Geocaching Adventures Part 9

Man what a fantastic day!!

A group of friends and I spent this past Saturday, Nov 22nd, on the trails of the Caledon Natural Area. And boy was it time well spent. We met up around 8:30 or so and just went from trail to trail seeking the various geocaches within the park. This was my second trip to Caledon. A friend and I had come a little while back and found the then three caches there. Now a very gracious Virginia cacher had placed 12 more that we could spend the morning finding. After about 5 hours or so, we were headed to the last cache in the park. Poplar Hollow ended up being our 12th in the park and my and one friend's 15th of the day. IT also ended up being my #1,600! And what a way to celebrate a "milestone" - in a great park, on a fantastic day with good friends.


But if that wasn't enough - after leaving the park my good geo-friend Mrs SeeKPeeKRs and I headed a little further west to find a few more. And boy did we? We ended up picking up 33 caches on the day with NOT a SINGLE DNF. In fact we even clear up a previous DNF in the earlier evening. Fun times, Fun times. What is next??

Geocaching and How I get there?

Earlier this week I was listening to the Geocaching Podcast and the topic was "Geo-vehicles" and started me thinking about the various ways I have gotten to geocaches. Personally my favorite way is a nice walk/hike in a secluded area, or maybe around a town I want to get to know better. But I have used several other means of "transportation" to get from one cache to another. Below are a few pictures as well as a list of ways I have gotten to caches.

First and foremost there is my car, a 2000 Durango. Nothing to special about that one because most people use their cars to get from one cache to another. I have also used my wife's car, a 1997 two-door RAV4, my parents' car (a Mercury I believe) as well as a friend's mini-van while I was caching in Georgia on vacation. I have ridden in several other people's cars as well, each of them having their own flavor if you get my meaning.

Second - BICYCLE - a couple of friends and I took some time about two months ago and did a cache called "Circle BWI." It was a puzzle cache along the walking/bicycling trail that goes around the airport. About a week later I got the chance to do the second cache in the series called "Circle BWI Again." Biking to a cache was a lot of fun. It also was a good exercise that I haven't had for quite a while.

Third - KAYAK - my wife and I purchased a couple of Malibu Two ocean kayaks for paddling around on the bay. As soon as I got them I was looking forward to going after a cache not to far from home called Spice Creek small boat. That cache took a friend and I along a tributary of the Patuxent River to a wonderful spot to see lots of water fowl. I even took the opportunity to hide a cache using my kayak which was a lot of fun as well. This photo was from a webcam cache located just off shore of the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD.

Fourth - MOTOR SCOOTER - while I have only done one cache using the scooter, it was a lot of fun on a fantastic fall day riding down to Solomons Island, MD to pick a new cache that had been placed in the county.

I have used a a skateboard to retrieve information for a cache before. A part of "Psycho Urban Cache #7 - A Good Day to Die" must be gotten while inside of a very narrow drain tube. The easiest way to retrieve it is to use a skateboard and roll your way to the cache location. While this photo is not of me, it is a friend, it is my son's skateboard and my rope that are being used. (I guess the others in the group that day didn't trust me when I read the coordinates to them.)

I have even used my sons' Razor Scooter for a set of caches in Virginia Beach one evening. That evening was a BLAST! I started at our hotel and made my way around Virginia Beach, kicking with one leg. If I remember correctly I found 6 different caches that evening and about 6 more the next evening. All totaled I think I covered about 6 miles or so. Man did I sleep well both nights.

While this video is not of me, I did the cache previous to filming it. AND yes that is a paddle boat you need to get to the cache.

But my favorite is of course WALKING! I remember one day last December when a good geo-friend and I headed up to the nation's capital for a virtual tour. We used the Metro to get into Washington, DC but after getting off we spent about 8 hours walking around The National Mall as well as other areas gathering information for each of the cache. All totaled that day I believe we covered 12.5 miles BY FOOT. I hit a milestone that day. But best of all I got out to have some fun exploring. Again like in a previous post to this site - GET OUT THERE! You never know what is around the corner and no matter how you get there you will enjoy it!!

Geocaching Adventures Part 8

November 8, 2008

About two weeks ago, some good geo-friends hosted a geocaching event called the "A Spooktacular Event." Unfortunately I was unable to attend it that day. Partially due the weather, not the best day to be outside, but mostly due to the fact that my sons and wife were attending a small festival at their elementary school. Either way I was NOT there that day. Today I got the chance to go and find the new caches placed in the park and it really made me wish I could have been there that day. I understand that the series was laid out so that people who attended the event could "race around" finding the caches and that a winner was declared. I think that would have been a really fun thing to try. But alas I could not make it.

