Adventures in Geocaching

Festivus: Geocaching for the Rest of Us

2011-12-18T13:00:00.010-06:00

It was exactly 14 years ago this week when Frank Costanza proudly announced that he created a new, fictional holiday called Festivus. Although Festivus is a fictional holiday, the celebration of Festivus has a very well defined set of events beginning with the "Airing of Grievances."

This usually brings participants into a circle of sorts in which each takes turns excoriating friends, enemies, relatives, acquaintances and strangers. When all who care to have taken a turn griping, there is no required hugging or making up. - http://festivusbook.com/airingofgrievances

In the spirit of Festivus, please allow me to share some of my grievances related to Geocaching.

Inappropriate sharing of personal information
Geocaching's status as a sport
Overzealous geocachers (and people who take geocaching way too seriously)
Rules-vs-guidelines (and reviewers that don't seem to know the difference)
Know-it-all geocachers (and people that just like to fight a lot)
Micros in the woods
Bad coordinates
Reckless disregard for personal property or the environment
Jeep and traveling coin collectors
Poison Ivy!

Tag Updates

2011-08-15T17:41:00.001-05:00

My apologies if your email or RSS subscriptions have been flooded with updates today. Ever since I changed this site over to the newer style Blogger template that includes labels, I haven't gone through to update all of my old posts until today. All of my posts should now be properly tagged with the Blogger labels.

PEA Contest

2011-06-11T10:17:00.002-05:00

Before I give you the information I'm supposed to pass along, I wanted to explain what this is all about first. I've been a long-time listen to the Podcacher podcast. Recently, they started a faux-secret-organization called the PEA (Podcacher Endorsement Army). Those that join are able to compete for prizes (including a special PEA pathtag) by spreading the word about the Podcacher podcast. The contest started several weeks ago and ends in 9 days, but I was behind in listening and just joined yesterday. If I'm going to have any sort of chance to win, I need your help! All I need is for you to visit http://podcacher.com/, then visit http://podcacher.com/mission1 and fill out the short form (your caching name & my caching name - M-T-P). Oh, and the best part, you are eligible to win prizes too just for helping me out! Thanks for your help! (Now for the message that I'm supposed to send out in the words I was provided.)

Hi, my caching name is M-T-P and I'm on a special covert mission. You can help me accomplish my target objectives by doing the following 1) Go to PodCacher.com and listen to some shows packed with geocaching goodness. 2) Then go to PodCacher.com/mission1 and fill out the short affidavit testifying to your collaboration as part of my strike team. NOTE: Your confirmed participation gives you the chance to win some super swagalicious goodies and it also advances my ranking among the operatives. The deadline for completion is midnight June 19, 2011 Make sure to listen to an upcoming show to see if you won. Once you have accomplished these mission objectives, please destroy all evidence and eat these instructions.

R U NUTS???

2011-05-05T08:45:00.002-05:00

Many years ago, when I first learned about geocaching, I was driving through my neighborhood when I saw a very interesting little, metal footbridge. When I saw it, I thought to myself - "Self, this spot is the perfect spot for an urban geocache." Later that day, I went home to my computer and looked online. Low and behold, there *was* a geocache at this spot. That cache became my first geocache find!

That cache was "R U NUTS??? (UMM #7)" placed by TheGeoGoes on May 3, 2004. TheGeoGoes were prominent geocachers in the Waco area from 2003-2006 and placed numerous well-loved hides. Unfortunately, they seem to have taken an extended break from geocaching for the past several years and only surface every year or two for about a month. The cache itself was a small magnetic hide-a-key container painted to match the bridge and was surprisingly difficult to locate under the bridge. The name was always somewhat funny (and maybe a little tacky too) because this bridge is on a public path near a row of hospitals and doctors' offices, but most closely in front of a local psychiatric hospital.

Last month, TheGeoGoes finally decided to archive this cache and several other geocaches despite the container still being there and found fairly often. So in honor of that cache by TheGeoGoes and to celebrate my first find, I placed a new, identical geocache designed to finally answer the question asked by their original geocache so many years ago - I M NUTS!!!

Introducing the New Geocaching.com Website

2011-05-03T13:45:00.001-05:00

Groundspeak recently announced that they are going to completely redo the geocaching.com website. To see a preview of what is coming on May 4th, view this short clip released by Groundspeak.

