Chaco Cultural National Historical Park

After almost 10 years in New Mexico Cyndi and I decided it was time to go see Chaco Canyon. What a hike, and what a trip. It was great. Weather was perfect, not too many people in the park, and even the elk were out in the afternoon. There is only one virtual cache in the park, which is a shame. This is a perfect example of why Groundspeak needs to come up with a way to do virtual caches for historic areas. The park isn't necessarily the place for an earthcache, although that would work. The cache in the park, GCF7CA Historic Rock Art is a nice hike on a mostly flat well marked trail. It took us a couple of hours to walk the round trip and it was worth every step.
On the way to Chaco we saw some Pronghorns along US 550, and of course the small elk herd in the park. If driving a long ways down a dirt road bothers you, well you are going to miss out on some wonderful sites, and Chaco Canyon is one. It's well worth the drive and the hike. If you go in the summer take water. If you think you have enough water, take some more, you won't regret it. Just like you won't regret making the trip.

One year, 369 caches and a whole lot more

A year ago today I woke up with 979 caches and a goal of making 100 by my birthday. I had 10 days to get there and was feeling pretty good about that. I went out and got 3 not far from the house, then went after a few more including one that was one of the oldest in Albuquerque. By the time I was ready to go home in the morning I had 9 caches found. Now I was thinking, I could get the rest of the caches I needed if Cachingwidow was up to it. Well off we went, got one of those thorn in the side caches that I had looked for several times, and that seemed to be a good sign. Gas was still fairly cheap, compared to today anyway, so we just kept on going. By 4:30 I had 20 caches in the can. I picked the New Mexico County Challenge, Bernalillo as my 1000th find. Cachingwidow, our middle son and his girlfriend headed out and after a nice warm evening hike we got my 1000th find. I ended up with 21 on the day, which is still my best day of caching. I was also on a streak that ended up stretching to 103 straight days with a find.

At the time I thought that was pretty good, I was looking forward to a trip to Florida which meant I could add another state to my map, and the chance to meet some new cachers. That was about the only thing that happened the way I planned. We knew that we were going to be in Denver with Chris for a bone marrow transplant, and I figured that I could make a run to Kansas and Nebraska and add two more states to the list. Well we never made it to Denver. Chris never went into remission, and instead of going to Denver for his transplant we brought him home to spend his last days with his family. Caching took a back seat to everything else. After Chris died we didn't cache a lot. Oh we went out here and there, and even went on event in Roswell, (No aliens to report) but we didn't cache like we had been.
I still go out and cache. Even went after one this morning, and was the first to log a DNF. Not what I was hoping for. I'm hoping to get to 1400 by my birthday, I have 10 days and now I need 31. Even if I don't get it that's okay. The goals of caching are not as important as they used to be, but the relaxation of a good day of caching is still nice.
We found that we can survive more than we thought, and we remember what is important. If anyone is reading this, go out and cache, enjoy your family, and remember what is important.

Fathers day caching

Cachingwidow and I went out on Fathers day to do some caching. There was no way I wanted to sit around the house on fathers day, not this year. So we went to get some of the New Mexico Challenge Geocaches. The original New Mexico Challenge, was set up by New Mexico Geocachers.com who placed one cache in every county. So there are 33 caches to be found. When the challenge came out Cachingwidow and I were dealing with Chris's treatment and didn't get a chance to get out and get any of the caches. Since the challenge has been out for a year many cachers have completed it, but with the price of gas I think people are less likely to go out just to find these caches. We went after McKinley and Cibola Counties, on Sunday. Now we used to live in McKinley county, but have never found a cache there. Well we got five, on the way to the McKinley county. After that we got the Cibola county cache and 3 more in a place called Zuni Canyon. None of the caches were particularly hard, just lots of driving which gave Cachingwidow and I the chance to visit. We also got into some country that we had never been in before which is alway a nice thing. I think that is one of my favorite things about caching, seeing places that I never would have gone into if there hadn't been a cache. For the weekend I added 10 to the total. Saturday I got one at the New Mexico Veterans Memorial, a beautiful site, that was very peaceful. I was having trouble finding the cache and decided to check the cache page on Geocaching.com through the WAP site. The coordinates had been changed so as I was getting the new coordinates into my palm I heard what sounded like gun fire, then a couple of seconds later I heard it again, and then a third time. Right after the third time I heard the sound of a bugle playing Taps and remembered there is a cemetery very close to here. It reminded me once again of the sacrifice made by so many so that I could be out Geocaching on a Saturday morning. I have no idea who the veteran was that was being laid to rest, but I know that who ever it was, at one point in time in their life they put on the uniform of one of the Armed services and served. All I could do at that moment was ask God to bring peace and comfort to the family, and for God to bless that veteran, and all the veteran's that have taken up arms in the service of our nation.

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.

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.

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 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.