Greetings all in blog-land! (And happy birthday to me! :p)
Things have been hectic around here this summer. We have been on caching road trips, and I have been in and out of Everett in preparation for an upcoming trip. In other words, time hasn't been my friend. Tuesday will roll around and I'll remember in the morning, but by the time it comes to post I have forgotten and fall asleep. :p
Such is life...
Anyway, I haven't abandoned the idea of TTT, but for right now I'll be MIA for a few weeks. When we get back from vacation I'll try to make a summary of what I have failed to share! (It's a lot btw!!!)
So until then, happy reading!
Friday, August 13, 2010
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Tom's Takeover Tuesday - 7/13
Well, I missed last week and I'm a day late this week. What a terrible week to miss too because it was GeoWoodstock week and there is a ton of stuff to talk about! I'll attempt to get it all from 6/30 til yesterday, but I can't make any promises. :p Here we go!
On Wednesday 6/30 I took the boys with me and TheMcMorrows (Sean and his two boys) to GCD - Geocache. This is the oldest active geocache in the world listed on geocaching.com. We figured what better time to grab this cache than when the biggest geocaching event in the world is right around the corner, and it's the ten year anniversary of geocaching? So we began our journey at the Enumclaw ranger station at 9 AM to get me a day parking pass. After that we began our drive to the Hyak/Gold Creek exit on I-90 which then led us up a winding, dirt road up part of the mountains. We got to the Mt. Margaret Trailhead around 10:30. Then the hike began. According to the GPS we were 1.1 miles away from the cache as the crow flies. Well, we don't get to get off that easy as this journey will consist of a 2500 ft elevation change from start to finish! The first part of the trail is a moderately steep gravel trail with lots of loose rocks and potholes to lose your footing on. Then there is a dirt trail that leads the rest of the way up the mountain that has several switchbacks and....snow! That's right at the end of June at about 3500-4000 ft there is still snow here this year! With about 0.16 miles of distance to cover between us and the cache the trail disappears and we have to basically climb up the snow bank for the next 800 ft...that's in a straight line again so it was quite a bit more substantial distance on the hill. The good news is that at about 12 Logan made the grab...he was 150 ft ahead of me and 200 ft ahead of the rest of the group. With 0.1 miles left he had asked me where it was so I pointed in the general direction and he just took off! What a little mountain goat. :p After the rest of us made it to the top we took some pictures, signed the log, took a brief rest, and then made our way back down the hill. This actually proved a little more difficult than coming up as there was no footing since the snowpack was fairly solid and slick! We made a couple other cache grabs while on the trail, but one was in the parking area and one was a convenient water break on the way up. :)
Thursday was uneventful because I knew Friday was going to be action packed, and we still had the big festivities on Saturday followed by another big event in Seattle on Sunday. I'll get to those in a few minutes.
Friday! The big Going APE! Event! This event was put on by the Washington State Geocaching Association in an effort to help minimize the number of cars that pack into the Annette Lake Trailhead since this parking lot is small. Instead everyone met at the Hyak Trailhead parking area as it can support, by far, a larger number of vehicles. Once people arrived they were checked in and bused from Hyak to the Annette Lake Trailhead. This event for me started as a parking attendant and bringer of power and shelter! Not only did I pay my registration fee to attend the hike, but I also volunteered the first shift and brought 2 10x10 tents and our generator. This hike was no where near as intense as the one two days prior! I basically could have run up the trail after that ordeal. :p But I took my time and chatted with other APE goers from all over. My first conversation buddies were an older couple from Pennsylvania, we didn't chat long as my pace was a little too brisk for them. A little ways up the hill I ran into another local cacher who I see around at FTF runs on her way back down. We chatted for a little bit, but she had other caches she wanted to hit and I hadn't even really started yet! After that it was pretty much no non-sense to the Project Ape cache. I did chat with some people as I went by and I ended up walking a good portion of the way with some ladies from San Diego. I could tell I was close because there was a huge cluster of cachers just congregated in one spot, with a man in a gorilla constume! There were news crews and photographers and reporters along for the ride too, I even made it into the Seattle Times slideshow on the event with voiceover interviews. You can check that out here! You won't see my face, but look for the guy in a desert camo jacket and a red hat at around 1:25... After that I grabbed a few more caches along the trail then took the bus back to Hyak. Including the event, I was able to make that a 14 cache because immediately following the APE event was a Tiki Luau for GeoWoodstock pre-registration pickup. That was in Issaquah. It was after 8 PM when I got home...I left the house around 6:15. That's a long day, and that wasn't even the big event!
