Sunday, May 25, 2008

A good week of caching

I spent all week in Albuquerque for a training, which sucked to sit through, but helped with the caching numbers. I picked up 9 caches at lunch during the week and added a tenth that I should have gotten the first two times I looked for it. That got me to 1300 finds which felt pretty good. With a three day weekend I knew that I should be able to add to that number so I went out on Saturday morning and had a bad start to the day going 2/5 in finds. In the afternoon I took Cachingwidow with me and we got 4 more. Then we went to see the ultimate cacher, or he would have been if he'd have had a GPS, but then again he did it without a GPS. Of course I mean Indiana Jones. I won't say it was the greatest movie I've ever seen, but it was fun, like seeing a group of old friends, and some new ones. I didn't want to see a deep meaningfull movie with a ton of message, I wanted to go see a movie that was fun and it was.
Today I went out in the morning and went 7/7. I like mornings like that. We went out in the afternoon with our dogs and looked for 4 more. 1/4 on that trip, not to mention one of the dogs tried really hard to put my sweetie into a ditch. So now I'm sitting at 1316 caches and still have one more day of the weekend to add to that total. I'm trying for 1400 by my birthday in July. I won't make 2000 by the end of this year, but somewhere between 1600 and 1700 would be nice.

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Caching weekend

Well last weekend was a non caching weekend, so this turned into a pretty good weekend of caching. On Saturday we did the WWFM GC1BFR8 New Mexico event. We met in Uptown Albuquerque, a new shopping area and for 5 minutes we froze in place. We got a lot of looks like we were crazy, but we had a great time. Some people were heard to ask if we were protesting something. We just smiled and laughed.
The New Mexico Geocaching Association recently placed caches in each of the 34 State Parks. This went along with the year before when a cache was placed in each county as a challenge. Well we've found 10 or 11 of the County Caches but none of the new State Park caches. So after the event we went and found the one that is closest to Albuquerque, okay it's in Albuquerque, GC1ACFY is at the Rio Grande Nature Center. I of course chose a time when there were muggles everywhere, and made the cache harder than it had to be. But we made the find and at least have one of the State Park Caches down, 33 to go.
Mother's day today, and none of us wanted to stick around the house. Our first mother's day without Chris and staying at home would not have been good. So we went for a ride and bagged 8 more caches. Several of these are at locations that have been used in films and TV series. There are 9 in the series, we had previously found 3 of them, and today added 5 more. Yes that's right, there was a DNF in there. We also got a second to find, we were hoping for the first of course, but found out there was another group coming in the opposite direction and they beat us to it. Still 8 caches in a few hours, and most importantly some very good family time made for a nice day. I went back and looked at Google Earth and realized that there were several we could have looked for on the return part of our trip, but it's not like we won't be there again. Going through the Jemez mountains to Los Alamos is one of our favorite drives.
For Team Mopigeon, it was a good weekend of caching.


Sunday, May 4, 2008

Random Thoughts

It's been a while since I've posted, but not since I've cached. I'm up over 1270 finds, added a few more in Arizona, and have continued working towards 1300. I've also got a new Cacher set up and going. CL4, is my cousin from Bloomington MN. She came down to see us for a weekend and helped Team Mopigeon get a few more finds. We went up on Sandia Crest and then on to Santa Fe. There are a lot of nice caches in Santa Fe, and we ran into some fellow cachers at the restaurant. May looks like event month in New Mexico, Albuquerque, Santa Fe and Roswell all in consecutive weekends. The first event of the month is the World Wide Flash Mob, and we are looking forward to that event.
I've been able to get some caches at lunch, but it's starting to become a problem to find any close to work. I've got all of the ones around the area so now I'm having a harder time getting to a cache and back in the hour I have for lunch. Of course around home that is not a problem.
Not a lot more to say about caching, No real big caching adventures, just good times spent with good people, and in the end that's what caching is about much more than the numbers.

Saturday, March 29, 2008

Saturday Caching

I was getting ready to go out first thing this morning and get some caches, but I ended up waiting so I didn't go until later. Then Cachingwidow and I went out to see what we could find. Several hours later we had 5 caches found, a new geocoin icon to log and an all together good day of caching. 4 of the caches were by the same cacher and they were well done caches. The only problem was putting miles on the car and burning gas at 3.25 a gallon. To think that I would be happy to pay 2 bucks a gallon.
My E-Trex Legend CX is giving me fits again. When I first got it a year and a half ago the first few caches I placed were about 60 feet off. I did a firmware upgrade and it seemed to help. Now it's off again and I don't really know what is going on with it. Last time I checked I had the latest firmware. Today it was 45 feet off from the coordinates for the first cache we found. I don't except it to be dead on, but that makes looking for a micro a bit of a challenge. I've checked it against my Nuvi and the Nuvi seems to be much closer.
Anyway I guess in the long run it's not really a big problem. Not compared to anything that really matters. Besides I can always pull out my old Rhino 110 and use it. That thing is still pretty accurate.
So, 5 caches today, an afternoon with my sweetie and I still have Sunday to go out and get a few more caches. I'd like to get to 1230 by the end of the weekend.

