One Bugger of an FTF

Caching at lunch today wasn't quite what I had intended. I had planned on grabbing 5 new caches in the area - they've been placed in the last couple of days. One was a possible FTF so I went that way first - Calvin Chooses his fathers Nursing Care Facility (no I don't get the name either but that's ok).

Here's the story as it was written in the log on geocaching.com.

WooHoo!! FTF @ 12:58PM. This was actually a co-FTF with __________ (Dang! I didn't write the caching name down and now I've forgotten it - sorry about that)

This was one BUGGER of a find!! I spent about 40 minutes looking at every spot possible. I climbed, poked, prodded, dug, sifted, and moved just about everything. Did you notice that this was hidden BEFORE all the leaves started to fall!! Yes there is a bed of new leaves (with many more to come in the near future).

Then I realized..... the east side of one tree is the west side of another (see the cache page to intrepet what the means)... Yikes, that makes it even harder! So more poking, prodding, and sifting.

You know I have a meeting back at work that I'm supposed to be back for at 1:00. I don't think I'm going to make it...

It's about 5 minutes to 1. If I leave now I'll be about 10 minutes late....

One more try - I usually leave my electronic compass off on my Garmin Vista HCx. I'm going to turn it on and see where it leads me.

Ok, I've been to that tree already. Yep been there too. Humm, I've been here a lot - it's still pointing over there. I've been here before but I'm going to poke around some more.... VIOLA!! There it is!!

That was one bugger of a find, that's for sure!

Cup of Joe event and caching after

Tbone and I decided that we wanted to go to the Cup Of Joe event organized by Fireman121 and Skatergirl today. It was a small gathering but we had lots of good conversation and then headed off for some caching. At the event Bus&Betty talked about their first WhereIGo cache and it made me want to find one, but even more I want to make a fun one. So that may be in the works sometime... It was also good to meet FlagFinder for the first time. Minnesotabrad rounded out the group and also brought his Cache-A-Maniac's guest coin for people to see (I left my coin at home in my coin book).

Part of our conversation at Cup of Joe was about a cache only about 1 1/2 miles from the event put out by Grey Wolf and Wild Rice called Jambro Hates . It's been DNF'ed a ton so we all thought it would be a good idea for all of us to go and look for it together. Luck for us we did. It was a bugger of a find. One of those that is right there all along and when you find it you do the famous forehead slap and "Duh!!"

Afterward Tbone and I did some more caching in the area. We ended up grabbing 7 caches and one DNF.

We spent over an hour at Centerville's 150 cache and didn't come up with the find - another DNF for us. There really aren't that many hiding spots so I hope to find that the cache is missing so we don't look so bad.

Overall it was a great day of caching. Tbone and I had a great time. Next time maybe we'll have a few more Sokratz kidlets along, too.

Ring Ring goes the Geocache

I know cachers are a friendly bunch and I've seen it in action before. But these log entries from one of my recent hides takes the cake. Not only does it prove that people generally want to do the right thing but it shows what a little bit of luck can do....


Cache: What's your sign? (GC1GCGJ)

September 18 by notsmike (1581 found)
Looking for this cache, I dropped (lost) my cell phone.Not knowing where I misplaced it I called it to see if I could locate it. XHawk was looking for the cache and heard the ring, answered it and waited for me to come back and pick it up. Very nice meeting you XHawk and thanks again.notsmike [view this log on a separate page]

September 18 by XHawk (714 found)
I usually stink at puzzles. So I was real happy to solve this one. Doubled back to the car to put on long pants. A good idea on this one. Found cache right after hearing a phone ring. After signing log, I hung out and waited for notsmike to show. Nice meeting you today. TFTPC![view this log on a separate page]

Is that cool or what??

Find #2000!!

WooHoo!! I made it to 2000 cache finds. It took me 2 years and 9 months to get to this point - with tons of fun along the way. I've gotten out into parks and places I've never been to before. I've met some really friendly people. I've found some great caches in very memorable spots. Thanks to everyone who helped me get this far.....those that hid caches, those that put up with the "newbee" questions, and those that came up with some fun puzzles (after all, it was those puzzles - and the thrill of the hunt - that got me hooked on this). Thanks everyone!

