CAM 2019 LOGS - CAM 2019: Fort Smallwood Park

[littleblkdog]

You may post your CAM 2019: Fort Smallwood Park logs here. No spoilers please!
On May 4th you will be able to officially post your log on geocaching.com.

[joejackson]

First CAM cache for me for 2019. I always like to get out on the first day of CAM. Today I had a little time crunch because of an early afternoon appointment, so as soon as the email came, I took a look to see where I was heading. The 2 closest were this one and the one in McKeldin. McKeldin is much closer, but I wasn’t going to be able to drive away without looking for those bonus caches! So off I went to Fort Smallwood Park.

Parked nowhere near the parking coordinates, but it worked out fine because by a lucky coincidence I parked near the farthest away bonus cache. Started the windy walk to the battery. Between 2 of the stages, I stopped to talk to a guy who was setting up cameras and scopes near the pond. He gave me a quick lesson on bird migration patterns, what birds he expects to see today, and pointed out a couple that were flying around. Continued on to the other stages, calculated the final location, and headed off for my first CAM cache of 2019!

I took one of the CAM picnic tags (which I somehow don’t have yet) and left a couple of path tags. Thought I left one of mine and a CAM 2018 one, but not so sure now.

It has begun...

[sharkb8007]

Fired up the computer and printed out everything we needed, in the car by 8:20 AM. A quick glance at the overview map told us we were headed to Ft Smallwood Park. At the park by 9 and found the parking lot unexpectedly busy. We figured there were plenty of people here and some of them must be cachers. Quickly worked our way the the puzzle and thankfully the final was close at hand. Got to GZ and amazingly made the {FTF}! Dropped our token heart and took a CAM 2018 picnic pathtag. 2nd year in a row with a CAM FTF. Good times, TFTC!

[TeamRedOak]

3/16/2019 #2310 CAM 2 I took the dog to McKeldin first then we drove over here. It was how I expected it to be, nice but windy. I have never been here. I can't believe a cache has not brought us out here before today. I was happy to be here. Gracie and I found the CAM then walked to the 2 bonus caches.

[flamingo_girl]

TFTC! Third CAMDAY cache Our group got a little smaller at this cache. People made different decisions about directions and it ended up just being a few of us tackling this one. Another beautiful location by the waterfront. Breezy, but awesome! Not difficult to find the information needed for the cache, and the cache was easily found along the way to all the bonus caches.

[mortards]

Found March 23th at 2:45 PM, CAM #4

mortards were up and out early (for mortards) today as we had a list of four CAM caches we were hoping to get. This was the second stop of the day. The views of the bay were spectacular on this crisp, clear spring day. No rain or clouds to spoil the view!

We followed CodyHollowFarm and friends along the path, letting them do most of the work! Again, it was a beautiful day to walk along the beach, despite being a bit windy in spots. By the time we caught up with the others, they had already made the find of the cache so we just signed the log, got the code and left some swag. They were headed on to grab some bonus caches but we had to make up time in order to grab two more CAM caches before the end of the day.

This cache was a bit sentimental for me (Al) as I remember coming here as a kid back in the early eighties when my great uncle would bring me here to fish off of the pier. It was nice to come back after so many years. We also thought the lady at the entrance booth was a hoot until she asked us if we wanted to buy a senior pass.

Thanks for placing this CAM cache in this great park! TFTC!

[sfcchaz]

03/16/2019 - CAM #3 - On this first day of CAM, I linked up with a crew from the 2019 CAM Kick-Off: South event. Our crew was Fyregypsy, JL816, Snowsox, flamingo_girl, CodyHollowFarm, benlorma07, GnomeGCer and myself and we signed the non-CAM caches with MD Hounds to save space.

After completing the CAM 2019 cache south of US Route 50, we made our way to this CAM cache. I've been in this park many, many of times as it's in my back yard. I do a lot of power walking and running here. Gathered the required information and made the find with no problems. Grabbed the bonus caches afterwards. TNLN TFTC

[acadiacats]

Sunday March 24, Warlock's birthday, Part 3. Our third and last stop of the day. We arrived very late, park closed at 7:15, we got here at 6:20. We entered at no charge since warlock is a 37 year military veteran (THANK YOU FOR YOUR LIFETIME OF SERVICE!!!!). We knew we had very little time to grab this one so we went to work and quickly got the first of the clues. It was getting chillier out as the sun was sinking lower in the sky. We decided to try to drive to the waypoints but wasted precious time finding out that was out of the question. Meanwhile I was having some more physical ailments that had me just completely done in, so Warlock parked me in a spot at the water's edge (he was probably ready to just give the car a good push with me in it at this point ) and he went off with my notebook with clues listed, no time to load waypoints into his phone, mine was already done so he took that too and somehow both sets of car keys. He was gone til 7:00...... the park rangers were patrolling, getting ready to start tossing everyone out, but we were furiously working on his answers to the clues to even notice them. One small error, but he had taken pics of the clue locations so we checked and found the mistake. Precious minutes going by, TICK-TOCK..... We had to drive around half the loop again to get close to the GZ, park ranger trailing behind us. Parked at 7:10 and in a burst of adrenalin, I bailed out of the car and started running for the GZ, park ranger yelling at Warlock, "YOU HAVE 5 MINUTES!!" and Warlock yelling back "That's all we need!" as he tore across the grass behind me. We literally ran straight to the prize, popped it open took a pic of the code and dropped a few goodies, signed and slammed it shut, re-hid it and tore off back to the car and peeled out (well, not exactly more like a low speed escape) and exited the park gate at 7:17. PHEW. I did get to watch a Carnival cruise ship departing for the Caribbean while parked at water's edge.
Managed to get a nice picture of the American flag waving against a backdrop of the rapidly setting sun as we left the park. An exciting day today, three CAM caches today, one last week and 6 more to go. We have kind of taken a break from caching for the past year and it has been fun to jump back in for CAM.

