Naughty or nice?

The choice I had to make when trying to find a letterbox hybrid geocache this afternoon. Had a half day off work and the weather was beautiful - not so hot as it was a few weeks ago. So you know what I'm going to do, right? Geocaching.

I had made two previous attempts at this particular letterbox hybrid cache. A letterbox hybrid differs from a regular geocache in that, once you arrive at the starting coordinates, you have to follow specific directions to find the cache. This LBH was located in Prairie Wolf Park, a nice park with lots of acreage and some developed paths. In my first attempt, I followed the directions as far as I could. They included finding three other caches in the park, none of which I had previously found. That went well. The next direction was to find a fourth cache. Unfortunately for me I had already found this cache. Which meant that I didn't have the coordinates with me and my memory of where it was wasn't too good. So I was done for that day.

Came back a few weeks later with the coords to that cache so that I could continue on. Now the directions involved projecting waypoints from a particular spot indicated from the directions. It was one of March's record setting heat wave days - 87 degrees, way too hot for caching. The heat fried my brains, methinks, because I just could not remember how to project a waypoint with my etrex! And of course I didn't have a regular compass with me, either. So strike two.

Today I came back. I had refreshed my memory on how to project a waypoint, and I also brought a regular compass for backup. Worked my way down from Gilda's Club, found 5 caches along the way (along with 3 DNFs) and finally made it to the park.

Came back to the tree that I thought was the right spot, and after a few false starts I had projected waypoints for both "naughty" and "nice." You see, once you got to this point, you had to decide whether the cache was hidden in a naughty spot or a nice spot. And once you find it, you can switch them so you never know for sure which way to search.

The waypoints didn't work. And while I was trying them out, a couple came down the trail with equipment that sure looked like they were geocaching! I greeted them with "Naughty or nice?" I'm sure they thought I was strange but then I explained that I thought they were geocaching. They were measuring a trail, apparently.

I continued to struggle with the waypoints as there were a lot of thorny branches and dead wood blocking really quality access to the woods beyond the trail. As I ventured back and forth, the woman of the previously mentioned couple was standing on the trail talking to another woman who appeared out of nowhere. They proceeded to stand there and discuss something for about 20 minutes.

I finally decided that I might not have used the right spot to project my waypoints. Looked over everything again and chose a new spot. Projected naughty and nice again, decided to try "nice" first. After searching for a bit, I finally found the wooden plaque with the "nice" symbol. No cache. Ok, at least that means that I probably have the right projections at least! So went for "naughty." It really was a naughty hide as I got scratched up under my pants from the thorny branches in the area. Finally spotted the "naughty" symbol on another plaque, and this time there was a cache behind it!

Good to finally have this one done - definitely more of a challenge than a lot of the ones I've done over the winter!

The Geo-Calendar is complete!

Almost a year after I actively started pursuing this goal, I can now say my geo-calendar is complete. This means that I have found (at least) one geocache during every calendar day of the year, including February 29. (Thanks to my muggle mom for driving us to see the manatees that day in 2008 when we were visiting her in Florida!)

There were some struggles to get a few of the days I hadn't filled in five years of caching. The holidays come to mind - I still had to find caches on Christmas Day, New Years Eve, and a few other special days. I managed. Also had a struggle on February 2. That was the day of the big blizzard of 2011. A geocaching friend came through and picked me up in his 4WD Jeep and took me to find a cache.

I thought my last day might be a pretty big struggle, though. Today was the first day of our semi-annual staff development at work. I had to be there at 8 a.m. - then report to a local hotel (the Amway Grand Plaza) after the kids were picked up by their dads; dinner together with the staff; then free at about 8:30 p.m., with no easy caches within walking distance of the hotel. So the only solution - leave early for work!

Had been saving the State Search Challenge caches for a geo-calendar day, so went to the 15 state challenge first - and made the find, completing the geo-calendar, at 7:15 a.m. Since I had time to spare, ended up getting the 10 and 5 state challenges as well and still got to work with time to spare. I have found geocaches in 17 states all together so those three challenges are all I qualify for in the series for now.

Am now at the Amway, enjoying the nice room with the (for once) beautiful view of the rivers in downtown Grand Rapids; and also enjoyed a nice meal with my co-workers. After breakfast together, they get to go do more staff development and I get to go back and spend another day at the clubhouse with the kids. Hard to remember sometimes that I'm part of the team. (wistful thinking, but would love to be with the rest as I know it's not all work.)bu

Cachin' Wisconsin....West Bend Cache Ba$h

Way back in January (before I knew Scott was coming home on leave) I decided to attend the West Bend $1000 Cache Ba$h, in West Bend Wisconsin. Cash prize giveaway for caching - my 50th birthday weekend - all good. Shortly thereafter I invited my sister, Deb, to join me as she has done some caching herself. I also invited a caching friend from here, also named Deb.

So Thursday was the day...picked up Deb L. at 7:30 a.m. and we were on the road after a Mickey D's breakfast stop and an ATM stop. We cached along the way in Michigan and Indiana. Our favorite cache along the way was one in Indiana called KA-BOOM - it was near a fireworks store and was an ammo box with a pringles can decorated to look like a firecracker, with notation that the log was inside. When we opened the can, out popped one of those snakes on a spring...after we screamed, we laughed. Probably won't ever pass a fireworks store again without thinking of that one. Also did about six caches at one shopping area, most centered around a Bass Pro Shop that was there.

