfcchaz »

03/18/2019 - CAM #6 - On this third day of CAM, I came up this direction as I really didn't have a plan and it was easy to get up here for me. Plus since it was my regular day off, I came in this direction very early before traffic got bad and made it home before the traffic got bad.

This was a very nicely done tour of the grounds and I did not have difficulty with any of the stages. [;)][;)] While in the area I also collected the bonus caches which were all very nicely done. TNLN TFTC

While on the way home I was able to seek a GPSgames.org GeoVexilla Flag near Bel Air, so that was a bonus. Plus as an extra bonus, I found a yard on the way there that was full of ornamental Flamingos, which happened to be a locationless cache in the Terracaching listing service - so double bonus!!
dsquaredd2
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Re: CAM 2019 LOGS - CAM 2019: Steppingstone Farm Museum

Post by dsquaredd2 »

Made our way to the northeast for Steppingstone and BOOM! Enjoyed the beautiful weather and the tour around the property, but we had a little math problem. Meaning a backtracking through the sites was needed, just to be thorough. Made the correction, got where we needed to be and made the find. Great views, great fun. TFTC!
acadiacats
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Re: CAM 2019 LOGS - CAM 2019: Steppingstone Farm Museum

Post by acadiacats »

We didn't go out on day 1 because I just couldn't face the cold windy weather. So, Sunday March 17th Warlock 0714 and I began CAM 2019 with a one cache goal today, Steppingstone Museum, not too long of a drive for us from Towson. This was a nice location and we enjoyed the walk around the grounds, finding the clues and taking some nice photos. Loved that they are helping the honeybees with the grouping of hives at the woods edge. Located the CAM cache easily and left some items. Found the bonus caches but getting late and we did not go to find BOOM. Just the ones in the immediate vicinity, all three were very nicely done and we left some small items in two of them. Will definitely return to this place when the buildings are open. One down and 9 to go! Praying for some nice non rainy weekends!
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mortards
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Re: CAM 2019 LOGS - CAM 2019: Steppingstone Farm Museum

Post by mortards »

Found March 24th, 2:15 PM CAM #7

With only two CAM caches planned for the day, we had a bit more time to explore and do some additional caching.

It was a beautiful day and there were some excellent bonus caches to be had here, as well as the old CAM cache not far away. Too bad the museum is not open yet as we probably would have checked that out as well. We really enjoyed this CAM cache with everything it had to offer including the location as well as the quality of the caches. Thanks for placing this great CAM cache along with the bonus caches! TFTC!
-mortards (Al & Michelle)

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Seeker4Life
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Re: CAM 2019 LOGS - CAM 2019: Steppingstone Farm Museum

Post by Seeker4Life »

3/23/2019 found4life, afriendofB and I decided to spend our second CAM 2019 caching day up north today, driving from southern Delaware to begin at Ft. Smallwood, then on to Steppingstone Farm. We were surprised to arrive to a field full of parked cars, and the place abuzz with LOTS of people everywhere for a 50K finish line behind the Corn Crib! Hoping the final coords weren't impacted, we set our fears aside and began the trek, enjoying the stops and the museum sites (and the bonus caches) along the way. It was so inspirational to see the runners coming in one by one. But not so inspirational to discover our numbers didn't quite do the job. As we reviewed each one, we knew where the problem must be, and were thrilled when a passing (kind, wonderful) cacher confirmed our suspicion. After a quick adjustment we were hot on the trail to the first CAM of the day (fourth of 2019). Eureka! We wondered if we could celebrate with the 50K crowd and get a free beer, but realized there was really no problem telling the geocachers from the long distance runners today and we would quickly be outed :lol: So we just enjoyed the fact that once again we'd been brought to a scenic, historic, folkloric location by MGS and its members. TFTC!
"Loving the journey--excited about the goal!"
zorrobarnes
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Re: CAM 2019 LOGS - CAM 2019: Steppingstone Farm Museum

Post by zorrobarnes »

Found March 26th
Teamed up with gvt1985 to do a cache run to this area. We arrived soon after 10am on a mostly sunny day with just a little wind chill. We had an enjoyable time gathering the needed info and picking up the notable bonus caches. With three sets of eyes we managed to get the correct numbers quickly with just a little difficulty counting windows. Nice color coordination of the container with its surroundings. TFTC.
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lpaulriddle
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Re: CAM 2019 LOGS - CAM 2019: Steppingstone Farm Museum

Post by lpaulriddle »

