It's Tuesday night...time for the weekly recap!
Well, there really isn't much to recap this week. Most of the exciting stuff happened today! The only notable caching feat before today was Keira getting her 100th find! She's a little behind the boys (who are both knocking on 200,) but she has to go to work with Lynette so she misses out on the daily activities during the week.
As for today's exciting news; I hit our 800th find! I needed something to write about this week since there seems to be a cache posting drought in our area! So I went out pretty much every day this last week and did an average of 10 caches a day approx. (I don't have solid data on this, but it's probably close. ;)) We went out caching with WellJointed and his grand-daughter, Princess Frostine, into the Black Diamond area. The goal was 12 in a couple hours, but we ended up with 9 in a little over three hours. Not terrible considering most of the caches were older and placed in a time when terrain ratings were less than accurate. :)
This was just one trip out this week. Others included Fife/Milton (had to fix Tiki...again,) Auburn, Lakewood, U.P, and Point Defiance. I tried to spread out the locales so I could make up some of the miles TheMcMorrows got over us on our travel racer competition by going to Yakima for the day! The ImLuckiest clan also made a trip down to Oregon this week so they have been closing in rapidly. California needs to get here soon so we can log hundreds of miles in a day. :D
There is one more piece of excitement that came today...FTF #60!!! The drought was in full effect, and a cache posted at Frontier Park in Graham (Pierce County Fairgrounds for all you old-schoolers) at about 10 AM. The boys and I were well into our Black Diamond caching tour so there was no way we were going to get down there before any of the other local hounds would snatch this one up. Or so we thought...
We got home around 2 and fozroc (Jay) was asking me if we were out FTFing. I had no idea what he was talking about because geocaching.com went down for maintenance at about the time I logged our final find in Black Diamond (ironically Jay's cache.) He told me that there had been only one log by a rookie (63 finds or something like that) and it was a DNF. I thought a new cache in the middle of all these hounds would never stand for 5 hours! Someone must not have logged it yet!
Well, after telling the boys we were done for the day, and Jackson still in the middle of his cheese puffs, I told them to pack up. It was FTF hunting time! Logan was up like a rocket (and people think I am obsessed :p) while Jackson grumbled a little, but loaded the puffs in a baggie and off we went. We got to Frontier Park and realized we had a little hike ahead of us, but nothing to difficult as most of it is loaded with horse trails and it's been dry lately.
We finally get to GZ...or so the GPS says. The search was on. After a good 15 minute search for something that was supposed to be very obvious I was getting a little perturbed. This would make the third FTF run in 7 days that could result in a DNF because the cache was already muggled. That is not acceptable! So I gave it one more go and realized a hint had been added to the cache that wasn't there before we left the house. It was useless because it described the area we were already looking in anyway, but I wasn't leaving with another DNF! Finally, 30ft SE of the given coordinates by my GPS I finally spotted the ammo can tucked behind a tree/bush. The cache was loaded with red, white, and blue swag as this was a 4th of July cache due to the upcoming holiday. The FTF prize was a giant bison tube with a log and pencil already loaded and a Uncle Sam(Signal the Frog) bobblehead pin. (Lynette has already claimed the bison and attempted to steal the pin... ;p) After signing the log and placing all the contents back in the cache, hiding it as we found it, and noting in our online log how off the coords were, we headed home to share our excitement with the ladies of the house!
So we ended this week with about 65 caches and 1 FTF. Not too shabby!
Next week I'll have tales from the Project A.P.E cache on Friday, Geowoodstock 8 on Saturday, and the Lost & Found Event at Groundspeak HQ commemorating 10 years of geocaching on Sunday. I have also made plans with TheMcMorrows to go to the oldest geocache left in WA tomorrow morning followed by an event in Issaquah at 6. So I guess I better get some sleep because this week is getting hectic!
See you next week!
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Tom's Takeover Tuesday - 6/22
Welcome back! Let's get to the recap of the week.
