Geocaching FUNdamentals - 3/19/2011

My caching partner jbgreer called and asked if I wanted to go caching on Saturday. In particular, he was interested in hunting 346 Cubic Inches by bitbrain (GC2Q6HD), a new cache in the Wolf River Wildlife Corridor. I instead convinced him to go with me to Geocaching FUNdamentals by Prontopup and Tiger130 (GC2MNCR) and as a bonus, I e-mailed him the GC numbers of three decent puzzle caches in the area of the event. I figured we could go after those before or after the event and have an enjoyable day.

By Thursday evening, we had both solved the requisite puzzles for Saturday's hunt. As I looked around for an additional cache to hunt, I spotted ANGLES AND DIMENSIONS by magicrock (GC2P9YF). This mystery cache was released earlier in the week and as of Thursday, had no finders. There were parts of it that I knew the answers to right away, so I forwarded jbgreer the link to the cache page and went to bed.

While at work on Friday, I got a call from jbgreer. He had the day off and was out hunting down answers to the puzzle. I couldn't leave work, but I was able to do my share of the puzzle using my computer during lunch. At some point during the day, I noticed that the cache had been found. I read over the logs and viewed some pictures that turned out to be spoilers for the cache location. I posted a note about the pictures on the cache page and the cache owner had the pictures removed. Since the location was only part of the puzzle, I focused my energies on solving the "Opening Secret". By early evening, we had all of the information necessary to hunt the cache on Saturday.

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Saturday morning jbgreer and I got together at 8am to begin the day's hunt. I got very little sleep the night before, because I was anxious to hunt ANGLES AND DIMENSIONS (GC2P9YF). We skipped breakfast in order to hunt the original three puzzle caches on our list before heading to the geocaching event at 10am.

First on the list was The Truth is Rarely Pure and Never Simple by Dr. Eckman & The Lightman Group (GC2JE9C). I really enjoyed the puzzle on this one. The cache itself was a quick find in an area where jbgreer had once worked.

Second on the list was Little Fib by GC4EVR (GC2KBMH). Having a background in Math, the puzzle wasn't hard for me. I liked it, though. The terrain on this cache was fairly high and earlier logs suggested water in the area. We encountered no problems, though, and enjoyed the placement of the hide. There was a "Celebrate Summer" geocoin in the cache. I wrote down the tracking number for discovery, but later learned that the coin hadn't been activated, yet. [ I waited nearly a month and then activated the coin, myself. I then logged it as dropped within this cache. ]

[ The first and last obstacle ]

[ Dry today, wet tomorrow ? ]

[ My camera was focused on the ground, apparently, instead of the coin. ]

Next up, was The Ghost In The Machine by giardia_boy (GC2PH7Q). The puzzle was of a type that I had encountered before and jbgreer and I ended up using two different techniques to solve it. The cache had both an easy approach and a more difficult one and we tried both before eventually finding the cache.

[ A view that I have seen many times in the last year. ]

We were pretty pleased with ourselves by now, and we managed to find our way to the event with about 10 minutes to spare.

The event was interesting even though I'd heard the material before. I went mainly to socialize a little with other geocachers. I was a little uncomfortable because I was hungry, but the two hours passed quickly enough. I met a few of the newer cachers and talked to a few of the veteran cachers.

[ The host - prontopup talking about cache containers]

We didn't hang around too long after the event because we had a cache to find. After a quick lunch, the first thing we did was visually verify that I had solved the "Opening Secret" correctly. I would have been extremely upset if we had found the cache and made a mistake on the "Opening Secret".

Once at the location of the cache, we located the container and took it aside to sign the log and perform another task described in the cache description. I took a number of pictures for my personal records before we left. This was an excellent cache and I am highly recommending it to my fellow geocachers whenever possible. That was the end of our caching day. I went home and took a nap before taking another trip to visit family.

Return to the Delta Heritage Trail - 3/11/2011

I had Friday off for "Spring Break" and because the temperatures were cool and the forecast was sunny, I made an almost last minute decision to revisit Delta Heritage State Park and the 13 mile rails-to-trail project that happens to be lined with geocaches. There are 114 caches along this trail and on two visits last May, I managed to find 77 of them. Here is a link to the blog entry from my first trip.

