Caching for the Cure - 10/30/2010

It was tough getting up Saturday morning, even for an event as much fun as Race for the Cure. I had signed up as part of a team from work and was looking forward to it. That morning was tough to get started. It was cold and I was exhausted, but I made it to the race location by 7:15am. It took a while for our team to get assembled, so we just stood around in the cold. Even in a crowd that large, I didn't see anyone I knew, so I was surprised when tinksdad01, a geocacher from GOWT, came over. We talked for a little bit about the race before he moved on. He was wearing a kilt, an odd choice for running attire, especially in 40-degree weather.

Race for the Cure is a tough race to try and finish well in. There were roughly 19,300 people signed up and most were walkers. If you start in a bad spot, like I did, the first mile of the race uses up a lot of energy getting around people anyway you can. The race ended soon enough and after hanging out with my team for a bit, I made the long walk back to where I parked my car.

I didn't know if I would feel about doing anything after the race, but I had brought along my geocaching equipment and some maps just in case. I decided to tackle four relatively easy caches that were on my way home and were along the western end of the Germantown Greenway. That part of the greenway is in the process of being expanded and will eventually connect to the Shelby Farms Greenline (which is about a mile north).

The amazing thing about three of the four caches I did, was the beauty of the area, which is adjacent to a busy area of town.

The first cache I hunted, Swamp Thing by giardia_boy (GC2EJK5), was retrieved while standing in a parking lot behind some medical buildings. I managed to spot the cache and then had to figure out how to retrieve it. Putting it back was tough as well. This was definitely not your average "park and grab" and if not for the cache hints, I would have never found it. The picture below was taken from roughly where I signed the log. If you look hard, you can spot the greenway (roughly mid-height of the picture).

The next cache I found was It's All Greek to Me - Apollo by ArtemisInTheWoods and TNmonkey (GC2AWN6). For this one, I was glad I had looked at satellite imagery before going after it. It was in an area across the road from the greenway - more of an urban find.

The last two caches of the morning were by GC4EVR and were WEST Lake (GC28JD2) and Lake or Pond? (GC28JDH). They were both around the northern perimeter of West Lake and would have been a lot harder to reach before the greenway was expanded. Because I was wearing running shorts, I was careful to stay out of the vegetation as best as I could. They were both excellent caches, with the first being a little tougher to spot than the second.

While I was in the area, I spent a little bit of time running along the adjacent parts of the greenway. I look forward to running out here in the spring!

[ Approaching the greenway after finding my last cache of the morning. ]

[ This will look better after some rain washes away the dirt ]

[ The small bridge on the right of the trail leads north to Shelby Farms. ]

Raleigh, TN - 10/10/2010

It was another in a long string of rain-free weekends. I had no plans for caching, but when my sister-in-law called me Saturday night and invited me over for dinner the next day, I figured I'd pick up a few caches on the way.

I spent Sunday morning messing around with my GPSr. I updated the software on it for the first time since I bought it 4 years ago. I loaded a pocket query on it for the first time since July and made sure my batteries were in good shape. I picked out three caches near the Raleigh WalMart. This was convenient for me, since I needed some stuff from there. My Palm Pilot was still dead, so I had to spend some time reading cache descriptions before leaving. When I finally left, all was good - except I forgot to make sure I had a pen. No worries, though. I was going to WalMart, so if I had no pen, it would be no big deal.

It also turned out that Groundspeak was trying to set a record for the most cachers logging a find for a single day. Cachers who posted a log were rewarded with a "souvenir", which in this case was a graphic showing 10-10-10 and the words - 10 years of geocaching and 10 years of Groundspeak (or something like that).

The three caches I found were all "park and grabs" by three different cachers:
put out the fire by jamey1 (GC2BCXB) was just south of the Raleigh Springs Mall behind a building.

Goodwill Hunting by dguyusnavy (GC2A0QH) and wal mart has platinum by crownjewel (GC29Y5R) were located a short distance apart in the shopping center that had the WalMart in it. All-in-all, I spent about 15 minutes caching - a warm up for the days to come.

Fundamentals of Geocaching Event

I spotted this event a week or so ago and thought it might be of interest to some people in the area.

Tunica RiverPark is hosting Fundamentals of Geocaching Event by Tunica RiverPark (GC2FCA8) on October 16, 2010. The description states that the event instructor is a member of the Geocachers of West Tennessee, which is most likely Prontopup. He does a good job hosting these kinds of events, so I'm sure the experience will be worth the trip for those interested. The Tunica RiverPark and Museum is a cool place to visit. If they add more caches in the area, I might make a return visit.

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Update 10/18/2010: After finding out that 13 caches were placed in the park just prior to the event, I thought about attending. I'm glad I didn't. The park was quite crowded, in part due to the success of the event. I'll make a trip over there one peaceful weekend this fall.