I happen to be traveling today so I wasn't able to really do much planning for my 2000th find. I had to pick something close but that would be memorable. So I picked Wagon Wheel Park Petting Zoo Bonus Cache (GC1C48Q). On the surface this seems like a simple puzzle but there are 6 other caches that you have to complete before you can do the final puzzle.

There were other caches in the park so I thought it would be a good place to start my caching in Dallas. So off I went....

(In the order I found them...)

Wagon Wheel Park Petting Zoo #5 - Boy I made this hard, but at least I understand what I'm looking for now.

Wagon Wheel Park Petting Zoo #6 - Humm, a DNF - am I going to be able to finish this with a DNF on one of the stages. Oh well, I'm still going to ge tthem all.

Wagon Wheel Park Petting Zoo #3 - Getting used to the way the hider hides them by this point.

Wagon Wheel Park Petting Zoo #2 - No problem - routine micro.

Wagon Wheel Park Petting Zoo #4 - Routine micro.

Wagon Wheel Park Petting Zoo #1 - Tennis balls galore if anyone needs one you can get them here.

Now solving the puzzle...

Missing one of the number might make this hard but it turns out I got lucky. #6 is the least significant digit of the north coordinate. So this just might work. Theres only 5 possible number it could be and since it's the least significant digit I decided to mark them all and look at each one.

I headed out to the first guess. Not easy to get to and I might be on private property. As I get closer I see where the private property ends and the public park begins (there's probably a way to reach this area from the park but I went a different way). Back into the trees about 100' or so and.....

Bingo!! First guess was right. I love it when I get lucky! Fun find and well worth the 2000th find.

Now I'm off for the next 1000....

Tough FTF Hunt

Yesterday (9-8-08) at about 4:45 a new cache popped up.  Roseville PNG (GC1G3BK) is only about 4 miles (as the crow flies) from where I work.  I decided it was time for me to pack up and head out - maybe I would be able to get the FTF!

I arrived at ground zero at about 5:15 or 5:20 and started the search.  I of course scoured the traditional locations very quickly and came up empty (BTW, future finders, don't play with the electrical box taped to the light pole.  The cache is NOT in there and the electrical box is live).

The area is definitely muggle heaven.  Tons of people around everywhere... but I can't give up now.  I widened the search radius and continued on.

After a short while I noticed three people walking toward me so I started walking back toward ground zero.  Soon one of them gave a little "hello" wave and smiled.  Of course I waved back and could tell they were cachers as well.  Turned out to be Lasreaine, Magicite, and Moonpies who were also hoping for the FTF.

We all continued looking throughout the area.  Some widening the search area and others keeping around ground zero.  Finally I heard the sweet sound of "found it" from right behind me (5:35PM).  Yes, behind me because I just searched that area.  It was Lasreaine who came up with the find - and it was a tough find at that!!

You can read my cache log for some more insights.  Lasreaine's log is there too.

Thanks for the fun hide, Joukkusisu.  It was great to meet three new cachers today and I hope to see them again sometime.

NOTE: Turns out this cache has been a thorn in others sides.  Lots of DNF's in the first 24 hours.

27 Mile Bike Ride

It's been a long time since I've written anything here. There is so much to write about - lots of caches, vacation caching, etc, etc - and the more I think about it the more it seems like an argues task. So to compensate, I've just put off writing anything. Well, that has to stop - now. So I'm going to have to just skip the fun, exciting stuff I haven't written about and move on.....

This weekend EagleEyeMN (my oldest son) and I went for a bike ride around Forest Lake (both the town and the lake). Our goal was to make it a 25 mile ride - it ended up being a little over 27 miles in the end. Of course I planned a series of caches to do along the way, too. Finally tally was 19 finds, 0 DNF's, 1 we decided we couldn't get to, and 2 that we skipped because they haven't been found for so long (and we had to keep moving).