The caches placed for the event were in a Halloween theme, of course. With titles such as "The Cemetery" and "Bats, Rats and Snakes" and "hiders" such as Mortica and Gomez" it was a great series. The small "props" that a couple of the hiders used made it very entertaining to see what was around the next bend in the trail. Here is a couple of examples of what I mean:



In my honest opinion, this is one of the best series of caches out there in our area AND more caches and more people should treat caching this way.

Geocaching Adventures Part 7

October 12, 2008 - International Earthcache Day!

International Earthcache Day is held at the beginning of Earth Sciences' Week, sponsored by the Geological Society of America. They encourage people, not just geocachers, to get out and learn about the earth. In 2007, a couple of friends and I spent "Earthcache Day" together. We headed to Virginia to specifically visit GC105P8 "Wetlands: A Natural Treasure. That day we wandered around Huntley Meadows Park gathering the information. We then spent another great couple of hours in another portion of the park finding the other traditional caches there. This year we wanted to go bigger and better. So we ventured off to Great Falls National Park. Located on each side of the falls are two earthcaches. We visited an old gold mine, for the "Gold in Maryland" earthcache.. The hike to that one was fantastic. We then headed over to the Virginia side of the falls to visit the GCZDA0 Great Falls Earthcache. For this one we had to visited various lookouts along the river for some amazing scenery. We then had another terrific hike out to GCZP3V Mather Gorge. This one took us from the top of the falls down about 9/10 of a mile down to a terrific spot to look back up the gorge itself. After making our way back to the car we realized that we had missed one of the earthcaches on the Maryland side, since it looked like on the map and GPSr that it was in Virginia. But it could only be accessed from the Maryland side. Once back we visited GCZCGF Great Falls Olmstead Island along with about 200 of our closest muggle friends. But they were more concerned with looking at the falls and the kayakers enjoying them.

The entire day was a blast! Great hikes, with terrific scenery accompanied by good friends. Can't wait to see where we go next year!

I realize that this may not be the best or most descriptive posting of a such a great day. But sometimes words escape me. If you are interested in seeing a few pictures of the day check out the "other pics" link on the right side. Then look at the "12 of Twelve for October." More geocaching news later...

10/20/08 Life in general

Man it has been a very, very , very long time since I have posted here! Over a month since I decided to let people know how things are going.

First let me say that life is very good right now. (Hope I don't jinx it there.) I am getting home nice and early after school because I finally got out of coaching volleyball. I have to say that I am much happier now knowing that I don't have to think about the sport that I once loved every waking moment for 3 months. Now I get home and have a chance to see my sons - it couldn't get much better than that.

School is going well. My classes are made up of some really nice students. Most are hard-working while others could show a little more effort but they do have great personalities. The first quarter is quickly coming to an end and some will be very surprised by their grades, especially since 70% of that grade comes from performance on quizzes and tests. It will be a rude awakening for many. But I have tried to keep them abreast of the situation.

My wife and I have bought a small 49.5 cc engine scooter. Most days we do carpool, since Valerie's schedule has changed and we can go in and leave at the same time. But I wanted to do what I could to use a smaller amount of gasoline. I have to say that I love riding it, even if it is cold in the morning. I was really stoked for about two weeks, until I rode by a couple of mile markers and realized that the odometer measures in kilometers rather than miles. But 87 mpg is far better than my Durango which gets 15 mpg on a really good day.

As for the geocaching front - I have to say that it has only gotten better. I have tried to get back to caching the way I really liked when I first started. Getting out in the woods and taking a really nice walk or hike. But more about that later. I have hidden one new cache, just last week. Calvert History 101 is another cache that I hope people will enjoy because it takes them to various locations around the southern part. Many will drive all around to gather the information but others will click the one button on the page that will help. Each of the historical markers is a "waymark" and the information can be read from each of their listings. I hope that people enjoy it!

Honest to goodness - no sooner do I write that everything is going well I develop a pretty bad pain in the neck, literally. More later.

Geocaching Adventures Part 6

Man it has been a crazy couple of days on the geocaching front. Where should I begin really? Well what about the beginning of the week?

