You Never Know What You Might Find!

        Frank and I hit the road again, this time to do some geocaches and to take some pictures. So, basically it was the same as most of our adventures. We left early in the morning, in the darkness, as is usually the case.

        The full moon and Jupiter were slipping over the hill by my house when I first woke up. The pair was just four degrees apart and contrasted nicely with the black silhouetted trees on the hillside. They had disappeared when Frank arrived but we quickly located them as we drove along roads with a better western view. Looking to where we could go to get a nice shot of the pair, we ended up on Bigelow Blvd. with the city peeking through the trees.

        We stopped and took a few pictures as the moon sank down into the clouds. You can see Jupiter, an orange colored dot to the right of the moon. 

As it set, the full moon turned red.

        We continued on to Highland Park where our first two geocaches were.  Saturday was International Geocaching Day, so we had to find at least one during the weekend! We found one of the two. Try as we might, we couldn’t figure out where the second cache was hidden. We will get it some other day!

Frank signing the log.

        There were five more caches on our "to find" list, these were hidden in Alleghany Cemetery in Lawrenceville. All was going fine until we pulled up to the gate. It was closed! The gates didn’t open until after 10. Since it was only around 8 when we arrived, we had some time to kill. Across the street from the entrance is Barb’s Country Kitchen, so we stopped in for some coffee and breakfast. That took up about a half hour…

        Hopping into the car we went searching for some photo opportunities. We recently had talked about visiting the Seldom Seen Greenway Trail, so that was our next stop. This short trail goes through an interestingly designed brick tunnel, built in 1902. Saw Mill Run goes through it also.  On the far side of the short tunnel are two railroad trestles, one of them still in use. 

        Coming into the parking lot we heard bag pipes! Starting into the tunnel, we met Mychael who was walking back and forth under the arches playing a set of pipes. We stopped and talked a bit before we continued on. Scottish music followed us out onto the trail.

        I guess he likes the sounds in the tunnel? Who would’ve guessed we would run across a bag piper in our travels, let alone be serenaded as we hiked along the path.  You never know what you might run into when you go exploring!

        We both got some nice photos while we were there and then we returned to the cemetery.

        The gates were finally open! The Allegheny Cemetery is huge; there are 300 acres and about 15 miles of roads in it. Many famous Pittsburghers, such as mayors, sports celebrities and musicians are buried here. It would be easy to get lost inside it. Looking at all the trees and woodlands in it, it is tough to imagine it is situated inside the city.

        We did 3 of the 5 caches here and nearly did a fourth but because I entered a wrong number, we lost out on that one. It was what is called a multi-cache. This one brought us to a monument on which were 4 poems. Using those we had to solve two simple arithmetic problems and use the answers to find the “final” cache. Transposing the numbers will unfortunately NEVER lead you to a find!

        The day was getting hotter as we searched and after climbing a rather steep hill and taking a couple falls, I was ready to call it quits for the day. We had gotten a few caches and enjoyed the searches for the others, even if we didn’t find them.

        We headed for our homes, satisfied with another fun day of caching and photography. We watched the moon set, got some nice photos, the weather was great and I only got 10-20 mosquito bites. Best of all, we got a small bagpipe concert while we were hiking; once again, you have to keep exploring your surroundings, you never know what you might find!