Thursday night, I reviewed my pocket query for the area and printed out a list of the 37 caches I had left, as well as the hints for them. I didn't know how many I'd be able to actually find, since these were all caches that I had looked for on my last trip. Factors on my side this trip would be 1) cooler weather, 2) no bugs!, and 3) better GPSr reception with few leaves on the trees.

Friday morning, I left around 7:30am - not as early as I would have liked, but an old man needs his rest. I skipped breakfast and just took a cold fountain soda with me for a caffeine boost. I headed west to Forrest City where I took advantage of the rest stop before heading south on Hwy 1 towards Marianna.

[ Forrest City, AR - rest stop gardens ]

Once on the highway heading south, I had to be more careful about not speeding. At one point, I was going a little fast when I saw a police car parked off in front of me. I slowed down fast before passing him, and he ended up pulling over the car behind me. That was about the most excitement I had that morning. There was very little traffic in this mostly rural area.

I arrived at Delta Heritage State Park around 9am. There was a truck parked at the office, but other than that, I started the day alone. Because it was cool outside, I decided against renting a bike. I had also read while skimming the cache pages, that there had been reports of dogs chasing cyclists around the halfway point of the trail The Park is located 2 miles south of the beginning of the trail. I began the hunt by heading north. There were five caches on this section that I couldn't find on my first trip. As fortune would have it, I couldn't find them on this trip either. A couple had been reported in need of maintenance, but I was disappointed in not finding any. I got back to my car at the Park around 10am and loaded up with the Gatorade I had brought for the trip. I wished I had brought a snack or two as well.

Heading south now, I managed to find the next three consecutive caches that were on my list. On this day, they seemed easy, but I was invigorated nonetheless and hoped to find more. There are many different hides along this trail, but most can be summed up as on the ground or hanging from a tree. I had pretty good luck on this day and the previous trips with the ones on the ground. The hanging ones were a different story. Since I had found a few on my last trip, I had some idea what I was looking for. Since the trees were bare this time of year, I expected to have an easier time. I ended up finding three or four different examples of the hanging ones. They were all great hides, and I am glad I came here when I did.

[ Pretty sure this is south of the state park and facing south. ]

[ A view to the east of the trail. ]

[ Not sure which direction I was facing here. Looks like south.]

[ A view to the west of the trail ]

I found my last cache around mile 8 of the trail. It also happened to be the only non-micro of the trip. I think I'd found 2 or 3 similar-sized caches on my last visits to the trail. About this time, my friend jbgreer called me up to confirm we would be caching together that Saturday.

After I found my last cache, I sat down on a nearby bench to think about my long hike back to the car. I heard a rustling in front of me and when I looked up, I saw a small deer wearing an orange collar. It was in the fenced-in field that was east of the trail. It followed me for a bit as I started heading north. I tried to get a good picture of it, but the deer was a little camera-shy.

[ This deer may be someone's pet. ]

Moving on, I had a small number of caches that I wanted to make a second try to find so even though I spent a lot of time admiring the beauty of the area, I still had to be mindful of the beep from the GPSr letting me know it was time to hunt.

[ One of the many bridges that spanned small streams. ]

The 6 miles back to the car was pretty tiring. I managed to find two caches that I had missed before. I think approaching them from a different angle helped a lot. I finished the last of my Gatorade early on the return trip, but wasn't overly thirsty (unlike the last time). I got back to the car around 4pm and had hiked a rough total of 15 miles on this day.

My first find was Delta Trail SP#19 by BackpacknJack (GC2746P) and my last was Delta Trail SP#64B by BackpacknJack (GC27A12). I had found a total of 12 caches. I didn't see another person the entire time I was on the trail. After I got home, I realized that I should have worn sunscreen.

I thought about making a return trip on Sunday to hunt the caches at the south end of the trail, but my legs were still a little sore. Maybe next weekend.

GPS Adventures Arkansas - ASU Museum - 3/5/2011

The GPS Adventures Arkansas Maze Exhibit is a smaller, regional version of the nationally touring GPS Adventures Maze Exhibit and prominently features Arkansas State Parks and geocachers. The exhibit will travel to 7 Arkansas museums over the next 3 1/2 years.

