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.

10-10-10

Not much going on in the area as far as events go. 10-10-10 In and Around Shelby County by The Disorganization of MidSouth Geocachers (GC2E9DX) looks like it might be an interesting event. It doesn't have many RSVPs yet, but that may be because they offer one smiley for basically driving around all day and taking pictures.

Would I go to such an event? Perhaps. I like driving around and taking pictures. In this case, however, the question I would ask myself before going is: Do I wish to socialize with people who permanently banned a founding member of GOWT from the GOWT discussion forums for pointing out (correctly) that someone else in the group hosted a 10-year Groundspeak anniversary event and didn't meet the qualifications that Groundspeak had for such events?

I think not.

Midtown Memphis - 9/3/2010

Nice weather on this Labor Day weekend could mean lots of fun caching trips. Unfortunately, I won't be doing much caching this weekend. My last cache hunt was back in early July and since then I seem to have misplaced my GPSr data cable. My Palm Pilot, which stores my cache data, also is dead as a doornail.

On the good side, there have been a number of caches (6) placed recently within walking distance of where I live. I decided to go after 4 of these after work on Friday. I printed out the coordinates and a map and headed home to pick up my GPSr and a small flashlight.

I left my place around 5:45pm, which meant I had about 2 hours of daylight left to cache. It was a 2 mile walk to the first find: Buc Lap Series - #3 by dguyusnavy (GC2A0TK). It was in a grassy median on the west side of Christian Brothers University and was meant to be an easy find. My next find was: Buc Lap Series - #1 by dguyusnavy (GC2A0T4). This one was not far from the Children's Museum of Memphis. The area was busy, though. There was a football game going on across the street from the cache.

[ West entrance of CBU ]

[ Football played in the shadow of the Liberty Bowl ]

Next, I went after HOME RUN! by dguyusnavy (GC2A0RA). This cache hadn't been found since June and had many DNFs, so I didn't have much hope of finding it. I did get to see four young women in bikinis playing volleyball, so it was worth the time to walk by it. This cache is also fairly near the new dog park at the north end of Tobey Park. It was amazing to see how many people were willing to drive there just to let their dogs play in a fenced in area.

It was starting to get dark, so I headed back towards home and the final cache of the day: Whopper of a cache by jamey1 (GC2C541). It doesn't take much imagination to guess where this cache was - or why I saved it for last.

After finding the last cache, I walked home. I had a decent time. It took about 3 hours to cover about 6 miles of walking and caching.

Huntington, OR - 7/4/2010

My Dad and I decided to drive down to Huntington, OR to spend the day with my brother and family. They had a rented a small house with some friends for a three-day fishing weekend along the Snake River.

I planned to pick up a few caches along the way, but found out while on the road that I didn't have any caches for the area around Huntington loaded. My only find of the day was BUB # 1 Durkee and Greenbean Casserail by Team Storm_Runner (GC1E1N4). It was a guard rail cache near the Durkee exit.

It was a beautiful weekend and the extra time spent with family was definitely worth skipping Geowoodstock for.

Union, OR - 6/24/2010

Most of this day's caches were in or around the town of Union, OR. Union is roughly 9 miles south of Cove and is a pretty neat little town.

Our first find was at Union City Park - Creek side park cache by Buck Snort-Clearwater Explorers-Globaltreckers (GC1NA0B). This was nicely tucked away near a rushing creek. Before leaving the park, I decided to take a few pictures. We were spotted by a teenage girl who figured we must be tourists since she has never seen anyone taking pictures there before. She tried to talk our ears off, and it was tough getting away.

Water Works by Jabez Gang (GC1YKBD) was in an area I had cached in before. It was one of those deals where you have a choice to walk along one side of a creek or the other. As usual, I initially chose the wrong side and walked nearly a quarter of a mile before realizing I needed to be on the other side.

Craig Mountain Junction by Person named after the mountain placed this cache. (GC1PEKV) was along the road to Hot Lake Springs. The cache was in a cookie tin and was wet on the inside. At some point I cut my right wrist on something - probably barbed wire.

After finding three caches, I told my Dad that we were done for the day. I think he was disappointed. I was too - it was a great day for caching, but I had no more caches mapped for the area.

On the way back to Cove, we decided to try A Little Bit of Heaven by wallowadave (GC1QT4R). My Mom and I hunted it a couple of days before with no luck. Many previous logs showed that the coordinates were off and I thought I had gone over the area pretty thoroughly before. On this day, I had climbed down a small embankment and when I turned around to tell my Dad something, I spotted the cache.