Geocaching, geocoins and the many roads of life.
This is made up of stories from my caching and my reviewing. It is a collection of those along with comments and thoughts. Photos, and maps of some adventures and lists of some of the oldest caches.
And now comes day two in my cache photos. These are photos that people have taken on my caches. I though I would share them here with you.
GC5H5DG by Duo Cothe
GC2DWW5 by CalMadDVM A house on a wherigo tour.
GC2R008 by geodarts one of my first Earthcaches. The start of 50.
GC2VBGQ by mortarkaleo
GC3YM2P by snownom He passed away a few years ago. This was in some old ruins,.
GC5FM6F by rozebud5
GC5H57B by MountainHobbit
GC5J49Q by janiv
Thanks for the photos guys.
Far too often we never look at the photos that people place on your caches. You really never see them, you are not notified of them, and often they are kind of dumb. I have a ton of Earthcaches with dozens upon dozens of photos of someone holding their GPS. I don't ask them to take a photo of their GPS, or their forhead, or whatever, but I get them.
Once and a while you get some cool photos. Something that says. "thanks for bringing me here" Today I thought I would share some. I was going through them today. I wish there was a quick and nice button to hunt for photos on my caches alone. I tried to stick to no more than one per cache.
GC1CNE6 by Scipio43This is a little bit away from the cache, but a cool pictures
GC1CNEA by billdevCows out eating in the marsh
GC1EF22 by snownomiI loved this stamp he used. He passed away a year or more ago. I miss his smiling gace and logs.
GC1FQ25 by fam2goa picture from one of my Wherigo tours.
GC1TKKNSilverheelsA shot from an Earthcache. at Castle rock campground. I will be honest, I edited the photos rotation a bit.
GC1XPWP drgw3128Another shot from a Wherigo, of one of my Pirate containers for a geocachie. He was crazy enough to go hunt in the snow for it.
GC1XPYD Sierrawildflower & GeoHikerAnother ending to a Wherigo. You have to have treasure at the end of a pirates treasure hunt.
GC1XWTR zacknmomI placed a cache at a simple walk to overlook. It was when I took DK Titan out for a caching run. You walk over the hill top, some 30 yards from the road, and this is what you see.
GC2BV56 toja7A nice wade to get to the other side. They did not want to walk around.
GC2CPRQ cold1He always complains that I am out to kill him by placing caches. This was possibly the closest I came to doing it. Maybe next time.
GC2DG6M JacobBarlowAnother small hike. I think it was only a few hundred yards. See that point way over there. I place a cache on that point as well.
Hope you enjoyed them. I have another two groups of 10 with my favorite caching photos, on my caches to come.
I have not written in some time. I keep thinking of getting back into it. I felt this was the time.
A few months ago Prime Reviewer stepped away from reviewing suddenly. He was a private individual and he did not share a lot of info about his private life with the caching community, and other reviewers. I had reviewed Earthcacches in Texas for six years, so I had some communication with him.
He ran a number of websites that suddenly went dark (Evince and a few others). Many of us worried, I did not hear from him, and assumed that he was burned out and just wanted to get away. Then the word came that he had passed away. I was saddened, as many were, in his passing, then I wanted to take a moment to think of his contributions.
I don't know who took this photo, but it was being shared around facebook, and I wanted something here for him.
I think most do not realize what this man accomplished. He did not toot his own horn, or stand on a hill and pronounce it to the world. However, in my opinion, the work that he has done on behalf of caching is more prominent than anyone outside of Geocaching HQ.
Prime published a lot of caches. A lot, lots, tons, way more than tons. As far as I understand he published more as a reviewer in Texas than any other reviewer. I can't give numbers, but 10-12 times the numbers of most reviewers. He published more in some busy years than most reviewers ever publish.
He was also very active for 13 years in the reviewers forum. As far as I am aware of no one posted more of his opinions, helps, guides, advice, criticisms, and ideas. On the same scale as above. Most lurk and do not voice opinions, yet he was always in the thick of it.
Then were the little programs, helps, macros, and guides he published to help the reviewers (and players) help in the game. I do not know of more than one or two reviewers that do not use his programs. When I came on board in 2009 there was a list of a bunch for me to choose from, the reviewer that trained me spent hours helping get them set up and running correctly.
He worked tirelessly in Texas. His love for the game was seen by many. However I think few will ever see how much advice and help he gave the caching community. I will easily state that no one outside of Geocaching HQ did as much for caching as he did, but most will not see that. Your caches for the last decade or more, in England, Austrailia, Germany, USA, and especially in Texas were touched by this man.
I salute you Prime. Thank you for all you have given. See you on the other side.
Well they are back. I have really liked challenge caches. I know some of you do not, but I enjoy setting goals and working towards them. They are something that I do not dive into a ton, but I do like to have something to work towards other than the next number. I would rather go find 7-8 caches that are interesting, than grab 200 for the next milestone.
Now you actually have to meet the challenge before placing. I am not a big fan of this, but it helps the reviewer know if it is just a crazy challenge or not. Meh, I can live with it.
You have to have a checker from project-gc.com I am not a huge fan of project gc, but I don't hate it. I wish they had allowed GSAK as well. However I understand that they do not want people to have to download anything. Hopefully new online checkers will arise.
One of the most notable changes is caches based on titles and GC codes will go away. These made up a lot in my area. They are easily changed, manipulated, caches are placed to foil them, owners try to not include caches placed after. It just became an appeals mess, and a logistical nightmare if you were following many. I will miss them, but apparently many will not.