Headed into Illinois, and the tollway. Slow going at first with construction on 80-94. And the tolls - my how they've changed. I-PASS is the way to go now, apparently - if you don't have one, you have to go all the way over to the right side for a cash booth. And the prices have gone up and are even different depending on the booth - we paid anywhere from 80 cents to $1.50. I think Deb L. thought it was funny that I was so verbal about that - but I grew up traveling the tollway a couple of times a year or so and still remember the Pay Toll One Mile, Cars 30 cents signs. And oh, yes, the baskets are gone, too. If we were the lucky kid sitting behind the driver, we got to throw the toll into the basket.

No real delays around Chicago other than 80-94, so smooth sailing. Didn't cache much except a few at the Oases until we got to the Gurnee exit, did three there. Then headed up into Wisconsin and by then we were getting tired and pretty much just wanted to get to the hotel. After we arrived, checked in, we walked across the street to Applebee's and ate dinner. After dinner, we both logged our cache finds from the day then went to bed.

Friday morning - woke up, ate the hotel breakfast, and had a few hours to kill before the new caches were released and registration opened at noon. So we decided to go for some nearby caches, then went over to the park and did some caching there. Our first one was at the park's playground. Just couldn't find that one so went to the next two which were both pretty mosquito-guarded. Then decided to do one more - it was on an island, I volunteered to wade across. A team of a dad and two sons soon joined us, it took a while but the dad finally found the cache. Then we made our way back to the park, registered, then decided to go back to the hotel and shower, then pick up my sis Deb who arrived at 2 p.m. Once we had sis Deb checked in, the three of us set out to do just "10" caches - the new ones all had 10 as their prefix. We had to collect a stamp or codeword from each one to prove we were there, and received tickets to the prize drawing based on how many caches we could find. We managed to find 27caches on Friday, even though there was some rain, mostly light though. There was a meet & greet at the park but we decided to keep on caching anyway. Came time for supper, we were going to grab sandwiches and take them back to the room, but then I saw a Noodles restaurant and I had a coupon for a free birthday meal so we ended up there. I had Wisconsin Mac & Cheese, Deb L. had stroganoff, and sis Deb had buttered noodles with meatballs. Again, spent the evening logging finds. Sis Deb had some trouble getting the wifi so went to the lobby. She met several West Michigan cachers down there without me even introducing her!

Saturday - today's goal was to get me to 3000 finds. I knew we couldn't do it on just 10 caches, and the tickets were only good for prize drawings, not the cash prize, so we were doing anything that came our way that wasn't going to give us a long walk. Definitely a numbers day! We were all over but managed to get me to 2996 by the time we came back to the park to turn in our cards just before the deadline. I grabbed two more caches while waiting for the prize drawings, and logged the post-bash party before the bash, which made the event my #3000 cache find.

We passed the time while waiting for the prize drawings by doing a little cache shopping, pathtag trading, and visiting with other cachers. We didn't win any cash or prizes, but had a good time. Went back to the hotel to clean up, then stopped by the Post Bash party (another event.) I had logged that I would be having my 50th birthday the next day, so they had a special prize for me - a book called "The Joy of Geocaching" which was autographed by the authors. Very good book! We didn't stay very long at the party as it was quite crowded and the bar didn't serve any food other than Tombstone Pizzas so left in search of better food. We ended up at Qdoba for mexican food, then went back to the hotel and (you guessed it) logged our caches. Had 39 for Saturday so it took a while.

Sunday morning, we got up and headed over to the Breakfast, a third event for the weekend. Enjoyed some pancakes then did the turkey shoot which involved finding four plastic wildlife creatures and figuring out the closest coords. Didn't win that either, oh well!

Oh, when we came out to the car at the hotel, I discovered that sis Deb had decorated the car with balloons, "50" written on the windows, and over the hill streamers. She made me a sash out of some of the streamers, and I got to wear a Burger King crown as well, proclaiming me the birthday girl. Had received the crown the day before, and the counter guy actually sang Happy Birthday to me when I received it....

Then back to the hotel to load up, check out, and head for home. Said our goodbyes to sis Deb, I'm really glad she could join me though I think it'll be a while before she does another event, at least a huge one like this one. Left the balloons and other decs on the car all the way home, at first when people honked as they went by I couldn't figure out why, then the "oh-duh" meter went on and I waved back...

Ended up with a grand total of five caches on Sunday. First was the breakfast event, then one in Wisconsin to drop off a coin that wanted to stay in the area, then an Oasis cache in Illinois, then one in Indiana when I needed a driving break, then an event in Portage, Indiana that other West Michigan cachers had told us about. We didn't get there in time to search for the new caches from that event, but we visited about 15 minutes and so received the smiley anyway. Got home about 7 p.m., then Steve and the boys took me to Outback for dinner.

Got a new digital pix frame from Steve, a Deutschland license plate that said GEO CACHE on it and a Transatlantic Council Wood Badge patch from Scott, and a beautiful card and a promise to buy me a massage certificate from Eric. Plus a cheesecake for birthday cake.

A great birthday weekend. You only turn 50 once, right? : )

102 - 18 hours

What a busy hectic week I've had! Back to work last Monday (with a new 2 month old baby girl!) then straight from work to Vacation Bible School. That was the schedule pretty much all week, the days I didn't work I had errands and other activities to fill the day, then VBS in the evenings. I led the 2nd/3rd grade group and also presented the lesson on Wednesday and Friday.

So this is the first chance to blog since my big day last Saturday (a week ago.) Since we returned from vacation in time, I was able to keep my plans with three other geocaching friends to attempt a 100-cache day.