Monday July 21st:
As I mentioned in an earlier post I was able to grab two "First-to-Finds" and my new earthcache was published. I was really excited about that and the week just kept getting better.

Wednesday July 23rd:
A good geo-friend and I drove to Lake Anna State Park specifically to try some of the "hydrocaches" there. We arrived at the park a little after 8 in in the morning and we put the kayak into the water. While on the water we were able to paddle to three different caches and had a couple more that we could have visited, if we thought that we could have done it. The first was called "Cedar Island" and involved a .3 mile paddle to a relatively large island to a find a cache. "Clambake" was on a small peninsula about a mile away from there and then we continued onto "Among the Pines". The last one involved the greatest amount of searching, but we found it pretty quickly due to the amount of ground that we had to cover, literally about 32 square feet. After we returned to where we put in, we loaded up the kayak, changed our clothes and found about a dozen more in the park. Mostly micro caches that had been placed, probably for an event in the past, but interesting and "unique" containers. We weren't done there though. On the ride home we cleared up a "DNF" from about 6 months earlier in Fredericksburg as well. On the way home I told my friend that I probably wasn't going to go back out anymore this week. Little did I know that I was wrong...

Thursday July 24th:
The same friend called me while I was at my sons' swim lessons and told me about a new cache being published and being interested in trying to snag another FTF. I said "Maybe" and that I would need to check with my wife. Upon getting home, I mentioned it to my wife and she said that I should go. My friend and I headed over to White Plains Regional Park in Waldorf, MD, after finding one other cache in La Plata. "Green Acres" is a small cache hidden in the park and luck would have it that again we were First to Find. We got back into the car and my friend mentioned that she was interested in traveling a little further to clear up another DNF we both had. At about the same time, my wife called to tell us about two more caches that had been published. I convinced my friend that we should head towards home to try and be first on the two new ones. We arrived at the parking area for the first to find a familiar car parked. Long story short, we were not FTF on that one. We then headed over to "Drop Box" the other new cache. Upon arriving at that one, I jumped out of the car and quickly found the container, and learned that again I, and my friend, was not first. In fact, many of my geocaching friends had known about the cache for sometime because it was a cache dedicated to me, set up by my wife and friend, to help celebrate my 40th birthday. Inside of it was a note that informed me that I should go over to a nearby restaurant. When I arrived I was greeted by my family and many of my friends. I was completely surprised.

Saturday July 26th:
Saturday was the day of the Maryland Geocaching Society's Summer Picnic. A group of good friends and I set out early so that we could visit an earthcache on the way. "Kilgore Falls" has now got to be one of my favorite places in the state of Maryland now. After visiting such a place, I can say that I am very happy about all of the places that geocaching has brought me. It was BREATHE-TAKING and I hope to return very soon with my wife and sons. After that we headed over to the picnic and had a great time visiting with our friends from around the state. We were able to find about 12 of the 16 or so cache published for the event. I thought it was pretty cool that I got a chance to meet and even cache with CC Cooper Agency, one of the highest "finders" in the world. What a great lady!

Sunday July 27th:
Well as you can see - I have been pretty busy on the geocaching front. AND I think I need a break. AND I think I am pretty serious this time. I know that new caches will be published, and friends will call to see if I want to go out and find a few. But I am going to try and take a break for a little while. I am going to shoot for two weeks. Two weeks, 14 days, without getting on the site, without searching for caches. I'll have to let you know. If you are interested - stay tuned!

Geocaching Adventures Part 5

Aren't surprises nice? I know sometimes maybe a surprise can be a not so good thing, like finding out that you have lost your keys, or a fingernail in a sandwich you ordered from your favorite fast food place. But most times - surprises are great!

Today I had four terrific surprises! First off I had to take my car into the mechanic for a little bit. A "check engine" light had come on and I wanted it checked. I also had another problem I had had on vacation looked at as well. Long story short - I walked out of the mechanic's shop paying $0.00. Admittedly the parts needed were not in, so I'll pay for it later. BUT while there - I received a phone call from a good geo-friend who informed me that a new geocache, "Brain Freeze - 2", had been hidden and posted only about three miles from where I was. I had no knowledge of it and she, without me prompting, offered up the coordinates for it. Just as I finished putting the coordinates into my GPSr, my car was finished and I was able to rush up there and make the First-to-Find! So that was two great surprises right there!

