geocaching in Armsheim (where the heck is that??)

Armsheim is a tiny little village close to Alzey in the rhinehessian rolling country..
The main attraction for the kids was this fountain where we had to count the lights embedded in the water flow..

It as a beautiful crisp October day and the sun made playing in the water tolerable - what a nice day!

The pomace looks like giant mole hills :-) Millions of fruit flies (drosophila melanogaster, well known by some of us who took genetics and got to breed them in a glass in their Mom´s kitchen.. hmm.. who took the lid off???) had a feast! Since the new wine had just been harvested, the leftovers (pomace) were dumped onto the fields as a fertilizer.. when the kids got closer a cloud of them rose up and scared them away.. haha.. they are cute little things though!

Embracing Trees and Gnomes

Mannheim - only half an hour away but somehow neglected by us, no idea why!



We went geocaching at a really nice area with different enclosures with indigenous animals such as wild boar (they had babies, too!!) and deer. A bit drizzle here and there but overall a great walk. We started out calculating the first set of coordinates and guess what? I made a mistake that sent us about a whole kilometer out towards the opposite direction.. lol.. BUT another cache was along that route and the kids got to see the young boars and deer before we found the first cache. And who found it? Naaah.. not Alex our usual sniffer outer - meeeeee.. he he he.. he was a bit disappointed I´m afraid.. lol
So we continued to walk through the woods and corrected our miscalculation - oops, MY miscalculation and met some of the nicest dogs and people along the way. And then we started pine cone wars.. oh boy.. lol
And Isa had the "fallsies" - she NEVER falls but today she did.. 4 times! (counting walking into a tree.. lol).. here a picture taken by her bad mother the second after she hit the ground.. ha ha

After a nice long walk around a big pond and more calculating coordinates we finally found embracing trees... oops, again, I found it.. he he.. sorry Alex!

There were countless opportunities for climbing and playing along the whole route so we all had plenty of fun.
Gnome Pictures:







Right before we came back to our starting point it started drizzling harder and Alex said lightly "too bad it´s not a torrential downpour".. Thanks Alex! Guess what? Yup. loool...


So we got soaked and still had fun! While everyone dashed for shelter my kids were jumping around in the deepest puddles while getting drenched from all sides.. excellent.. lol
Small plus of that: Juju fell asleep on the way home and didn´t wake up until 7 the next morning.. lol

Geocaching - Nibelungenschatz

Caching with my Fab4 in the Rheingau... what a day :-D





Would you believe it - we ALMOST made a FTF - First to Find on the cache Nibelungenschatz ...
BUT the younguns decided to go out the previous night until 0Dark30 and couldn´t get their butts out of bed earlier than noon.. lol... I was going to leave at 10 to try and be the first one to find this cache near the Niederwalddenkmal on the other side of the river, about 40 miles from here and right above Rüdesheim.

you learn something new every day....


Almost everyone in a good mood.. he he.. Isa was mad because Kat didn´t let her climb around..


Nearby Niederwalddenkmal

So off we went and parked at the Jagdschloß and started getting busy with solving problems to obtain the correct coordinates. Alex went to count all the parking spots there were (a number we needed) and we were looking for various other clues while exploring the vicinity. Very nice hotel in a very nice setting - I bet staying here is awesome!!!
First we needed to correct ourselves on the coordinates because it just wasn´t adding up and we found our mistake by way of a sign close by.. argh.. :-D
And then we set off deeper into the woods towards the rhine river. About 15 minutes into the walk we saw a guy in full geocaching gear approaching us, garmin strapped to the backpack.. AAAAHH!!!!! I KNOW HE FOUND IT BEFORE US!!!!! Oh well, after an annoyed look at my crew I shook it all off and we commenced our nice afternoon tour.


And nice it was - absolutely stunning views from all sorts of spots, an enchanted cave (coincidentally stage 2) which the kids loved and actually walked through (60 meters through the dark - what a cool thing for a 2 and a 5 year old, huh? Oh, not to forget the excited 18 year old.. ha ha ha).

at the entrance of the enchanted cave


spiderman says "cache is not here"...

Are we there yet?

At the next stage Alex and Kat did some climbing and seeking for the next coordinates, Alex was already starting to regret we didn´t have climbing gear with us but the small container was finally found and the final coordinates revealed - again with the help of a sign nearby.

We´ll find the micro...

yup, climbeable..

opening the micro

Did I mention it was windy???? VERY windy?

my girls

No, I´m not climbing!

I won´t tell..


Alex, very tempted to do more climbing...

After more walking, more climbing
and some more exploring Alex and Isa went ahead of us and before I even got the chance to announce that we should be getting close, Alex´s victory cry was heard.. wohoo! He has that caching instinct I tell ya :-D

off towards the cache

Alex found it!!!!! (oh maaaaan..:-D )




This little guy was guarding the cache :-)

Once we looked into the logbook our initial fear was validated.. sniff... that guy was there at 14:00 and we made it at 14:47..
But second isn´t all that bad either and it was Kat´s first cache - so wohoooo for the Navy :-D

We decided to keep on hiking to the Niederwalddenkmal, hung out there, didn´t initially find a place to eat but a souvenir shop.. as we walked towards it to check if they had food we saw the Café and decided to get our "souvenirs" there.. grin grin..

Yet another thing Alex wanted to climb...

are you sure you can see it from here???

My Fab4

Closer...duuh..

We got some "souvenir cordon bleu" and "souvenir bratwurst" and fries and recovered from the hike here with another amazing view :-D
On our way back we were lucky enough to find wild raspberries that were calling our names quite loudly so we had to go and eat them before they felt they had no purpose on this planet - delicious!!! And yes, we only picked the ones high above the ground ;-D

Overall a perfect afternoon to spend with my 4 kids - wouldn´t trade it for the world, even if we were the "last to find".. ha ha..


Juju at his best...

mine is bigger than yours!