We all met at my house (farthest east) at 5:30 a.m., loaded everything into Joe's car and headed east. First cache about 6:15 a.m., we had to drive a ways to find caches that none of us had found. We all had assigned tasks to make the day more efficient: Joe of course was the designated driver (and we even found him an official pin in a cache); Joel was the navigator; Linda was the "secretary," keeping track of finds, and I was the "labeler" applying the special label that Joe had made with our names and the date, to the cache log. Definite time-saver! We of course all had the job of looking for the cache, I would say we each found our share of them.

The day kind of blurs together now but we found a lot of caches throughout the morning, mostly quick ones out of necessity. We were eventually headed for Sleepy Hollow State Park where there were quite a few caches. What hadn't been taken into account was that there would be more hiking between caches here. In a couple of hours, I think we only got 5 caches. So decided to move on to the M-52 Pick-up series, a set of 52 caches along M-52. We also thought these would be easier but many of them turned out to be small tubes hidden in pine trees. We ended up with about half of them before we realized that we wouldn't finish the series and needed to find some easy quick ones.

By now it was getting dark, so we became limited in our choices. No cemetery caching after dark, and no park caching. So mostly near (closed and open) businesses or park & rides. We finally stopped in Portland, Michigan for our last few caches and found #100 at 11:50 p.m. We found one more just before midnight for a total of 101 for the day. 20 minutes later, we stopped on the way home and found #102 for the trip, a challenge cache for those who've found 100 caches in a day. We were second to find since it was a pretty new cache. Home just before 1 a.m., about 18 hours of caching.

I don't think I'll ever attempt something like that again. The caches started to blur together, and I found it hard to write logs on some of them as I just didn't remember much about them. And logging - because of my busy week, it was Thursday before I finished logging. Of course, part of that was because I'd brought a traveler that was in a race home from Ontario and I logged it into every one of those caches before leaving it at the challenge cache at the end of the day. The owner was quite appreciative, even thanking me in his traveler's listing and he is going to send me a pathtag from the caching organization up there.

But all in all it was a great day spent with good caching friends.

Lake Superior Circle Tour, Part 5

Just re-read my last post, realized it had been after midnight when I posted. So it looks like I've posted twice in one day, but not really...

We got a "leisurely" start today - it was after nine before Steve woke up. We got ourselves together, ate a scone from the office of the hotel, then ate breakfast at the cafe next door. By the way, if you ever find yourself in the Keweenaw Peninsula, two words of advice: make sure you have a full tank of gas; and stay at the White House Motel in Mohawk.

Headed down the road after our breakfast (it was almost noon by then) and stopped in Baraga for another cache. We had thought about trying to get to Mt. Arvon, Michigan's highest point, and started up the road in that direction. After about 10 miles, we had to turn off onto a road that had less than optimum conditions for a touring motorcycle. Knowing we still had about 7 miles to go and the roads were only going to get worse, we opted to turn around. Back to L'Anse and on to Houghton. We followed 41 down to 141, where we turned south so that I could pick up caches in Iron and Dickinson Counties. Not part of the circle tour, but definitely part of finishing up the 83 county challenge. It was great that Steve agreed to go two hours out of the way for nothing but two caches. The Iron County cache was at a memorial for Airborne veterans. Would have probably not known it was there except for the geocache. After finding the Dickinson County cache, headed north on MI-95 and joined up with 41/28 just west of Marquette.

Found my Marquette County cache at a Gander Mountain store that had a little pond in front with a fake birdhouse where the cache was hidden (by the Gander Mountain people, apparently.)

Then we stopped for a relatively early dinner at Big Boy just down the road, and found a motel just east of Marquette. It has a pool and wifi so even though its a bit rundown IMHO, it'll do for the night.

Tomorrow we plan to stop in Munising so that I can find MY LAST CACHE for the county challenge. Ok, you just get a little pin for finishing but to me it's an accomplishment. Took me almost 5 years to do - June 29th will be my 5th caching anniversary. Looks very much, almost certain, that we'll be home tomorrow night.

6 new counties, 24 caches, 12 hours of driving...

Friday was my reward day for staying away from sweets and snacks all week. My plans were to get the six counties that I needed on the east side of the state. I figured we weren't gonna get there by bike any more this year and I wanted to finish up this four year quest to get a cache in all of the LP counties.

So off I went - left home just after 7:30 a.m. I figured it would take at least two hours of driving to get to the first place I planned to go. Decided to take M-21 over instead of I-69 through Lansing. Figured I'd miss the rush hour traffic to Lansing that way. But it did turn out to be slower - it was close to three hours before I hit my first cache on the list (though I did stop for one on M-21 that was a new travel bug hotel on the way.)

First county: Macomb. Northeast of Detroit. Got off I-69 (I had met up with it in Flint) and took M-53 south, just over the county line from Lapeer Co. My destination was a cemetery cache. I was glad to find it, as I would have had to go about 5 miles farther south to pick up my backup cache. Then headed north again on the same road, passing through Lapeer County to Sanilac County.

Sanilac County's cache was also on 53, on the far western side of the county. It, too, was a cemetery cache, one that had just been out for a week. Surprisingly, I was only the second to find it. Wasn't a hard find, either. Again, glad it was there as I would have had to go about 10 miles east for the next closest one.