M-T-P Pathtag

2011-04-12T13:56:00.001-05:00

I've noticed in my most recent comeback to geocaching that pathtags have finally made their way into central Texas. It is certainly possible that they've been around this area for quite a while, but I never really saw them before except for in the north Texas area where I picked up two pathtags created by TXOILGAS and Muddy Buddies at an event. In one of my recent cache finds, I discovered two other pathtags from two central Texas cachers - Entwined55 and Nip-N-Tuck.

I had been considering the possibility of creating a signature pathtag for several months, but after I saw cmiked's new Twitter icon of his pathtag, I knew it was finally time for an M-T-P pathtag. After many weeks of design tweaks and blueprint modifications, I am pleased to announce that I approved my blueprint and production of my first pathtag has begun!

EarthCache Master

2011-03-14T17:08:00.001-05:00

When I first began Geocaching in 2004 and throughout 2005, EarthCaches were extremely rare in Texas. In fact, until December 2006, there were only three EarthCaches within a 200 mile radius of my home caching territory - the closest of those being almost 70 miles away. Because of this, I have always viewed EarthCaches as somewhat of a rarity and something really special to be found. It wasn't until October 2007 that I found my first EarthCache - Canyon Falls of McCormick's Creek (GC16PX4) in Indiana.

Last week, I found two more EarthCaches - just enough to qualify to become an "EarthCache Master" at the bronze level. One of these EarthCaches was the one around 70 miles away from my home territory - Dinosaur Valley Earthcache (GCQMHY) in Dinosaur Valley State Park, TX. If you've ever wanted to step inside *real* dinosaur footprints still in their natural state, this is the place to go! The other cache was around 180 miles away - Wichita River (GC1PN9J) in Wichita Falls, TX.

There are many other EarthCaches closer to my home territory now. In fact, there are 73 EarthCaches within the same 200 mile radius at the time I wrote this post with some created as recently as last month.

So what exactly are EarthCaches?

EarthCaching is an Earth science/geography-based educational activity that draws from the ever-increasing use of GPS receivers and the growing popularity of geocaching. Educators and others realize that Earth itself offers its own treasures to uncover and endless opportunities for exploration, discovery, and learning. EarthCache sites, then, are “virtual” caches that provide the visitor who finds them with new knowledge or insights about the location itself - an “educational treasure” which is arguably more valuable than a trinket anyway!

Instead of leaving or taking anything from the site, visitors are asked to follow the EarthCache notes, make and record observations while at the site, and then log their visit on the EarthCache web site by reporting what they learned. Like geocaches, EarthCaches are developed by people all over the world. However, because they are meant to be educational, all EarthCache sites that are posted on the EarthCache web site must provide some scientific information about the site. All EarthCache locations that are submitted for posting are subject to approval and oversight by the Geological Society of America (GSA).
http://rock.geosociety.org/Earthcache/WebBook/EarthCaching_EducatorsGuide.pdf

If you are interested in EarthCaches, I recommend that you begin by visiting the http://earthcache.org/ website to learn more about this cache type and then search for EarthCaches near you on the http://geocaching.com/ website. Once you find at least three EarthCaches in at least two states/countries, you too can qualify to become an EarthCache Master.

FTF Hunts

2011-02-21T17:54:00.001-06:00

Image from http://landsharkz.ca/

One of the things that I really enjoy about geocaching is the thrill of being FTF - First To Find. This special honor comes from being the first geocacher to find a newly published geocache, and is usually accompanied by a little Jig known as the FTF Dance - a slightly longer and more vigorous version of the normal Geocaching Happy Dance.

Over the years, I've been FTF on just over two-dozen caches. In fact, my only traditional cache find in 2010 was an FTF on a monstrously difficult puzzle cache that stayed unfound for well over two years - GC18N56. A couple of weeks ago, I saw another cache published about 20 miles from home and decided to be FTF on that one too since it was still unfound after several days.

However, neither of these recent FTF's were really true FTF hunts. Don't get me wrong, I was the first finder on both geocaches and signed a clean log book, but both caches were published online for several days (or years in the first example) before being found. This usually happens with out-of-town geocaches and difficult puzzles.

A true FTF hunt is different. A true FTF hunt usually occurs when a new geocache is published in the middle of a safe, suburban area and is sought after by numerous geocachers within hours of being published. True FTF hunters often have email and SMS alerts notifying them of such caches and are often ready to be FTF anytime day-or-night.