Once I got home and had logged the cache, I checked my email and learned that another new cache, "A Fairy's Treasure" had been hidden and posted. Another terrific surprise but even better it was hidden in Kings Landing Park, a park that had been "off-limits" to hiding caches for quite sometime. I called my good geo-friend, to repay the favor, and found out that she was returning home to change into something a little better to cache. I met her and along with my youngest son we were able to make the First-to-Find there as well. But the surprise of possibly having a park to use for hiding caches was just as nice as the FTF!!

And then when I got home I was greeted with another wonderful surprise! My "earthcache" had been posted! Since learning about what an earthcache really is and what they can do, I have been wanting to post one. I have been in contact with another organization about possibly posting one in the southern part of the county, but recently I got a chance to walk around Flag Ponds, just about a mile from my house. While walking around, my sons ate a few wild raspberries and I gathered the information that I wanted to include in the listing. Then after talking to one of the rangers at the park and trying to explain that no box would be placed, they agreed very quickly! I posted the information to www.earthcache.org. I had to adjust a couple of things over the weekend but it was approved today!

I am really not sure if things could have gone much better today! It was a blast!

Geocaching Adventures Part 4

Well, well. It has been a couple days since my last post and I thought that I would bring people, whether anyone is reading or not, up to speed about what I have been doing geocaching wise. This week has been a lot of fun.


July 15th

It started with a short-focused geocaching trip with a couple of good friends. Or that was what I had said in the original email. Our group of three headed to High Ridge Park in Howard County to try and find all of the caches within the park. Once we arrived we decided to head to the furtherest cache out. A View to a Bridge involved about a half mile hike with the last four tenths being a pretty good bushwhack over some hilly terrain. I lead the group in kind of a straight-line method of caching, my regular "Modus Operandi." But to my credit, we really didn't cross any big trails, an occasional deer-trail but nothing bigger. After we made the find there we headed over to two others in the park and were successful as well. The only one we did not attempt was a puzzle that we just weren't sure of our coordinates. After a short breather at the car we headed over to Riverside Ruins. After spending a little time looking up things, I found out that these "ruins" were part of an old dam in the area. The cache was at the top of the ruins about 30 ft in the air. Old stone ruins, me in old tennis shoes with no tread - why not? The climb up made me stretch, both literally and figuratively. Literally it was a good exercise in me finding out my limits, could I climb it. Figuratively - in that COULD I climb it? Did I have the confidence in myself that would allow me to get up there. Come to find out, I could and did climb it! It was the way down that wasn't reassuring. I decided to jump down the last five feet or so. Not a good choice! I avoided any rocks on the landing but the soil itself was pretty hard and my shoes had little to no support or cushioning so I bruised my foot pretty badly. Nothing too serious - a little painful to walk on it but I'm okay now. My first geocaching injury - and hopefully my last.


July 17th

I was able to put the finishing touches on the mother of all puzzle caches, again with a good geo-friend. Scrabble Scramble 3: The Quest for Pieces was the latest creation by our resident puzzle master, here in southern Maryland. I had worked on each of the nine smaller, lead-in caches and had found those. I got a little help with some and gave some help to others on some as well. But the last puzzle was kind of a doozy. I literally "pieced" the parts together and then spent a couple of hours looking over then hint and the pieces. Then something hit me, no help here by the way, and I tried something. Eureka! The coordinates seemed to jive with the description of the area. After that it was a matter of finding the darn thing, which took about 15 minutes since we, my friend and I, both interpreted the hint incorrectly. But again - another job well done.


July 18th

My good geo-friend was on a streak and wanted a cache for today. A new cache, Bayfront Bounty had been posted the day before so we road up to Chesapeake Beach to find the cache. Being that we both are getting to presumptuous, thinking that everyone is trying to make the game hard, we completely over-looked this one for about 15 minutes or so. But after quoting the hint, in verse, we made the find quickly! (Note to self - not everyone is trying to make the game not fun!)


Hopefully my next post will be about my new earthcache being published! Cross your fingers.

Geocaching Adventures Part 3

Well is there such a thing as TOO MUCH CACHING?

Yesterday, my good geo-friend and I headed out to finish something we had started about two months earlier. Today was the day that we were going to grab the Howard County ADC Challenge. We had spent a couple of trips grabbing different pages on for the challenge. But today was the day to go after the "Holy Grail."