Thursday, March 27, 2008

In Memory of RUNO1

Today is a sad day around team Mopigeon. Two years ago my father passed away very suddenly. About a month earlier he had found his 100th cache. In 2004 my friend Jspydr introduced me to Geocaching. I was quickly hooked. About 3 weeks later we took a trip to Arizona to see my parents for Thanksgiving. I knew dad had a GPSr so I told him about Geocaching.com, got on the site and downloaded several caches near their house. We got there and within a few hours had gone out and got a cache. Just like that I added my second state to my map. I showed my dad what caches I had mapped out, he knew the area where they were, then showed me the ones he had in mind to find. None of this in town stuff, nope we are going to the desert. Way in the desert. To a mine, did I mention way out in the desert. We got a several out there that day. It wasn't long and dad had a new GPSr and was going out on his own. Since he was retired he went out in the desert and became an FTF hound. I stayed a head of him in numbers, but he always would ask how I was doing on the first to find count.
In August of 05 we were in Montana for a family reunion, and before we had left dad and I were on the phone figuring out caches. There was only one around the area, but of course we were going to get it, and we did. Made an early morning run and took along a cousin who had never been caching. It was our first Montana cache and the last cache I found with dad.
Not long after Dad died I got this crazy idea that I could put some of his ashes in a travel bug and set it loose on the world. Mom thought it was a great idea. Some other people looked at me like I was crazy. But I don't care. A friend made the container and we sealed that sucker but good. So after keeping the bug with me for a while, we went back to our old home in Colorado to scatter some of Dad's ashes at the Black Canyon National Park. While there, on what would have been dad's 70th Birthday I got my 600th find. The next day we turned the TB loose. TB122WV is now out in the world.
Today I went out at lunch and got one of the local caches. This one's for Dad.

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Las Vegas

No caches today, I was going to go at lunch, but ended up going to lunch with some co-workers.
A month or so ago we took a trip to Las Vegas and met some friends from Colorado. We visited the strip, didn't gamble, saw Spam A Lot, (It's a riot) and of course we caching. Cachingwidow and I arrived several hours before Biggertrux and Mrs B. We got our first cache at the Hard Rock Cafe, Just Strummin Along GCD026. The next day Biggertrux and I took a walk and found our first traditional cache in Nevada Iced Cappuccino 5 GC12D2W. The rest of the day was mostly virtuals along the strip.
Saturday we decided that since we had a car, and it was only 30 miles to the CA/NV state line we would add another state to our maps. Off we went and got Just over the Fence GC18GBT and Out in the Corner GC18GBR. If your in Las Vegas and have some time and a car you can add CA to your list of states pretty easily.
All in all we got 20 caches, many virtuals, but not all. If your in Las Vegas you can find some traditional caches on the strip, and if you have a car it is a very target rich environment.

Monday, March 24, 2008

Lunch Cacheing

I have pretty well taken care of the caches near my office. There are a few that came out in September for an event that I have not gone after. We had to miss the event due to Mopigeon's illness. After Mopigeon died when I finally went back to work going out and looking for geocaches at lunch just didn't seem like anything I wanted to do. After our trip to Las Vegas in Feb. I've been more enthused about going out and getting some caches.
Today I decided I was going to go get one not far from work. Chughole GC160FW and Purple Sage GC 15ZB4 were rip for the picking and I was having one of those days that I needed to get out. So off I went with my crazy (that's accurate and I have the License and Degree that says I can say so) co-worker. We looked around, at the Chughole site, went to the wrong spot then moved along closer to the cache. I won't say much about the container, because it would give it away, lets just say it was a great use of the environment in the area.
From there we went on to Purple Sage. This was an easy cache, but brought me to one of my caching pet peeves. There was supposed to be a geocoin in the cache. The finder before me had dropped it 9 days earlier. Well sure enough no coin in the cache. I really hate that. I've lost so many coins that way and it really ticks me off. I understand that putting a coin or TB out in the caching world puts it at risk to be lost. Caches get muggled, accidently or purposefully and everything inside is gone. But when people go to a cache and take a coin, that is just irritating. I put coins out to follow their progress, let me see where they can get to, kind of a way for me to travel and get a chance to visit places I've never been. But I also except, sadly that they are going to be lost. Someone is going to look at the coin and decide that they want it and add it to their collection. I have held onto coins and bugs longer than GC.Com wants us to keep them, but I always try and move them along.
Okay enough ranting. No sense letting some one else ruin a day of caching. Because the worst day of caching is still better than the best day of work.