Well, there really isn't much to recap. I managed to get 1 co-FTF this week with WindingPath. It was a Spiderman hanging in a tree along Fennel Creek. Nothing really spectacular, but FTF's are FTF's. Another cache posted that morning in Enumclaw, but I got beat there by a pedestrian with two dogs. :p
Nothing much to tell about this week. No milestones to brag about this week, there will probably be one next week though. :)
The Legion of Mediocrity puzzle I drew up posted yesterday morning. Someone had solved it and found it within 2 hours. This just proves geocachers are smarter than me. :p That puzzle would have taken me a few more hours if I hadn't thought of it.
We also went to hide Logan's first cache today...well, that turned out to be Jackson's first cache. It should be published later this week. Logan also picked out his spot so that will be placed and published later this week too. Now to come up with my next hide. :p
That's it for this week's geocaching update. Hopefully I'll have something more exciting next week! See you then.
Well, there really isn't much to recap. I managed to get 1 co-FTF this week with WindingPath. It was a Spiderman hanging in a tree along Fennel Creek. Nothing really spectacular, but FTF's are FTF's. Another cache posted that morning in Enumclaw, but I got beat there by a pedestrian with two dogs. :p
Nothing much to tell about this week. No milestones to brag about this week, there will probably be one next week though. :)
The Legion of Mediocrity puzzle I drew up posted yesterday morning. Someone had solved it and found it within 2 hours. This just proves geocachers are smarter than me. :p That puzzle would have taken me a few more hours if I hadn't thought of it.
We also went to hide Logan's first cache today...well, that turned out to be Jackson's first cache. It should be published later this week. Logan also picked out his spot so that will be placed and published later this week too. Now to come up with my next hide. :p
That's it for this week's geocaching update. Hopefully I'll have something more exciting next week! See you then.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Tom's Takeover Tuesday - 6/15
It's Tuesday! No, really, I'm not late this week... Ok, enough with the shocked faces. :p Let's get to it!
In the FTF realm I scrounged up 3 this week. So in the month I said I would be slowing down on FTF's I already have 10. :p To my defense though, a lot of caches are posting now that summer, well, is supposed to be here. :D
The first FTF this week came on Sunday when I got home from Everett. It was a multi-cache by WindingPath, the psykokiwi clan was with me as well as John and Ryan to mock and snicker. This was a good one that I hadn't seen before, but I had read about it before. Knots in string...so simple, yet so devious! Good one Ryan (even if you borrowed the idea!)
FTF number two came last night and it was Logan's first FTF that he didn't have to share with anyone (except the guy that drove him there!) He was super excited...it's his third, but we usually have company. He has come to grips with his caching name of CacheMonkey03 so now he gets excited to sign his name to the log instead of a huge fight at GZ because "I hate my cacher name!!!" :p
FTF number three came today. Right before Lynette got off work one posted at the retirement and assisted living facility right off of 410. I must have gotten the posting the minute it posted because I beat everyone there by 10 minutes easy, and one person ended up being physically closer, but got turned around thanks to his GPS navigation! (How ironic. :p) Of course it was Sean McMorrow and kids so we shared FTF as he showed up before I was leaving. Go Legion of Mediocrity!!!
Not much else exciting happened this week. I learned how to use a new geocaching tool that routes 24 caches in an area so I went out yesterday and today to see how it works. Yesterday I ended up not using it right in my new GPS, and ended up with 14 caches in about 5 hours. Today I used it right and ended up with 13 caches in about the same time. I don't know if that is poor routing or further distance between caches. Either way it seemed to work out ok.
I also went over 700 caches today! That's not all that exciting, but if I really wanted to (which I don't because it would become like work!) I could probably make 900 by GeoWoodstock 8 in Carnation on the 3rd. No pressure though...I just do this for fun and to kill time while Lynette is at work. :)
That covers this week's adventure (I think.) See you next week with more tales of geocaching!
In the FTF realm I scrounged up 3 this week. So in the month I said I would be slowing down on FTF's I already have 10. :p To my defense though, a lot of caches are posting now that summer, well, is supposed to be here. :D
The first FTF this week came on Sunday when I got home from Everett. It was a multi-cache by WindingPath, the psykokiwi clan was with me as well as John and Ryan to mock and snicker. This was a good one that I hadn't seen before, but I had read about it before. Knots in string...so simple, yet so devious! Good one Ryan (even if you borrowed the idea!)
