![\"County](\"http:\/\/www.ericles.com\/images\/countyfinds_by_state_map.php.jpg\" "\\"County")
A few months ago I heard about the “Tour De Cache” challenge. If you can manage to find a cache in all 21 counties in NJ you get to log the final cache located actually quite near where we’re buying the house in central Jersey. You also get a nifty trophy coin, but that’s not the real reason to drive hundreds of miles just to find some tupperware in the woods. The real reason isn’t the finds… it’s the hunts. Journey… destination… you’ve heard it before.<\/p>\n
Taking advice from other cachers along the way I’ve been finding some of most scenic \/ interesting \/ educational sites in the entire state and this past weekend summed it all up beautifully as I explored the Northern & Southern most NJ counties. I climbed 151 foot of light house, saw a WW1 era ship wreck, watched great herons fishing, climbed 1133 foot of mountain, visited 8 parks, 4 beaches & 2 veterans memorials, went shopping in downtown Cape May, explored a future fishing hole, walked along the historic Morris Canal & the worlds oldest boardwalk… all in just over 24 hours. All told I found 14 caches bringing my total to Eleventy One.<\/p>\n
Would I have found any of these places without the Tour Challenge? Probably not. I don’t like to drive and gas is overpriced, but I used rechargeable batteries, packed lunches & refilled bottles from water fountains so it made for a pretty cheap weekend away from home. Mostly what I spent this weekend was time. As anyone on the plus side of 21 or so will tell you, it’s a precious thing and I believe I’m making some good use of it. I cached around during the day and spent the evenings with my wife. Life can be pretty alright sometimes. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n
As you can see from the chart at the right I’m nearly done. I had originally set a goal of finishing the tour by my birthday but decided that I rather enjoy the trips individually rather than kill myself hitting several counties in a short span. I’d never remember the places I had visited and I plan on taking people back to see these sights with or without a GPS in hand. That’s kinda the point… if civilization crumbles and the satellites fall from the sky the mist will still swirl over lakes after a cool spring rain… the rocky outcrops atop Allamuchy will still stand tall… the sun will still set over the Delaware… and I’ll be there – my baby in my arms, a tear in my eye, a lump in my throat and joy in my heart knowing that, finally, I didn’t have to pay any parkway tolls to get here.<\/p>\n
Update: 5\/27\/2007 – Essex has fallen! (South Mountain Reservation)
\nUpdate: 5\/29\/2007 – Union is no more thanks to the Wachung Reservation.
\nUpdate: 6\/03\/2007 – Passaic has been conquered. (High Mountain)
\nUpdate: 6\/10\/2007 – Cumberland has been assimilated. (Union Lake)
\nUpdate: 6\/10\/2007 – Gloucester has fallen into The Blue Hole.
\nUpdate: 6\/12\/200 7 – Ocean county has succumbed. (JFK Memorial Park)<\/p>\n
Looking back over the list I hit 8 Vintage, 7 Hikes, 3 Historical Curiosities, 2 Incidentals & 1 Home away from Home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
21 counties – 21 opportunities. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ericles.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ericles.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ericles.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ericles.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ericles.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/ericles.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ericles.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ericles.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ericles.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}