Today was day 2 on the CAM 2019 trail for the kids and me. We decided to head up I-95 to Harford County to tackle the 2 caches around Susquehanna State Park. Steppingstone was our first stop of the day, but in hindsight, we probably would have done it last, as the museum was not yet open when we arrived. On the flip side, the only people here this morning were museum staff and a few other cachers, so no muggles to worry about. The CAM cache was our third find on the museum grounds. We had fun walking around and gathering the answers to the questions, and I got a matching checksum on my first try (a small miracle, given how error-prone I am with field calculations). After finding a couple of bonus caches, we took the short walk to the final and made the find with no trouble. One of the L&L tabs is starting to break off (no doubt from being opened and closed repeatedly) but everything is dry and in great shape. This was our third CAM 2019 find, not counting dry runs. TNLNSL. TFTC!
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AltaPete
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Re: CAM 2019 LOGS - CAM 2019: Steppingstone Farm Museum

Post by AltaPete »

I got here late so there were only a few people present. Went around finding clues, got the almost inevitable checksum error. Eventually figured it out, then had to wait out a large group of muggles, so went for the closer bonus caches (but missed one). By then the muggles had left so I made the find and headed off to BOOM.
-- Pete
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Bocco
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Re: CAM 2019 LOGS - CAM 2019: Steppingstone Farm Museum

Post by Bocco »

CAM #8 03/31
We thoroughly enjoyed our tour of this incredible museum. The views of the dam and the well preserved historical buildings made this a wonderful experience.
Thank you very much for setting up this great tour of Steppingstone.
bneeriemer
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Re: CAM 2019 LOGS - CAM 2019: Steppingstone Farm Museum

Post by bneeriemer »

According to our phones, the rain on Sunday was supposed to stop around 11. So, we decided to drive in the rain to Steppingstone Farm. Based on other comments, I didn't expect it to be a bushwhacking expedition. So, we might get damp, but not muddy/soaked.

As we arrived, there were 2 cachers in the lot finishing up. They reported other cachers on the property, but we never saw anyone else until we were done.

We walked around and gather the info, and then sat down to figure out GZ. The problem was that our calcs were way off the checksum. I plugged my coordinates in, and it reported that GZ was in the middle of the river. So, we knew that the figures were wrong, but how? We recounted the corn crib and the parking lot equipment several times. Therefore, I had confidence in them. The others were trivial calcs down right there. Finally, I looked at the wife, and asked her to go count the windows. It was the only place where I could have gone wrong. Maybe I lost track and double counted something.

Off she went, and texted back another number, but it went in the wrong direction. So, the checksum was even worse....

But then, instead of relying on my brain, I did the calcs on paper, and realized that I was calculating wrongly. In fact her number matched the checksum exactly.

Off we went towards GZ. We made the quick find, and just as we were re-hiding a couple of cachers came around the corner counting the windows. We hope that we didn't spoil GZ too much.

As we headed back to the lot heading for the last bonus "Bees", my leg started hurting. So, the wife got it by herself, and I limped to the car.
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Run&Hike
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Re: CAM 2019 LOGS - CAM 2019: Steppingstone Farm Museum

Post by Run&Hike »

THURSDAY, APRIL 11
Wahoo! CAM 2019 Cache number 9! Today was our fourth and last trip for CAM 2019. We left Pocomoke before sunrise and were standing at the end of the production line, watching as the first Krispy Kreme Glazed Donut came out. We bought some donuts and started north, munching happily. Later today, with the last two CAM caches and sixteen bonuses and others logged, we headed south. Almost home, we rewarded ourselves with hand-spun milkshakes from Chick-fil-a. We drove 330 miles today, so we have driven 1,370 miles to get the ten CAM 2019 Caches and a bunch of bonuses and other caches.
After reading logs about "the windows," we were amazed (and relieved) when our Checksum was correct. A short time later we logged our ninth CAM 2019 Cache. Thanks to MGS and the hider for this challenging field puzzle!
Woodsman51
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Re: CAM 2019 LOGS - CAM 2019: Steppingstone Farm Museum

Post by Woodsman51 »

Found 3/20/19 Boy, am I late with the logging stuff! Just love to cache; hate the paper work! A cool brisk day for CAM on a weekday with hardly anyone around. I'll have to come back after they open! I had no problem with the puzzle. With no distractions, it's easy to observe, calculate and verify. I imagine this will be harder to appear discrete after Opening Day! Cache was secure and log was dry. TFTC TFTH
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