2013 Summer Road Trip Part I - East to West

{ I will fill this in with more details and pictures hopefully soon. ]

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.

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.