Happy Halloween

Don't forget to hit the link and head over to CacheCrazy for the #1 Fright Week post - "The Prospector."  

It's been a crazy 10 days at CacheCrazy and I hope you've enjoyed our 10 days of terror.  Thanks to all the authors from around the globe who contributed to all the fun.

Happy Halloween and have a good time out there today!  Stay safe.

Fright Week Oct. 30, 2012

Only one more day until the big reveal of our number 1 post!  Don't forget to hit the link and go over to read "The Big, Black, Hairy Monster Under my Table."  This is one story you do not want to miss!   See you there. Oh, and I hope you can sleep tonight.  LOL!!!

I See You

This little guy stopped by for a visit!

Only a few more days til Halloween!

Don't forget to hit the link and time warp over to CacheCrazy for "A Hypnosis Possession."  One new tale each day from now until Halloween.  See you there. Oh, and I hope you can sleep tonight.  LOL!!!

Fright Week Oct. 27, 2012

Don't forget to hit the link and time warp over to CacheCrazy for today's entry "Eye See Dead People" that came all the way from Sweden.  One new tale each day from now until Halloween.  See you there. Oh, and I hope you can sleep tonight.  LOL!!!

Visiting Fort Sheridan Part 2

The other day I was telling you about our excursion to historic Fort Sheridan so we could walk the trails and find a few geocaches while learning the history of the old fort.  Today I'll show you some of the trails and exhibits we saw along the way.

The original main gate to the Fort has been moved and is now a part of the Fort Sheridan Nature Preserve....

The land in this area was originally part of a glacier and over the past 4000 years running water has formed beautiful ravines....

The Nature Preserve has miles of trails, both paved and natural.  The first section lead us down towards Lake Michigan where there is an interactive display...

Somewhere on this artillery gun there's a geocache hidden.  Unfortunately, there were way too many people around for us to look for it, so we'll be back to do this one another day...

I particularly liked the high range binoculars mounted there.  We could see way far out onto the lake by using them...

The next section of pathway took us closer to the lake, and we had to scramble down a steep bluff to look for the next geocache.....

Once we climbed back to the top of the bluff, the pathway took us west and lead us through some prairie....

....and to an old bridge over a ravine.  The next geocache was hidden on this bridge.  We did find it but I can't show you where it was.....

Continuing along the path, we found several more geocaches and explored an old Army cemetery.  Headed south, if you look closely in the center of the photo, you can see the top of the water tower at Fort Sheridan....

We had several more caches left to do, but both of our GPS units died out.  And since they don't have replaceable batteries in them, we were forced to quit our caching for the day and go home to recharge the units.  Hopefully we'll be able to go back one day soon with my mom and dad to complete the series.  We did get a nice view as we headed back to our cache mobile tho....

And before I leave you today, let me remind you about Fright Week!

We are half way through our count down!  Are you following along?  If so, I hope you're enjoying the stories so far.   If not, what are you waiting for???  Don't forget to hit the link and time warp over to CacheCrazy and read "The Haunted Car." One new tale each day from now until Halloween.  See you there. Oh, and I hope you can sleep tonight.  LOL!!!

Fright Week October 25, 2012

Don't forget to hit the link and visit CacheCrazy for today's tale "The Slender Man." One new tale each day from now until Halloween.  See you there. Oh, and I hope you can sleep tonight.  LOL!!!

Visiting Fort Sheridan

Last weekend we drove to Highland Park, Illinois to hike the trails and find some geocaches placed along the trails at historic Fort Sheridan.  Fort Sheridan was established in 1887 as an army post and named after Philip Sheridan who was a Civil War cavalry general.  Beginning in 1898, Fort Sheridan became a mobilization, training and administrative center.  Many famous officers lived at Fort Sheridan, and among them was George Patton.  Fort Sheridan processed thousands of soldiers who were returning to civilian life, my father being one of those solders in the 1950's.  My husband's family lived in Highland Park and he remembers seeing the barracks and the soldiers when he was a kid.

One of the distinguishing features of Fort Sheridan that can be seen for miles is the original water tower.  At one time this water tower was the tallest structure in the Chicago area.  The buildings radiating out from the water tower were the barracks that originally housed soldiers.  Many of the 94 original buildings were built with bricks that were molded and fired on site from clay that had been taken from the nearby lakefront bluffs.