Then back down to M-46 and west into Tuscola County. I had several possibilities here as I passed through most of the county on my route. Ended up with three or four finds and one DNF. Cut across the corner of Saginaw County on M-15 heading northwest but no caches along that route. Got into Bay County and found several caches in Bay City, one was in a cemetery and one was an ALWAYS cache (WalMart parking lot.) Lots of construction in Bay City on the roads so didn't spend as much time as I might have otherwise. Got over to I-75 and headed north, stopped at a rest area cache and then got off at Pinconning Road and headed east to M-13.

Stopped in Pinconning for a quick late lunch at Subway (it was about 3 p.m. by now) and headed north into Arenac County. Just over the county line, stopped at a rest area and found the cache there. I was lucky that all three of the counties where I wanted to find the cache and then backtrack had me with quick finds each time!

South again on I-75 and got off in Saginaw (Saginaw County, of course.) Found several caches along the way so I was able to finish the six county quest. Now it's time to head for home. Wanted to get home before dark and (hopefully) Steve as he knew I was going caching but not necessarily that I was going this far. I did stop for some caches along M-57 on the way to Greenville, then headed home from there and got home about 7:30 p.m. Steve had beat me home but not by much. He didn't ask me any questions about my day, since he's not all that interested in caching.

12 hours of driving with 24 cache finds, lunch, and a gas stop to break up the ride. That made for a long day! But now I only have one county left, Oceana County, and that is close by Camp Gerber which I'll be visiting this weekend so it shouldn't be a problem!

New geocaches and a new outlook on taking care of myself

I'm sitting in the Lowell Library on high speed. Just came from church where I was working with my three cache series placed in the wooded/grassy area behind the church. Finally got permission for the placement yesterday after a month of waiting for the deacon's approval.

My first order of business was to move the third cache. Mainly because it was too close to the second one. Geocaches have to be at least a tenth of a mile apart, and these two were about 400 feet apart. It was fine for the kids when we did the geocaching activity this summer, but not for an official geocache. So I did some hiking around and finally found another good area. I put some new swag, a travel bug, one of my new pathtags, and a new log book into the cache, and moved on to the second cache.

Oops, it's still a little bit too close to the third. So I tweaked ITS location, found a similar place to hide it which worked well. Put in some new swag, a travel bug, and a new log book. Moving on.

On to the first cache. This one was hidden in a pile of rocks. On the way, had to go through some standing water on the trail, worst it's been on the three or four trips I'd made out to this cache over the last six weeks or so. Got to GZ only to find the cache gone. Not sure why muggles would be out this way but apparently they were. Since the water's probably going to continue to be an issue, I found a new location for this one as well. Only trouble was I didn't bring a new container with me. Thought about it, "just in case," but didn't do it. So will have to fix up a new container and bring it back with me to Awana tonight and place it. Thankfully it's pretty close to the parking lot so I won't have to walk far.

I set up the third cache as a puzzle cache. Left half of the coords each in the other two caches. Cachers will have to find 1 & 2 in order to get the coords for 3. Makes it a bit more of a challenge.

Have fun!


I'm being moderately successful in staying away from snacks and sweets this week. No, haven't had ANY. Make that very successful. The carrot I'm holding out in front of me is going out caching on Friday if I continue to be successful. I need to take a trip over to the east side of the state to pick up six counties. That will make one to go, Oceana, which I'm planning to get when I go to Gerber for outdoor leader training next weekend. Then I will have all of the lower peninsula counties after four years of caching. UP will have to wait until next year at least, I still have 7 counties to go there.

I know I have to get better at taking care of myself and drop some of this extra weight I'm hauling around. I may not have anybody else interested in how my body looks but I need to take care of myself for my own sake. Hope I'm not jinxing it by posting this...

2K and counting

I really had some trouble deciding which cache would be worthy of #2000. Even posted a plea for suggestions on facebook; got LOTS of good answers there. But due to timing (I knew I could cache Wed. a.m. and wanted the big 2K before then) I decided to take my geofriend Golfdiva up on her offer to go do a night cache.

A night cache, for those who might not know, involves taking a flashlight and trying to find tiny little reflectors attached to trees, following the path, and eventually finding the cache. And yes, it's DARK. I've done very few of these, mostly due to my promise not to cache at night by myself. But two of us together, different story.

Golfdiva picked me up at dusk, and we headed to the cache, 13 miles away. Glad she was driving! Got to the parking lot, set off down the trail. She checked one side, I checked the other. Quickly determined we needed to follow the trail to the RIGHT. So off we went. After a short time, heard a rustling. Golfdiva said she surprised some critter right on the boardwalk. Glad she was in the lead, not me. We continued and soon found the red reflector and the reflective X on the cache itself. Not as long of a hike as we'd hoped, but still fun. And my #2000 was finally here. Took the obligatory pictures, signed the log, then headed back. On the way home, we stopped at her new cache, and I found it in the dark. Not too far from the trailhead so it wasn't bad.

This gave me free rein to grab caches on Wednesday, without having to worry about a "special" cache for #2000. For the first time, I cached paperless now that my nuvi has the cache info. Found six caches, then went to the eye dr. for my yearly check. Then home for the evening.

First adventures with the kayak

Took the new kayak out for its first journey yesterday. It loads right up into the car, with the seats down. Of course, since we haven't figured out where to keep it in the garage, it's been in my car since last Thursday when Steve gave it to me.

Headed for Reeds Lake in East Grand Rapids where there (supposedly) is a cache that's been there since 2003. Unfortunately, the last time it's been found was last fall - no finds this year despite several attempts. So I wasn't too optimistic that I would be able to find it.