They need to be at the coordinates, or have a visible waypoint. Not a huge change, but new. I hated the hidden ones, or the ones that you have to contact the owner. They seem to never respond.
I did this locally anyway, but I know there is one for a three year streak out there somewhere.
No more caches based on you getting every cache in an area. Another one I hated. One hard or missing cache and you were stuck. It encouraged people to try and get those archived.
You cant start a challenge at a specific date. Every find must count. That may leave out those that have found a lot. They may have found all the caches needed.
Well, thats it for how. I will see about more later after I get questions and think some more.
This is an experiment. I thought I would grab some logs off the most recent caches I have published. Just to share. I have not looked yet, so as I start copying they may be boring or interesting.
Got up early this morning and made a little hike to the cache and was the FTF.
Sure was nice and peaceful out here and just to listen to the birds making their sounds. TFTC SL
FTF this morning at 5:30. I woke up this morning to find that a cache had gotten published while I was sleeping. After seeing that it still hadn't been found I quickly got dressed and headed out. I was able to come up with it after a short systematic search.
I've lost track of the number of caches I've found in this park over the years. One of my very first FTFs was here. I think this is the 4th?
Anyway, nice hide and TFTFTF.
Day #3404
FTF Woo Hoo! Took the turkey left some $.
Photo by Cold1 from Geocaching.com
FTF with Cold1 at 1:30 PM. I saw this one was published and knew Cold1 was heading down to the Salina area for work today, so I told him about it and I tagged along today. After some appointments in Gunnison this morning we cached our way down to Salina. Had to be a little sneaky because there where men doing yard work around the building. Found the cache without anyone noticing, but then Cold1 went around front to take a picture and got caught by a nice little lady and the next thing we knew we were in the museum. Some very nice painting on the cache container and I would say it looks like the great work of Madambutterfly again! Sign log, took note of the number and TFTFTF!
same cache at the same time.
Photo by Superhooper55 from geocaching.com
FTF with Superhooper as we cached our way down to this new Sevier Utah Geo Tour. Very cool building that I pass quite often while working in the area. As I was taking some pictures out front an older lady came out and invited me into the museum. She introduced us to another equally nice older lady and for the next hour we hear all about the artifacts in the building. Cache has tons of swag in it to the point that you almost can't close the lid. sl, tftc
Was just about to head out to get one that was posted this morning when this one popped up. Jumped in the car and headed out, as I got the other cache in the park several weeks ago. I spent about 20 minutes looking for this, knowing where it had to be, but not finding it. I was finally resigning myself to defeat for the evening, and started across the bridge, as someone approached me. "Are you a cacher?" he asked. When I said yes, he introduced himself as ETrunner, whom I'd never met but certainly recognized from all of his FTFs in the area. He wouldn't let me accept defeat tonight and encouraged me to join him, so we took another look together. Thanks to his sharp eyes, we quickly found it (don't know how I missed it before, but I did -- repeatedly) and put our mark on the log, with ET graciously sharing the FTF. A great find, and an even greater experience as I gained a new friend tonight. Thanks to the CO for this cache!
FTF at 10:20 this evening. Packed up misses cold1 and the coldettes. Headed out the door with flashlights. One of the coldettes found this one. Went to sign the log and realized we rushed out the door without a pen. The cache mobile is in the shop so our usual cache gear wasn't around. Ran to 7-11 to steal a pen so we could sign the log. Thanks for the family adventure!
This was a great location and great view! I did learn more about the Texas area with this earthcache. That is what it is all about! I didn't see anyone go after this one and had to make an attempt early in the AM. Glad I was able to do it! The rock formations were very interesting to look at! Also, there is a great pull off at the location and no fees to be paid to get to this one! Good Job!
Went with the +1 to Corpus Christi to watch a co-worker graduate from Texas A&M with her Master's Degree. That was exciting! But, it was also fun to go grabbing many geocaches. I focused on cemetery caches to keep getting closer to the 500 Texas Cemetery count. We had to avoid the boil notice in Corpus and then faced downpours of rain coming back home. It was a quick, fun get away. Found some good geocaches and grabbed about 24 smiles! Our logs could be signed as "TKG + S_G"
Thanks to all the hiders, without you...there wouldn't be any finders!
Photo by the thekengrene on geocaching.com
FTF at 12 noon today. Parked in Welcome Wash and hiked 2.8 miles in perfect weather with my hiking dog buddy Zinger. Very enjoyable and educational. Answers have been submitted.
Photo by Billionj on geocaching.com
Went out on a great spring morning to look at these rock to come up with the answers. Sent the CO the answers to the CO, hoping they'll work since I'm not exactly a geological whiz. But, isn't that the purpose of an earthcache, to learn something new? And I did, so thanks for setting this up. TFTC!
FTF on this one. I pulled up to use the facilities and noticed that there was an earth cache. When I checked for recent activities, the only one represented on my phone is from being published. I tried to answer the questions as best as I could and I used my phone to log this and to send the answers to the cache owner. I like this little rest area it provides a much-needed break so I can get to and through Billings. I like coming up this way from Rock Springs because the views going through the various ranges and going through the Wind River Canyon are spectacular. The only drawback is that when I reach Laural, it is interstate and limited scenery most of the way home.
I only left two out. The rest were actually pretty cool. Ok most of the logs that may have followed were not that great. But thanks to the FTF finders on making this little experiment fun.