1. Nov 02 ’09 – Indiana Jones and the Secret of Acorn’s Nuts (find # 115)
2. Nov 03 ’09 – McRonalds 9  (find # 116)
3. Nov 03 ’09 – Billy Joe Bob’s Bait and Tackle  (find # 117)
4. Nov 06 ’09 – Hanging Around In the Park – Part 4  (find # 118)
5. Nov 07 ’09 – More Mountain House  (find # 119)
6. Nov 07 ’09 – Take a Hike Take a Bike  (find # 120)
7. Nov 07 ’09 – Stranded in Mountain House  (find # 121)
8. Nov 07 ’09 – Clifton’s Court quad  (find # 122)
9. Nov 09 ’09 – 3 goats & the troll  (find # 123)
10. Nov 11 ’09 – CFB #1  (find # 124)
11. Nov 18 ’09 – Soy Vey!!  (find # 125)
12. Nov 19 ’09 – Payne Family Cache  (find # 126)
13. Nov 20 ’09 – Lone Cone  (find # 127)
14. Nov 20 ’09 – Nuttin’ Honey  (find # 128)
15. Nov 20 ’09 – Bal-Mart  (find # 129)
16. Nov 23 ’09 – Just Around the Corner  (find # 130)
17. Nov 24 ’09 – A Rocky Start  (find # 131)
18. Nov 24 ’09 – Guido’s Shameless Plug  (find # 132)
19. Nov 24 ’09 – High Tech Easter Egg Hunt  (find # 133)
20. Nov 24 ’09 – Ultimate Spiderman #9  (find # 134)
21. Nov 24 ’09 – Spring Scooby #1  (find # 135)
22. Nov 25 ’09 – Loan-ly Oak  (find # 136)
23. Nov 25 ’09 – Whitewashed at Blue Ravine  (find # 137)
24. Nov 25 ’09 – ‘M’ Easter Bunny on Blue Ravine  (find # 138)
25. Nov 26 ’09 – Chirp! Chirp!  (find # 139)
26. Nov 26 ’09 – Elverta’s New End  (find # 140)
27. Nov 27 ’09 – Midway Water Works  (find # 141)
28. Nov 27 ’09 – Tracy Triangle #3  (find # 142)
29. Nov 27 ’09 – Tracy Triangle #4  (find # 143)
30. Nov 30 ’09 – Pot O’ Gold  (find # 144)

1,976 days after my first find I discovered (with another set of eyes) my 100th Geocache! Hurray. I guess that’s an average of 1 every 19.76 days. Boy is that average misleading. There have been years between caches.

Forward, on and a personal goal of 9 days between caches for the next 100!

Hurray for me!

Today I needed a slight diversion from work. It was one of those days where I realized I was sitting there staring at the computer screen watching the progress bar slowly crawl across the screen. I’ve got five other applications open at the same time and was trying to do what little I could on each. It was not too long before I realized that I was staring at the screen for almost 10 minutes waiting for some application to respond so I could do just a little sliver of work.

Somewhere inside my mind something clicked and said, “Wouldn’t this be a good time for a twenty minute break, if I’m lucky I will have access to my computer by then?” I pulled up the geocaching.com website, found a cache less then 500 feet from my desk and set out.

It took longer than expected to find a tube about 2½” long by ½” diameter. When I went out I had no idea what shape or size I was looking for but it did not take long to deduce that it must be pretty small. Eventually, I figured out to pick up a partial brick, which was quite out of place. The brick had a small hole drilled to exactly the size of the bison tube.

I certainly love caches so well camouflaged because it gives me a mental workout, but on the other had I’m not sure why it takes so long to figure it out. It helped that the cache name was “A Rock of a Different Color.” You certainly can’t give too much more away without handing it to someone.

It’s been quite a while since I’ve picked up my GPS.

Well I pulled it out this last weekend and uncovered 3 caches within easy walking distance from our house. A few years ago there were two within 3 miles of our house.

Look at the map below…

1½ years ago there was one other cache within 20 miles of Big Lake. (circled area is Big Lake, Alaska.)

Now we’re looking at more than 64. You see this brother-in-law! Wohoo! More RV off-roading! (well maybe we can find an older RV again)

Wow! I had forgotten how much I love to find hidden treasure! A little over 3 years ago I heard about geocaching, bought a GPS off eBay and went crazy finding everything I could. Then, as most activities do, the fever waned and was replaced by something else.

About 2 years ago I placed a cache near our vacation rental in Alaska. At the time there were none in the area. The closest cache was about 15 miles away but the bulk being about 60 miles away. Now there are several in the Big Lake area of Alaska. As with all things, it was time to retire the cache and move on. Maintenance was a tough issue when cachers reported moisture. As part of the retirement of the cache I found that there was a geoCoin that needed to move on. I took the coin out of the cache and reported that I would move it on. This was an almost reluctant gesture since, as I have stated, much of my zeal morphed to fond memories.

Well, today things were slow enough at the office that I could afford a few minutes out to place the coin in another cache if there was one close by. Lo and behold there was an ideal one less than 1 mile away. It was straightforward to get in the general area but truthfully I lost my edge at finding caches. To be sure the GPS navigated me to within 12 feet. The all around me for at least 100 feet in every direction were 30 foot high piles of rock left over from a long forgotten mining operation. Somewhere under one rock was a 12″ x 4″ x 4″ steel box.

I had to look with an eagle eye and ponder where would be a good location to hide a cache as I tried to get inside the mind of the person who placed it. There was some frustration and a few encounters with those nasty burrs on my socks, shoes and pants but when I did find it what a rush.

I like this game!

It’s been quite a few months since I’ve been out Geocaching. Yesterday afternoon I went out with a group of men to find a few caches in the Donner Lake area. Our first destination was one that we had attempted about a year ago.

The snow was still quite deep last year and with a larger percentage of snow melted this year we thought we’d have an excellent chance of finding this cache. The location was on the fringes of Donner Memorial State Park. We traveled directly to the general location but when we were within 500′ the forest was so think that the 2 GPSr’s were given very erratic readings.

Off we headed, empty handed, to a second cache near Donner Ski area (7000+ ft). This one was located near an old snowshed for the transcontinental railroad. There was a little bit of a trek through the snow. We were able to park within a quarter mile of the cache. It was a very nice walk with a gorgeous view of Donner Lake. On the way back we decided to walk through one of the snowshed tunnels. The tracks had been removed and the hand carved tunnel was full of ice. We estimate that it was about one third mile in length. The entire length of the tunnel was covered with ice so it was slow going and pretty slippery with street shoes on. It was a rather fascinating experience. Took me back more than a century and a half as I was thinking about the laborers hand carving the tunnel through the mountain.

A highly recommended family activity and specifically a great location.