Got to the boat launch area and discovered there was no off-road parking. Street parking was very popular - it took me a few trips around before I was lucky enough to find a spot. Pulled the kayak out and went over to the boat launch. Off I went! A nice easy paddle, about 3/10 of a mile, over to the cache area. Saw some swans along the way and got a few nice pictures. Got to the area, pretty lily padded and reedy. Nothing bigger than a kayak or canoe could get over there, I'm sure. After a lot of looking, gave up the search. Took some time to take pictures of some of the water lilies and (tried) to take pictures of me in the kayak. Got me but not the kayak too much.

Paddled back to the boat launch. My arms were starting to feel it! Loaded the kayak back up and decided to head towards Jenison and the Grand River Park, where there was a cache on a small island in a lake (Beaver Island Challenge) and a cache a mile upstream on the Grand River (Sunny's Grand Isle.)

Got to the park, pulled the kayak out and decided to go for Beaver Island first. Getting ready to go, saw a car pass by in the parking lot, stop, then start backing up towards me. Thought maybe someone was going to tell me I couldn't kayak in the little lake. No, they were fellow geocachers who stopped because they recognized me. They didn't think I should go out there on my own so stayed on shore and waited for me. This was good because they kept my camera and got some good pictures of me in the kayak.

The trip across the little lake was about a tenth of a mile if that. Landed on the little island, got out of the kayak and found the cache after a short search. It was just above my reach, though, and fastened to a tree. I was able to stand on a lower branch, sorta climbing a bit, and reach the container base. I used the top as leverage and managed to unscrew the base and retrieve the log. After signing the log, I ran into trouble. Just couldn't get the height and leverage needed to screw the base back into the top. Even a bit more climbing (and I have the scratched up arm to prove it) didn't do the trick as I was trying to hold onto the branch with one arm and screw the base with the other. Plus my arms were already tired from the paddling. So ended up carefully tucking the base into a crook of the tree just below the top. Then went back to shore, retrieved my camera and thanked my friends. They shared some chocolate with me and helped me get my gear squared away. Decided not to do Sunny's Grand Isle as I was already tired and tired plus alone plus a mile upstream didn't sound like a good plan at this point.

So did do a walking cache in the park that I hadn't yet done, and one more on the way back home, but I was pretty tired by this point! I had planned to do a night cache last night with Golfdiva as well; but the rain didn't hold off long enough and spoiled our plans.

Today it's raining as well so no outdoor fun.

Catching up...

I knew I hadn't posted for a while, but didn't realize just how long. I got home from the geobash on Sunday the 27th. My mom called that evening and said they'd be coming on Tuesday night or Wednesday. (She asked if that was ok, of course.) Well, I'd been planning to get the house super cleaned before she came so had to do it all in a day and a half. It was done but not quite as thoroughly as I was planning to. Glad she didn't look in our bedroom!

We had an enjoyable 6 day visit with my mom and my stepdad. Most of the time, we watched movies, played on their wii, and just sat around and talked. We did make a trip into town to use the internet at the library, and went into town to get haircuts as well. The guys went to the driving range a few times and a few other errands. And we all (except Steve) went to Eric's church with him on Sunday.

Monday and Tuesday were full work days for me. I'm trying hard to keep the house looking nice; for those who may not be aware it's not my strong point.

Yesterday, though, I really needed to get out there and cache. After a 10 day break, I was ready! And no, not just to feed my "addiction," I really needed to go to Belding and find a certain cache that could only be opened by a key which was in my possession. Automatic FTF!

So I set out just before 8 a.m. and headed for Belding. Did a few caches on the way there, then headed toward the certain cache. There were people nearby so I went to another nearby cache first, then went back to this one. People were still there! So I went down the road some more and did a series of 3 caches along a trail. Nice ones. Then back and finally I could get the certain cache. Now I had to drop the key (with travel bug tag) in a different cache so someone else could find it. Only 2 caches left in Belding. The first was one that Carolyn and I had tried back in May. With a nudge from the owner, I spotted it this time. Then the last one, which involved a 3/10 of a mile walk each way in a nice quiet park. The best walk of the day, and I put the key inside. Moved on from there to Ionia as it wasn't even noon yet. (I remember having 16 caches by just before noon.)

Did some serious caching in Ionia the rest of the day, and I have the city pretty well cleaned out except for a few DNFs. Also got over to Lyons/Muir, a few miles east, and found a cache at a beautiful little park overlooking the river. I found my #1900 milestone in Ionia. Liked it so much I kept the cache. (There was a swarm of bees in the lightpole skirt, I was lucky not to get stung when I lifted the skirt. Luckily the cache fell out. But every time I tried to lift the skirt to replace the cache, they swarmed again. Since I'm seeing the cache owners next week, I just kept the cache to give to them when I see them.)

Arrived home about 5 p.m., and just as I was unloading the car, Steve came home from work so couldn't have timed it any better!

This morning, just puttering around, then to work. Needing to prepare for my children's church lesson on Sunday and my Geocaching 101 session at Gilda's next Wednesday.

MWGB, Day 2

Wow. A super day of fun. Woke up, had the typical motel continental breakfast. Difference being that there were no tables. Take the food back to your room. That's ok. Then went up to the bash and went to the coffee (none for me thank you) and donuts social. Met up with Unlimited Tazmania and KBB1BB there. Ned & Sue gave me the replacement key for the cache box key I've been holding onto for a couple of months now. The key is a travel bug and you have to have it to open the cache. They had to replace the cache so... Anyway, I'm guaranteed a FTF on this one as I'm the only cacher that can open it. After I find it I have to drop off the key in another local cache so it can be found and used by someone else.

