Two Cache Hunters

Having a geodog with you can be very helpful.

A Man's Gotta Know...

his limitations.

Yeah, this was not gonna happen.  I will take some risks geocaching, but there has to be some sort of reason, like an amazing view.  If you are interested in giving this one a try, it is in Almond, New York with an exit from I-86 nearby.  It seems to have been last actually found in July 2012.

Blown Up Sir!

If there's one piece of advice to give every new geocacher, it is don't use pvc as part of an urban/suburban cache hide. It freaks out non-cachers who are worried about active shooters and bombs in a violent world.

I wonder what the cost is to bring a bomb squad 70 miles from Pittsburgh to Sharpsville to blow up a cache container.

la montaña te llama

I would need to work to bring my caching success in Monterrey to 50%.  I am able to hunt a find on a couple trips a year, but the chances of a cache still being there is slim.  Still the opportunity to hike the trails and visit the mountains is the real reason for getting out.

Usually by Thursday, the sky over Monterrey is heavy with smog.  This week there was no rain to clear out the skies, but they were unusually clear giving a great view of the city on the rise from parking.  Maybe the area is seeing an industrial downturn from the upcoming recession which has lowered production and given clearer skies.  I was out for an evening hike with my local engineer and happy for the perfect weather.

It was an evening for dragonflies.

We were talking about how many stars can be seen from some of the mountainous areas to the southern part of the state.  He had mentioned a couple local parks had observatories including the one we were visiting.  I had noticed there was a cache on the path we were following.  We eventually reached the cache coordinates and the observatory!  It was not open for the evening, but made for a great coincidence.

We searched for the cache and came away without a find, but the journey was worth the evening spent.  Maybe we can look again during a future hike.

Translated: The mountain calls you

Our New Cache Has Cooties

Six days and no finds....  Hmmm

It's in a scenic area.

It's an easy find hidden below a rock at the base of a downed tree.

It's near a beautiful spot on the water.  You can even float the Allegheny and make a stop for a find.

Oh well, maybe some day....   😞

When Streaking....

it helps to have a place to duck in and put your clothes back on. 😉

Save A Decon

Decons seem to be the one container are most often not closed properly.  This fun, older video from the Florida Geocaching Association shows the proper way to close a decon.  Remember 1-2-3-4 clicks.

RIP bubbabeernut

bubbabeernut recently passed.  It's funny how sometimes you can know a cacher and not even know his name.  In this case it was Doug Foster.  I always called him bubba.  He always responded.  He was always friendly.

I published bubba's first hide in 2007.  skeetsurfer published his last in June of this year.  In total there were 407 hides placed by Doug (it seems weird calling him that).  He introduced us to the St. Marys Sportsman Club through the caches he placed there.  He also showed us the wonders of the Quehenna Wild Area.  You can't place caches there, but you can place them in the nearby State Game Lands and he did.  He spent his life in the woods in the area and knew of quirky pieces of the past where he took cachers with his hides as well as great wild areas.

Very few of bubba's caches were serious.  All containers were some sort of toy or gimmick.  Some made you laugh while others made you roll your eyes.  The adventures were always fun outings.

He often cached with his dogs.  When we first met him, he was caching with Darby.  There was also Bailey who was with him on his last outings.  

We will miss his goofy caches in great locations.  We will miss seeing him at events.  One of the toughest parts of the days passing is people passing with it.  Elk County has lost some amazing cachers through the years.

RIP, bubba er Doug...  may you be able to say hello to the geodogs at the rainbow bridge.

Knox County Parks GeoTrail

We spend a weekend each summer with a drive to the prairie pioneer cemeteries near Plain City.  After our Friday visit to the cemeteries to see the wildflowers and hummingbirds, we pick an adventure or two for the rest of the weekend.  This year we planned to visit Columbus Metro Parks for hiking on Saturday.  Our plan was to spend Sunday in Knox County finding caches on the Knox County Parks GeoTrail.

Our Sunday adventures did not work out as planned.  We ran into what we believe was the oak leaf itch mite in Columbus MetroParks.  It's name is very descriptive and the bites do make someone miserable.  I was lucky with limited bites while Ali was miserable on Saturday night.  We gamely made our way through four of the seven caches in the Knox series before she gave in to the fatigue of almost no sleep the evening before.

The day's visits took us Thayer Ridge, Wolf Run, Indianfield Bluffs, and Hellbender Preserve Parks.  Our visits gave us wildflowers,

great old buildings structures along the bike trail,

and some nice birding and views along water.

We both wanted to spend more time at Wolf Run, and I wished for a bike for the super ride at Hellbender Preserve, but Ali was clearly suffering from the bites.

