I just got back from my annual summer road trip to Oregon. In terms of geocaching, it was largely a success in that I found geocaches. My goal on this trip was to continue to fill in contiguous counties on a map from my place of origin to my destination. I have been working on this for a few years and this trip was mostly just filling in a few gaps. I needed to find caches in counties in Oklahoma (6), Texas (1), New Mexico (2), Utah (4) and Missouri (lots). The east to west part of the trip would take me through Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Utah, Idaho, and Oregon. Most of the trip was on interstate highways.
[ My east to west route is shaded with green .]
I started out in West Tennessee on June 15 heading west. The only cache stop I made in Arkansas was a rest stop on the west end of the state (for two caches). Oklahoma started out well, but I was unable to get to caches near the interstate in two counties due to muggles. I also realized about midway across the state that my GPSr lost all of my city map data. I found out later this was due to the SD chip not staying in place, and this was a major problem I had to deal with for the whole trip. In Oklahoma, I began to use my smartphone for caching and my GPSr for a general idea where caches were along the interstate. I made it to east Texas (Shamrock) by the end of the day and managed to get the one county I needed to complete the route for Texas. I also managed to lose my sunglasses in Shamrock, but the cache I lost them at was near my motel, so I recovered them to start the second morning.
I made no more stops in Texas, since I had found all of the rest stop caches and spent most of the second day in New Mexico. My first cache find in New Mexico was at Cline's Corner where I typically eat. My second cache was in Grants, just east of where I leave I-40 to head north. On this day, I proceeded east into Arizona where I got my first Arizona cache just across the border. I then backtracked to Gallup and headed north.
I needed a cache in the northwest corner of New Mexico and had to deviate 10 miles of route to find one. I'm glad it was an easy one because I was getting tired by this time. I headed north to Cortez, Colorado to stay the night and because I got there a little before sunset, I was able to walk around town and find a couple of caches before bedtime.
I got a good night's sleep in Cortez, and in the morning learned that I had lost my sunglasses again. I wore them driving into town, so I didn't have a clue what happened to them. I backtracked the caches I did in Cortez the night before with no luck. After this disappointment, I headed north into Utah, passing up lots of roadside caches along the way.
Once in Utah, I needed a cache just inside the border. Since it was a cool morning, I got several between the border and Monticello. My next stop was Provo. Provo is the largest city I cached in during the trip. It was a very busy town and very hot. I looked for a number of caches before I finally found one. When I went to take a picture of it, I leaned that my camera was not in the case I have hanging from my belt. Needless to say, I got back on the road and headed north to Idaho, making no more of my planned stops in two of the northern Utah counties I needed. I drove to Twin Falls, Idaho where I stayed the night. While organizing my stuff, I found my camera in my pants pocket. Nice!
The last day of the trip had no planned stops. I did get two at a rest stop east of Boise, but the last day was mostly driving.