Although I don't have email or SMS alerts notifying me of new caches, I decided to go on one of these FTF hunts anyway last week. The cache was published in the early evening hours and was just 2 miles away in a very safe and easily accessible residential area. I knew when I saw the cache listed on the website that it would be popular that night, but I didn't realize exactly how popular until I checked Twitter and signed the geocache log as STF.

This is the Twitter dialog from that night. Both of the first two messages were posted at almost exactly the same time - 9:17pm. The last message was posted at 9:35pm.

Blog Fade, Cache Fade, and Resurrection - Part 3

2011-02-16T11:35:00.061-06:00

In the final part of this "blog fade" series of posts, I want to share with you about an exciting new service that I've integrated into the individual posts of this site - Readability. A few weeks ago - on January 29, 2011 to be exact - the team at Arc90 released the new version of the Readability service. Previously, Readability was a little browser bookmarklet that stripped away all the cruft from a website leaving just the text behind - almost like a print-preview if you will. Now, the service from Readability does that and so much more!

From their website (https://www.readability.com/learn-more/):

Read comfortably — anytime, anywhere.

Readability turns any web page into a comfortable reading view right in your web browser. Too busy to read right then and there? Readability makes it simple to save your favorite articles for reading later.

Readability works on all major phones and tablets. It detects your device and optimizes your reading view for maximum comfort.

As a Readability subscriber, you’ll be a part of something bigger: a sustainable publishing ecosystem. Here’s how it works: every time you use Readability on a particular article, a portion of your subscription fees go right to the content creators. You get a fantastic reading experience. Publishers and writers get compensated for the content you enjoy. Everyone reads happily ever after.

Arc90 is also working with Marco Arment (founder of one of my favorite web services - Instapaper) to create a Readability app for iOS devices. In addition to creating the app, Marco is an advisor for Arc90 about the Readability service so you know it will be good. You can read Marco's blog post about his involvement with Readability here, http://www.marco.org/3044068415.

In order to make it easy for you to use Readability, I've discretely added the Readability button underneath the post header for all individual posts and pages. Since Readability isn't designed to work on main collection pages, the main page of this blog will not contain Readability links. So if you want to try out Readability, click on the the title of any blog post to visit that individual article. Then simply click on "Read: Now" to see that article optimized for your reading pleasure by Readability. If you like it, consider joining to support future development of the service and to support content creators - including me!

Blog Fade, Cache Fade, and Resurrection - Part 2

2011-02-15T14:23:00.000-06:00

In the time since my first post in 2005, blogging technology has changed dramatically, so it was time that this site change as well. In part two of this post, I want to briefly share what is new and different on this site before I return you to your regular geocaching programming.

For those who might not know or remember what this site looked like before - and I'm not so vain to assume that you do - this site used a somewhat customized version of the Rounders 3 template provided in the old template library in pre-2008 Blogger.

The old blue/green/tan template worked well for a number of years. But it was not widget-based, so any customizations including side-bar changes required direct editing of the main template file itself. To work around this limitation, I used multiple embedded JSON feeds from delicious.com (del.icio.us back then) to display both the popular posts list, tag-based categories, and the other blogroll-type lists on the page. At the time, this was a fairly unique use of social bookmarking. Now, it is just old and kludgy.

The new site uses a version of the Picture Window theme built from the Blogger Theme Designer that was customized slightly for my personal use. It is widget-based and allows me to reorganize and rearrange the sections of this blog simply by dragging-and-dropping. It uses Blogger's built-in (powered by Google) search, popular posts lists, list of followers, and category labels.

The old site contained Google Adwords at the top of each and every post. The new site doesn't. I still use Google Adwords, but never within the posts themselves. They are limited to the small gap between posts and only appear after every 3rd post.

I also changed the manually-coded sharing/subscribe section to use a customized widget from http://www.addthis.com/. This new "Bookmark and Share" section displays popular sharing/bookmarking options that are unique to each visitor based on the sites and services that each visitor has used recently. All visitors will see the Google, Facebook, Twitter, Instapaper, and Evernote buttons [my personal fave five], but the rest could differ for each visitor. For example, if visitor "A" normally shares links on Digg, that button will appear higher in the list. If visitor "B" normally shares links on Tumblr, that button will appear higher in the list. If visitor "C" normally bookmarks links on Diigo, that button will appear higher in the list. Altogether there are over 300 various bookmarking and sharing services available to users that can be accessed under the last AddThis button. So regardless of where you like to share or bookmark links, you can now do so quickly and easily!

