Geocaching on Amtrak - 7/26/2012

On a recent train trip from Chicago, IL to Pasco, WA, I tried hunting geocaches at various stops along the way.  It's not easy to do as time spent at each station varies, and some caches are literally on the wrong side of the tracks.  One cache that I have hunted on at least three separate occasions was Steaming away by Rainnstar (GC1C627), located in a small park adjacent to the station in Havre, MT.  This cache is relatively close to the station, so there is the added complication of other train passengers and crew hanging around the cache site.

[ My train is in the background. ]

On my previous stop here, I was questioned by a U.S. Border Patrol agent about what I was doing.  He told me that pot smokers were commonly found around here.  The park, itself, has a monument to the cooperation between the U.S. and Canadian Border Patrols (Havre is less than 50 miles south of the Canadian border).

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[ Picture taken during a January trip in 2009 ]

For this trip, I located the coords on a satellite image before leaving Memphis, and when I got here, I just walked up and found the cache.  I got lucky in that the people hanging around disappeared during the time I had the cache in hand.

I spotted two other cache spots on this trip - one in Minot, ND, and the other in Spokane, WA.  Both, however, were right across the tracks and we were told by Amtrak employees not to cross the tracks.

Secret Egypt - Part III

I haven't been doing any geocaching for the last month because I don't really care for the heat (and bugs).  In the meantime, I've been reading about the further adventures of a travel bug that I had the privilege of releasing back in early 2011.  Egyptian Explorer 01 was one of around thirty travel bugs released by the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum back in the Fall of 2010 and whose goals were to visit specific Egyptian-themed sites around the world.  I was asked by a lady who works for the museum if I could start a bug on its journey to visit sites in Memphis before making it's way back to the museum in England.

It took much longer than expected to arrive, but I was able to visit all of the requested Memphis sites and take pictures with the TB.  Afterwards, I put it in a TB Motel near the airport - Aerotropolis TB Hotel and hoped it could make the jump across the ocean and on it's way home.  It was reported as missing soon afterwards, but it turned out that it was picked up by a cacher who dropped it off near another TB motel near an airport 1,046 miles away in Connecticut.  It went from Connecticut to Rhode Island and off to the Netherlands.   I have been monitoring other Egyptian Explorer bugs that seemed to get stuck in the Netherlands, but mine made it out and into Germany, where is has been slowly moving south.

The final goal of this bug and the other Eqyptian Explorer bugs, was to complete their missions and make it back to the museum by June 2011 to be displayed as part of their Egyptian exhibit.  Some made it back in time, mine (and others) is more than a year late.

As of this date, the bug has traveled 5078 miles and is in Germany headed south towards Switzerland.

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 ]

Mud Island Earthcache - 4/22/2012

It was a relatively cool Sunday and I had originally planned to do something else.  However, I had been wanting to tackle a new earthcache at Mud Island River Park - The Mississippi River @ Memphis, TN by Humulus (GC3846B) and figured that on this day, the weather would make it an enjoyable hike.

It takes about 30 minutes to walk to the entryway to Mud Island from where I work.  I headed out early in the afternoon and figured I would be done long before the park closed.  The monorail taking you into the park costs $4 to ride, so I opted to walk on the bridge above it.  There weren't a lot of people out on this day and it was only one week after the season's opening date.

I had a list of four questions that needed to be answered in order to fulfill the requirements of the earthcache.  It was pretty easy to find the information, so most of my time was spent walking around the park - from one end to the other.

The southern end of the park is an enjoyable place to relax with lots of things to see.  I was too cheap to buy food from the cafe, but I wasn't really hungry anyways.

I watched barges on one side of the river and riverboats on the other.  At the southernmost end of the park - past the areas that you are supposed to go, was the coolest looking sand beach.  I don't know if anything goes on out there, but it was cool to look at.

I left the park just a little before closing time.  It was a fun place to visit.  If I ever bring visitors with me, I'll try to visit the river museum.

Germantown, TN - 3/24/2012

The plan on this day was to go to an event - Who'd of Guessed 5 years later by lacey38655 and Prontopup (GC3BX46). The event was in the afternoon, so I picked out a few area caches to hunt beforehand. I left my house later than I had planned, but had plenty of time to stop in one of my favorite Germantown parks - Cameron Brown Park. It is usually a very busy park, so I parked near the entrance, not knowing that there were places to park that were nearer to my first find of the day. It didn't matter, though, because it was only a 1/4 mile or so to Field of Play
by prontopup (GC3DX2F). It was a quick find and on this day the nearby fields of play were empty for maintenance work.

[ The walk to the cache hinted at the possibility of wet grounds. ]

[ Fields of Play ]

Normally, to get to the second cache of the day, I would have had to cut through the woods, or exit the park and attach it from another entrance, but because a road is being built through the edge of the woods, I was able to use it to get within 200 feet of the cache - JBbaby
by jacobhenry (GC2PZ6B). Here I had to be careful of the wet ground, but I made my way to the cache and back out with dry feet.