Poker Run cards were handed out, and I was invited to go with Unlimited Tazmania and KBB1BB. We had to go to seven different area businesses and get a barcode sticker at each. The computer read the stickers and figured our poker hands from there. Technology... It was fun though I didn't win anything. We also did some caching along the way since we had from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. to get the seven stickers. It's fun to cache in a group, though I still do enjoy my solo caching.

Came back to turn in our cards and wait for the results. I also turned in my travelers so that I could pick up the same number of different travelers. Got some neat ones! After I knew I hadn't won anything in the poker run, I decided to go do some solo caching. Made it to (and past) my #1800 milestone, for which I counted the event itself. Ended up with 37 caches today and a two-day total of 62. Stopped at WalMart on the way back to the motel to pick up a salad for dinner, then have sat in front of the computer logging since then. Takes a while to log 37 caches and 16 travelers.

The weather was gorgeous today. Tomorrow is forecast to not be so good. 80% chance of thunderstorms. We'll just play it by ear. I do have a rain poncho.

One more full day of bash, then tomorrow night I have to decide what route to take back home, caching along the way of course.

Paperless caching - first time

On the day after tomorrow, I leave for four days of geocaching bliss - the Midwest Geobash. This is the fifth annual bash, and it will be my third time attending. It will be the first time, though, that I'll be able to stay for the entire bash. In 2006, had to leave for the weekend to go to my nephew's wedding. Didn't get to go in 2007. In 2008, had a weekend campout with Da Bears, so only got to go to bash the first day. But the calendar is clear and off I go bright and early Thursday morning.

I've (sorta) taken the plunge into paperless caching. There is a great program out there called GSAK (Geocaching Swiss Army Knife) that downloads cache information into your computer. I have all the information on the computer now for 500 caches within a 25 mile radius of Wauseon, Ohio (where the geobash will be held.) The only problem is that the maps only show up when you're online. So I'm "sorta" paperless. I still printed out a bunch of location maps and will hopefully be able to find caches without too much trouble.

I had been given a link by my caching friend Macho Homemaker to download this same kind of info into my Nuvi (the car GPS) which would have been perfect. Trouble is, I've gone through all the steps twice now, and all goes well until the end where the POIloader (points of interest) can't find the file generated by GSAK. I'm hoping that I can find someone at the bash who can help me out on this. Otherwise it's a bit cumbersome having my computer with me and running just for cache information.

I plan to be leaving Thursday morning shortly after 7 a.m., heading over toward the east side of the state, picking up some caches along the way. I have three counties along the route that I don't have any cache finds yet: Livingston, Wayne, and Washtenaw. My route will take me through all three. Then south to the Wauseon area and to the nearby state park where there will be a welcome party Thursday afternoon. There are events taking place on Friday and Saturday as well, plus of course there will be lots of caching opportunities - about 100 caches within a 10 mile radius. I will easily make my 1800 milestone on this trip, and perhaps my 1900 as well! That would easily put me in range for the big 2000 on or before my trip up north for Mackinac Rendezvous in September.

Steve and Eric will hold down the fort at home. Steve was planning to go to another rally, but (read some previous posts) that isn't gonna happen now.

Hanging with my geo-friends

Yesterday, Mi-DNR celebrated their 90th birthday by having events in many of their state parks. Newaygo State Park, about 40 miles north of me, was no exception. They invited geocachers to be a part of the celebration, and we responded by having an event! About 20 new caches were put out in the park, there was a potluck (the DNR supplied the hot dogs) and there were lots of door prizes as well.

Several geo-friends invited me to ride up there with them. That was great because I didn't have to worry about putting "unnecessary miles" (as Steve declares all geocaching miles to be) on the cachemobile, plus I got to benefit from their more-high-tech-than-mine equipment in addition to my own. I met the carpool at 6:45 a.m. - bright and early after a full week of VBS! We started working our way north and hit nine caches before we got to the park. I didn't have coords for any of them, so just followed along and found about half of them first, after the others narrowed down the search area. We got to the park about 9:45 and stopped at the cache outside the entrance, where we met Macho Homemaker's sister and family, who came up for the event from Indiana. Then we stopped at the event, and were the first to register. After listening to the beginning of the geocaching 101 presentation, we went to find the closest nearby cache. We had some trouble, so the others went back to ask the owners for help (they were at the event.) Meanwhile, I figured out that it was underneath a parking post (hollowed out and placed on two pieces of rebar sticking up out of the ground.) When they came back, I was sitting on a bench with the cache. They had to figure out where I got it from!

From there, a group that quickly expanded to about 12 went on to look for caches on the west side of the park. The first was supposed to be as close to a urban cache as the hider would ever make. Well we got to a clearing and there was a light pole sitting there! Several looked in all the likely places without any luck, so I started expanding the search area and was the first to find the cache, which was hidden in a hollowed out rock. We went on to a couple of other caches, then took a longer hike to get to one only to find it was missing. If 12 cachers with a combined hide total approaching 10,000 can't find it, it's missing. (And yes, that was later confirmed.)