Blog Fade, Cache Fade, and Resurrection - Part 1

2011-02-14T13:32:00.004-06:00

Whether you are (were) a long-time subscriber to this site or are a new visitor here, you will no doubt notice that the post just prior to this one was dated over two years ago (2 years 147 days to be exact). As you have no doubt guessed, this site was a tragic victim of "blog fade" - the fictional blogging condition where blog authors gradually stop posting to their blogs and often abandon their blogs entirely over a period of time.

Sadly, if you look at my cache stats on my geocaching profile, you'll notice a very similar trend there too. When I first began geocaching in 2005, I found 168 caches that year. Since then, my cache finds have steadily decreased to almost none in 2010 (only 1 traditional and 3 virtuals at Disney World).

The good news is this - I'm back! Of course I can't say how long I'll be back, but in just the first few weeks of 2011, I've already found 15 caches. If you need help with the math from the chart above, that is the same number of cache finds for 2009 and 2010 combined! While that total may not be very many for most geocachers, it is tremendous amount in a short period of time compared to the last 4 years for me.

So in the spirit of my return to geocaching, I decided to resurrect my Adventures in Geocaching blog too!

Too many bad coordinates!

2008-11-18T15:55:00.010-06:00

Although I've been geocaching for several years now, I've been taking it easy for the past year or two. In my recent return to geocaching, I've noticed something that I never really noticed a few years ago - coordinates WAY off from where the cache is described to be. For some, the coordinates seem to be just too inaccurate and well beyond any normal range. For others, the coordinates appear to be taken in one format (DegDec) but posted online in another (MinDec) without proper conversion.

These two examples come to mind:

1) Kinder Island by cwnation (GC1E5JD) - This cache includes the following statement, "should not be to hard once you make it to the island." However, the coordinates place this cache in the lake almost 100 feet from any island. This is an example of grossly inaccurate coordinates.

2) Jacobs Latter by Rohan Clan (GC1G7M5) - This cache includes the following statement, "Located on a populer path in camron park." However, the last time I checked, the Cameron Park with a landmark called Jacobs Ladder near a popular path is in Waco, not in Peoria. That's over 26 miles away! This is an example of coordinates recorded in DegDec format, but posted online in MinDec format without being converted. [Yes, that matters; no, you can't just move the decimal over a couple of places.]

Is this coordinate confusion becoming the new trend? How is it possible for a cache owner to view their cache page, see the map of their cache so far away, and do nothing to fix it? My little yellow eTrex can at least put the cache in the correct county! Isn't THIS the reason we have reviewers?

Geocaching Without a GPS

2008-10-23T15:57:00.009-05:00

Is a Global Positioning System (GPS) Receiver necessary for modern Geocachers?

In this modern age of detailed street maps, satellite maps, and now even "street view" photographs available at your fingertips, is a GPS receiver still necessary? To illustrate my point, I was in downtown Houston last week for a conference and was staying on the upper floor of a deluxe hotel. Even though I forgot to bring my hand-held GPS with me on the trip, I decided to locate my hotel on a Geocaching.com map to see how many geocaches were nearby. There happened to be two caches within a block of my hotel - one of which was right outside my window. Despite not having my GPS receiver with me, I decided that I wanted to go hunting for these caches anyway.

To find each cache, I thoroughly read the cache description, pulled up the Google Map view of the coordinates, zoomed in as much as possible, and could identify within approximately 10-12 feet exactly where the cache was hidden. If fact, I felt more confident about finding this cache than I usually do whenever I use my GPS. Not only did I know what area of town the cache was in, what street it was near, and what park it was inside; I could tell which tree it was under and almost which side of the shrubs it was on. Needless to say, it took me longer to ride the elevator down from my hotel room than it did to find this cache - even without a GPS.
Aerial views are great, but Google has now gone one step further and added Street Views to its maps for most major metropolitan areas. This extremely close view can help you pinpoint exactly where a cache is located from ground-level. Using this feature, urban geocachers can not only see what an area looks like from above, they can view extremely close details of the hide location allowing them to scout out an area well before they arrive on the scene to begin searching. So, is a GPS receiver still necessary for Geocaching?

