R&R Part Three: Caching and Kayaking

This is a continuation of a series of blog entries from my R&R leave in August 2010. While home on leave, I extended my consecutive days with a find to 18, shattering my old record of 11 and did amass 73 finds during that time. The finds were in Kuwait, Tennessee, Mississippi, Kentucky, New York and Georgia. During that time I cleaned up my kayak and made one cache run with pcsenn where he borrowed a kayak and we went after Half Moon Island which turned into more of an adventure than expected. Using satellite imagery, we were going to launch the kayaks from Devil's Elbow on the LBL side of Lake Barkley but construction had closed that part of the LBL. Launching from Devil's Elbow would have been a short 1,200 foot paddle. However, we found a public landing near Ode to lil pirate where we paddle just over a mile to the island going broadside with the current and wind. The cache was missing and with permission from the cache owner, I replaced the cache with a .50 caliber ammo can and locked it to a tree. It should be safe from future muggles and flooding. We went back to the landing and then went after Little River/Goat Island cache. We paddled about seven tenths of a mile for this one and didn't fight the current and wind. We did see some goats on the island.

We settled to clean up the caches at Lake Barkley State Park, where I found, barley's bush, Hanging Bridge at Barkley, Blue Springs Trail Cache and Barkley Fitness Center Trail. We also enjoyed a good lunch at the state park. We returned to Paducah, KY to return the kayak and grabbed a few park and grab micros along the route. Upon returning home, I winterized my kayak for next year.

Stayed tuned for the next part of the series.