Geocoins

We've been geocaching for over five years now. We've accumulated a lot of geocoins. I say accumulated, because we haven't bought many. We've limited most of our purchases to groups in which we belong and events or places where we've attended or cached. The rest have come mostly from friends, a few from prizes at events we've attended, a couple found in caches, and a number from geocaching promotions and challenges. Last week I was activating a few coins to share with attendees at our event. I was searching in the geocaching forums to find a way to retrieve an activation code for one of the coins when I noticed a Tardis geocoin! If you've never watched Dr. Who, this portion of this post will be lost on you, but the Doctor, Daleks, the Companions, K-9, and the Tardis have been a favorite for me for a long time. I started watching this BBC series years ago when PBS showed it regularly. Now it has sadly slipped into the world of cable, and we are not that interested in television. Yes, it is a geeky show, but I am one of the few people to have my own Dr. Who BBC record album. You don't remember record albums? Maybe some other posting in one of my different blogs... :-)

Anyways, the arrival of the Tardis coin and activating a few for the event got me thinking about a few of the coins we have and where they come from. We have a small box of stuff we have traded from caches. Our coins stay in that box. The stuff is silly including small toys, signature items from the days when geocaching wasn't about the numbers and people left sig items in caches, and the coins. They are memories of the times we have spent together and with friends on the trail. Many coins have special memories.

The Year 1 Millennium Cell Coin came from a cache during a 2007 vacation to the Delaware Water Gap and Pine Creek Gorge. We cached in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. We hiked the AT and visited Wellsboro, Pennsylvania. The coin isn't trackable, but it's a much different coin and part of a great memory.

Delaware Water Gap

Pine Creek Gorge


Eleven coins in our collection came from our adventures in the Allegheny Geotrail. The AGT spans ten counties with up to twenty caches in each county. All the coins are well done, but my favorite is the Warren coin. It is simple and elegent in its design. It is also a place we call home. From caching through Warren, McKean, Clarion, and Forest Counties with friends to caching together on a vacation in 2008 through Elk, Cameron, Jefferson, and Potter Counties, each AGT coin has its own memories.

Tanbark Trail... Warren County AGT


It was really a strange coincidence for us to find yet another edition of the Millennium Cell coin while vacationing for AGT caches. We made a trip from Potter County to Pine Creek Gorge and a few caches when we found this nice coin.

Leonard Harrison State Park



We have completed the five state park series in the Ohio State Parks each year caches have been placed. This year, the five park series was joined by a nineteen park series with 100 geocoins being awarded to those completing the series. It was a little pushed trying to visit more state parks than usual, but we had a great time.

Tinkers Creek State Park



We would probably have never completed the New Jersey County Challenge if Ali's sister had not gotten married this summer. We had a few counties near her sister's home from visits and a couple counties from our last trip to Delaware Water Gap, but it wasn't until the wedding date was set that we decided to make New Jersey a vacation spot this year. I was glad we did. It is a super state with amazing variety.

Monmouth County New Jersey


It was really strange to find yet another Millennium Cell coin during this trip. We don't cache eastern PA and New Jersey that often.

Sweet Arrow Lake Park


Soon the snow will be low enough to return to the woods and create more memories.

18 July 2007 #3200 Millions of Midges
The title doesn't exaggerate. The park for this milestone is a wetland area near the Chagrin River. After the find, we headed to this nearby location to enjoy a wonderful sunset.

27 June 2007 #3100 Rob's Invite





This nice cache is located along the Mount Tammany Trail located in Worthington State Forest. The cache is located fairly low on the trail, but the rest of the walk is well worth the climb.

9 June 2007 #3000 Dance Hall Hill



We expected a bit more from #3000 since it was a terrain three cache, but it was in Oil Creek State Park. It was a perfect day. We all had a good time including the dogs being silly around the cache site. The history of the area was interesting. It is always surprising to see traces of past lives that have come and gone. Not much beyond the old pole supports remained of this old dance hall.

2 June 2007 Spring Cache Fever (Medina Metroparks)

We traveled to the park with Geauga Garmin and teamed up with Cold One for the event. We weren't certain he would ever be the same and we had a new team name, Team Nature Nutz. Near the end of the Medina event, we met up with Lep and made our plans to meet Chris K for an afternoon of caching fun at Portage Lakes.

There were lots of laughs and lots of finds.

