Geocaching Fundamentals - 4/17/2010

After attending the 6th Annual GOWT Gathering back in January, I promised myself that I would make an effort to attend more local events. When two events were published for this day in Cameron Brown Park in Germantown, TN, including a CITO, I signed up for both.

In spite of the great weather on this day, I didn't give myself much time to cache on the way to the event. Traveling east along Poplar Avenue, I did manage to find a few caches - certainly more than I had expected. My first stop was The Beaver Fever Cache by Bigcachedaddy (GC1QP9K). This was along a typically busy stretch of Poplar, so I parked about 500 feet away in an empty parking lot. I found the cache quickly and confirmed other cache logs that pointed out that the paper log was destroyed. Unfortunately, I left my spare logs back in the car. The container was cool and a picture would be a definite spoiler.

Next, I hunted Loblolly by Berlan Eligab (GC21WDW) at Sea Isle Park, just to the south. I had been here before and couldn't find the cache because I trusted my GPSr. This time, although the GPSr took me to the exact same location, I took a successful guess at what nearby location held the cache. This would have been a great place (and day) to relax, but I had a few more places to go.

[ Walking trail at Sea Isle Park]

ACME-2010 by giardia_boy (GC22GND) was my first cache find by this hider and was an excellent example of a cache blending in an urban environment.

My final cache of the morning was Wolf River Blvd. Extension by ProntoPup (GC25N3B) at Riverwoods State Natural Area. Prontopup had put out several new caches in the area for the event, but I generated my pocket query too early. This cache managed to be on my list, though, and was within a mile of the event.



This is a really nice area and I wished I had more time to thoroughly explore the trails. Alas, I'm not a warm weather cacher, so this might be my last trip into the woods for awhile.

I made it to Cameron Brown Park on time, but the parking lots were packed! Lots of baseball games were going on all over the park. I had to park a good ways away.

[ The event from a distance ]

Prontopup was the host for the Geocaching FUNdamentals by Geocachers of West Tennessee (GC2440D), and does a pretty good job of explaining geocaching and demonstrating different cache containers. He had some of the experienced cachers tell about their favorite caches. I talked about Mingo - GC30, that I had found last summer.

When the event was over, I wrote down tracking numbers of several neat coins. I saw an Arkansas State Parks geocoin and wondered if this was the one that was missing from Robert & Casper's Vacation Travel Bug Hotel when I went to look for it (the coin) on Easter Sunday. I later found out that it was and that 76Stinger had taken it from his own cache without logging it as "retrieved" at the time. One of the things that 76Stinger hopefully learned at the event was the importance of logging coins properly and promptly.


During the hour gap between the two events, I spent some time walking around. I explored the short boardwalk and bought hot dogs from a concession stand while catching the last moments of a baseball game.

CITO in Germantown by Geocachers of West Tennessee (GC253F5) was well organized with plenty of options for areas to pick up trash. I was sent along with Jaybirder to the north wooded side of the park. We both ended up with nearly full bags. I even found 8 or 9 baseballs. Some people were sent to some other nearby parks to pick up trash. It was interesting to learn that Germantown parks are cleaned largely by volunteers.

[ Dalls made it after all! ]

After returning to the pavilion with our trash, I hung around for awhile listening to stories before finally leaving. I had hoped to get an Oreo Blizzard at the Dairy Queen just to the north, but their ice cream machine was broken.