[ Arkansas State University - Jonesboro ]

I found out last Fall that the Arkansas State University Museum in Jonesboro, AR would be hosting this exhibit from October 9, 2010 through March 6, 2011 and was hoping to make a trip out to see it. Time flies and before I knew it, it was March 4th! The weather forecast for March 5 was bad, but even though the exhibit lasted through the 6th, I knew that I had to go Saturday. Friday night, I made plans that included hunting additional caches in Jonesboro and packed my gear - including my umbrella.

On Saturday morning, it was tough to get started. It was raining pretty hard in Memphis and I could have used more sleep. I ended up waiting until just after 8:30am to leave, and by then the weather had calmed down a bit. There wasn't much traffic out, and the trip went pretty quickly. I had made a decision to not make any cache stops before I got to the museum, and I kept to that decision. It was also nice that the rain stopped before I got to Jonesboro.

I arrived at the Museum around 10am. After looking at Dinosaur exhibits on the first floor, I went up to the second floor where all of the other exhibits are. I was given directions to the GPS exhibit, which was in the back of the museum, and headed straight there. It was set up as a maze with educational displays in different spots. There were also profiles of some Arkansas geocachers (including some that I have met) and information about geocaching in the State Parks. My favorite part of the exhibit was the display of cache containers and assorted TB's and geocoins. I wrote down lots of tracking codes to "discover" these items on geocaching.com. Maybe it was because it was the next to last day of the exhibit, or maybe it was because I was early, but I had the exhibit all to myself the entire time I was there.

[ entrance to the maze ]

[ display of geocoins ,TBs and cache containers ]

[ Magellan Explorists ]

After leaving the exhibit, I toured some of the other exhibits which included Native American displays as well as some history of Arkansas. There were also some cool wildlife displays.

By the time I had finished touring the museum, it was beginning to fill up with kids - so I knew it was time to leave. Before leaving the museum, I stopped in at the Gift Shop and bought two geocoins that were related to the GPS exhibit.

--

There were four caches on the university campus and I found all of them while doing a walking tour. Most of the campus was empty, but there were busloads of students from Lonoke that were touring the campus. The first cache I found was Rocky by ASUMuseum (GC2FJH8) and was right next to the museum. The other three were part of a series by tkfuller and were For the Love of Science: Research it (GC2CEY7), For the Love of Science: Apply it (GC2CEYC), and For the Love of Science: Calculate it (GC2CEY9).

[ the former entrance to the administration building ]

After leaving the University, I drove around Jonesboro hunting about a dozen caches. Because of the weather, most of the logs were wet and I tramped around on a lot of wet ground. It didn't take long before I had wet socks. It was a good time, though as most days spent caching are.

By 2:30pm, I had finished up all of the caching I planned to do while in Jonesboro. There are still a lot of caches to find, but I decided to save them for a drier day. I had a quick lunch at KFC and began the drive home. I made three stops, each for a single cache, in Turrell, Marked Tree, and West Memphis and got back home by 5pm.

[ memorial in Marked Tree ]

Secret Egypt - Part II

On December 8th, I was contacted by the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum in Coventry, England and was invited to host a Travel Bug whose primary goal was to visit Egyptian-themed sites in Memphis before making its way back to Coventry. If possible, part of the wish for the TB was for it to make it back in time to be part of the Secret Egypt exhibit that will run from February to June 2011.

I contacted Vilbert via e-mail and she sent me details about the project. I eagerly agreed to participate, so on December 15th, Vilbert mailed me the Eqyptian Explorer 01 TB. We figured that it would take a week or so to arrive in Memphis, so in the meantime, I visited two of the goal sites for the TB - the Pyramid and the Memphis Zoo and took test pictures to get a good idea of the views the TB would get.