FTF number two came last night and it was Logan's first FTF that he didn't have to share with anyone (except the guy that drove him there!) He was super excited...it's his third, but we usually have company. He has come to grips with his caching name of CacheMonkey03 so now he gets excited to sign his name to the log instead of a huge fight at GZ because "I hate my cacher name!!!" :p
FTF number three came today. Right before Lynette got off work one posted at the retirement and assisted living facility right off of 410. I must have gotten the posting the minute it posted because I beat everyone there by 10 minutes easy, and one person ended up being physically closer, but got turned around thanks to his GPS navigation! (How ironic. :p) Of course it was Sean McMorrow and kids so we shared FTF as he showed up before I was leaving. Go Legion of Mediocrity!!!
Not much else exciting happened this week. I learned how to use a new geocaching tool that routes 24 caches in an area so I went out yesterday and today to see how it works. Yesterday I ended up not using it right in my new GPS, and ended up with 14 caches in about 5 hours. Today I used it right and ended up with 13 caches in about the same time. I don't know if that is poor routing or further distance between caches. Either way it seemed to work out ok.
I also went over 700 caches today! That's not all that exciting, but if I really wanted to (which I don't because it would become like work!) I could probably make 900 by GeoWoodstock 8 in Carnation on the 3rd. No pressure though...I just do this for fun and to kill time while Lynette is at work. :)
That covers this week's adventure (I think.) See you next week with more tales of geocaching!
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Tom's Takeover Tuesday - 6/8
Welcome back! I'm late as usual, but this time I didn't forget, I was out late yesterday and didn't have the energy to put together comprehendable thoughts. :) Now on to this weeks wrap-up!
In my quest to slow down on the FTFs I have already gotten 7 this month. :p Granted I mentioned the 3 from last Tuesday, but I said I wouldn't go chasing after ones too far away from home. I tried to stay pretty true to that with in South Hill that the boys got their first official FTFs on! Other than that, there was one on the way home from Enumclaw at the Marshall's loading dock in Bonney Lake, a cache dedicated to my 55th FTF (except it was my 53rd because someone is impatient, :p) and another one that was up Shaw Rd.
Other than those little gems, I was at an event last night at the Pyramid Ale House. It was a gigantic cluster-f, but I got 9 caches along the waterfront and 2 in Seattle Center afterwards. I also got two new coins; one for the event and a pink ribbon coin for Lynette (who couldn't go. :( ) One of the 9 along the waterfront should have been another FTF, but two other guys at the event bailed to go get it...including not paying their bill first... Like I said, this event was not something to write home about, or on your blog. So this is the end of that story. :)
I also got our 650th find this weekend when we went up to Deception Pass and drove down Whidbey Island. That was a fun trip which not only included that milestone, but we also got Jackson's 100th find! The next day we went out and got Logan's 100th find as well...he got to pick which one he wanted so he picked one close to the house. Then for Logan's 101st he wanted to find one of our caches which was even closer to the house. Not good enough to be 100, but 101, heck yeah. :p
That's about it for this week. Cached with friends, ran into other friends, found friends' caches on FTF runs. It's all good! Another successful TTT in the books, and we'll see you next week.
In my quest to slow down on the FTFs I have already gotten 7 this month. :p Granted I mentioned the 3 from last Tuesday, but I said I wouldn't go chasing after ones too far away from home. I tried to stay pretty true to that with in South Hill that the boys got their first official FTFs on! Other than that, there was one on the way home from Enumclaw at the Marshall's loading dock in Bonney Lake, a cache dedicated to my 55th FTF (except it was my 53rd because someone is impatient, :p) and another one that was up Shaw Rd.
