Down-n-Dirty-a geocaching blog

My birthday is coming up in a few weeks and I had sent hubby some links for some new GPSr’s I am interested in. While I was shopping at Costco yesterday I happened to find one that was on my list. So after I called hubby and confirmed with him that he was purchasing my birthday present, I loaded up a brand new Magellan Triton 500 into my buggy. Woot!

We are heading up to Granite Falls tomorrow for some hiking and caching. We’ll see how this baby compares side by side to my Garmin!

Also, for those of you who have no idea what geocaching is, here is a link just for you: How Do I Start Geocaching?

I have done quite a bit of caching over the last few weeks. I’m sure there are people out there who have done more, but it’s been quite a lot for little ol’ me. We went camping on the Columbia River a few weeks ago. On the way down, we discovered GCXN2G. The kids stayed in the car and watched a movie while we hunted. Party poopers.

While we were camping we got to visit America’s Stonehenge in the process of searching for GC2F33, we figured out the coordinates, but because we didn’t know the area we were unsure how to get to it (after driving through the winery’s property amongst other places). So we decided to bag that one. We did manage to find GC3803 in an old cemetery. I love old cemeteries!

On the way home we found GCE236 and GC10NGD. Both were pretty quick finds. On the way back to the car we picked up a hitchhiker along the way. And not the travel bug kind. He was green, skinny, had four legs and was praying to the sun gods. Hehehe.

We tried for one more cache at a rest stop, the warnings of snakes didn’t bother me (being from Texas has it’s benefits), but the “small hill” the cache described was not Lela-friendly. I figured I could slide down on my butt (as attractive as that thought is), or roll down it head over heels.  So I opted for not breaking my neck. And I saw no snakes, I was actually looking forward to that part a little.

I spent the last week teaching girl scouts about geocaching at our local day camp. I had some help from Leap O Lizard and Brian Beeck. Close to three hundred kids came through my unit, ranging in age from five to twelve. It was totally exhausting but totally fun. And I can’t tell you how many of them wanted to hide the camp cache in the honey buckets. Gross! I did let one group duct tape it to the back of one though, lol!

That is all of my caching adventures for the last few weeks. I still need to go pick up my cache and re-hide it. But there is a cache nearby that was archived recently, so I may move it there. We are also going to go hiking up at the Lime Kiln trail this weekend and there are several cache’s along there.

The only events on the horizon so far this week have been stashing a cache in a park that we already have one cache in. We tried another park first, but there was really nowhere safe to stash one.

Waiting to see if your cache is approved, is like waiting for an acceptance letter or to see if you got a good grade on that final exam. You spend anywhere from twenty four hours to three days refreshing the site every ten minutes or so to see if your cache has been approved.

But when you get that email that says it has been archived because it is too close to another cache, it’s very disappointing. Then you go through scanning the geo map looking for a good spot to re-hide your cache. So you can start the whole process over again. It can be a frustrating process.

But that is where I am at right now. I have been waiting for the next sunny day to go grab the micro and place it elsewhere. And today just might be that day. After I go to the post office, and meet with a manager to pick up some patches and feed the kids. And to think, I thought I didn’t have to go anywhere today!

Sunday we had to head down south to Auburn to pick up the oldest microcacher. We thought we would stop and get a nearby cache. We all hunted for it for about twenty minutes, bushwhacking, turning rocks over, etc. Our GPSr said it was in the Honey Bucket nearby, but we had our doubts. It was supposedly an easy find, but either we did not have the mojo or it had been muggled. Or perhaps it really was in the throne of no return that we did not have the courage to breech.

There was another cache a few miles away by the municipal airport, so we thought we’d give that one a go. We had better luck here. This one had a better hint though too. It was snuggled in between two rows of hedges, so I sent one of the micro’s in after it. By this time my allergies were so bad I could hardly see. Swollen, itchy eyes that were watering like crazy and sneezing my head off. I was not about to stick my head in there and complicate the situation.

We logged our find and packed everyone back in the cache-mobile. We grabbed some ice cream on the way home to celebrate our find. Which also marked our twentieth cache found. Woot!

On Friday the sun finally came out here in the rainy PNW. It was glorious. And to top it off, there was a brand new cache in the area screaming for us to find it. There was another cache in the same area, so I grabbed the info for both, packed up two of the microcachers and we headed out.

The caches were located near a park we had not been to before. A bonus for everyone, because I can use it as leverage to make the kids behave while we are caching. Good cachers get to play at the park when we are done. Even if the weather person predicted seventy five degrees, and it is actually ninety. Hot. Hot. Hot. It wouldn’t be too bad, but you have to factor in the eighty percent humidity. That makes for some sweaty, stinky cachers.

We searched for about twenty minutes for the new cache. But we failed to find it and did not get the FTF. Onto cache number two, on the other side of the park. We didn’t have much luck with that one either. This one was in the vicinity of a mudpit, in a little clearing surrounded by trees. Complete with mosquitos. I opted to let the micro’s play at the park. I did not want to hang out with tiny nibblers.

After the park, and a quick stop at the store to get something cold to drink, we headed home. After it cooled off and hubby got home, we took a walk. Across the street, behind the housing development there is a paved trail where three caches had popped up over the pseudo-spring. We hit pay dirt with all three.

I was happy to log all three as found when we got home. And to scratch my legs where the stinging latched on while caching. I was the intelligent one who wore flip flops and shorts. Obviously the first caching expedition of the year, lol.

Here it is, almost the end of June and there has yet to be a decent day to geocache here. I have nothing against the rain, but when it prevents me from caching in the middle of June I do hold a small grudge. There is something to be said for having better than sixty foot accuracy on your unit.

On the upside, my micro-cachers TB’s are on the move. Slobber’s (Slobber Car) went to the peninsula and back. It’s a few miles away from home now, so we might grab it when we go camping next week and move it further south. Boogie’s (Boogie Snake) TB has made it about an hour south of Chelan after being on the peninsula for a few months. But Miss Chica’s (Honey Horse) has made quite the trip. It started out here in Washington, then went to North Carolina. Shortly afterward it left NC for England and it is currently in Finland! How very cool is that.

Next weekend we will be camping on the Oregon coast. And there are lots of geocaches to be found along the way and near the campsite. I had hoped to find five caches a week this summer, but the detrimental weather put a damper on that. I am hoping this camping trip will help me catch up a tiny bit. So here I am, off to print me out some cache details so I can go hunting.

Wish me luck!