Someone's Hide Design...

 You can guess where this cache is going...

New, For Me, Puzzle

 A local hider placed puzzle caches based on the card game Sets.  I had not heard of the game and never seen the game played before.  I looked for information on YouTube and found a few videos.  They are informational, but they didn't really help me with solving these puzzles.  For my next step I looked for an on-line game.  I found the best way to learn with a daily on-line game.  I've even found all six sets in the daily game a few times.😂

With a much better idea of the game, I tried to find the best way to solve for the cache.  I finally decided on printing the twelve-piece puzzle cache "set".  I arranged six copies of the on-line "set" on a powerpoint page.

Once printed, I looked to identify a set from each group cutting out the three items making the set.  Once you have built six unique sets, you have a solution.

The individual tiles can now be grouped in like tiles which then provide information to easily complete the math portion of the puzzle.

I don't typically spend a long time on puzzle solutions.  The rest of my life's commitments don't allow me to work with puzzles that may take hours/days/weeks and yield no geocache solution.  With Sets puzzles, I can solve these in reasonable time and enjoy a fun find when I am in the area of the hide.  When we are allowed back in Pennsylvania, I look forward to placing one of these fun puzzle hides.

Barbie Lost Her Backpack

Barbie was hiking in the woods in New York and left behind her backpack complete with a logbook.

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.

The Challenge of Using Plastic Ammo Cans in the Woods

Plastic ammo cans have been increasing in use for geocaching containers for a few years now.  They are now commonly available at many retail stores and on-line.  Many of them have issues with leakage and condensation, but the plastic itself is a challenge for use as a container.  We have seen the results of ammo cans chewed by porcupine and ripped apart by bears.  While these are easy to find and cheap to buy, they are not a great substitute for steel cans.  The images below are from one afternoon of caching in Shinglehouse at a Pennsylvania State Game Land.

2020's Images from Geocaching

January: Cleveland Metroparks South Chagrin

February: Fakahatchee Swamp

March: Lakeview Cemetery

April: Garrettsville

May: East Harbor State Park

June: Bendigo State Park

July: Quehanna Wildlife Area

August: Mentor Lagoons

September: Garrett State Forest

October: The Wilderness Center

November: Dunham Siding

December: Ashtabula

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.

Out-of-State Geocachers in PA

PA COVID orders are quite rigid on requirements.  Traveling geocachers should consider the potential costs of entering the state while these orders are in place. 

Commercial Cache Name Plays

 As Northeast Ohio runs out of Dollar Generals to host 50 Cent Colonel, maybe there are some other options out there like 4 Quarter Shrub, Slam, and my favorite Linenz.

(think Dollar Tree, Dunkin', and Sheetz)

Lucky Cats for Stimpy

We picked up a cat trackable recently.  Before moving it along we gave it some time with our lucky cats.

How Did You Spend Your Halloween?

 

Pennsylvania Ammo Can

 Steel ammo cans were so much easier to paint than plastic ones.  This one in Somerset County had a well done fall maple leaf pattern.

Rock The Cache Box

 When you find a cache called Rock the Cache Box...  you should be hearing Rock the Casbah in your head.

The place where this cache was located was a good trail for some nice hides and interesting challenges.

Cloud 9 Visit

 In the 1960's Cloud 9 was a small amusement park located on Mount Herman in Olean New York.  Dave w/o id has hidden fourteen caches on the land now owned by the city of Olean.  There is a 15th cache hidden in the area by another hider.

The caches are given high terrain ratings with a trail that takes about three hours to complete.

There are some great views

And some interesting old pieces of the Cloud 9 past.

If you're looking for yet another Fizzy grid, this series will fill a few.  There are a few interesting and creative hides mixed in.  Start your journey here.

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...

Great Footbridge Hide

 I've seen at least one of these before in Oklahoma.  Both were really well done hides.  Both were placed with permission.

All Aboard Knox County's C.A.&C. Geotrail

We visited Knox County in 2019 to find the park caches in their first geotrail. This year, we were back in the county visiting a super bike trail located on the path of the old C.A.& C (Cleveland, Akron, and Columbus) Railroad. We started our journey in Centerburg and employed a minion to hail our train.

There were enough interesting sights to keep our nature nerd side happy.

Buckeyes are less common in northeast Ohio.  The streamside trees were bearing fruit.

The Mount Vernon depot is a nicely preserved example of an old small town station.  It appeared to be closed from COVID.  If not, I would have stepped inside to see the remaining railway artifacts.

We made a detour from the Knox Trail to visit the Brown Family Environmental Center for a walk in the wildflower fields and the pine plantation.

I enjoyed this old twin trestle on the journey.

2020 is the 80th anniversary of this Alco's build.

Ali says come down, we'll finish the trail tomorrow.

With only a pair of caches left in the series we started our day in Westerville completing the Adventure Lab.  We made the cache near the Bridge of Dreams covered bridge our last in the series.  We enjoyed the bridge, but this stop concerned me most of the journey.  The bridge area was crowded with little mask usage.  We wore ours, but still felt at risk.

As a reward for completing the trail we were sent a coin.  It is a really attractive design and a nice memento of a fun journey.  This is the second Knox County geotrail we have completed.  Both were well done and very enjoyable.

Like last year's coin, this one is not trackable.  We have used a new trackable code to make the coin trackable.  It can be found here if you wish to discover.