Other than those little gems, I was at an event last night at the Pyramid Ale House. It was a gigantic cluster-f, but I got 9 caches along the waterfront and 2 in Seattle Center afterwards. I also got two new coins; one for the event and a pink ribbon coin for Lynette (who couldn't go. :( ) One of the 9 along the waterfront should have been another FTF, but two other guys at the event bailed to go get it...including not paying their bill first... Like I said, this event was not something to write home about, or on your blog. So this is the end of that story. :)
I also got our 650th find this weekend when we went up to Deception Pass and drove down Whidbey Island. That was a fun trip which not only included that milestone, but we also got Jackson's 100th find! The next day we went out and got Logan's 100th find as well...he got to pick which one he wanted so he picked one close to the house. Then for Logan's 101st he wanted to find one of our caches which was even closer to the house. Not good enough to be 100, but 101, heck yeah. :p
That's about it for this week. Cached with friends, ran into other friends, found friends' caches on FTF runs. It's all good! Another successful TTT in the books, and we'll see you next week.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Tom's Takeover Tuesday - 6/1
Here we are again on another glorious Tuesday! Let's not waste time and get to this last week's festivities!
This week was looking pretty slim in the FTF realm until last night. Since last Tuesday I had only amassed one FTF. Well, as of today the last 4 finds were all FTF's! One FTF yesterday was a 3-way with WindingPath and another local FTFer. When I arrived they had already been to the first part and were on to the final part of the find. I immediately joined in the hunt, and Ryan was the one to pull it out. Then there were 3 FTF's today...
FTF #1: In Frontier Park in Graham, which is open from 7:30 AM-dusk. Jay (fozroc) and I made the trek to the cache at *cough* 11:30 PM, pulling out the cache at 12:05 AM. FTF #49, woohoo! Cache for the day done until...
FTF #2: Two caches posted 8+ and 11+ miles from our house at about 7:30 AM. I woke up around 8:30 AM and no one had claimed the finds yet...looks like I'm heading out! The first one was in Federal Way along a gravel road in heavy stickers. I walked past it at first, but went back to the most logical point of entry, and there it was for me to grab! FTF #50 and official pseudo FTF-hound retirement! Except there is the case of this other posted cache...
FTF #3: This one had been DNF'd moments before I started headed down to it. Awesome, still there for me to claim! I get to GZ and have the same initial reaction as the DNFer, it must be behind these trees and it can't possibly be on the potentially movable object! Why is the GPS telling me to go closer to the road? Then I see it! Right where I know it isn't, but plain as day right in front of me. FTF #51 and find #600! Now the FTFs will be a little less frequent and way closer to home.
So now that the FTF highlights for the week are done I can talk about the real fun this last week!
Friday marked the beginning of could potentially be an annual summer vacation event. We bought 3 travel tags and 3 cars to attach them to. Then we handed two of the cars over to local caching families for a little contest. From the beginning of Memorial Day weekend to the end of Labor Day weekend we will see who can log the most miles on their family's racer going from cache to cache all summer. The losing family will host the other families for dinner. The Irish family (ImLuckiest) and the McMorrow family (TheMcMorrows) are our competition this year! The McMorrows got a jump start on the event Friday by going down to Oregon where the Original Stash Tribute Plaque is located. Our weekend plans got changed around a little though which allowed us to make the same trip on Saturday. More on that in a little bit. The Irishes stayed in the area, but still managed to log over 130 miles during the weekend! After the first weekend this is shaping up to be quite the competition, I can't wait to see what the rest of the summer holds!
Now about Saturday! Lynette, as usual, will be in charge of loading the pictures for this, but it was a great day!
We piled into the car around 7 AM with Kelly, Mason, and Eli (psykokiwi, macemakiao, and EagerSeeker) heading for Oregon! We had mapped out 28 caches for the day in the hopes that we might get to about 15. We also made a couple stops in WA to work on a couple challenges we have been working on since last August. After 15 caches, (including two freebies we didn't plan on getting) we made it to the Original Stash Tribute Plaque and the Un-Original Stash. This was about 1 PM and the hunger bug had struck many hours earlier, but we persevered until we got a little closer to civilization!
After the OSTP, we found 5 more caches on our way back to Oregon City. Then it was BurgerVille time! (We highly recommend it, the closest one is in Centralia.) After BurgerVille we went to Washington Park in Portland to finish up our planned caches in OR. Then off we went to get the last couple caches in WA to end the day. When we got to the last cache we realized we had found 29 caches for the day! We couldn't end on the odd number so we found another one in town to make a clean 30! Then we headed to Farrelli's in DuPont for dinner (this is at about 8 PM btw. :p) After dinner we fueled up and headed home to finish our day, and what a day it had turned out to be!