12 May 2007 #2900 Nightmare in the Woods

We actually went hunting back-to-back milestones with a friend. This time Goat Haunt joined us for a day of Medina caching. We wanted to find this legendary tough cache as our milestone. At a cache earlier in the day, we had also run into Geo Caver. We stopped to chat for a bit a mentioned that this cache was on our list for the day. As we pulled in the parking area for this cache, we saw Geo Caver's geomobile immediately. Got a tough cache to find for a milestone? No problem, just bring along Geo Caver. He found the tough stages of this multi in almost no time.

24 April 2007 Benchmark #100 Fairport Harbor Lighthouse

It was cold; really cold. We stopped to spend the late afternoon walking the beach. Since I had the gps with benchmarks, we looked for a few of those on the way. This one was #100. It's not a part of the game that many enjoy, but we have a good time finding these.

19 April 2007 #2800 Wildlife Woods Load

This was a different milestone for us since we had the pleasure of a friend joining us. GeaugaGarmin joined us for a pleasant walk through Hudson Woods. This was our second visit to this quiet park near the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. We had fun snagging this multi and spending the evening with our friend.

29 March 2007 #2700 She Said Yes

I had taken the day off work to finish preparations for our spring event in The Cleveland Metroparks. Ali and I spent most of the day in South Chagrin checking coordinates and dropping off containers. After we were finished, we decided to find a few local caches. Our last stop of the evening and the home to this nice cache was Aurora's Sunny Lake Park. The cache was placed to celebrate the engagement of a local caching team. It was a pleasant walk with a great sunset.

6 March 2007 #2600 timber!!!

timber!!! is located in Wildwood State Park. It is the far eastern park of a group of six Ohio State Parks along the Lake Erie shore in greater Cleveland. There is a nice walking trail that starts at this park and winds along the shore joining two of the other nearby state parks in this series.

This milestone was found on one of those cold March evenings when my brain is really itching to see spring. The days are longer, but not really long enough to drive anywhere after work and be outdoors. This park scratched the itch. We got to see a few interesting ducks, have a nice walk and find two nice hides by phil and nichole including this milestone.

28 January 2007 #2500 Donkey Path

This cache capped a wild weekend of white knuckle trips through the snow with my little geomobile. The weekend started with an afternoon of caching with Jill in the Falls. I stayed to visit and left late only to find a lot of slippery roads between me and Pennsylvania. Saturday (the day I didn't need to drive the 3 ;-0) was this gorgeous, winter day. We spent the day at Chapman State Park and a really fun geomeet. Our friend Goat Haunt had traveled east to spend the weekend. We had a great time. Since we were really close to 2500, we decided to stop for a few caches on the way home to grab 2,500. By the time we got to Titusville and this cache it had started to snow. We found the cache, Rich snapped a picture, and I started a really scary drive home.

13 January 2007 #2400 Yakety Yak

This was a really amazing day. We started off by finding this cache for a milestone. Later on, we met our friend Leprechaun in Bradford to continue a fun, hectic day of caching in the freezing woods. The weather wasn't perfect but the company was.

30 December 2006 #2300 Just For Kicks in 2006 #6

I was using vacation days that as always seem to always wait for the last few days of the year. Ali and I hiked around the Jake's Rocks area for awhile before we headed for McKean County and a lot of unfound caches. Our friends kickin' and kachekat are really wonderful people and this was a fun cache to mark a milestone.

26 October 2006 #2000 State Game Lands #109

We saved this cache for a special milestone and 2000 was it. I had snagged a few days off for our anniversary so we packed the geodogs and headed for PA. The cache is anti-climatic. The walk is easy. The hide is easy. The people with lots of guns nearby are a little unnerving, but it is THE oldest cache in PA. It is one of the granddaddies of this game that occupies our free time. After we made the grab and had significant time for celebrating, we made our way deeper into the woods for some bogleman caches. As always, Ian served up some fine woods time and a couple of memorable caches to add to a great outing.

2 September 2006 #1800 Land O Lakes

It was a rainy day and we had been caching near Cambridge Springs. We were at a milestone cache and headed for this gameland. Sometimes wonderful things aren't planned. The gamelands were very scenic. I spotted gentian at the edge of the water on the way to the cache. On our last stretch of trail before the cache, we came upon a magnificent tree with a solitary bench. It was a memorable milestone.