A Use for Micros

I've seen a number of caches in multiple states recently which have a log container in the cache container to provide additional protection for the log. It seems to work well as I can't remember any of those logs being wet.

365 Dozen Challenge

Eva and the Cone

Our attempt to qualify (and therefore be able to publish) the 365 Dozen Challenge is on the shelf for a long while. In April we hid the 366x10 Challenge after we filled our calendar with 10 finds in each day of the calendar year. We were working on twelve-a-day with the hopes of hiding the challenge cache in Pennsylvania in the spring. We were keeping up until last Friday. Last Friday, our Geodog Eva returned to the vet for a second surgery after a return of cancer. Somehow not being able to continue the 12 per day challenge effort didn't really matter. It's been a rough stretch for our geodogs. They have bounced back and forth from Gwen's surgery to Eva's first cancer surgery, Gwen's partial ACL tear, and now a return of Eva's cancer. We're hoping Eva is able to return to the trail soon.

The Geodogs the summer with their 900th find

We missed two days this week making certain Eva was safe and comfortable.

In the meantime, there are twenty-five more days with fewer than 12 finds between now and spring. The short days should once again be a big challenge especially with only three weekend days in those 25 days.

New State

We started the year with finds in 29 states. We were thinking we might end 2012 with finds in 33 states by adding Montana, Colorado, Wyoming, and Florida. We recently added Arizona for our 30th state with a cache found. It will be the only new state this year. If you can only add one state, Arizona is a really great choice. We were too far from the Grand Canyon and the days were too short to make a trip we both want to make, but the area near Tucson is special enough to give a wonderful destination each day. I was on business for the first few days, but Ali joined me for a super, if short vacation. For 2013, who knows. There is a good chance Nevada and Utah will join the list. I still have hopes we add Colorado on a long weekend when I am returning from Spokane.

The first find was a multi at a church behind the resort where my meeting was being held. I had a few hours free after the flight west and was able to walk to this one.

Dinner at Tohono Chul Park yielded a nice find on day 2. The southwest has the best sunsets.

Catalina State Park

Pima Air Museum

Kartchner Caverns

The only images you will take from these amazing caverns are wonderful memories. No cameras are permitted inside the caves. You can, however, visit this sloth to complete a challenge and log an earthcache with a little work while at the caverns.

Queen Mine Tour in Bisbee

San Pedro Riparian Conservation Area

Patagonia Lake State Park

We hoped to rent a canoe for a few paddle caches here, but didn't get to the park early enough to pull it off. Instead we enjoyed a few hours on the trails.

In the end, we have 43 finds in the state, three more state parks with caches found, and a thousand memories. If luck is ours, we'll be back for that much desired visit to the Grand Canyon, a chance to tour the Rotunda Room at Karchner, another visit to see the birds and butterflies at San Pedro, one more walk with the zombies in Bisbee, and maybe take that paddle at Patagonia. I'm almost certain we will pass on another visit to Tombstone.

Jif

We found a cache recently with this label. It was quite creative and fun. The label is in good shape for a four-year-old cache.

Moving Cache?

There are some big ammo cans on this Harley, but I think it counts as a moving cache. ;-)

Great Lakes Seaway Trail

We recently finished the Great Lakes Seaway Trail Geo Trail. We capped a week in New York state with a visit to the Niagara Falls Visitor Center on Saturday afternoon. It was a super trail. There were five sections and five coins. Each section got a little better heading West to East.

This trail is about the history of the trail and the areas where it passes. For me, it was all about the water and the wonderful places to see. If your a lighthouse fan, you won't regret doing this trail. The trail is getting a little old and is probably nearing its last days, but it was an awesome adventure for us. We spread the trail over almost two years of journeys. The images below move you from west in Erie County Pennsylvania to the eastern end of our journey at the Saint Lawrence.