[Seeker4Life]

3/23/2019 found4life, afriendofB and I decided to spend our CAM 2019 caching day up north today, driving from southern Delaware. We landed first at Fort Smallwood, and enjoyed our hike around the pretty waters. Stopped to enjoy some duck watching courtesy of some friendly folks with huge binoculars on tripods, but didn't stay long--we are on a major mission today, heading for Steppingstone and BOOM as well as some CJS geotour caches in the area. As usual, I took too many photos, we always took the long way in and the short way out, and we came upon cachers who swore the cache was missing until I walked up to it. Don't you just love it when that happens? (But not to me, I don't love it when that happens to me, just to be clear.) Anyway, left with bonus caches and CAM done and another place I never knew about checked off my list. TFTC!

[J.J.PEW]

We've never been to this park before so we were happy to explore. We found the first bonus cache quickly before heading to the battery to begin our search for the answers to the field puzzle. We found all the signs and found the cache quickly. The cache is in good shape. We then headed to the final cache bonus before heading home. Thanks for bringing us here.

[AltaPete]

Found on Mar 23, nice walk though a bit cool. Found one of the bonus's but there wasn't time for the other before the park closed.
-- Pete

[MDscramblers]

This cache brought us to Fort Smallwood for the first time. We enjoyed walking around the whole park to solve the puzzle, find the CAM cache and two bonus caches. Nice view of the Key Bridge, too. CAM cache #4 for us. TFTC.

[MDFirecacher]

CAM Cache #4 3/31/19 12:36 - My daughter and her boyfriend continue to accompany me this year for CAM Caches. It's nice to have someone to talk too on long road trips. We arrived at the coordinates to a choppy bay - very windy with temps a bit below 50. Admission was free because it was "Maryland Day." We made quick work on the interpretive signs and I plugged in the final (or so I thought). I met a geocaching couple from Williamsport PA (I can't remember their name - sorry).

Come to find out I subtracted on the A coords when I should have added. It had me about a quarter mile off - thank goodness for the other cacher. That is an advantage of going with a group - check and verify. Left pathtag and Smokey Bear 75th birthday stuff. Thanks MGS - Quiet here today but I bet it is packed during the summer.

[Bocco]

CAM #6 03/31
What an exciting and fun Cache to do on this very windy day! We completed the cache and then explored some of the rest of the park. They views of Baltimore are extraordinary, especially with the white capped water in the foreground.
Thanks for sharing this wonderful location.

[Woodsman51]

3/18/19 Wow, I'm getting way behind with my cache logs! Decided to wait till a weekday to miss the rush on the first CAM weekend. Spent alot of time at another CAM site and arrived here with about an hour until park closure. Parked near boat dock and did a quick hike picking up the bonus caches also. Tried a short cut but ran into some standing water, so had to skirt around. Too bad you are not allowed to climb up on the fort. No one around this late except the afternoon dog walkers. TFTC

[Run&Hike]

Tuesday, April 2. CAM #6, four to go!
Today was the second day of our third CAM trip. We came here after finding the Patapso Valley CAM. In hindsight, we would have done the caches in a different order to eliminate so many round trips on the one-way Park loop from doing both bonus caches before we began the CAM. Walking along, gathering information, we passed patient bird watchers with huge lenses, waiting for something to photograph. With new coords, we quickly found the CAM final. All in all, we had walked 1.25 miles. Thanks to the hider and MGS for the puzzle cache in this scenic place!

[Georick402]

Friday, April 5, 2019 - Fort Smallwood Park - Today was Grandparents day at Chloe's school, which just so happens to be 15 minutes away from this park. The plan was to go here after Chloe got out of school, then be miserable sitting in the traffic to get back to Germantown.

Grandparents day was 0830 - 1100 hours. At 10:45, while in the schools book fair, Chloe said that her teacher was allowing her students to leave at 1100 hours with the grandparents as long as the grandparents were in the school system as being authorized to remove the child. Chloe's teacher said she didn't have a problem with Chloe leaving with us, as long as we went to the office to see if we are authorized to remove her, and if so, to sign her out. Down to the office we went, got the green light, signed Chloe out, and went for lunch.

After lunch, we came to Fort Smallwood. It was on the chilly side, very windy, with a light drizzle. Chloe said it was too cold for her to wear her red geocaching hat, but I had a small blue beanie in the back of the car which fit her just perfect. Away we went, first for the main CAM cache, then for the two bonuses. Chloe was a good sport, didn't complain, and went to each stage with me. We both went over each question and answer, and only one time we came up with separate answers. We went over the question a second time, talked about it, and agreed on the correct answer.

After all stage were completed, the check sum gave us the okay, and on our way we went to find this cache. Chloe spotted it from about 25 feet away. As she was looking at all of the swag, I signed the logbooks and took photo's of the needed information. Chloe took a bracelet and left behind a key chain. We re-hid the cache. We didn't want to leave the wooded area as it was protecting us from the wind. But we continued on as we wanted to get the two bonuses. Doing all of that walking warmed us up, the rain finally stopped, made the two other finds, then finally went down to the dock to play near the water. Then it was time to get on the road and head home to Germantown, and we got Chloe for the weekend.

[bneeriemer]

The wife grabbed this one while I was at work. She said it is beautiful here.

[zorrobarnes]

03/29/2019
Jeanne and I teamed up with Deep Concern and the Portlywalker to complete the CAM 2019 cache here. Gathered the needed information on a nice short hike, did the calculations and found the final. Afterwards we proceeded to find the 2 bonus caches. TFTH.