Geocaching FUNdamentals Class - 3/2/2013

Geocacher Prontopup holds at least one geocaching fundamentals event every year at Cameron Brown park in Germantown, TN.  I usually go to see old friends and enjoy the park.  On this day, it was tough with the weather being cold with a little snow falling, but I made it to Geocaching FUNdamentals Class
by Prontopup (GC44HKB).  At first, it looked like only a few folks would make it, but more showed up as the morning progressed.  

However, we only had one new cacher attend.  Hes got to hear plenty of caching stories durning the two-hour event.  Afterwards, I headed into work to warm up.

GOWT Anniversary Event - 2/23/2013

The Geocachers of West Tennessee had an anniversary event in February - The 2013 Annual GOWT Gathering by Geocachers of West Tennessee (GC44V8J) after missing one the year before.  It was a nice day, and I'm not sure why I didn't hunt ant physical caches on that day.  The event, itself, held in Mason, TN was smaller than those in the past, but there was a still a good crowd.

Selmer, TN to Bolivar, TN - 2/3/2013

I arrived back at Selmer around 1pm and headed for a Wal-Mart to load up on some supplies, including batteries.  Before going shopping, I hit two caches to the south that were part of the Selmer 45SB series by lookingUPward.

I actually found several things I needed at Wal-Mart and took my time hitting the road again.  I had decided not to hunt caches in Selmer in order to finish my goal for the day of the two power trails.  After leaving town I headed west to complete a series that started with Selmer-Bolivar 64WB 01 by lookingUPward (GC3994C).  It was much like the previous series, but there was more roadkill spotted near the cache locations.  There were 27 in this series and I found 24.  As a bonus, Selmer-Bolivar 64WB 21 by lookingUPward (GC39A96) was my 4000th find.  After finishing the trail, I headed home.  I had more time, but my pocket query had no caches west of Bolivar.

I only took a couple of pictures on this trip, as I was in a hurry.  Roadkill doesn't make for an attractive blog entry so, I am leaving them out.

Selmer, TN to Adamsville, TN - 2/3/2013

Having finally gotten my car fixed the week before, I was now ready to hit a couple of power trails.  There are actually quite a few now that are a relatively short drive from Memphis.  For this first run, I decided to visit Selmer, TN and make quick work of two east-west power trails.

On Saturday, the 2nd, I left home around 7am eager to get the job done.  I hadn't paid much attention to the weather, but after seeing more than a dozen accidents between Memphis and Arlington along the interstate, realized that this would be a good day to stay at home.  I turned around at Arlington and carefully made my way back to Memphis.

On Sunday, the 3rd, I decided to sleep in a bit and leave home around 9am.  That way, I was sure I wouldn't run into any leftover ice slicks from the day before.

This time, I took Hwy 64 out to Selmer instead of using an interstate route.  This meant risking speed traps, but I do a fairly good job of watching my speed.

I got to Selmer around 11am and decided to eat lunch at the local Hardee's before starting out.  My first find of the day (and name of the series) was Selmer-Adamsville 64-EB 01 by lookingUPward (GC38WP4).  There were 29 caches in this series, and were simple hides at signposts and bridge guard rails.  There was not much traffic to speak of and I only ran into one couple who were looking for the furniture store that is in selmer.  I found all 29 caches and 1 extra signpost cache before reaching Adamsville.  There were a few other caches along this route, but I had no cache page data on them and didn't want to risk being slowed down.  The cache containers were all film canisters and as such, some were in better shape than others.  My gel pen worked well on amy wet logs I came across.  At some point on this run, I found my 2000th Tennessee cache.

Anyway,  I turned around just before getting to Adamsville, so I didn't get to visit the grave site of Sheriff Buford Pusser of "Walking Tall" fame, but I had found a cache at that site a few years ago.  It was a quick drive back to Selmer where I needed to buy batteries before continuing on.

Wrath557's 1K Celebration - 1/6/2013

It's pretty unusual for geocachers in Memphis to have an event on a Sunday evening, but it turned out to be a great day for Wrath557's 1K Celebration by amarillo_tail  (GC42Y83).  I spent the afternoon hiking over to Mud Island and exploring parts of downtown Memphis.  By the time, I got back to my home base, it was getting dark and I knew that I wouldn't be able to hunt any geocaches before the event.  Of course, not having my GPSr with me also limited any possible cache hunting.

The event was a pizza party held at Garibaldi's Pizza near the University of Memphis.  I hadn't been to Garibaldi's since I was a college student 25 years or so ago.  I don't recall eating there when I was a grad student, even though I lived a couple of blocks away...  Anyways, it was great to go back!  I got there early, and sat with peanutpapa   Soon the pizza came and I made sure to eat my fair share of it.  Wrath557's golden ammo can sat at the next table, and it was full of goodies even before other cachers arrived.

As usual, I didn't mingle very much, but I enjoyed hearing that peanutpapa had placed some new caches at W.C. Johnson Park in Collierville.  I got to discover a bunch of cool geocoins that BnJBish brought as well as a cool Star Trek travel bug.

I left a little early, but overall I had a pretty good time.  By the time I left, Wrath557's ammo can had probably the most swag I've seen.

Also, I'd like to take this opportunity to congratulate pcsenn for his 5k find.  An event was hosted for him on New Year's Day by tatersfan.

Flash Mob at the Memphis Zoo - 1/1/2013

I did no caching over my extended Christmas break.  I just haven't felt up to it.  As a matter of fact, I almost forgot that I had signed up for The Zoo Flash Mob by Playful Seaotter (GC42XV3) on New Year's Day.  I arrived at the park with only a minute or two to spare.  A 15 minute event lasted about an hour with everyone discussing geocaching-related matters.

As the event was breaking up, some of the other cachers wanted to take advantage of the fact that zoo admission on Tuesdays after 2pm is free to Tennessee residents and find the cache located on the zoo grounds.  A group of seven made our way to the Teton Trak exhibit where the cache was supposed to be located.  When we couldn't find the cache, we discovered in the online logs that the cache had DNFs stretching back to the summer.  We managed as a group to improvise a new container and log and marked the cache as found.  It was really too cold to tour the rest of the zoo so we parted ways.

Celebrating 12/12/12 Geocaching Style - 12/12/2012

There were two local events marking 12/12/12 this Wednesday.  One was a CITO in Millington at noon and the second was 12-12-12 in the Southeast Corner of Shelby County by Team SpiderMonkey (GC41YG3).  Attending the CITO would have been fun, but would have meant taking the day off of work.  I would have also had the fun of hauling 76Stinger out of the nearby park after he broke his ankle doing something typically Stingeresque.

The night time event was in Collierville at 6:12 pm.  It was a bit of a stretch for me to get there on time, especially after I discovered that I didn't have the coordinates to the park it was being held in.  I made it with 10 minutes to spare.  It was nice and cold for being an outdoor event, and we ended up leaving the gazebo we met up at so that some unlucky dude could propose to his girlfriend.

We moved over to the nearby train depot where we got to discover some interesting travel bugs and coins.  Naturally, I couldn't read the tiny tracking codes on the items, so another cacher read them to me.

Afterwards, most of the group walked over to Dyer's Hamburgers for a bite to eat.  We all sat at a long table and since their was only one cook on duty and I was at the far end of the table, I got my food just as people at the other end were leaving.  It was a fun evening, though, and I spent a little extra time after it was over to check out Christmas decorations around the town square.