I took a train trip home over the Christmas break, and due to the Northwest having an incredible amount of snow, did not get to do much geocaching. This was not entirely a bad thing since it allowed me to focus more on family. I did make it out on a couple of occasions, though.
On December 23, a bunch of my relatives met in town (La Grande) for a family lunch. Afterwards, my Mom, stepfather and I hunted a few caches before driving back to Cove.
There were five caches on the west end of town and we attempted to hit them all.
Our first stop was near City Hall where my stepfather needed to pay a bill. My Mom and I walked roughly 500 feet southeast to a mural where La Grande Dancer by Marty Cache Sniffer & lynndaly (GC1FP7B) was located. The actual hide post was buried in snow so we had to move on. (We came back after the snow had melted and made a quick find of this cache).
Next, we headed south to visit my stepsister and her family for a bit. After leaving there, my Mom reminded us that we had more caches to hunt, so our next stop was Lower Education by Marty Cache Sniffer (GC1GHFE). This was in front of someone's house so fortunately I found it quickly. It was, however, frozen to its hiding spot.
Next, it was a trip to the old town library for Locked Up Library by Marty Cache Sniffer (GC1G9NP). I spent a lot of time at this library while growing up, and hated to see it closed. A new modern library was built downtown. The old library was one of many funded by a grant from Andrew Carnegie. The cache itself was a nano hidden in a spot that at first I overlooked. There was lots of snow here and I didn't want to leave a direct trail to the cache so I stomped around a bit.
The last cache of the day was Cache-n-dash hides a 1/1! by cache-n-dash (GC1G7J1). Cache-n-dash is well-known for high-terrain caches in the hills, so this was an unusual cache for him. There was a guardrail near the coords, so that was the first place I looked. The cache, though, was in a more interesting location. This cache was tough to keep out of sight from neighborhood muggles, so I am surprised to see it still there.
My brother and I made another trip into town on the 26th to hunt River Side Park Cache by Clearwater Explorers and Globaltreckers (GC1FTZZ). This was in one of my favorite parks from childhood and near what will soon by a greenway along the Grande Ronde River. The snow made the hunt difficult, but I ended up approaching from a different direction and found the cache high and dry. After finding this cache, my brother and I went to Bi-Mart to get a few things and I ended up buying a replacement for my old Garmin eTrex Legend that died last year.
Most of the caches I found on this holiday trip were placed by a new cacher, who happens to be a friend of my nephew. The hides were all different, which was neat. Most of them had wet logs, though, and could easily be fixed with some tiny ziplock pill bags. Given the weather extremes, it is important to use containers that hold up under heat and cold.
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