Here we are at the end of the month. Sandie drove and I researched (as always) some caches 2 weeks ago. We took the grandsons on our way to the movie Rango. The movie was great the caching was mediocre. It's always strange caching during the Minnesota winter. There are usually tracks in the snow straight to the cache. Sandie and the boys had paths straight to the caches but even then they had one DNF. (did not find) So we only added 2 caches to our total. I had mentallly set a goal of reaching 500 by the end of the year. We are around 420 now so 500 is a very managable number, but we'll have to kick it in gear.
We still have snow on the ground though by this time next week the snow in this part of the state should be mostly melted. We need to do some cache maintenence this spring. Some of our hides may be missing, others containers probably have some damage. I think we have some containers as we are always on the lookout for objects that may make good caches.
I've been placating my frustrations at being homebound by trying to create some objects to sell at Zazzle. My brain is at work more on the merchandise than my body is. I wish I could work more but There just aren't enough hours in my workday. MS leaves me short of energy so I spend more time thinking/dreaming than working. The trouble is I forget so many ideas. Anyway check out my designs at http://www.zazzle.com/cacheadvance*. (please include the astrix) If I ever sell any I'll be shocked!! LOL
Monday, March 28, 2011
Saturday, February 12, 2011
We're back
Holy smokes I know it's been almost three yeares since I posted here. A lot has happened. Probably the biggest impact on Geocaching has been my contraction of MS. It actually first reared it's ugly head while caching. We had gone to a cache way off trai in the Minnesota river valley. During that trip we had to walk out of the Valley and I could barely make it up hill, My feet were dragging so. We realized I could not lift my left foot very well. After a battery of tests and 1 year later it was discovered I had MS. I don't walk much anymore so most of our caching is done by my wife and two grandsons.
I'm so glad we have caching in our lives. It's a wonderful thing to share with our grandsons. I know it's building memories for them. We now have over 400 caches found and about a dozen hidden.More on everything later.
I'm so glad we have caching in our lives. It's a wonderful thing to share with our grandsons. I know it's building memories for them. We now have over 400 caches found and about a dozen hidden.More on everything later.
Friday, April 25, 2008
GEOSWAG
One of the fun things in geocaching is the stuff you find to trade for in geocaches. This stuff is called swag or geoswag. It can range from toys to cash, but the most interesting things you find are trackable objects or travel bugs. Thes bugs can be attached to almost anything or they can be personalized coins you have minted. They can commemerate a specil event or place or just represent somethink unique about the persons leaving it. 
This is some of the booty we've recenty gathered. All of these trackable items have moved on to other caches. In other words we don't keep this stuff, we place it in another cache that needs a trackable item.
You can then look at the unique number on each item, search for that number online and discover who created it and why. You can also find out where it's been and even track it as it moves on. We've already had items from France and New Zealand as well as from many states.
Monday, April 21, 2008
The Big Weekend
It statrted with one goal in mind. We ended with two goals achieved. What a great time we had reaching these goals.
We 've been geocaching since March 29th. Less than 30 days, but we are so addicted. Our first goal for this weekend was to hit fifty caches. We started the weekend with thitry- three found caches so we felt this goal was within our grasp but we expected it to be a challenge. Our plan was to geocache as we headed north to our cabin, stay the night, then geocache our way back home.
First I researched and found caches along our route. Sandie organized the information around different towns along the way. We started out around 8 am. The first caches were located near St Francis, MN. near highway 47. We found our first cache with little problem, signed the log and moved on. By noon we had ten of the seventeen caches we needed to hit our goal of 50. Suddenly the goal seemed very attainable. The cache at this site was hidden in a birdhouse. We both walked by this cache several times before we decided to look in the house. HA there it was!
It was early, but we had to cover some miles before we could rest. Three hours later we were on the road into the cabin. This is where our plans started to fall apart. The road was still covered with snow! Not just a trace of snow but several feet of deep, wheel catching snow. So we let discretion be the better part of valor and turned back. We were 250 miles from home and didn't relish shelling out motel bucks, so we decided to have some dinner and geocache our way back home.
We spent most of the evening geocaching the Grand Rapids area. Lots of fun here. Sandie found a tiny cache hidden inside a breath strips container that was then hidden inside a power pole cable cover. By the way that was our forty- ninth cache. One away from fifty but getting dark fast. A quick search of local caches left us nothing nearby so we decided to head back to the Twin Cities. Due to an ongoing medical condition I can't help with the driving, so poor Sandie had to continue the drive home almost another five hours. We desperatly wanted to get that last cache, but caching along the route in the dark just wasn't safe.
About 10 O'clock I remembered that there was a cache at a boat ramp on Lake Mille Lacs. This would be far enough from the road that getting run over was no longer a concern. We arrived at the very dark boat ramp to the still frozen lake. King Boreas, a locally famous geocache hider had hidden the cache. I got out of the car with my Maglight and proceeded to stumble through the darkened woods. My GPS indicated the cache was only about 150 feet away. I took a bearing and off I went. Sandie kept track of my progress in the headlights. At 10:28 we found our 50th cache!! It was dark and chilly but our spirits were warm and high.