Around Christmas time there were serious weather problems, so I wasn't too concerned when the first week passed with no TB arrival. Then came the second week, and the third, and the fourth... I was beginning to think that the TB was lost. On Monday, February 7th as I was leaving for work, I found a package on my doorstep. It was the Travel Bug! I took it to work, logged it as "grabbed", and contacted Vilbert to let her know that Egyptian Explorer 01 would be undertaking its mission. Of course, Mother Nature chose that week to unleash snowmageddon on Memphis, but by Saturday things had cleared up enough to begin the mission.

Saturday morning (February 12), I hiked to Overton Park to take pictures of the TB in front of the gates of the Memphis Zoo. While at the park, I took pictures with the TB at the Brooks Museum of Art, the Memphis College of Art, and the Levitt Shell. I also visited Overton Park Mystery Cache by Spencersb (GCPKGJ) and dropped off a couple of geocoins and "dipped" the TB. I ended up "dipping" the TB at a cache near each of the Egyptian-themed sites I visited, so there would be a visual representation of the TB's log of where it went. After leaving the park, I had to drive up north to a birthday party and hunted caches along the way including Nelms3's First Find Cache by nelms3 (GC2KRPN) and The Valley by dguyusnavy (GC29W7D).

[ gates of the Memphis Zoo ]

On Sunday morning (February 13), after a hearty breakfast, I hiked downtown to the Pyramid. I took lots of pictures of the Pyramid and the Ramesses II statue in front. I also "dipped" the TB in the nearest cache - Memphis's Great Pyramid of Cheops by kingmedic (GC20ZHX). I also visited the site of a now archived cache - Ramesses' Tomb by Sprout (GCTN3Y), the container of which is still in place.

[ Pyramid Arena and statue of Ramesses the Great ]

Afterwards, I decided to hike down to the south end of the Riverwalk, taking pictures along the way. Once I arrived at Martyr's Park at the end of the Riverwalk, I put a new log in Memphis Martyrs by Tuck Sackett (GCN59Y) and relaxed on a bench overlooking the river. As I was leaving the Riverwalk to head back into downtown, I ran into Team sskaysee. We talked for a bit and I showed them Egyptian Explorer 01 before we parted ways. I had a late afternoon dinner at Huey's before heading home.

[ Martyr's Park memorial ]

The final goal for the TB while in Memphis was to visit the Institute of Egyptian Art and Archaeology at the University of Memphis. I had a meeting at the U of M on February 16, so I took the TB along and we made a quick visit to the Egyptian collection at the museum. I was disappointed that I could take pictures inside, but before I left, I read about an upcoming "Ancient Egypt Family Day" coming up the next weekend and figured that surely they would have things at that event that I could photograph with the TB.

On Saturday (February 26), I took the TB to "Ancient Egypt Family Day" at the U of M. I got there just as the event started and before it was full of kids (the target audience). Besides taking lots of pictures, I learned how to write my name in hieroglyphics, and learned about numbers and the Egyptian measurement system. It was actually a pretty fun experience!

[ replicas including an Amarna Princess ]

[ replicas including the "Rosetta Stone" ]

After the event, I decided to hunt the five new caches to the north of the University along the Shelby Farms Greenline. I met other cachers on the hunt and shared the story of Egyptian Explorer 01 with them.

On Sunday morning (February 27), I got up early to take the TB to the TB motel where I would be dropping it off - Aerotropolis TB Hotel by GC4EVR (GC1Y1KC). I have visited that site before, and read the logs to see how often it was visited and how often items "disappeared" from it. I felt comfortable leaving it there and hope that it makes it way to England without too many hitches.

For more text and pictures of the Egyptian Explorer 01's journey, check out its page on geocaching.com.

Caching on the Greenline - 2/26/2011

My main goal for the morning was to get over to the University of Memphis for Ancient Egypt Family Day. I needed some more pictures to cap off the Egyptian Explorer 01 TB's goal while it was in Memphis. It was really tough to get out of bed. I had been working at a conference in East Memphis for the previous three days and was exhausted from a lack of sleep plus a lot of stress.

[ U of M's Art Museum houses among other things, an Egyptian collection. ]

I wasn't sure I needed to load up my GPSr with fresh coordinates, but I had noticed five new caches on the greenline near the university, so I went ahead and packed up my gear in the event I decided to hunt caches. I arrived at the U of M Art Museum just as the exhibit was starting up. I took a few pictures and learned a few things about Egypt. I practiced writing my name in "hieroglyphics", and learned about numbers and Egyptian measurements. I had a great time, and got the pictures I needed.