We went back for lunch and the prize drawing. Now there were plenty of prizes, so MAYBE I would finally break my streak of never winning a prize at a geocaching event. Nope. There were only about a dozen tickets left when the prizes were gone, and mine was still in there. My record is intact. Then we went back out to work on a couple of multi stage caches. We were finding some single stage caches along the way - one was suspended in a tree with a rope and pulley that were about 100 feet away. Another was a large PVC pipe with many other pipes sticking through it, you had to figure out where the coords were to the final. (had to figure out which cap came off...) Then back to the event for cake & ice cream, then out to tackle the east side of the park. Highlights included a cache that was full of hollow plastic carrots, only one of which held the log; a cache where the "log" was a log; and a birdhouse suspended in the air with a cable somewhat similar to the cache on the west side. I was able to find my 1700th cache while on this part of the search - it was the cache where the log was actually a log.

When we left the park there was one more cache to find. It was called "build a better..." and was a giant mousetrap with the "cheese" being the ammo can. When you open the ammo can, taps plays. How I don't know. But it does, I have video. Then on the way home it became a quest for my geofriends to set a new personal one day record of caches found. Which they did, their final counts were 30 and 31 respectively. Mine was 29 as I'd found some of the ones they stopped for. My one day record is 42 so knew I wouldn't reach that. Got home about 9 p.m. Long day but fun.

Today I have a rash on my ankle, which I don't think is poison ivy as I'm not usually susceptible to it and it doesn't itch or blister. I was wearing hiking socks and long pants so who knows. I do have a nice blister on my right big toe as well. Usually don't get one there.

Gilda's Quest

I'd been waiting for it for a while now. Fellow geocachers who are also members of Gilda's Club (where I work) had asked for permission and had placed a geocache on the clubhouse grounds. I knew it had been submitted. Unfortunately, though, it wasn't approved and published until Saturday morning. I say unfortunately because the cache is only open during the week when the clubhouse is open. So no searching until today...

I had thought about leaving for work early since I had to be there in the morning today. It was pouring rain this morning, though, so there went that theory. By lunchtime, though, the rain had stopped so I spent my lunch break out there looking. No luck.

Went back after I got off work. Still no luck. The same people that had also been looking with me at lunchtime were back, and they finally gave up. A bit later, I went inside and begged my boss for any little snippets of information that she could give me. She had walked with the cache placers and, though she is not a cacher, knew where every stage was placed.

All she would tell me was that it was on a branch. Well we'd searched every branch we could but I went back and did it again. No luck. Was headed back towards the clubhouse when I saw her again. She then told me the general location of the first stage (which was way off from the posted coords) and I was able to find the first stage and really get started. This was after about an hour and a half of searching between lunch and then. The coords at the first stage led me to the OTHER side of where I'd previously been searching, and after a bit of a search I found the container with the next coords. Meanwhile, a young couple showed up looking where I'd been looking before (the posted coords.) I filled them in on what I now knew and they helped me look for stage 2, though I'm the one that finally found it.

On we went to stage 3. This led us to the rock wall between the driveway and the staff parking lot. We were doing a lot of searching and apparently amusing more than a few people that reported that there were three people crawling around the rock wall... my boss was among those who came out, thankfully, and nudged me in the right direction to find the 3rd stage. I shared my new knowledge with the other couple, and the guy was the one who found stage 3. We all went on to stage 4. I knew what the container looked like (remember I'd seen it at a staff meeting a few weeks ago) so once I saw the general location, it was only a matter of time before I looked in the right bush and found the cache. First to find! (though I shared the honors with the other cachers with me.) Can't tell you how many times I've probably walked right past it since it's been hidden....

Close to two hours spent on this tonight, but it was worth it. How could I -not- get the FTF on a cache this close to me?

Just missed my personal record

I just missed my personal finds record (42) yesterday while caching in the Holland/Zeeland area. Ended up with 41 finds. If I'd have found all my DNF's (did not find) I would have had 60. So I think it was a pretty good day regardless.

Got up at 7 and was out the door by 7:30. Had loaded the car the night before so I wouldn't forget anything. I was almost to the M6 when I realized that I had forgotten something - to eat breakfast! Stopped for a donut and juice at the gas station - not the world's best breakfast but thought I'd better eat something. Got to Zeeland about 8:15 (I think) and started right in. Cached my way through Zeeland, then the plan was to work my way over to Ottawa Beach Road so I could do the cache at the Park Twp Airport that one of my Bears (Fitz) put out. I was there by about 1 p.m. and made that find. It was #20 of the 41. Then went to a park across the street, ate my sandwich while watching the dogs play in the nearby dog park. Of course there was a cache at that park, too. My afternoon took me along the north shore of Lake Macatawa, then into Holland itself. By this time I realized I wouldn't get to everything I'd planned to look for, so skipped the caches that were right downtown and concentrated on those south of downtown. Got to cache #40 about 6:15 p.m., then realized I'd need to find a fast food place to change into my scout uniform (in their restroom) so went over to 16th & US 31, found a Burger King, and changed my clothes.

Went back towards the church where Brian's beading was going to be held, stopped along the way to do one last cache (yep, in full uniform) which was only 3/10 of a mile from the church, then had an enjoyable evening watching my last Bear get his beads. Being a troop guide for Wood Badge has been such an amazing journey, it's hard to believe that this part of it is done. But I've made some lifelong scouting friends through it.

We were all presented with our Bears (stuffed, but don't tell them that) red wool scouting jackets. Fitz's wife, Jessica, made them for all of us. She could go into business making miniature scouting uniforms! But I'm sure there's some BSA regulation prohibiting that...

Home by about 10 p.m. after a long but satisfying day. I know my marathon caching needs to take a break for now but it sure has been fun to get 78 caches in two caching days almost back-to-back!

The picture posted with this blog is from Holland. Their world-famous Tulip Time festival was last week, but some of the late-blooming tulips are still quite nice!

