Sokratz Lab

I was able to do some lunch caching today. Only had time for three quick grabs but the fun part was solving a puzzle last night. Lost in Minnesota was a fun puzzle cache that took me some time to figure out. I wasn't sure if the cache really was in Minnesota or not but after I solved it I found that it really was in Minnesota - even though a Utah cacher hid it (with help from someone around here). All you puzzle hiders out there, check this one out.

I've spent some time in the Sokratz Lab lately. Now my lab is nothing like the Posen lab, I'm sure, but it still creates some pretty fun containers.

Many of these containers have already been hidden in the last month but there's sill plenty more to be hidden this summer. Of course I can't show you all of them or it would give them away. The picture here shows some of the more "traditional" ones you may find next time you hunt a Sokratz cache.

San Francisco Caching

I spent last week in San Francisco on business and of course had to get some caching in. I was able to find 29 unique caches in the downtown area - all within walking distance from Mascone Center. According to the track log I walked 9.5 miles on Tuesday, 4 miles on Wed, and 4.5 miles on Friday. And don't forget the San Francisco terrain. This isn't Minnesota anymore. There are more steep hills than I imagined. Many of them had stairs instead of sidewalks because they were so steep. I sure had a good time, though, walking through the streets and seeing things I would have never seen. Here are some that I thought were interesting....

Franciscan Complex - Alcatraz Terrane - My first cache on the trip and my first Earth Cache. This was a pretty cool place. I learned something about Graywacke, too. Not at all what I expected.

Parrot's Perch - Wild parrot's, how cool is that. Boy they were loud, too. This as an interesting place. There wasn't a road but a set of stairs that did a "switch back" to get up the hill. Everywhere along the stairway there were walkways to the houses. It's hard to describe without actually being there.

Watermelon Hill - This is evidently a place where David Letterman rolled a bunch of watermelons down the hill. Boy it was steep!!

Lombard Street - Yes, this is the famous curvy road hill. This was a fun cache. I met a cacher from Tennessee here. Lots of great views from this vantage point. And of course tons of muggles in the area!

At the Pier - This is a Web Cam cache at Pier 39 (the tourist area). You'll have to checkout the log to see the pictures of Sokratz playing at the pier. I'm on the phone with my wife so she could take the picture from the web cam.

Bamboo Alley and Chinatown Tour - These were a couple of puzzle caches that took you on a sight seeing tour. Saw things I probably wouldn't have seen otherwise.

S.F. Cable Car Barn - This was a fun place. It's at the heart of the cable cars. This working museum is where all the cables that power the cable cars run from. It was pretty interesting to see how it all works.


Of course there a couple of DNF's (did not find) in there too. One of them really bugged me. At one point there were 4 of us there looking for it.

Union Square - We couldn't find this one at all. I came here on two different days and at one time even had one of the street vendors selling art work helping me look for it. It was maddning. After leaving I sent an email to the cacher I met at Lombard Street because she had found this one, too. Boy did I feel stupid when she told me where she had found it. Yikes - sometimes you feel like a nut, and this was that time!

Of course there were many other fun caches there too. Overall it was a great caching adventure for a couple of days in San Francisco.

I took some pictures along the way and used GPicSync to sync the pictures up with my GPS tracks. The result in .KMZ file can be viewed in Google Earth (don't confuse that with Google Maps, they're two different things). You can download the 3.6MB file from here.

Free Maps for Garmin units

I haven't had much time for caching the past week. Work has me hopping right now. It will slow back down in a week or two - then they'll be more time for caching again.

I have spent some time looking at maps for my Garmin units that I don't have maps for. I found some excellent maps (most are works in progress).

First Topo Maps from http://www.miscjunk.org/mj/mp_main.html.
They cover Wyoming, Utah, Montana, and Colorado and they are great! I took an older eTrex Legend (old blue - with only 8meg for maps) and loaded some of the Wyoming maps. I choose Wyoming because I grew up there and thought I would know if the maps were accurate or not. Well, the they are exceptional! The contours are excellent, plus you get street maps for cities and towns!! Next time we go out there I'll definitely load the older GPS's with these maps. The kids will love it compared to not having any maps at all.

They also have some off road maps for Minnesota. You Minnesotans might want to check them out.

My second great find was http://www.gpsfiledepot.com/.
Although the map choices are sparse, they have "How To's" to teach you how to create your own maps. I thought this was pretty good, and if I find the time, I might just try it myself.

Next it was off to http://openstreetmap.org/.
A very interesting community based project. These guy's are mapping the world one saved track at a time. Take a look at your area and I bet you'll be impressed. What I found most useful about this site was the European maps that can be generated. If you're planning a trip over seas, take a look here and learn how to make your maps before you go.

Lastly, follow this topic in the GroundSpeak Forums http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=189762.
These are the best street maps I could find (for free!!). ibycus is doing an outstanding job creating a complete USA map set. If you haven't seen this yet, it's a "must see." The only issue that I could find is the speed of the GPS. I tried loading a set of maps on the old eTrex Legend. They load just fine. However, the blue eTrex Legend just isn't powerful enough to draw the maps quick enough. It took forever because of all of the detail ibycus is providing. However, on the newer color eTrex line it worked great.

So, if you're looking for maps and don't want to pay a bundle, the resources above are a great start. And if you can't find what you like, you can always make your own and contribute them to the cause.