Indiana Earth Cache

2008-09-20T16:49:00.005-05:00

I've been hoping to have the opportunity to find an Earthcache since the first day that I began caching. Earlier this month, the opportunity presented itself while I was at a family reunion in McCormick's Creek State Park near Spencer, Indiana. While staying in the Canyon Creek Inn, I pulled up Geocaching.com, entered my current location, and noticed that I was surrounded by caches of varying difficulty. Since I didn't have too much time, I had to make my decision carefully, and that is when I noticed GC16PX4: Canyon Falls of McCormick's Creek. This was my first cache in Indiana, my first Earthcache, and my first cache in about six months.

Year in Review: March 2007 - March 2008

2008-03-18T15:44:00.006-05:00

Over a year has gone by since my last post. Sadly, part of this is due to my own lack of geocaching over the past 12 months. In fact, I've only found 16 caches this past year. In this post, I'll bring you up to speed on my adventures in geocaching and let you know some exciting news about the Texas County Challenge.

This past summer, I took my family with me on a business trip to Boston, MA. It was fantastic and we all had a great time. However, no trip out-of-state would be complete without finding at least one geocache in the process, and that's exactly what I did - found one geocache, Troll Lord Magnar - Boston's Mine. It was a nice cache in the middle of the Boston Common near a large statue and an old WWI mine. Although my family and I walked all over Boston during the week we were there, this was the only cache that I attempted to find. Otherwise, I found a couple of caches in north Texas near the Oklahoma border and a handful here in central Texas.

There was much more excitement with the Texas County Challenge. Just to refresh your memory, the Texas County Challenge is a physical cache that can only be found after finding or hiding a cache in all 254 counties in the state of Texas. In April 2007, TxOilGas became the first geocacher to complete this challenge. In May, his finds and hides were verified and he was the FTF on the Texas County Challenge. Later that summer, the second, third, fourth, and fifth cachers to complete the challenge also found the cache. A HUGE congratulations goes to TxOilGas (FTF), Blizzard (STF), Little Red Wagon (3TF), Enduroking (4TF), and les7h (5TF).

After the celebration event for the 5TF, les7h, I handed the reigns of the Texas County Challenge to the #2 man, Blizzard by allowing him to officially adopt this cache.

The Hunt for More Dallas Coin Finale - Part 2

2007-03-03T13:00:00.000-06:00

This is the second part of my account of what happened in the final hours of the Dallas coin hunt in the Dr. Pepper: Hunt for More treasure hunt.

Knowing that it was already after 2:00am and we would be returning less than 2.5 hours later, we decided that we would just go and grab a bite to eat at Denny's before returning to the park entrance around 4:20am. As we were approaching the park again, we saw what we thought was the same police car driving away from the park. Shortly after, we could see the first of many cars re-entering the park well before 5:00am. My wife and I decided that if we were going to find the coin and win the hunt that we would at least do so honestly and play by the rules. One of the official rules says, "Do not enter locked or closed premises or premises without authorization." To us, this included White Rock Lake park until 5:00am, so we sat and impatiently waited.

We knew that if the coin were just recently hidden between 2:00-5:00am under the small footbridge closest to the stone tables (the same bridge that we had thoroughly searched hours before) that it would easily have been found already by the pre-5:00am searchers. So we decided that we would thoroughly search one of the other bridges in that section of the park. There were two road bridges and one additional wooden foot bridge over the creeks branching off of the lake giving us a 1 in 4 chance of searching the correct place. Because of the words "amble," "ramble," and "rover," we thought our best bet would be the one remaining large footbridge over the creek instead of the two road bridges.

As soon as our car's clock said 5:00am, we drove to our bridge location and began our search. When we arrived, we were the first car parked there, but not the first people searching. One of the cars that we could see driving through the area before 5:00am was apparently dropping people off at the various bridges in the park and leaving again trying to avoid being caught by the police officer. Even though we knew we weren't the first hunters to search this wooden bridge, we gave it a good hour of our time anyway.

We grabbed our flashlights and climbed over and under every inch of that wooden bridge while trying to avoid spiders, wasp nests, and who knows what else. My wife and I both slipped and fell into the creek (feet-first thankfully) at one time or another so we both searched the creek bed under and around the bridge. We looked under rocks, in piles of debris washed up against the side of the bridge, under and over all of the bridge supports and girders, in the cracks between the planks, and in every possible nook and cranny. Finally, we decided that we had looked in and around every possible hiding place on and under that rather large wooden bridge and called off our search after almost an hour. At this point, we felt confident that the coin was not under our bridge and knew that if the coin were under one of the other 3 bridges that it was probably already found.

