On the Road Again (MWGB Day 4)

Yesterday found me on the road again, headed for home after a great time at the geobash. I was on the road by 10 a.m. after sleeping a little later than the previous few days; eating breakfast; and loading up the car. I had planned out a route which included a lot of "on the way" Ohio caches and some in Michigan as well. Most of today's caches ended up being in cemeteries - and I found other cachers at most of them (in Ohio anyway) as well. I ended up leaving Ohio about 2:45 p.m. after making a pit stop in Pioneer, just before the state line. Discovered that they don't have Sunday restaurant sales there - not even Noble Roman's pizza at the gas station!

I chose to go up Michigan 99 to Adrian - found a few nice caches along the way. Then I-94 to I-69 to Charlotte, then M-50 to M-66, M-66 to I-96 and I-96 to the Lowell exit and home.

I found 32 caches; and a grand total of 125 for the four day geobash. It was a lot of fun but a lot of work figuring out coords and routing as well as the online logging. I really need to try and figure out how to get the cache info onto my nuvi. I had to look up every cache on GSAK on my netbook, works for a car trip but I don't think I can carry the netbook with me on a hike in the woods.

Got home, unloaded the car, and returned my mom's call. Their plans have changed and they will be with us tomorrow night (Tuesday.) Of course, I hadn't done anything yet to get the house ready, figuring I had all week. So tonight I am headed home from work and get to spend my time doing just that. I don't work until 12:30 tomorrow so have a little time then if I need it.

It will be good to have a longer visit!

Eat. Sleep. Cache. (MWGB Day 3)

I was up pretty late last night logging caches, so slept until about 8 a.m. or so. A thunderstorm woke me up about 4ish, made me really glad that I decided to get a hotel room rather than camp in a tent. The skies were still pretty threatening by the time I got up and going, but made sure I could reach my rain gear and off I went.

First stop was to the bash to exchange a couple of travel bugs. After that, took off north and east and did ten caches, mostly Spirit Quest caches in cemeteries. NW Ohio sure has a lot of little old cemeteries, very interesting to walk among the stones and think about the lives represented there. The stories behind those lives are, for the most part, lost forever. It's too bad.

Made it back to the bash by 1:30 so I could check out the silent auction items. Nothing there that I couldn't live without, especially since I'm coming home with two t-shirts and coins/pins already. Hung around for a while, got to talk to caching friends from home as well as meet some new people. The closing ceremonies started at 3 p.m. - first was a ginormous group picture, then prizes awarded. Of course I didn't win anything, my streak is still secure.

After those festivities, off I went for more caching. 21 more caches, working my way west and south this time. A lot of cemeteries again, but some other caches, too. My last two caches were in a little roadside park near Napoleon, Ohio, on the banks of the Maumee River. Beautiful way to end my caching day.

Back to Wauseon and the hotel, where it's time to log the caches again. As fun as this has been, it sure has been a lot of computer time keeping up with the logging. As of tonight, I have found 93 caches in these past three days, and moved 22 trackables.

Now I need to figure out which route to take home and what caches are along the way. I'm looking forward to the trip, but also ready to get on home.

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.

MWGB, Day 1

Well, here I am. Sitting in my motel room - no camping in the rain! I can decide what I want to do, when I want to eat, for the next three days as well as today. I've discovered I like taking vacations alone. No disrespect for family and friends intended.

Started off this morning intending to leave about 7 a.m. Steve was checking my car's fluid levels before I left, though, and accidentally dropped the lid to the brake fluid reservoir down inside the car. He ended up having to take the wheel off in order to find it. So I was on the road about 7:45 or so. Picked up a few caches along the way to the Lansing area including one called "Bear Bait" that is in Fitzgerald Park in Grand Ledge. One of my bears has the last name of Fitzgerald. So have had this one on my someday list for a while.

