This past weekend

I finally got out on my little trip that I discussed earlier. The primary goal was to visit the Serpent Mound outside of Peebles, Ohio, mainly to log it for the New World Ancient Evidence, and the Impact Crater categories. I think that it's a great, local, example to put into each of those categories. Even though there are plenty of closer mounds I could log for the New World category, I really wanted to get the Serpent Mound listed. The Serpent Mound though ends up fitting into many catergories. At that park alone, I got the two mentioned above, a Lookout tower, an Official Local Tourism Attraction, a Scenic Overlook, an Ohio Historic Marker, and still to list are a History Museum, a Long Distance Hiking Trail, and a Scenic Hike.

I had once visited the Serpent Mound before with my family when I was a little kid, but I didn't really remember much about it. I do remember, even though I was probably too young to really appreciate it, that I was impressed by its size. Even now probably some 20 years later I was still impressed by it. Going down I was worried it would be a bit of a disappointment. Kind of like how your elementary school seemed huge as a kid, but if you ever go back you realize how small it really is. But that wasn't the case, and I'm planning to head back down there this summer to spend a little more time. This past Sunday was cold with a biting wind and impending rain/snow, so I didn't make a full day of it. I just visited the museum, walked around the mound and took pictures, looked at some of the other burial mounds in the area, and grabbed a Geocache, there placed by the Ohio Historical Society. That ended up being my 1300th find, so I'm glad that it was an interesting area. The hide wasn't particularly hard, nor was it an epic hike or anything, but I like it for the area that it's in.

In addition to all of that on the way down we spied several Waymarkable locations so we made sure to stop on the way back up. In the small town of Hillsboro, which is the county seat of Highland county, Ohio, there were tons of stuff to find and part of the reason we want to make a return trip to the area. Some of the more interesting things we found were an Ohio Bicentennial Bell, which is now listed in the Bells category along with three other interesting bells. In front of the Highland County Historical Society building was the largest bell I've ever seen. I noticed that the casting marks on it indicated that it was made in that same town. Behind the same building was a bell that was stamped "USS Hawaii, 1945" and another bell stamped "U.S. Coast Guard Cutter "Northwind" 1943". Not knowing the history of the town though, I was confused as to why these were sitting there until I got home and started researching. It turns out that the C.S. Bell Company was a very famous bell manufacturer in its day. They produced many bells for schools, farms, churches, and missions....including one that was listed among the "Bells That Changed The World" used on Molokai Island by Dr. Damien to call the stricken lepers to worship. They also produced thousands of bells for the U.S. Navy, many of which were used on ships as Invasion Bells during the storming of Normandy. The large bell in front was the largest bell ever made by the C.S. Bell Company, and even though I don't have 100% information I'm assuming the USS Hawaii bell and the Northwind bell were both made for those ships. I've also found that town of Hillsboro has an annual "Festival of Bells", and this year should be especially interesting as the town celebrates its Bicentennial. So that's another reason that we want to head back down there this summer.

Other than that there were many other waymarks in Hillsboro. We got a few of them, but decided just to wait to do a more extensive tour later. Up the road a little way is another small town of Leesburg which we pretty much entirely waymarked. The only exception was 2 independent pizza shops. I didn't want to mark them without having actually visited and tried their food.

On the way home we stopped for dinner in Grove City (a southern suburb of Columbus) then headed into downtown Columbus so I could mark a Cityscape that I've been wanting to mark for a while. It turned out really well as the downtown area was deserted at 10pm on a Sunday night, and because of the wind there was little smog which helped my pictures come out very clear. This was also pretty much my first endeavor in photographing a skyline at night, so given that I felt the pictures came out rather well.

In all I ended up with 59 waypoints in my GPS, one of which was just updated coords to a cache that was a little off. The rest were Waymarks, some of which can be cross posted, so it turned out to be a much more productive day than I was expecting. Even with all that Waymarking, we found time to grab 4 other caches in addition to the one at the Serpent Mound for me, and 5 for Dewgrl. There was one in downtown Columbus that I had found previously but she hadn't.