That about covers this week. It had a little more content than normal, but Lynette yelled at me last week for leaving out our day trip last week to complete a couple counties and DeLorme pages for our challenges!
So there you have it. Another successful TTT! See you next week! (at a little slower pace probably. :D)
This week was looking pretty slim in the FTF realm until last night. Since last Tuesday I had only amassed one FTF. Well, as of today the last 4 finds were all FTF's! One FTF yesterday was a 3-way with WindingPath and another local FTFer. When I arrived they had already been to the first part and were on to the final part of the find. I immediately joined in the hunt, and Ryan was the one to pull it out. Then there were 3 FTF's today...
FTF #1: In Frontier Park in Graham, which is open from 7:30 AM-dusk. Jay (fozroc) and I made the trek to the cache at *cough* 11:30 PM, pulling out the cache at 12:05 AM. FTF #49, woohoo! Cache for the day done until...
FTF #2: Two caches posted 8+ and 11+ miles from our house at about 7:30 AM. I woke up around 8:30 AM and no one had claimed the finds yet...looks like I'm heading out! The first one was in Federal Way along a gravel road in heavy stickers. I walked past it at first, but went back to the most logical point of entry, and there it was for me to grab! FTF #50 and official pseudo FTF-hound retirement! Except there is the case of this other posted cache...
FTF #3: This one had been DNF'd moments before I started headed down to it. Awesome, still there for me to claim! I get to GZ and have the same initial reaction as the DNFer, it must be behind these trees and it can't possibly be on the potentially movable object! Why is the GPS telling me to go closer to the road? Then I see it! Right where I know it isn't, but plain as day right in front of me. FTF #51 and find #600! Now the FTFs will be a little less frequent and way closer to home.
So now that the FTF highlights for the week are done I can talk about the real fun this last week!
Friday marked the beginning of could potentially be an annual summer vacation event. We bought 3 travel tags and 3 cars to attach them to. Then we handed two of the cars over to local caching families for a little contest. From the beginning of Memorial Day weekend to the end of Labor Day weekend we will see who can log the most miles on their family's racer going from cache to cache all summer. The losing family will host the other families for dinner. The Irish family (ImLuckiest) and the McMorrow family (TheMcMorrows) are our competition this year! The McMorrows got a jump start on the event Friday by going down to Oregon where the Original Stash Tribute Plaque is located. Our weekend plans got changed around a little though which allowed us to make the same trip on Saturday. More on that in a little bit. The Irishes stayed in the area, but still managed to log over 130 miles during the weekend! After the first weekend this is shaping up to be quite the competition, I can't wait to see what the rest of the summer holds!
Now about Saturday! Lynette, as usual, will be in charge of loading the pictures for this, but it was a great day!
We piled into the car around 7 AM with Kelly, Mason, and Eli (psykokiwi, macemakiao, and EagerSeeker) heading for Oregon! We had mapped out 28 caches for the day in the hopes that we might get to about 15. We also made a couple stops in WA to work on a couple challenges we have been working on since last August. After 15 caches, (including two freebies we didn't plan on getting) we made it to the Original Stash Tribute Plaque and the Un-Original Stash. This was about 1 PM and the hunger bug had struck many hours earlier, but we persevered until we got a little closer to civilization!
After the OSTP, we found 5 more caches on our way back to Oregon City. Then it was BurgerVille time! (We highly recommend it, the closest one is in Centralia.) After BurgerVille we went to Washington Park in Portland to finish up our planned caches in OR. Then off we went to get the last couple caches in WA to end the day. When we got to the last cache we realized we had found 29 caches for the day! We couldn't end on the odd number so we found another one in town to make a clean 30! Then we headed to Farrelli's in DuPont for dinner (this is at about 8 PM btw. :p) After dinner we fueled up and headed home to finish our day, and what a day it had turned out to be!
That about covers this week. It had a little more content than normal, but Lynette yelled at me last week for leaving out our day trip last week to complete a couple counties and DeLorme pages for our challenges!
So there you have it. Another successful TTT! See you next week! (at a little slower pace probably. :D)
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