Ran into rain between Lansing and Howell on I-96. It was still raining by the time I hit the first rest stop cache in Livingston County, which was one of the three counties I planned to add to my found list today. So wore a rain poncho and stayed relatively dry. Then did some caching in Brighton and went down 23 towards Ann Arbor but made a brief dash into Wayne County to pick up a cache there. Then down towards Ann Arbor again, picked up some Washtenaw County caches. Down US 12 to MI-52 which turned into Ohio 109, then US 20 to Ohio 108 and Wauseon. 25 caches in about 10 hours of driving time.

The motel isn't the greatest Super 8 I've ever stayed in. It'll be ok, though, and it seems to be safe. Went to Taco Bell's drive through and spent the evening in the room logging caches and downloading Wauseon caches to my GPS.

Almost paperless caching went ok today. I plugged the computer into a converter so I wasn't losing battery power, had GSAK running so I could look up the next cache before I left the previous one. The downloads into my GPS are just the waypoints, not the names as I'm used to. So tomorrow will be different in that regard. There are some geocaching activities also taking place so tomorrow will probably not be totally caching itself, but other fun related to caching. Plus I will be exchanging my 16 travelers for new travelers, that's always fun. There's a separate area with hundreds of travelers sorted by where they want to go or what they want to do.

It's been a very long day and time to get to bed. More tomorrow from Wauseon...

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.

Tales from the back of the bike, last day

I think that this picture tells the story. 703 miles. 10 1/2 hours of moving time. 1 1/2 hours stopped. (That actually should be more like 2 - 2 1/2 hours as I turned it off while eating.) All in the same day.

We woke up at the motel in Kingsport, Tennessee, and got on the road about 9 a.m. We went up into Virginia for all of five minutes so that I could pick up one cache and add Virginia to my states found list. I didn't even take my helmet off while signing the log. Then we were on our way. A fairly nice day though a little cool. We were making good time and stopped for lunch in southern Kentucky around noon or so, at a Cracker Barrel. This is where Steve first said that we might as well try going all the way in one day. I thought (and hoped) he was kidding. But, in reality, it's out of my hands. I'm just along for the ride...

As we headed north, the weather seemed to be getting cooler. Somebody took Christmas in July to a whole new level, I think. Anyway, I put my turtleneck on after lunch, and at the next gas stop, I went in and bought hot chocolate. I drank it through a tall straw, that helped. I had also found a hand warmer in the tail trunk, and that helped as well. We hit Cincinnati at about 2:30 or 3:00, I realized by now that he was serious and that barring complications we would be going all the way home. The weather was cooler and cloudy, not the most favorable ride conditions. Tried a few different reasons with Steve..."Is there anything you want to see while we're passing through Cincinnati (his home town)..." "Why don't we stop for the night in Dayton and go to the Air Force Museum tomorrow?" Nope, let's get on home. We ran into a little bit of rain in the Dayton area, and the skies looked threatening much of the rest of the way. After a gas stop in Van Wert, Ohio, we lasted until Charlotte, Michigan. We were both cold by then, stopped at a gas station, drank more hot chocolate, and Steve put on his windbreaker over his riding jacket which helped stop the wind from going through his jacket and on me. We made it through those last 50 or so miles, and made it home around 10 p.m.

No caching, obviously. If I had thought about it (and known Steve's plans) I would have asked to stop at every rest area cache along the way to slow him down. Even an hour or two earlier in the day would have probably made him stop for the night instead of going straight through. He doesn't like to ride in the dark because of deer, etc. I know there was one rest area we passed by in Tennessee that had four caches in it!

Overall a good trip. But Steve's thoughts are that this would probably be our last long touring trip on the bike. Partially because he doesn't really like the beemer as much now (and last night actually said he was going to try to sell it) and partially because he doesn't feel his body can take it so much anymore. Not much I can do about it - I can't ride the bike by myself.

The "butt buffers" seemed to help. Not sure if they helped enough to justify the cost. Let's just say I was glad this morning that our chairs in church are amply padded!

