Goals

 Maybe it was just lucky that we never really discussed goals for 2020 beyond 35 finds in each calendar day.  We hope 2021 has a bright ending.  With that hope in mind we made a few caching goals for this year.  They are...

• 38 finds in each calendar day.  January will answer early if we can actually pull this off.

We need to cache over half the days in January to make this goal.  Our overall sight is 50x365.  We started 2019 with 138 days of 50 or more.  We ended with 156.  At the start of 2020 we needed a total of 2,462 finds for 50x365.  We started 2021 needing 1996 finds.

• 19,700 Total finds...  We toyed with the idea of 20,000.  We've made 1300 in multiple years, but life and responsibilities have changed.  1,000 finds will be a nice improvement over last year's 784 total and would mark the first 1,000 year find in three years.
• 2,250 3+ terrain or higher finds...  We ended the year at 2,107.  In a normal non-COVID year this would be an easy win, but our travels will be limited for a significant part of the year as COVID still prevails.
• One new state...  This would have been 2-4 in a normal year, but we have both agreed the only possible air travel will be for me if I must for work until the vaccine greatly reduces risk.
• 950 multis...  Four a month is doable.  It would be more if we were free to travel.

Our last goal is 426 events.  I set this one off on its own as we currently have 425 events.  Yes, we are quietly hoping we will be able to attend at least once this year say hello to our caching friends.  Our last in person contact with another geocacher was 29 March when we said a socially distanced hello to petroypa70 along a rail trail in Matua, Ohio.

Stay safe.  Cache well.  Make memories.

Amping Up Ironcacher

 We met one goal for the year with our final day of 35 caches on each calendar day of the year!

Last year at this time we had tossed aside our goal of 33 in each day while we struggled with a seriously injured geodog and a family member trying to recover from a severe auto accident.  Phineas was in severe pain and struggling to move.  Our thoughts were focused on Phineas and Ali's mom.  Eventually, our vet was able to resolve Phin's issue with accupunture treatment.  Phin was able to even return to the trail.

We reached the new level at the wonderful Richfield Heritage Preserve with an afternoon of caching.

For now, were looking forward to 2021 and a new goal of 38 in each calendar day.

Geocaching Goals in a COVID World

 For some cachers COVID seems like bonus caching time for them.  The same is not true for me.  I work for a company which is almost entirely supporting essential business so we have stay operational except for one of my sites.  We don't want to put ourselves at risk or increase the possibility of spreading COVID so our travel has been minimal.  We expected to end the year at or very near 19,000 finds.  With 18,416 that is way out of reach.

Instead of thinking of what we haven't done, we've been thinking of a reasonable goal for the remainder of the year.  Our year so far is light on finds.

We are always behind in logging so there are still some finds to log, but it is certain 2020 will be our fourth year in sixteen full years of caching with fewer than 1000 finds.  We used to always try for three caches per day average, but life doesn't always work that way.

I'm hoping now we can do a little fall caching (and a few weeks of winter) to at least exceed our first full year of caching.

We'll see...

It's Not About the Numbers

I think a lot of cachers set goals for themselves if they actively cache.  For years we have played with how many cumulative caches we have found on each of the calendar days of the year.  Before the challenge cache rules changed we placed a challenge we called the Ironcacher Challenge.  It requires ten finds per day for each of the calendar days.  It was fun for us as it forced us to cache on days we might not have chosen.  We decided to continue pushing the days up.  At the end of 2018 we were at 30 finds on each calendar day.  We set a modest goal of 32 by the end of 2019.  We made it to 10 December.  I was in Mexico on business and Ali Skyped to say Phin was having issues moving and a lot of pain.  She asked about the two finds needed.  It was a quick decision that Phin's health mattered so much more than any geocaching goal.  We'll end the year three calendar days short of our goal.

As for Phineas, the pain meds weren't a very effective remedy.  For a week after I returned he spent most of his time shaking in pain under a desk or hiding under a table in the bedroom.  I was fortunate to only twice hear the horrific screams of pain if something triggered the nerve.  It will forever remain one of the worst, prolonged sounds of agony I have ever heard.