But we still didn't stop. We looked under and around the original small stone footbridge and both of the road bridges although not going into the water to search since these bridges crossed rather deep sections of the creek and smelled like raw sewage. Once we were convinced that we had searched all of the bridges in the area without success, we started our search on other areas thinking that maybe the clue didn't mean a bridge but instead was something that we would normally just step over instead of walk or drive over like a large rock. We searched drainage ditches under roadways, under all of the slides and playground equipment that kids could climb over, and even resorted to fanning out over the area looking under individual rocks, sticks, trash, and anything else that a coin could be hidden under. Still no success. After almost 8 hours of searching and waiting all through the night and early morning with only a few hours of a break at Denny's, we were tired, wet, and physically exhausted from our search. For one last attempt, I called for advice and maybe an additional interpretation of the clue. My mom suggested that maybe it was talking about "going over" the park guidelines possibly on a sign about dogs. With this latest interpretation, we drove around that area of the park and searched on, around, and under every sign that had any sort of rule including several ones about dogs.

Finally, after around eight and a half hours of searching every square inch of that park and zero hours of sleep, we said goodbye to some of the other hunters still hanging around and left Dallas around 9:30am. While talking with some of the other hunters just before we left, we compared clues and clue interpretations. Interestingly, none of the hunters present at the time interpreted all of the clues. Nobody understood "DeagleD". Nobody understood for certain "don't lose your head." We were the only ones that understood, "the truth shall set you free," but were the only ones NOT to understand that "Legal Hill Fop" was an anagram for Flag Pole Hill. Some of the hunters we talked too heard from another hunter that a guy found the coin in a small black pouch under the small stone footbridge at 3:30am, but who really knows if that is accurate.

Overall, there are several possible scenarios for what happened. The coin could have been found by accident earlier in the week. The coin could have been hidden after the police officer made everyone leave the park at 2:00am and found later by someone who sneaked back in before 5:00am (most likely scenario in my opinion). The coin might not have been hidden yet and could have been hidden later that day when all of the original hunters left. Or, all of us at White Rock Lake who didn't correctly interpret all 30 clues might have been searching for a red herring in the woods.

Whichever scenario turns out to be true (and we may never really find out), we had a fun time and enjoyed our late night adventure in Dallas.

The Hunt for More Dallas Coin Finale - Part 1

2007-03-01T13:24:00.000-06:00

On January 23, 2007, the Dr. Pepper: Hunt for More began. This nation-wide treasure hunt let Dr. Pepper fans, geocachers, and ordinary people have a chance at finding large cash prizes hidden across the country. Each day, for a period of 30 days, participants entered codes that were found under bottle caps onto a special website and were given clues that led to one of 23 hidden coins. Each coin was worth between $10,000 and $1,000,000.

"Clues revealed online each day will provide hints to help Dr Pepper fans/detectives locate the money. The clues will test consumers' knowledge of geography, history and world events." - Dr. Pepper: Hunt for More press release

For 29 days, I entered codes online and deciphered cryptic clues. Before long, I knew that the clues I was given were directing me to Dallas, TX around White Rock Lake. This is my account of what happened in the final hours of the Dallas coin hunt in the Dr. Pepper: Hunt for More treasure hunt.

Late Tuesday night, my wife and I dropped the girls off with my parents and made a late night drive to the White Rock Lake area of Dallas. The 29th clue that came out earlier that day describing the location of the hidden coin strongly indicated that the coin was hidden near the stone table area of the park. We made a quick stop at the Casa Linda Plaza and looked for anything out of the ordinary before venturing into the park that night around 10:00pm.

When we first arrived, we were alone in that area of the park and began our diligent search all around the stone tables, the picnic tables, the pavilion, the drainage ditch, around the playground, inside the plumbing covers, in hollow spaces in tree stumps, and under the little stone foot bridge. We searched, drove around the area looking for other possibilities, and checked the Internet for the final clue from 10:00pm until 2:00am. During that time, other cars arrived and we could observe several individuals, couples, and even one larger group searching the same area with flashlights - so we knew we must be at the right place. Also during this time at around 11:30pm, a Dallas police patrol car arrived and began slowly driving through the area with his spotlight observing the searchers.