Tales from the back of the bike, day 3

First wake up this morning was around 4 a.m. -- to a thundershower. Not good. But the bike was covered so things didn't get too wet. About 8 a.m., I went across the street to the Dollar General for some supplies while Steve took his shower. Tried to find the nearby cache while across the street, no luck yet but I'll give it another try tomorrow morning before we leave. Then we continued getting ready for our day, went to the lobby for the continental breakfast.

By the time we were ready to hit the road, it was almost 10 a.m. The seminar we wanted to go to started at 10:30. So the Virginia caching will have to wait until tomorrow. We made it down to the fairgrounds only a few minutes later than we planned. Steve dropped me off, then went over to the BMW Motorrad area and signed up for the demo ride he wanted to take. Guess what, he signed me up too! As his passenger of course. I had thought I'd have an hour to hang out in the internet area.

The seminar was on traveling by motorcycle in Europe. Interesting info, hope to be able to use it someday, especially while Scott is still in Germany. After the seminar, we wandered around some of the other vendors while waiting for our turn for the demo ride.

Finally, at 1 p.m. (just after another passing shower) it was our turn, along with a few dozen others, split into three riding groups. We rode a R1200RT, same as we already have. Steve wanted to see if what he was hearing was common to all those bikes or just his. Bottom line, just his, most likely. Someone tonight suggested he do his own valve job, and the right valve job may just take care of the trouble. Hope so. The ride itself was curvy and twisty. Not so bad you think. But this RT did not have a tail trunk and therefore no backrest. I had to deal with those twisties by just holding on to the passenger side handles and praying I wouldn't be bounced or slidden off. I was finally able to relax my grip just a bit by the second half of the ride, whcih was about 45 minutes long.

After the ride, and our returning our riding gear to our bike (instead of carrying it around) we did a bit more vendor shopping. Decided to invest in some "Butt Buffers" which are a gel-based seat pad. Similar to what is used to prevent bedsores in patients. The selling points were two: the guy slid keys under the pad while I was sitting on it, and I didn't even feel them, OR the metal parts that were already underneath before I sat down. The other was that they were satisfaction guaranteed. If we ride home and don't like them, we can get our money back. Or even later if we change our mind. That sold me. Definitely worth a try. And now I can throw away this really ugly piece of foam that I rode down here on.

We also (well, Steve didn't know he was going caching until we were at ground zero) did a cache that was located in a bison tube on top of a fence. We (I needed my tall hubby to check some places I couldn't reach) couldn't find it at first, then I finally spotted it. It was tough to retrieve, Steve finally pushed it out and, you guessed it, it landed on the other side of the fence. Nearby gate closed and locked, of course. Finally had to ask a passer-by to retrieve it and bring it to me. Steve said that one of the "shuttles", a glorified hay wagon, passed by and people were sure giving me strange looks!

After this adventure we went off to see a display of vintage BMW's. Steve has a particular interest because he restored a 1962 R60/2 back in the 80s when we were first married. Lots of neat old bikes. Probably one of our favorite parts of the rally. After this we decided it was time to get some "real" food as opposed to fair food and fast food so headed down into Johnson City and ended up at Bob Evans. We were surprised when we left that it had rained again while we were inside.

Sooo...found out our new "Butt Buffers" were also great cooling pads when wet. No, we hadn't put on the cover as it didn't look like it would rain more when we went inside. Also - our helmets are great cool-downs when the lining is wet because they were hanging on their hooks on the back of the bike. See previous note about not putting the cover on.

Back to the rally where we were to meet the rest of the riders here from our "club" at the beer tent at 7 p.m. There were about a dozen or so of us that sat together and visited for about an hour and a half before some of us left. Some may still be there for all I know. We wanted to get back to the hotel before dark. (They did sell other beverages - and Steve and I both had tokens for a free beverage because it was our first rally. )

Back to the hotel, we know the way now! Toilet got stopped up and we had to call maintenance. That's always fun. not. But it seems to be working now. Then our nightly routine of getting the bike closed up for the night, and me using the wireless. It sure is nice to have my computer with me on a bike trip!

Tomorrow morning's plans include packing up the bike, then heading for that Virginia cache then towards home.

Went back to