BB and I go geocaching at Wayside Inn

Usually geocaching is about a walk in the forest.  Today was very different.  We went over to Wayside Inn, a nearby historic inn, did a bit of geocaching and stopped in for a drink. 

Wayside is a fascinating historic restaurant and inn.  It's in Sudbury along the original Boston Post Rd, a colonial road between Boston and NY.  George and others stayed or passed by.  You can find out more about Wayside Inn here.

Historic Wayside Inn

The inn is also noteworthy because of its association with Henry Ford who used it as a center piece of a historic colonial village.  The area includes a historic chapel, active water driven mill, and school.  The school has an association with the well known nursery rhyme "Mary Had A Little Lamb."  It turns out there was a real Mary, lamb, and school.  Ford brought the historic one room school room to the Wayside grounds and the cache Mary Had A Little Cache derives from the story details.

The other cache Raiders of the Lost Geocache is by far one of the most interesting I've encountered.  It derives from "Raiders of the Lost Arc" where a staff is used to point to a treasure.  The cache takes advantage of a south facing porch on the chapel.  You use a staff of a certain length placed on a certain place on the porch at a certain time of day.  The staff shadow will fall on a particular brick with a set of GPS coordinates for the cache.  Very clever.

Here are the cache's for the day.

	Listing	Date	Log Type
	Mary Had A Little Cache	20 November 2010 15:27:00	Found it
	Raiders of the Lost Geocache	20 November 2010 15:28:00	Found it

Mary Had A Little Cache

Route to "Mary's"

After visiting Mary's school and solving the puzzle it is a short walk past the mill and mill pond to the cache.  We found it easily sitting in the open.  TFTC/SL/TN/left geocards.  The walk along the mill pond was brisk today with blustery winds across the water.  The cache was in generally OK condition but the log was rather damp.

School house

Mill wheel and race

While on our way to the cache we stopped in the mill.  Definitely worth the effort.  We spent some time with the very interesting miller who after a bit of a quiz gave us a couple of pounds of fresh milled corn meal!  If you can, be sure and visit when the mill is in operation and take time to visit with the miller.

Raiders of the Lost Geocache

Route to "Raiders"

We stopped to visit the chapel though, I'll have to admit, I'd solved the puzzel another way.  The chapel is very classic New England structure and the porch and puzzle really clever.

After visiting the chapel we stopped in to the Wayside Inn to warm up and have a cocktail.  There is a small pub room with a warm fire that serves interesting cocktails including what is represented as America's first, two parts rum and one part ginger brandy served chilled.  One is plenty.


Warmed and fortified we walked behind the inn to the cache location.  The path goes behind a trout pond to a larger pond.  We found the cache quickly.  TFTC/SL/TN/left geocards.

As usual here are all the photos from today's adventure.