Our vet also is a certified animal accupuncture practitioner.  She mentioned that most dogs were able to benefit by the third treatment.  Phin's in great shape other than what happened recently.  We both agreed to move forward with a weekly treatment.  It was amazing how calm he was with thirteen needles stuck in him and responded well to light electrical pulses.  There was a gradual improvement over the first week after the treatment.  When at the doctor's office waiting for his second treatment, he was busy greeting customers and other dogs.  This treatment also went very well.  Phin is walking at a quick pace and resting in comfortable positions again.  His tail wags often when he is with us and outdoors.  He still remains very quiet with little to no baying something for which he has been well known to everyone who meets him.  He has at least one more accupuncture treatment, and we need to wean him off the meds.  He has the okay to walk on flat paved trails.  If luck stays on our side, he will be able to join us on short caching runs in the near future.  Our next step is to determine a way to get him safely in and out of the geomobile.  We have hope...

Thirty a Day

We're both engineers so playing with silly goals are a fun part of our geocaching adventure. Years ago we wanted to place a cache called the Ironcacher Challenge which required cachers to have at least ten finds on each of the 366 calendar days. There was no year or time requirement, just ten finds a day. We had planned to place the Ironcacher Baker's Dozen challenge for thirteen finds a day near our home in Pennsylvania. That plan went by the way with the stricter challenge guidelines.

We finished 2017 with 25 finds on each calendar day. For 2018 we were hoping for a stretch to 30 finds each day. We made it!

Going from 25 a day to 30 a day meant multiple days where we had to find five in a day. For 2019 the next goal is a more modest 42 finds per day.It means we will need to cache on a modest 42 days next year to meet the goal. Of course we will cache on many more days. What we've found is this goal gets us outdoors on days where we might not bother. Everyone enjoys caching on warm, sunny days. Getting some exercise on less than perfect days is often easy to put off.

So, what's the end point? We are hoping to work our way to at least fifty finds on each calendar day. We've still a ways to go. ;)

365

It has been a while since this post. This past Sunday we headed off to cache in Summit County. We wanted to find one to fill in day 365 and hoped to find ten for the day. We got nine. We started our day with a find near a trail along the old Ohio & Erie Canal, moved on for a couple finds in a nice historical cemetery which included the grave of Dr. Bob, and finished off at a large city park in Norton, Ohio.



So now what do we do until February 29th comes around? Well, I have convinced Ali to work for ten finds per day. At the start of September we had 80 days with fewer than 10 finds. Now that is 63 days. Unfortunately, 10 of the 63 days are in February... brrrrrr. We won't have to wait for leap year in Ohio, since the Ohio challenge is a 365. We can find that one once we head to the western part of the state.

If Only I had Looked Sooner....

We are both engineers so while the number of finds aren't very important to us, playing with all the other stats gives us hours of endless amusement. We also enjoy challenge caches a lot. Recently, 366 Challenges have gained popularity, and I was wondering how close we are since we are year-round cachers in a winter snowy/summer muggy area.

When It's Not About the Numbers died, we switched to My Geocaching Profile. Its graphics are nowhere near as good as the amazing INATN site, but it's still here. MGP also doesn't give the individual county finds, but we've gotten around that with a GSAK macro. That's also a different post.

Since the 366 data is available on MGP, I decided to see how close we are to meeting the requirements of the challenge. Say It Isn't So! We need only four days. Had I known (or checked earlier), I would have crawled to a cache on Leap Day. The stats are a little weird though. We may be the only residents of Northeast Ohio's snowbelt to have one find on May 21st and two finds on July 8th while finding 39 caches on December 27th and having eight days of 20 or more finds in January.

I am already challenging Ali to a goal of at least ten finds per day of the calendar. So far, she's rolling her eyes, but she'll go for this one. :-)

An update: We're getting a new refrigerator, and Ali has said "Print the image and post it on the new refrigerator so we know which days we need." Hehehe... my plan has worked. :-)