Saturday 7/3 has arrived and so have over 5000 cachers worldwide, and they have descended upon Remlinger Farms in Carnation, WA! Lynette and I volunteered for the setup crew from 7-10 and to work the WSGA booth from 9-11 so our day started early. We also had to pick up Sean (Mr. McMorrow) on the way because they got a hotel room for the week to minimize travel distance between the plethora of activities during the week and so his kids didn't have to get up at 6:30 and be out until 7-8 at night...smart. :) I can't even begin to explain all the cool stuff that was going on at this event because we didn't even get to half of it! There was live music, news crews, vendors from all over the world, and people...lots and lots of people! We met up with many people we know from around the area and met some new people from all over. I even met a guy from Germany who gave me this awesome geocoin that is the geocache reviewer only edition of the coin. I'll have to get pictures to show you (or Lynette will) because words don't do it justice. We also did a team building exercise where teams go out and try to find caches hidden around the grounds for point values. FTFs are worth more than non-FTFs and the rest of the values are based on difficulty and distance from home base. You had an hour to find as many of the 24 caches as you could. It wasn't all that exciting, but I did get a new idea for a couple caches. :D The event wound down and the after event cleanup event started...it took about 15 minutes because cachers don't litter...it's against everything we do! There was a geocoin event later that night in Renton, but Lynette and I opted to get off our feet and go watch a movie!
Sunday 7/4: Lost & Found Celebration at Groundspeak HQ in Fremont. This was a blast...mostly because Lynette and I did volunteer for anything so we could just enjoy it! We bought some swag, we went on a scavenger hunt around Fremont (which included both of us visiting the Troll for the very first time,) and then Sean and I left Lynette and Sean's family near the festivities to go looking for some fake caches placed around the area. That actually ended up being lame because there was no prizes or anything involved, but it was movement. We got to talk with some of the Groundspeak Lackeys (those are what the employees are called) about various things. One of them was one of the girls in the lobby when we went there on the 18th...I gave her grief about not tweeting my coined phrase of "cacheblocking." That is basically for people who use their smartphones to cache then someone texts them...and texts them some more...and some more...you get the picture. It's irritating! Another of the Lackey's is the one who maintains the APE cache, and the day before the big event some jackstain decided to steal the lid from the cache which had a rare coin riveted to the inside. We talked to him about the future of the rare cache (It was one of 14, but is only one of 2 remaining in the world) come to find out a couple days ago that he has a new lid and there is going to be another event! We left that event and went to the fireworks display celebration the church puts on every year. Lynette and I didn't actually stay for the fireworks, but the boys did and they thought it was super-awesome.
So back to the regular grind...I hadn't had any FTF's since the last one I mentioned in the last post so I was getting sort of down. Then like clockwork, one posted on Tuesday...Just in time for me to (not) post about it here! Then the rest of the week was pretty normal...a cache here, a cache there to keep the streak going. Then Friday night our local night cacher crew got together for our second run! We did a cache in Puyallup at Clark's Creek Park. It was a blast and I was able to test out our new 13 LED, 6 volt flashlight. It was awesome...I was pretty much in the back the whole time and my flashlight had enough power to overtake the leader's and I could see the reflectors from 50-70 feet away! It was awesome! And I eventually was able to make the cache grab too because no one saw the final reflector combo with their piddly flashlights! :p
On the FTF front I was able to grab a couple more the week after GeoWoodstock, Jackson was even present to get his first one! Logan is now pretty old hat at the FTF thing...he's got 4 or 5 now. :p I missed out on an FTF in Orting since it posted after I fell asleep, but a hound from Renton swooped down and made the grab. I might rethink my retirement if Renton folks are gonna be grabbing my local caches! :p I even grabbed one yesterday that was off of Hwy 18 in Hobart that was placed on Saturday and published on Sunday. Caches can't sit for two days that close and not be found! I even got a moving truck travel bug coin for being FTF. That brought the total up to 63...I actually went after two in the middle of writing this, but that's technically part of next week's post so I'll save the details there!