Feeling pretty good, I decided to check out the five new caches along the west end of the Shelby Farms Greenline. I decided to park somewhere around the middle of the five and hiked a bit south to meet up with the trail. Heading west, I realized that I left my cache notes back in the car. My first find of the morning was Midtown Greenway #2 by mgrommet (GC2P4XH). It turned out to be easy - in fact, it turned out to be the easiest of the five.


As I approached Midtown Greenway #1 by mgrommet (GC2P4XF), I noticed two people in the vicinity of the cache. They both had walking sticks and one had a GPSr, so I was certain they were geocachers. I usually shy away from meeting other cachers while on the trail, but I'm glad I didn't this day. I met TNLarry4 and his wife Queenie just moments before Queenie found the cache. We spent awhile talking and before we left, shandrum and stumpcacher came up to hunt the cache. We talked for a bit about various caches before TNLarry4 and Queenie headed east to hunt the others on the trail. I decided it would be fun to continue with them to hunt the remaining caches on this trail.

[ stumpcacher, shandrum, Queenie, and TNLarry4 ]

Since I had already found #2, I waited while TNLarry4 and Queenie made the find.

Midtown Greenway #3 by mgrommet (GC2P4XK) was a tough find, even with a landmark fairly close. Queenie made the find.

I believe that Midtown Greenway #4 by mgrommet (GC2P4XM) is where we encountered two barking dogs behind the fence as we approached the cache. This was also the only one I found with the group and I found it while trying to avoid the dogs.

[ unique among the caches we found this day ]

[ TNLarry4 and Queenie walking ahead while I snapped pictures of the path. ]

The last cache we found together was Midtown Greenway #5 by mgrommet (GC2P4XP). TNLarry4 made the find while Queenie and I struggled with thorns. After signing the log, we headed back west. We parted ways about halfway back to the first cache on the trail. It was great meeting TNLarry4, Queenie, shandrum, and stumpcacher and I hope to run into them again some day.

I decided to eat lunch somewhere as I was heading home and ended up at Poplar Plaza, where I found one more cache (across the street). When I arrived at T.D.D. #6 by dragon9981 (GC2MJNZ), there was a car parked next to the cache. I went into the nearby Walgreens and bought some stuff and when I came out, the coast was clear and I retrieved the cache and signing the log. I ended up eating lunch at the Taco Bell across the street before heading back home.

Where the Wind Takes Me - 2/20/2011

I had planned for this to be a lazy Sunday. Because I had to go to a conference later in the week, I decided to make a trip to the Target just east of the University of Memphis to pick up a few things. I knew that there were a few park and grab caches on the route I planned to take, so I packed up my GPSr and took off. Most of these caches were along Poplar Avenue, which is usually a busy street even on a Sunday. I started off with Need Gas? 100pts for 10 cents off !! by dragon9981 (GC2MJPE) at Poplar Plaza and worked my way east and ended at T.D.D. #4 by dragon9981 (GC2MJNQ) - a short distance from the Target.

[ A familiar path ]

I bought a few things at Target and when I got back to my car and was around 12:30pm. Since it was a beautiful day and I wanted more than just a few lightpole caches, I decided to head to Shelby Farms. Traffic was backed up at the entrance and I could see that the main parking lot was full. I almost drove off, but decided to take a chance. It took driving around the entire park to find a spot that I was willing to leave my car. It wasn't a big deal, though, because it gave me an excuse to hike around in the park rather than just to a single cache.

I hiked over to the Visitor's Center and cut east along the edge of Patriot Lake. The goal cache of all of this walking was Triffid Terror by Mindless-Focus (GC1MH0R). It was nicely tucked away in an area where people ride horses.

[ Somewhere in there... ]

Having found the cache, I headed back almost the same way I came in. I made a quick stop at the boathouse near Patriot Lake to buy a Powerade. The owner told me that he was trying to get people not to rent boats that day because it was too windy, but several people disregarded his advice.