As the hours passed by, the final clue had still not been released online. Finally at 2:00am exactly, I was prompted to enter another code and receive the final clue! It said, "Amble and ramble make like a rover. Look under this thing that you'd normally go over." Our first reaction was "THE BRIDGE!!!!" We had thoroughly searched the little, stone foot bridge adjacent to the stone tables just an hour before this last clue, so we immediately headed off in the car to the next nearest bridge just a few hundred yards away. We had looked around this bridge before, but not crawled under it. By this time, there were at least 3 other cars just sitting around the park area waiting for the same thing we were. At almost the exact same second that we started driving, all of the other cars must have received the clue and started leaving the stone table area heading to one of the other bridges including the one that we were going to.

Also, at almost the exact same second, the Dallas police officer who had been there for quite some time started driving by each car one at a time telling all of us, "I know that there is a contest going on, but the park closed at 11:00pm and will re-open at 5:00am. I have been told to issue citations to anyone still found here. You can come back at 5:00."

Sadly, we drove off and discussed our game plan for our return at 5:00am. Only this time, we knew for certain that we wouldn't be searching alone. We also found the police officer's timing extremely questionable since he had been there watching us all for over 2 hours. We suspect that he was told to clear the area at 2:00am to make way for the person hiding the coin and to keep people out during that time.

4, 3, 2, 1... Jeeps!

2006-09-21T13:58:00.001-05:00

A short while back, I noticed one of the new green Jeep travel bug icons next to a local cache listing on one of my regular pocket queries. I made a mental note to go out and find that cache on my way home from work that day. However, by the time I actually finished my work and could go home, I checked the pocket query to see if the Jeep was still there and noticed two more Jeeps in another nearby cache. This time there was a new 2006 green Jeep and also a 2005 white Jeep. I went home, grabbed my GPS and some good swag including a couple of new movie DVDs (I wanted to trade fairly considering I was planning on snagging all three jeeps), and dashed out the door with my 3-yo daughter behind me to find these three jeeps in two caches. Success!

I managed to come home with two green 2006 Jeeps and one white 2005 Jeep, but the fun didn't stop there! After putting the girls to bed and sitting down on the computer to log these exciting finds, I ran the same PQ expecting to see the same three Jeeps and noticed one more green Jeep pop up on the list. I couldn't resist finding 4 Jeeps in 1 night, so I grabbed my GPS, another DVD, and my headlamp flashlight and dashed out the door again! I ended up approaching this cache from the worst possible way and spent just over an hour getting to the wrong location and back again before I finally found the cache and my 4th Jeep TB for the night!

4 Jeeps at
3 Caches in
2 Hours on
1 Day

4, 3, 2, 1... Jeeps!!!

A few days later, I met another cacher, LifeonEdge, at another nearby cache and we swapped two of my green Jeeps for one of his green Jeeps and a yellow 2004 Jeep. Now, I have in my hands a yellow 2004, a white 2005, and two green 2006 Jeep TBs ready to be distributed! I think I'll plan a meet-n-greet event soon and distribute them that way once I complete the 2006 Jeep's missions.

Site CSS and Template Changes

2006-09-20T12:54:00.001-05:00

Recently, the Blogger site has been having some "issues" with displaying all of the images that make up part of the site template. Because of this issue, I've decided to pull all of the CSS and template related images off of the Blogger servers and place them on a separate server to be independently hosted. Now, if the Blogger image and CSS servers go offline the site will still display as it should. The photos, maps, or other images associated with each individual post will still be hosted by Blogger, but everything with the template will no longer rely on Blogger.

Also, I've made the post titles links to the permanent URL for each post.

Because these are fairly significant changes, please let me know if you discover anything that isn't displaying as it should. Thanks!

PodCacher Ultimate Motivational Primer

2006-09-15T13:27:00.001-05:00

Sonny and Sandy at Podcacher.com have created a really great 2 minute audio file designed to pump you up and get you ready to go caching!

Check out The Caching PUMP!

Spiders and Madness

2006-09-03T09:13:00.001-05:00

After our 45th day of triple digit temperatures, we are finally getting a little relief from the heat. Hopefully my caching adventures can start picking up again more than they have for the past few weeks.

However, I did manage to get out of the house and do almost all of a new cache series around our county a couple of weeks ago. I use a super secret program on my desktop computer to keep me informed of new caches to help me get a jump on FTFs. I'll write about this secret little program in a later post, but now back to the topic.

One night a few weeks back, this program alerted me to about a dozen new caches that had just been approved around 10:30 p.m. By this time, the temperature had finally dropped into the mid-90's and it was a fairly moonlit night. I'm normally not a huge fan of night caching except for specially designed night caches because I typically have a hard enough time spotting cache hides in daylight much less at night. But this didn't stop me that night! I calmly walked into our bedroom where my wife was already getting ready to sleep and mentioned, "I know it is 10:30 at night, but the news tonight was boring and it looks like Leno is going to be another re-run. Can I go out caching?" Surprisingly, her answer was yes!