  

I liked the large, ornate lamp posts.  And they were huge!

The parade grounds consist of a beautifully manicured expanse of grass in front of the water tower.  It's impossible to walk across the grounds and not imagine the soldiers and the history that existed here...

In 1984, 94 buildings sitting on the 110 acre historic district were designated a National Historic Landmark.      Fort Sheridan officially closed as a military operation in 1993, although an Army Reserve base continues to operate on a 90 acre parcel.  Since then local developers have transformed many of the historic buildings into private residences, including the barracks that are attached to the water tower.  The developers have done a wonderful job of preserving the old buildings and have also set aside land for a possible golf course,  installed miles of biking and hiking trails through a Nature Preserve, and placed interactive exhibits along the trails.  We ended up walking about 3 miles of trails in our quest for geocaches, and I'll show you some of that in the next post.  In the meantime.....

       

Don't forget to hit the link and time warp over to CacheCrazy for today's Fright Week story titled "3:00 AM."  This one comes with a WARNING of GRAPHIC writing and is NOT for kids or those with weak stomach's.  Proceed at your own risk for today's tale.  You've been warned!!!   One new tale each day from now until Halloween.  See you there. Oh, and I hope you can sleep tonight.  LOL!!!

Fright Week Oct. 23, 2012

Don't forget to hit the link and time warp over to CacheCrazy for day two's scary story of suspense, called "Baby Swamp Buck."  One new tale each day from now until Halloween.  See you there. Oh, and I hope you can sleep tonight.  LOL!!!

Here Comes Fright Week

Are you in the mood for Halloween?  Do you like scary stories, tales of the supernatural, freaky deaky stuff?  Well if you do, the folks over at CacheCrazy have some shenanigans in the works in celebration of our haunted holiday.

Bloodhounded, who is our fearless leader over at CacheCrazy, put out the call to our circle of writers that he wanted us to submit stories with a fright theme.  And like all good CacheCrazy writers, we responded!

Starting Monday October 22, we will have stories each day until Halloween.  Some stories are true, some are not, and it will be up to you to determine which is which.  But we won't tell.  Isn't that part of the fun?

At the end of the series, the top 3 posts will get a prize and the number one post will be featured on CacheCrazy at noon on Halloween and receive a special prize.  It's all good fun no matter who wins.  So be sure to head over to CacheCrazy starting October 22nd and join in on the fun.  If you dare.....

Trick or Treat For Our Troops

A lot of you know that we support a US Military Unit stationed in Afghanistan with care packages every month. Well, since it's Halloween, we came up with something fun that we did to benefit the troops.

Chablis, my sister Laurie, and I all dressed up like soldiers and went trick or treating for our troops.

We wore signs that explained what we were doing and then as we went to each house we also explained that we were collecting candy to send to our soldiers.  We also passed out flyers explaining the Any Soldier program.

The response we got was overwhelming!  Before we even reached the first house a neighborhood police car pulled up next to us by the curb and the officer leaned out the window and handed us a bunch of candy and wished us luck!  Honest to God, people were throwing handfuls of candy into our bags.  Several people said what we were doing was wonderful and dumped their entire candy bowls into one of our bags.  One woman laughed when we explained it to her and said "Thank goodness.  I was wondering why such old women were out trick or treating."   Ok, that was kind of funny but I sort of took offense at the old women remark!  Then she gave us a bunch of candy so I forgave her.  But the BEST one was an elderly lady who said she loved what we were doing because her grandson was in the army and waiting for his orders to ship out.  She gave us each a nice baggy full of candy and we went on to the next house.  A few minutes later the old lady came back outside and shouted for us to come back.  She handed us an entire bag of unopened candy to send to the soldiers.  Wasn't that sweet?  She almost made me cry.

It was quite the haul.  This was what we collected in one hour....

We'll be packing up boxes this week and you can bet that they will be stuffed with a lot of candy.  I think the soldiers are really going to like all the treats.  People sure were nice and I have to say, VERY appreciative of our military.

All I can say is God Bless all the generous people tonight for giving from their hearts and God Bless to our great military personnel.  It was a perfect evening to be out - the temperature was about 50 degrees and lots of kids were out trick or treating.  And a few old women!