[ Wolf River Blvd - extended ]

Afterwards, I walked along the southern edge of the park until I got back to my car. I did cut in to see the view of the cool man-made lake, though.

[ Plenty of ducks and people around. ]

Once I got back to my car, I realized that the event was a straight shot down the road from me. I got to the restaurant a little early, so I walked around the area to see what other businesses were there.

[ Most of the attendees ordered something to eat. ]

Once I went inside, I sat with chimps8mybaby and his family at a booth near the door. Peanutpapa and his wife soon joined us. As usual, I didn't do much talking or mingling, but I got to see a few neat coins and talk to a few people.

As the event was ending, I heard that shandrum was going with bitbrain, tiger130, and pippn98 to Herb Parsons Lake so that pippin98 - bitbrain's son could make the climb to reach Purple Heart by Tiger130 (GC38YDJ). Although, I was among the last to leave, I somehow made it to the park first, so I went out to take pictures of the lake and see if I could spot the cache since the leaves started filling in the trees.

[ The lake ]

Shortly after I failed to spot the cache, I met up with the others. We hiked to the spot and shandrum quickly got things set up. He demonstrated another climbing technique that got him up to the cache in less than 3 minutes. After coming back down, he rigged up the harness for pippin98, gave him some quick instructions and sent him up the tree. It took him about 10 minutes to make the climb. He signed the log and came back down. No one else wanted to make the climb on this day, so we packed up and headed back to the parking area where we parted ways.

[ pippin98 nears the cache ]

I walked over and visited the monument near the parking area before I left. The inscription at the bottom reminded me of bitbrain and his son.

[ "If you hunt with your boy, you will never have to hunt for him." - Herb Parsons ]

After leaving here, I picked up three more quick caches in Germantown before heading home.

My Favorite Cache Finds of 2011

I'm a little late with this list because I hunted fewer caches in 2011 that in most of the years I've been caching.

[ I'll clean this up a little and elaborate more on some of the finds. ]

Micro -Wisteria Gift Attic & Tea Room by magicrock (GC22539)
It was tough to pick a favorite micro, because they tend not to stand out in my mind. This one was interesting because of its unique camo.

Regular - Casper Creek Troll by poetintenn and alex layne (GC323K7)
This was one of three excellent caches placed in Edmund Orgill Park by this team. This one, in particular, was special because of its construction.

Multi - 346 Cubic Inches (GC2Q6HD)
This was a three-stage cache in one of my favorite wildlife areas in Collierville, TN. It was a cleverly-implemented design that provided us with a lot of laughs! Jbgreer and I ran into two other cachers while out there and it was fun to hunt with company.

Event - hdrider55 Rides Their Way to 1K by nelms3 (GC34GFP)
I went to at least 5 different events this year, and this one stands out because I met more people than I usually do at events.

CITO Event - None this year.

Mystery - Tough to choose a single cache in this category. Here are four that I hunted with jbgreer that all had interesting puzzles:

1) Princess Jasmine's Box of Jewels by Steve&GeoCarolyn (GC1XBBZ)
This was a lot of fun to work out even with Disney songs bouncing around in my head.

2) Flip Dizzy - Flip Out by Abiectio (GC1CW22)
This cache was the penultimate of a series that jbgreer and I started years before. The final hike gave us a chance to reflect on all of the techniques used to solve the various puzzles of the series.

3) INVISIBLE by MagicRock (GC24K70)
This cache had a unique quality that I hadn't ever seen before! It also taught me to carry additional tools with me on a cache hunt.

4) ANGLES AND DIMENSIONS by magicrock (GC2P9YF)
I got extremely lucky on what could have been an incredibly difficult cache puzzle. The container, itself, contained a special surprise. The cache taught me that everything you notice around you might become useful for solving cache puzzles.

Earthcache - None this year.

Favorite Power Trail: Diabetic Series Cache (DSC - 1) by EverywhereActs1:8 (GC2QTN9)
This was a relatively quick 20 finds, but it was interesting country to visit.

GPS Adventures Exhibit - GPS Adventures Arkansas - ASU Museum by Groundspeak (GC2GJM4)
This was my first such exhibit to attend. I got there on the last day it was open, so I was the only one there at the time. I bought a cool geocoin from the museum's gift shop.

Virtual - None this year.

Favorite Cache of the Year: This turned out to be a tough pick this year, because I found a lot of really great geocaches this year.

Jackson's Hole on Strawberry by Eldon, Denise Jackson, Kaylie Clark (GC1GZWF)
This cache was special because I hunted it with family. I got to hike in the snow in July with my Mom, uncle and aunt in a beautiful wilderness area. We got to hunt a lot of caches that day and had a lot of fun.