We parked the car at Tolzmann Park at the north end of the lake, got the bikes and the packs ready and headed out counter-clockwise around the lake. Our first cache was about 400 feet away - whew, that's was a tough ride :-)

Our second stop was disappointing - and gave us thoughts of not being able to complete both tasks - 25 miles AND all the caches we have on our list. The cache just didn't seem to be accessible from where we were and if we wanted to go around to get it we'd spend too much time. So we decided to skip it and keep going.

The next part of the ride was filled with caches. Of course some of them were very quick - either EagleEyeMN or I would spot them and be picking up the cache before the other one even got off their bike. Those type of caches helped us stay on time (although the only time commitment was that we had to be done in 8 hours - not too difficult).

At about the 7 mile mark we started looking for The Treasure Hunt (GC1FV3J). This was a fun multi stage cache. The cache hider, Plumcitykitties, did an outstanding job with both stages of this cache. They spent time in ensuring that both containers were unique and fun. Thanks for all the work, guys! You'll have to go find the cache yourself to see what I'm talking about.

Next we headed back toward the lake and decided to stop for lunch at Beltz Park and X-Ray (GC1CXG0). Another excellent cache hide by Plumbcitykitties! The park was hopping with kids and a couple of adults so the fact that we were stopping for lunch made it a little easier to grab the cache. Luckily, EagleEyeMN put is eagle eyes to work and found the cache right away. However, it took some time before we could actually retrieve it. When the time was right we made the grab and got it back quickly. Thanks for another great hide, guys!!

After eating and grabbing the cache it was time to move on. We skipped one on the way to Hardwood Creek WMA (GC59A2) because it hadn't been found in a long time - and the fact there there were two cars and a handful of muggles at ground zero when we passed by. We did, however, stop and take a quick 2 minute break there anyway.

Hardwood Creek WMA was interesting. You can read the log to get some more information. Needless to say we were lucky to get out of there without getting poison ivy.

By this time in the ride we were both tired but still feeling pretty good. We made it about 16 miles and were at the south end of the lake. Only 5 caches left to go on our list.

We headed up the east side of the lake and took another break at the next cache - North Shore Trail (GC1709T). Fun hide - mostly because of the muggle traffic. We were lucky today, though. The muggles were already out on the lake and not coming back in yet.

Status check.... EagleEyeMN is doing just fine and I'm starting to get tired. I'm not hurting yet but that last couple of miles were a lot more difficult for me than for him. Finding the cache - and grabbing a candy bar - gave me a few minutes to recover before heading on.

As we continued to head up the east side of the lake, we decided to skip the next cache because it hadn't been found in a while and we needed to keep pressing on. Thinking back on it now I should have stopped and taken another break - but we didn't.

Last stop for the day was Kulenkamp Memorial Park with 4 caches in the park. Although mostly uneventful in this park there was one multi cache - Sudsy (GC16ZPJ) - that needed some help. Checkout the log for more details. The other interesting cache in this park was Kavanaugh Red (GC1CMJH). Seems some soon-to-be hunters wanted a deer stand in the park. I don't know if hunting is legal in that park but there's a deer stand at ground zero now (see my log).

We now have all of our caches done and it's about a 3 1/2 mile bike ride back to Tolzmann Park and the car. We're both tired but getting the caches in this park gave us time to recuperate. So off we went.

We finally arrived back at the car. EagleEyeMN was tired but still feeling "ok." I, on the other had, was about to DIE!! The last two miles of the ride really did me in. We didn't stop since leaving Kulenkamp park. It was only 3 1/2 miles but it really did me in. My quads were about to explode! I did all I could do to get off my bike and walk over to a bench to sit down for a rest. EagleEyeMN graciously took the time to pack up the bikes while I just watched from a distance (thanks, dude!).

Overall it was a fun day. EagleEyeMN and I were able to spend some good time together and he was able to prove his young legs were much better than my old legs. That's ok, though, I can still do more push ups than he can :-)