Our day started in Crofton with finding a couple of caches there. Nothing too special about either of them but it gave us the chance to get out of the car for a little bit. We then grabbed a cache here and one there. I really enjoyed the location of "This Old House." It is amazing where geocaching will take you sometimes. Here was an abandoned stone house, under a highway over pass. Really a neat area.

From there we moved on to a couple of others, one of which turned into being my 1,400th find. The "Footsteps of AMS" was a multi cache that involved solving a puzzle at stage one to determine how to get to stage two. Kind of simple but really neat way to pull it off.

From there my friend and I pressed onto finding the "Final" challenge cache. It involved a really nice walk in a great park. The hide was not devious but it was not simple to grab either. Once we had signed the log we rejoiced and knew that this adventure was over, but another had begun. We found a new park to try and clear out...

Geocaching Adventures Part 2

Sorry this is a day late according to the previous post but I had to "take a day" and soak in the experience. Honestly I don't think I could have asked for a better experience when heading out to the cache we did.

Mrs SeeKPeeKRs and I started our day by me picking her up at her house around 6:15 or so. We knew that we wanted to get an early start on our adventure. Our goal for the day was to head to "Spice Creek small boat". We drove up to the end of Calvert Ferry Landing Road, just west of Dunkirk and hopped out of the car happy to start. After grabbing all of our gear, we will the kayak down to the shoreline, about 500 yards total along a trail. The trail wasn't the best near the end, with the large ruts, but we made out okay getting the boat into the water.

We got started on the 1.3 mile, as the crow flies, paddle just around 7 am. It was a great time to be out on the river. We had a slight breeze, out of the south, in our face. But that breeze kept us cool on the July morning. Off to the eastern side of the tributary, I spotted a male bald eagle flying and just a minute or two later we saw his mate sitting in a tree and were able to snap a couple of photos of her.

We continued our paddle for about 45 minutes and we finally finished crossing the Patuxent. We started into the main tributary on the western side and spotted several blue herons, ospreys as well as a pretty big turtle hustling to the water. After 20 minutes of meandering through the tributary, our GPSr's switched into "feet" and we knew that we were getting close. We came around to the northwest side of the island and decided to "beach" the kayak there.

Beaching the kayak was a little hard. The island itself had a steep incline to go up and we couldn't just let the kayak sit where it was or it may have gone off without us. So after climbing out, I pulled the kayak up the incline about 20 feet to brace the kayak against a tree. At that point we knew we were close. In fact we were within 100 ft of the cache itself. And after maybe 3 minutes or so, we had the cache in hand. At that point we rejoiced. We knew that we had conquered the true rating of a "5 star" terrain. We signed the log and snapped several pictures and just, like I mentioned earlier, soaked it in.

Our trip back was just like the trip there. A nice leisure paddle of about 1.4 miles as it turned out to be. What a great day! I really don't know how I will be able to top this in geocaching, but I know that I am going to try somehow.

To those interested the youtube video below shows the adventure. If you don't like spoilers, then maybe you should look away near the end. But honestly you have to get out there to really appreciate it anyway. Enjoy! I know that I definitely did.

Geocaching Adventures Part 1

Man has it been a long time since I have posted anything to hear. Back at the beginning of the school year, I was doing a pretty good job of posting once a week about what was happening in school. But as the year dragged on, I got lazy and pretty much gave it up. Now I am going to try to go back to one of the original reasons I started this thing. That is keep track of my adventures while GEOCACHING!

Today, July 7, 2008, I got a chance to head out after two caches down in St. Mary's County. Actually this were recent publications and were the only two in the St. Mary's I hadn't found. The first one ""Leonardtown Blue Light Special" was a new cache from Goldenhawk. He happens to be one of my favorite hiders in the area. I can tell that he puts a lot of thought into his caches and rarely do they disappoint. This one was no exception! Located down on the new renovated Leonardtown Wharf, a good geo-friend and I were able to enjoy the morning and find another one of GH's hides in plain sight.

The second cache that we did was the "Washing Away" earthcache was located down on St. George's Island, down past the turn for the Piney Point Lighthouse. There my friend and I got a chance to look around and notice how the area was trying to deal with the problem of erosion. This picture was taken very close to groundzero. That's the Potomac River behind us and we really enjoyed ourselves with this one as well.


Tomorrow we, my good geo-friend and I, are heading after a TRUE Terrain 5 cache. Read more about that tomorrow!