We didn't get home until 12:45 Sunday AM but gosh we had a great time!
Sunday morning we slept in until 8 am. Late for us, we were sore from the walking the day before but we decided to cache locally. I found an area nearby that had more challenging terrain than we've had in the past. We located and logged five more caches! One of the caches here was the best we had seen so far. The hider had taken a rubber mask, injected foam into it, and put sealed PVC pipe inside. The result was when you turned the corner to look inside this tree trunk a face was staring back at you! WOW that was very startling but really fun. We had quite an odessey ahead of us back to the SUV. I could barely walk after the hike out of the valley. When we got home we were exhausted.
To geocachers it is a big deal to be the "First to Find" (FTF) a cache. I was checking my E-mail when I noticed that a nearby geocache had been published just three minutes earlier. I told Sandie if we hurried we had an opportunity to be FTF. We jumped in the SUV and headed for the bearings. Along the way we were looking around for our competition headed that way too. In this area there are two geocachers that race to be FTF. We arrived at the coordinates and appeared to be FTF. Only trouble was, after ten minutes we hadn't found the cache yet! Guess who showed up? Yup the "Collector" one of the FTF demons. Minutes later the second one, MSPMatt showwd up. The race was on!
The "collector" was covering ground we had already dissected. MSP Matt was right behind him. We were desperate. The "collector " noticed a likely spot high up on a tree, a tree that I kept coming back to, but failed to notice the hole. Collector couldn't reach the hole as it was too high up for him. He had me reach inside and there it was! The four of us shared FTF!
We reached our second big goal for the weekend, we finally had a FTF, and met some nice people along the way.
We 've been geocaching since March 29th. Less than 30 days, but we are so addicted. Our first goal for this weekend was to hit fifty caches. We started the weekend with thitry- three found caches so we felt this goal was within our grasp but we expected it to be a challenge. Our plan was to geocache as we headed north to our cabin, stay the night, then geocache our way back home.
First I researched and found caches along our route. Sandie organized the information around different towns along the way. We started out around 8 am. The first caches were located near St Francis, MN. near highway 47. We found our first cache with little problem, signed the log and moved on. By noon we had ten of the seventeen caches we needed to hit our goal of 50. Suddenly the goal seemed very attainable. The cache at this site was hidden in a birdhouse. We both walked by this cache several times before we decided to look in the house. HA there it was!
It was early, but we had to cover some miles before we could rest. Three hours later we were on the road into the cabin. This is where our plans started to fall apart. The road was still covered with snow! Not just a trace of snow but several feet of deep, wheel catching snow. So we let discretion be the better part of valor and turned back. We were 250 miles from home and didn't relish shelling out motel bucks, so we decided to have some dinner and geocache our way back home.
We spent most of the evening geocaching the Grand Rapids area. Lots of fun here. Sandie found a tiny cache hidden inside a breath strips container that was then hidden inside a power pole cable cover. By the way that was our forty- ninth cache. One away from fifty but getting dark fast. A quick search of local caches left us nothing nearby so we decided to head back to the Twin Cities. Due to an ongoing medical condition I can't help with the driving, so poor Sandie had to continue the drive home almost another five hours. We desperatly wanted to get that last cache, but caching along the route in the dark just wasn't safe.
About 10 O'clock I remembered that there was a cache at a boat ramp on Lake Mille Lacs. This would be far enough from the road that getting run over was no longer a concern. We arrived at the very dark boat ramp to the still frozen lake. King Boreas, a locally famous geocache hider had hidden the cache. I got out of the car with my Maglight and proceeded to stumble through the darkened woods. My GPS indicated the cache was only about 150 feet away. I took a bearing and off I went. Sandie kept track of my progress in the headlights. At 10:28 we found our 50th cache!! It was dark and chilly but our spirits were warm and high.
We didn't get home until 12:45 Sunday AM but gosh we had a great time!
Sunday morning we slept in until 8 am. Late for us, we were sore from the walking the day before but we decided to cache locally. I found an area nearby that had more challenging terrain than we've had in the past. We located and logged five more caches! One of the caches here was the best we had seen so far. The hider had taken a rubber mask, injected foam into it, and put sealed PVC pipe inside. The result was when you turned the corner to look inside this tree trunk a face was staring back at you! WOW that was very startling but really fun. We had quite an odessey ahead of us back to the SUV. I could barely walk after the hike out of the valley. When we got home we were exhausted.
To geocachers it is a big deal to be the "First to Find" (FTF) a cache. I was checking my E-mail when I noticed that a nearby geocache had been published just three minutes earlier. I told Sandie if we hurried we had an opportunity to be FTF. We jumped in the SUV and headed for the bearings. Along the way we were looking around for our competition headed that way too. In this area there are two geocachers that race to be FTF. We arrived at the coordinates and appeared to be FTF. Only trouble was, after ten minutes we hadn't found the cache yet! Guess who showed up? Yup the "Collector" one of the FTF demons. Minutes later the second one, MSPMatt showwd up. The race was on!