[ Lots of caches around this part of Shelby Farms are in terrain like this. ]

I hung out near one of the northern lakes for a bit before leaving the park. I looked at some of the new playground equipment being set up nearby as well.

[ Standing on a short pier overlooking the lake. ]

After picking up a few more park and grabs to the east of Shelby Farms and running north and south along Germantown Parkway, I made my way to a section of the Germantown Greenway near Houston High School to hunt Greenway Too by Prontopup (GC25ZR2). This section of the greenway runs along a utility easement. I've cached in the area before, but until I saw a map of the greenway, didn't realize that this section came out at another nice park to the south.

Just a little further south, and just off of the greenway was Ain't Holdin' Up Nothin' by TNLarry4 (GC2HXXC). This was in a park behind the school, and could have been a busy spot later on in the Spring with at least two baseball fields in the vicinity of the cache. The cache had a great camo job and would have been tough for a newer cacher to find. Incidentally, I actually met TNLarry4 a week after I found this cache.

[ An interesting trail at the edge of the park. ]

My last stop of the day before heading home was Dairy Queen. I enjoyed an Oreo Blizzard before going around back and taking a picture of the field behind it. There was also a cache behind the DQ, but I had found it a while back.


I ended up with 11 cache finds. The only DNFs of the day were park and grabs with too many muggles around.

Germantown Greenway - 2/19/2011

I was kind of hesitant to go caching this weekend, because I had a lot of errands to do that I had been putting off until the last minute - this weekend being the last minute. But my caching buddy, jbgreer, wanted to hunt a few caches and drop off a geocoin somewhere. We met at my place around 8am and headed out to breakfast. In the "old days", I was so eager to hunt geocaches that I didn't think about food until after it became too dark to cache. Now, as a "seasoned veteran", I try to enjoy a hearty breakfast or lunch while out on the road.

Our goal for the morning was to hunt four caches along the part of the Germantown Greenway that borders the southern part of the Lucius Burch Natural Area. On the way there we took a shot at getting more reconnaissance on INVISIBLE by MagicRock (GC24K70). We checked out the area again looking for more "clues", but coming up empty.

Now heading south to the target, the first cache we tackled was The Mother Load by hattrick364, omggal123 (GC2KPXN). An ammo can shouldn't be that hard to find, right? Fortunately we made the find, but I had checked plenty of spots that I thought would be more obvious. I would have liked to explore the nearby trail, but didn't have time on this day.

Next, we drove around to one of the southern lots for the greenway and set out forACME-Lord Of The Flies by giardia_boy (GC2K27R). It was only a few hundred feet from where we parked, but we ended up crossing two barbed-wire fences before we got the the cache area. It was a nano, but hidden in such a way that it was easily found. We always enjoy the creativity of giardia_boy's hides.

[ near the parking area ]

[ not slippery today ]

We made our way back to the greenway and proceeded east to ACME-Question and Answer by giardia_boy (GC2M6K0). The hike gave me another visual perspective to a giarda_boy hide I found last October. This ended up being one of those hides that at first glance could be in a million places, but fortunately the container was a decent size and the camo, while visually good, was of a material that wasn't hard to get our hands on.

[ I can't tell you what I wished for. ]

[ A nice view of the Wolf River taken from a new bridge ]

Our final cache of the morning was Now For Something Completely Different by giardia_boy (GC2KE6W). Now I had believed (like some others) that the greenway trail ran alongside the cache area. We ended up approaching the area from the east part of the greenway to fall short, and the west part of the greenway to again fall short. It turns out that the shortest route we could find involved parking across the boulevard from the park and hiking around a lake on the other side of the road. It had a bit of a path, so the hike wasn't too bad.

[ Nice path, but of no use today. ]

[ the end ]

After getting back to the car, my day was done. I had to get home and take a shower so that I could get my hair cut before the barber shop I use closed for the weekend.

Jbgreer, on the other hand, decided to follow up on some insights he had regarding INVISIBLE by MagicRock (GC24K70) and ended up making the find. I guess it will be while before I find it. Interestingly, later that day some geocachers ended up finding it with assistance after the GOWT anniversary event held that day.