1867 Erie Land Light - Erie, Pennsylvania

Barcelona Lighthouse and a cold Barcelona Beach - Barcelona, New York

Beach and sunset west of Buffalo, New York

Caching Buffalo

Hiking the Gorge at Niagara Falls

Sailboats Racing Off Shore in Wilson, New York

The park at Bear Creek Harbor

Stream Near Beechwood State Park

Sodus Point

Chimney Bluffs State Park

Fillmore Glen State Park

Phoenix Bridgehouse

Sandy Island State Park

Tibbets Point

Cedar Point State Park

Keewaydin State Park and Glacial Grooves

Basford Falls

Harper's Falls

Visiting the Eisenhower Lock

The Algoma Spirit enters the lock.

Rising in the Lock

At the top of the Lock

Leaving the Lock

Cache Guardian

If you have been caching for any length of time, chances are good you have either heard about or completed a cache requiring you to bring or find a quantity of water to float the cache container out of a tube. We found another of these today. We were in luck with empty soda bottles in the geomobile and a river nearby to provide a plentiful water source.

All went as expected until I started to add the third container of water. The cache popped out of the tube with a frog on top. I thought that's cute; the cache owner put a fake frog on top of the container. Wait a minute. This frog is BREATHING. Yep, it was a real live cache guardian. It was completely unfazed by us. It sat on the cache container bobbing in the filled tube. It let me take picture. It let Ali lift the cache out of the tube. We finally brought it to the ground where Ali gently moved it to a log. It sat on the log until we had signed the cache log and replaced the container. After that, it was off into the woods with one long hop.

It was a memorable cache that will get a favorite vote from us for an event no one else will probably ever experience at this cache. What a perfect way to start the day.

Five Years

I recently marked my fifth anniversary as a Volunteer Reviewer for Groundspeak. To mark the occasion, Groundspeak sent the really outstanding trackable shown in the image below.

The game has changed a lot since I started reviewing. To me, some of the bigger changes have been:

the elimination of the power trail section of the guideline. Now there are huge trails throughout the world and adventerous cachers with numbers in mind can log 2000 finds in a weekend.

the growth of micros. Love them or hate them, micros have taken over the game.

paperless caching with gps units. When I started reviewing, Ali had a Garmin 60CsX. I still think it is the most accurate handheld ever made for geocaching, but at 1000 caches and no paperless capabilities, it required a PDA or a lot of printed pages. Now you can load as many as 10,000 caches and have the complete page information with you for each journey.

smart phones. They have opened the game up to so many players who never owned a hand held gps. Unfortunately, they have given the rest of us a world of coordinates as much as 2000 feet off from the actual cache. I really enjoy the luxury of checking the smart phone for a rest stop cache when I am traveling long distances, but I remain eternally happy with the accuracy of a handheld unit.

the elimination of Additional Logging Requirements. These were quite popular when permitted and had quite a following in some geographic areas. I don't miss them.

the growth in popularity of Challenge Caches. DeLorme and state challenges existed five years ago, but there was nowhere near the diversity of challenge caches that are now available. The existance of 366 challenges created a caching frenzy this year as Leap Day approached and everyone made plans to find caches on the one day they could only get every four years.

the addition of geocaching challenges. While these have been ignored by a lot of cachers, there are a group of loyal followers who participate in this part of the site. We've posted and completed a number of these with our player account.

geotrails have become a part of the caching landscape. I was thrilled to be the reviewer for the Allegheny GeoTrail, one of the first geotrails to be published. Since then, I've been involved with reviewing a number of these fun trails including the North Country Trail Geo Trail and the recent Clearfield County Geotrail. Within the last month I was able to publish the Athens County Geotrail. For me as a player, these trails are fun and exciting and get me to explore places I might have missed without the trails pointing the way.

I publish a lot more caches now than when I first started reviewing. This year will be double that first year. When I first started, the winter months were quiet for new cache listings in our snowy territory. Over the years, the big winter dip has become less prominent with a lot of year-round cachers and hiders.

The first five years have been mostly fun. The time to review has reduced the number of caches we have time to find, but we still go out frequently. It is always interesting to find caches I published. The other volunteers and the Groundspeak staff are great people. My life has been better for having the opportunity to meet the team and become friends with them.

If you wish to discover this trackable and add a unique icon to your collection, please contact me.