A Sendoff Before Geowoodstock X - 5/19/2012

If my blog posts seem a little slow as of late, I am blaming it on the changes to Google's Blogger software. :-/

[ pictures and a few more details are coming soon]

At this time of the year, I am loath to do any geocaching out in the woods, because I don't like the heat and the bugs.  I was happy on the this weekend to get out with my friend jbgreer and attend a pre-Geowoodstock event after doing a much needed recycling chore.

We met up at the usual time and had a nice breakfast before heading out to e-recycle some old televisions I had.  The recycling was being done at the University of Memphis and since a similar event had been held only a month before, we easily got in and out of the lot where the collection was taking place.

We had a little over three hours to kill, and I didn't have my usual set of detailed plans for caches to go after.  I blame this, in part, on my inability to adapt to the changes that geocaching.com has recently made to their mapping software.

Anyways,because we were close to the Memphis Botanic Gardens, we decided to grab the two caches on that property.  I had never been there before, so I wanted to take some time to tour the majority of the gardens after, of course, first beelining our way to the two caches.

 [ The entrance to the Botanic Gardens Visitor Center ]

 

After finding the caches, I cleaned up a bit in the Visitor's Center before we headed onward to Shelby Farms.  There are a handfull of caches in that park, but we decided to just get the one that didn't involve getting too far off of the trail.  GC MB 8C by CacheDroidz-H M Murdoch (GC39Z1E) was a nice find even though it was a bit of a walk for such a hot day.  It was good to visit the park, though, and we will definitely be back for other caches when the cool sets in.

At this point, we only had time for one more cache on the way to the event, so we chose The Secret Lane by tiger130 (GC2NRB5).  It was a nice cache that was not too deep in the woods, so we were on our way quickly.


A Sendoff Before GeoWoodstock X by Team SpiderMonkey (GC3J917) was being held on a section of the boardwalk at W.C Johnson Park in Collierville, TN.  We arrived at the same time as nelms3 and soon others followed.  I got a few pictures of the swampy area off of the boardwalk.

There was a lot of talk of the plans people had for Geowoodstock weekend, as well as puzzle challenges in various states.  It is obvious at this point, that there are a lot of locals far more into geocaching than I am these days.  We left the event at 2pm and headed back into Memphis and out of the heat.

Arlington, TN - 4/14/2012

Rarely do I get a chance to hunt a bunch of geocaches all placed by the same person.  I noticed a while back a cluster of new geocaches in the Arlington, TN area.  I had thought about hunting them earlier than this particular weekend, but I could tell from the cache descriptions that they would be ones that my friend jbgreer would like, so I saved them until this trip.

The first cache of the morning was Another Road to Nowhere! by CacheDroidz (GC3BQGF).  We had found a cache on this particular long dead end road before, so we knew exactly how to get to it.  The coordinates were maybe 40 feet off, but we eventually found the container and got a feel for what we were in for on this day.

[ located on a hill across the road from the cache ]

The next find of the morning was STOP! This road goes Nowhere! by CacheDroidz  (GC3G055).  Again, this cache was considerably off of the mark, but in an easily recognizable spot.  It did, however, take some effort to retrieve.

[ This area has a lot of old abandoned roads. ]

The third cache of the morning was Micro Airport by CacheDroidz (GC3G084).  This cache was across the street from where Memphis Propbusters has a fields for flying RC airplanes.  The field was blocked off today - maybe it wasn't flying season, yet.  The cache coordinates were right on this time and we spent a little time checking out the field afterwards.

[ Nice area to relax. ]

Next on the list was Sumac Road Cache by CacheDroidz (GC3FAAX).  This geocache was cleverly hidden and took a while to find even with good coordinates.  The stench of the nearby dead dog, however, was not hard to find.


This was the last of the four caches that were just outside of Arlington.  In hindsight, it would have been better to do them last because they were fairly isolated away from people.


The next cache was on another abandoned road and was called The Bridge to Nowhere by CacheDroidz (GC3BQD4).  Well, there was a bridge nearby, but the cache was at least 200 feet out in the woods.  On this day, the terrain wasn't too bad, but I can imagine times where it might be a nightmare getting to the cache area.  This was a great cache and I wish that the owner hadn't hinted at the hide technique in the cache description.

[ There is a bridge out there somewhere...]

Next was The Road to Nowhere by CacheDroidz (GC3ARZJ).  This was a hide, not unlike the previous one.  The difference was that the terrain was much easier.  There were interesting sights on the ground around the cache area, though - they may have been Easter-related.

[ Three crosses just laying around...]

Turtle Fountains Pond TB Birdhouse by CacheDroidz (GC3G06M) was an interesting cache to get to.  It was in a park behind some houses that had an almost covert entrance.  The park had a walking track and it the narrow set of woods behind it - a nice cache.

As we were about to leave, I stopped at a bench to get a rock out of my shoe and saw that some visiting Memphian had carved a little gang graffiti into it.  It's always nice to see a touch of home in an otherwise fairly pristine area.


We made one more quick find near the side of a building.  That cache was called We have FAITH in Arlington by CacheDroidz (GC3G04B) and we had to have faith that the cache was placed with permission.

The last find of the morning was a little out of the way, but since it had 11 favorite points, I figured it would be a good cache.  Birdhouse TB Hotel by dan5240 (GC2D1XG) had plenty of pictures on the cache page as well as instructions for getting into it.  I was surprised, though, that it wasn't painted up, Still it was a nice cache for my 3900th find.

[ tucked away near the end of someone's driveway ]