It was a couple weeks before we returned for the last three caches.  This time we were joined by Lizzie and Phin who were ready for an afternoon's trail adventures.  We visited Bat Nest, Honey Run Highlands, and Honey Run Waterfalls Parks.  It was an afternoon of butterflies, wildflowers, and a nice waterfall.

We had a great time with this GeoTrail.  It is well worth a visit to enjoy these parks and find the caches in the series.  Completing the trail also includes a well done coin from Knox County Parks.

Geodog Fun

We were visiting Knox County and spotted these Harry Potter glasses in a cache.  Lizzie wanted nothing to do with modeling wizard glasses, but Phin was ready to look like a fashion dog.

Super Little Free Library Cache

I recently enjoyed finding a really well done Little Free Library hide.  This one was less than a month after finding a LFL Tardis hide.  It was a good month for Little Free Libraries.

I won't reveal how it worked, but the mechanism was flawless.

We Haven't a Clue

I enjoyed souvenirs when they were given for visiting a new state or country, for special occasions, and for attending Mega events.  The summer orgy of electrons seems to get more involved every year.  I've stopped looking at the page during these promotions mostly because they have become so obscure and seemingly unrelated to geocaching.  We enjoyed the Planetary Series.

We also enjoyed the Hidden Creatures Series.

We received a souvenir for caching on the last day of 2018, but then again, it's holiday time so we usually go out with the dogs for a park walk and often that journey includes a cache.  We don't generally get CITO souvenirs for attending CITO events, but we always bag trash on our geocaching adventures.  I think practicing CITO regularly is more important than showing up at an event filled with added on geocaches like pill bottle pork-chops.

For us, I guess this promotion will go the way of the Mary Hyde or You Might Be A... Series.  We'll probably get a few random souvenirs by accident.  I guess we might be overloaded with promotions.  In the meantime, I will be clueless at locations like this.

Jelly Baby?

I was heading home from Indiana and stopped to cache in Napolean.  While we were on the phone Ali noticed a special cache in Wauseon and routed me there.  It was at a little free library designed as a Tardis.  I always enjoyed watching the earlier Doctor Who episodes when they were shown on the local PBS station.  This was great.  Happily, I didn't need a sonic screwdriver to open the cache. :)

Saddest Log for an Event?

This may be the saddest Mega attended log ever written.

OCB

If you were to an earlier mega, you may have seen the spectacle of the first OCB, Original Can of Beans.

The bombastic, maybe original, rusted can of beans reportedly found near the hiding site of the Original Stash has been a great way for the owner of this maybe icon to travel the geocaching world.  The images of the rusted can being held with white gloves are priceless.

Geocaching needs legends so in the spirit of the original OCB comes the Original Can of Beer.

This tongue-in-cheek trackable often follows its owner to events in Pennsylvania and New York.  If you find the owner, you just might be able to discover it.  Enjoy!

Super Hide

Sometimes a subtle hide with a little misdirection is so satisfying.

It's visible....

Very well done

Real one nearby offers a perfect misdirection.

Gets a favorite from us!

Geocaching Salamander?

We were caching in the Allegheny National Forest and came upon a salamander.  We took a brief break from caching to take a few images.

While looking at the images, I noticed this salamander had a unique mark near a hind leg.

Thanks for the cache.  😃

Spring Awakening

Caches on the Finger Lakes Trail near Cortland, New York don't get visited often.  Two of the caches I found were 2007 hides so they have been in place for a long time.  The four caches have averaged  6.5 finds per year.  Besides being mostly in state forests with terrible roads, extreme snow, low temperatures, and short days in the winter make caching in for four to six months really challenging unless caching with snowshoes and a shovel.

This week I was in James Kennedy State Forest after work and stopped for four finds along the Finger Lakes Trail.  It was a spring awakening for the caches since half hadn't been found since July 2018 while the others had been last found in October.  The roads were as awful as ever since the state does near zero maintenance.  One was nearly impassable as someone was in the process of doing a lousy timber cut (good forest management practices actually promote forest health - this cut did not).  Still, it was an evening out hiking a section of the North Country Trail, known as the Finger Lakes Trail in New York.  It was mentally rewarding.

There was no smiley for the last log to sign. I always stop to sign trail registers.

So leave those parking lots behind and head out for a look in the woods.  Awaken an ammo can.  The pill bottles and key holders will wait.

Cache Mobile (?) For Sale

This was up for vote by readers of an on-line car forum.  I was checking the day's offering and immediately noted this rocks a pair of cache containers in the boot area.

The extra ground clearance might help with some higher terrain caches, but most plastic ammo cans leak.  In the early days of caching this might have been a moving cache.  😄  The owner has either sold it or decided they didn't want the car posted to the forum as the listing has been deleted.  If you are really interested in this as a cache mobile, the ad is still here.  It was for sale in Seattle.