Scott update: things were postponed until today. He is packed and ready to go.

Da Bears Travel Da World

I've blogged previously about Da Bears of C-16-07. For Christmas in 2007, I released travel bug coins for each of us and started a competition to see whose "slug" (the name of the coin) could travel the farthest by the deadline for completing tickets - March 9, 2009. It has been great watching them travel - Germany, Australia, Iraq were three of the top destinations. (There is an individual code on each slug which is logged in by the geocacher moving the slug on geocaching.com.)

As the competition neared the finish, most of the bugs were overseas, some having been held long-term by other geocachers. I really had no expectations of any of them coming home by the deadline. It really doesn't often happen with trackable geocaching items.

After my babies went home yesterday, I decided to make a quick e-mail check before I left work. I am glad that I did -- first I noticed a log that one of Da Bears had visited one of my local caches. Hmm...that's nice. Fitz finally got over to Tall Pines. Then I noticed other logs from Fitz. Opened one up. He had grabbed MY slug...Mama Bear. How could this be? Last I knew it was in Germany. I'd even posted a note asking for help reuniting me with it when I went to Germany next month. To make a long story short, Fitz made personal contact with who knows how many cachers and managed to have three of the seven sent back to him. He had Mama Bear with him at the Chili Cookoff on Saturday (it turns out they arrived just after I left.) And yep, there were "discovered" logs from other cachers that thought it was great that it was there and I didn't even know it!

Yesterday, he dropped Mama Bear AND Sonia (who had been in Washington state after being brought back from Australia) into my cache Walking Through the Tall Pines. I had dropped all the slugs into that cache in Dec. 07 as it was my closest cache to Vickie's house, where we had the party that year. So in essence, it was their home cache. Having them return, especially the way that they returned, means a great deal to me. I'm still not sure how Fitz pulled it off but I am so thankful that he did.

When I saw the logs, needless to say I headed straight for that cache and retrieved Mama Bear. I also took Sonia so I could reunite slug with owner, with no risk that someone else would take it first.

To add to the story -- he apparently received Vickie's slug in yesterday's mail and dropped it in several area caches today. And Tod made up for lost time -- he had been hanging onto his own slug but apparently had taken it on many business trips for which he had never gotten around to logging the visits.

So out of seven travel slugs - four made it home by the deadline. Incredible.

Happy New Year: 26 new caches!

A nice New Years present came today in my e-mail: 26 new caches published! The new winter series, placed by "Just Below Freezing" all around the Grand Rapids area. I would have gone out this afternoon but it was already late enough that I would have only had about an hour and a half. Guess what I'm probably doing tomorrow!

Starting a blog

Seems like the "in" thing to do these days is to have your own blog. Didn't really think I needed one all that badly - but my mom says it's a much better way for people to follow your travels than e-mailing everyone. She is making one of my "life list" items come true by providing my sisters and I a trip to London and Paris in March 2009. It will be my first time out of the country unless you count a couple of trips to Ontario so I'm pretty excited about it! (She'll be experiencing one of her own life list items as she'll be in Europe for three months with her twin sister Martha celebrating their 70th birthdays. Their birthday was a week ago but their trip will be Feb - May.)

I've been gathering information for our trip for several months now, and much of my "Christmas wish list" centered around travel. Eric gave me Rick Steves guidebooks for London and Paris, it'll be nice to have some that I can keep more than the library-allotted time! He also gave me a travel clothesline; microfiber travel towel; a tote bag; and electrical adaptors. Steve gave me a sleep sack and more electrical adaptors, as well as some SD cards for my camera. I received other gifts, of course, but these were the travel-related ones.

Some of the things on my trip-related "to-do" list are to figure out the best plans for London (arrive on Sunday morning; leave for Paris on Eurostar on Wednesday morning) and Paris (arriving Wednesday afternoon; Debbie & Judy leave on Saturday morning. I'm staying until the following Friday morning.) My original plans were to travel to Germany to visit with Scott the second week - he is stationed there in the Air Force. The Air Force changed those plans, however, as they are sending Scott to Iraq the month before. So doggone it, I'll just have to spend more time in Paris! I'd rather be able to see Scott but the alternative just isn't all that bad...

I also need to figure out what to take (I plan to just bring a carry-on.) I know I have some time but it is definitely time to start narrowing down the ideas swimming around in my head and making some concrete plans. Watch for them!

Today was a relaxed day, though. After all the hustle and bustle of Christmas, even with just four of us (including Steve's dad, Cecil) it was nice to just kick back and relax today. I did make it into town - had to exchange the SD cards from Steve as they were high capacity and they don't work in my camera. There's hardly a SD card (at least in 2 gb) to be had on 28th Street today - checked with Meijer, Target, Costco, and Walmart. I'm not in a huge hurry though as long as I get another one or two before the trip. I also did a few other errands - bank, post office, got a prescription refilled, and looked at the Christmas clearance stuff (we were completely out of wrapping paper...)

I also managed to finally get a geocache in. It'd actually been two weeks since my last cache - the weather (and therefore the roads) have been terrible with one storm after another. This was a park & grab lightpole cache in the Target/Costco parking lot, I didn't even bother to turn the engine off while I retrieved the cache and signed the log. It was my 1411th cache in 3 years plus of caching. I'm really looking forward to getting some caching done in London and Paris!

Well, it's getting pretty late so about time to end this first post. I'll try to figure out how to post pictures soon though most of my potential audience already knows what I look like!