I'll bug Lynette about getting some pictures up...we put on some miles on our TB while trying to work on a couple challenges and try to stay ahead in our race and we got some nice pictures. Not to mention the pictures of the events we were at. I'm also thinking of starting my own blog for this segment so it makes Lynette get back to posting stuff here! I'll let you know how that pans out, but until then...See you next week!
On Wednesday 6/30 I took the boys with me and TheMcMorrows (Sean and his two boys) to GCD - Geocache. This is the oldest active geocache in the world listed on geocaching.com. We figured what better time to grab this cache than when the biggest geocaching event in the world is right around the corner, and it's the ten year anniversary of geocaching? So we began our journey at the Enumclaw ranger station at 9 AM to get me a day parking pass. After that we began our drive to the Hyak/Gold Creek exit on I-90 which then led us up a winding, dirt road up part of the mountains. We got to the Mt. Margaret Trailhead around 10:30. Then the hike began. According to the GPS we were 1.1 miles away from the cache as the crow flies. Well, we don't get to get off that easy as this journey will consist of a 2500 ft elevation change from start to finish! The first part of the trail is a moderately steep gravel trail with lots of loose rocks and potholes to lose your footing on. Then there is a dirt trail that leads the rest of the way up the mountain that has several switchbacks and....snow! That's right at the end of June at about 3500-4000 ft there is still snow here this year! With about 0.16 miles of distance to cover between us and the cache the trail disappears and we have to basically climb up the snow bank for the next 800 ft...that's in a straight line again so it was quite a bit more substantial distance on the hill. The good news is that at about 12 Logan made the grab...he was 150 ft ahead of me and 200 ft ahead of the rest of the group. With 0.1 miles left he had asked me where it was so I pointed in the general direction and he just took off! What a little mountain goat. :p After the rest of us made it to the top we took some pictures, signed the log, took a brief rest, and then made our way back down the hill. This actually proved a little more difficult than coming up as there was no footing since the snowpack was fairly solid and slick! We made a couple other cache grabs while on the trail, but one was in the parking area and one was a convenient water break on the way up. :)
Thursday was uneventful because I knew Friday was going to be action packed, and we still had the big festivities on Saturday followed by another big event in Seattle on Sunday. I'll get to those in a few minutes.
Friday! The big Going APE! Event! This event was put on by the Washington State Geocaching Association in an effort to help minimize the number of cars that pack into the Annette Lake Trailhead since this parking lot is small. Instead everyone met at the Hyak Trailhead parking area as it can support, by far, a larger number of vehicles. Once people arrived they were checked in and bused from Hyak to the Annette Lake Trailhead. This event for me started as a parking attendant and bringer of power and shelter! Not only did I pay my registration fee to attend the hike, but I also volunteered the first shift and brought 2 10x10 tents and our generator. This hike was no where near as intense as the one two days prior! I basically could have run up the trail after that ordeal. :p But I took my time and chatted with other APE goers from all over. My first conversation buddies were an older couple from Pennsylvania, we didn't chat long as my pace was a little too brisk for them. A little ways up the hill I ran into another local cacher who I see around at FTF runs on her way back down. We chatted for a little bit, but she had other caches she wanted to hit and I hadn't even really started yet! After that it was pretty much no non-sense to the Project Ape cache. I did chat with some people as I went by and I ended up walking a good portion of the way with some ladies from San Diego. I could tell I was close because there was a huge cluster of cachers just congregated in one spot, with a man in a gorilla constume! There were news crews and photographers and reporters along for the ride too, I even made it into the Seattle Times slideshow on the event with voiceover interviews. You can check that out here! You won't see my face, but look for the guy in a desert camo jacket and a red hat at around 1:25... After that I grabbed a few more caches along the trail then took the bus back to Hyak. Including the event, I was able to make that a 14 cache because immediately following the APE event was a Tiki Luau for GeoWoodstock pre-registration pickup. That was in Issaquah. It was after 8 PM when I got home...I left the house around 6:15. That's a long day, and that wasn't even the big event!