The "collector" was covering ground we had already dissected. MSP Matt was right behind him. We were desperate. The "collector " noticed a likely spot high up on a tree, a tree that I kept coming back to, but failed to notice the hole. Collector couldn't reach the hole as it was too high up for him. He had me reach inside and there it was! The four of us shared FTF!
We reached our second big goal for the weekend, we finally had a FTF, and met some nice people along the way.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Our First Hide
So we've found 31 caches so far. Now what?
It's time for our first hide. When you hide a geo cache the first thing to do is to find a unused spot. How do you do that? You check on geocaching.com for other caches in the area you wish to hide your cache. You cannot hide a cache within 528 feet (1/10th) mile of another cache. On Geocaching.com you can pull up maps of anywhere that show the locations of geocaches. Once you find an "open" area you go to that area in person and locate a good hiding spot.
Our good hiding spot was inside a fallen tree. The container was a plastic jar covered with camoflage colored duct tape. On the lid were the words "Geocaching.com"and "Please leave here". This warning is to keep "muggles" or non geocaching persons from stealing your cache should they stumble across it. There is also a note inside the cache explaining our sport.
Inside our cache we left a disposable camera with a note for persons finding the cache to take their picture so we can see who finds it. This picture of 2 adorable girls and their dog was taken at our cache. It was used with permission of their parents, MNWanderer.
Also in the cache was a reward for the First to Find (FTF). In this case it was a battery powered headlamp. There is also a logbook and pen. The log is part of every cache for persons discovering the cache to sign and date. Some folks write a note of thanks or something interesting that may have happened during the search. Visitors to the cache usually take something out of the cache and leave something new in the cache. Tradition states it should be of equal or greater value.
Once hidden its back online for us. We must send the coordinates to Geocaching.com for approval. We did this and received approval in about 30 minutes. The site then publishes you cache for others to find. It was found the next morning, and had been found at least once every day since. 10 people so far, in 5 days.
It's time for our first hide. When you hide a geo cache the first thing to do is to find a unused spot. How do you do that? You check on geocaching.com for other caches in the area you wish to hide your cache. You cannot hide a cache within 528 feet (1/10th) mile of another cache. On Geocaching.com you can pull up maps of anywhere that show the locations of geocaches. Once you find an "open" area you go to that area in person and locate a good hiding spot.
Our good hiding spot was inside a fallen tree. The container was a plastic jar covered with camoflage colored duct tape. On the lid were the words "Geocaching.com"and "Please leave here". This warning is to keep "muggles" or non geocaching persons from stealing your cache should they stumble across it. There is also a note inside the cache explaining our sport.
Inside our cache we left a disposable camera with a note for persons finding the cache to take their picture so we can see who finds it. This picture of 2 adorable girls and their dog was taken at our cache. It was used with permission of their parents, MNWanderer.Also in the cache was a reward for the First to Find (FTF). In this case it was a battery powered headlamp. There is also a logbook and pen. The log is part of every cache for persons discovering the cache to sign and date. Some folks write a note of thanks or something interesting that may have happened during the search. Visitors to the cache usually take something out of the cache and leave something new in the cache. Tradition states it should be of equal or greater value.
Once hidden its back online for us. We must send the coordinates to Geocaching.com for approval. We did this and received approval in about 30 minutes. The site then publishes you cache for others to find. It was found the next morning, and had been found at least once every day since. 10 people so far, in 5 days.
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Results of the weekend
The weekend geocache events were great!
We met at 9:30 am in the acoustic cafe in Winona Minnesota. I guess there were about a dozen of us in all. We spent about an hour getting to know each other and looking at everyones treasures.
Accordiangal brought lots of geocoins to look at and buy. WE LOOKED. Geocoins are collectable treasure designed for a geocacher or an event. They were amazing to me. She also had some extra tracking bugs. Travel bugs are trackable booty left in geocaches and are intended to be passed on by the finder. She was nice enough
to share some of these coins with us rookies. We now have three travel bugs that we are ready to pass on. Two of the bugs are from outside the U.S.! We plan to pass them on this coming weekend.
After the meeting we went out as a group and found 9 caches, some of which were hidden especially for the group. Due to a condition I am now suffering we had to leave the group for awhile and move at our own pace. While aprt from the group Sandie and I found 2 more caches.
One of our finds was called "Beam me up". It was hidden inside an old lantern that was then hidden under some bark. It was SANDIE's first find! She found the second one that day too. While looking for this cache 2 flocks of white pelicans flew over as we were in the Mississippi flyway. Very cool.
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Upcoming Weekend Event
This weekend we are going to our first geocache event. We really don't know what to expect. We all meet at a coffee shop in a small town about 1.5 hours away. I guess the sponsors of the event will hide some caches along with the large number of previosly hidden caches. I've printed copies of the information from the net, and sent coordinates to my GPS so I hope we are ready. I'll let you know early next week.
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