Saturday 7/3 has arrived and so have over 5000 cachers worldwide, and they have descended upon Remlinger Farms in Carnation, WA! Lynette and I volunteered for the setup crew from 7-10 and to work the WSGA booth from 9-11 so our day started early. We also had to pick up Sean (Mr. McMorrow) on the way because they got a hotel room for the week to minimize travel distance between the plethora of activities during the week and so his kids didn't have to get up at 6:30 and be out until 7-8 at night...smart. :) I can't even begin to explain all the cool stuff that was going on at this event because we didn't even get to half of it! There was live music, news crews, vendors from all over the world, and people...lots and lots of people! We met up with many people we know from around the area and met some new people from all over. I even met a guy from Germany who gave me this awesome geocoin that is the geocache reviewer only edition of the coin. I'll have to get pictures to show you (or Lynette will) because words don't do it justice. We also did a team building exercise where teams go out and try to find caches hidden around the grounds for point values. FTFs are worth more than non-FTFs and the rest of the values are based on difficulty and distance from home base. You had an hour to find as many of the 24 caches as you could. It wasn't all that exciting, but I did get a new idea for a couple caches. :D The event wound down and the after event cleanup event started...it took about 15 minutes because cachers don't litter...it's against everything we do! There was a geocoin event later that night in Renton, but Lynette and I opted to get off our feet and go watch a movie!
Sunday 7/4: Lost & Found Celebration at Groundspeak HQ in Fremont. This was a blast...mostly because Lynette and I did volunteer for anything so we could just enjoy it! We bought some swag, we went on a scavenger hunt around Fremont (which included both of us visiting the Troll for the very first time,) and then Sean and I left Lynette and Sean's family near the festivities to go looking for some fake caches placed around the area. That actually ended up being lame because there was no prizes or anything involved, but it was movement. We got to talk with some of the Groundspeak Lackeys (those are what the employees are called) about various things. One of them was one of the girls in the lobby when we went there on the 18th...I gave her grief about not tweeting my coined phrase of "cacheblocking." That is basically for people who use their smartphones to cache then someone texts them...and texts them some more...and some more...you get the picture. It's irritating! Another of the Lackey's is the one who maintains the APE cache, and the day before the big event some jackstain decided to steal the lid from the cache which had a rare coin riveted to the inside. We talked to him about the future of the rare cache (It was one of 14, but is only one of 2 remaining in the world) come to find out a couple days ago that he has a new lid and there is going to be another event! We left that event and went to the fireworks display celebration the church puts on every year. Lynette and I didn't actually stay for the fireworks, but the boys did and they thought it was super-awesome.
So back to the regular grind...I hadn't had any FTF's since the last one I mentioned in the last post so I was getting sort of down. Then like clockwork, one posted on Tuesday...Just in time for me to (not) post about it here! Then the rest of the week was pretty normal...a cache here, a cache there to keep the streak going. Then Friday night our local night cacher crew got together for our second run! We did a cache in Puyallup at Clark's Creek Park. It was a blast and I was able to test out our new 13 LED, 6 volt flashlight. It was awesome...I was pretty much in the back the whole time and my flashlight had enough power to overtake the leader's and I could see the reflectors from 50-70 feet away! It was awesome! And I eventually was able to make the cache grab too because no one saw the final reflector combo with their piddly flashlights! :p
On the FTF front I was able to grab a couple more the week after GeoWoodstock, Jackson was even present to get his first one! Logan is now pretty old hat at the FTF thing...he's got 4 or 5 now. :p I missed out on an FTF in Orting since it posted after I fell asleep, but a hound from Renton swooped down and made the grab. I might rethink my retirement if Renton folks are gonna be grabbing my local caches! :p I even grabbed one yesterday that was off of Hwy 18 in Hobart that was placed on Saturday and published on Sunday. Caches can't sit for two days that close and not be found! I even got a moving truck travel bug coin for being FTF. That brought the total up to 63...I actually went after two in the middle of writing this, but that's technically part of next week's post so I'll save the details there!
I'll bug Lynette about getting some pictures up...we put on some miles on our TB while trying to work on a couple challenges and try to stay ahead in our race and we got some nice pictures. Not to mention the pictures of the events we were at. I'm also thinking of starting my own blog for this segment so it makes Lynette get back to posting stuff here! I'll let you know how that pans out, but until then...See you next week!
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Tom's Takeover Tuesday - 6/29
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!
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 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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