I grabbed my GPS, a couple of flashlights, a printed Google map of the new caches spread all over the county, and headed out! I left my home about 10:45 and spent the next several hours driving a loop around the entire county finding caches every 10 miles or so along the way. All in all, I drove a little over 84 miles through Woodway, Waco, Hewitt, Moody, McGregor, Crawford (yes, President Bush's Crawford), Speegleville, and back to Waco again. I ended up finding 11 of the 12 caches I was searching for in the Guardrail Madness series and came away with 10 FTFs. Unfortunately, I entered in the wrong coordinates for the 12th cache and spent about 45 minutes trying to get to one particular area that I just couldn't quite get to.

GRIM001 - Of Salads and Sagegrass (Traditional Cache)
GRIM003 - The Far Crossing (Traditional Cache)
GRIM004 - Crossroads (Traditional Cache)
GRIM005 - Domage (Traditional Cache)
GRIM006 - The Fishermen (Traditional Cache)
GRIM007 - The Homecoming (Traditional Cache)
GRIM008 - Where is Nowhere? (Traditional Cache)
GRIM009 - Down on the Corner (Traditional Cache)
GRIM010 - Down South (Traditional Cache)
GRIM011 - Past the Glare (Traditional Cache)
GRIM012 - A Stone's Throw (Traditional Cache)

But the story doesn't stop there! While searching miles and miles of country road guardrails, I was quickly reminded of one of the other reasons I typically do not like night caching - too many "others" out caching with me. I don't know how far north, east or west these things live, but around central Texas these things can be found out in the country abundantly. These "things" that I am referring to are the GIANT yellow and black spiders known as the Black and Yellow Argiope. Unbeknownst to me, these giant spiders love to hang out at night between the posts of guard rails like the ones I spent all night searching for. One location had more of them then all the other spots put together. I probably saw at least a dozen of the smaller (1-2 inch) spiders and probably half a dozen of the larger (3-5 inch) spiders every few feet around one cache.

101, 101, 101, 101, 101, 101, 103?

2006-08-05T09:48:00.001-05:00

Geocaching in Texas during summer is always a hot experience. For the past 6 days in a row, we've been hitting an afternoon high of 101°. Last night, a local weathermen came on the air and said the words we've all been waiting to hear, "It won't be 101° again tomorrow." Unfortunately, he soon followed that statement with, "Instead, I predict that the afternoon high will reach 103°."

With temperatures like these, it is almost too hot for even the local park-n-grabs. Unless things cool even slightly, my geocaching activities are on hold. Until we get back down into the upper 90°s, consider me "out of the kitchen" because I can't stand the heat!

Cheap Signature Cards - Update

2006-07-25T14:42:00.001-05:00

My 250 free geocaching signature cards from VistaPrint have arrived! The cards I ordered look exactly like they did on the online preview and arrived much faster than I anticipated. The edges are clean, the text is clear, and the overall quality is really great. I still wish I had more customizations and designs to choose from at no charge, but I can't complain about free. Thanks VistaPrint!

PayPal and Podcacher

2006-07-24T13:19:00.001-05:00

I neglected to mention two other small additions to the Adventures in Geocaching sidebar, PayPal and Podcacher. If you are feeling generous, I've made it very easy for you to donate to Adventures in Geocaching by using the small PayPal donate button on the sidebar. :)

In addition, I've included a small embedded podcast player right underneath the Podcacher.com button. This mini-player will allow you to listen to or preview the current Podcacher.com podcasts directly from this site. The Podcacher.com podcast is a family-friendly, weekly podcast all about geocaching. If you aren't already a Podcacher listener, I highly recommend that you check it out!

Social Bookmarking and Geocaching Categories

2006-07-23T12:58:00.001-05:00

For the past couple of weeks, I've been hard at work making some subtle, but hopefully helpful changes to my Adventures in Geocaching website. If you are a regular visitor to the website and not just a subscriber to the feed, you might notice a few of the changes. Ideally they are all so inconspicuous that you probably won't even notice until you happen to use them.

First, I've changed the way I have been tagging posts. The little section at the bottom of each post that normally said something like "Tags: Geocaching Software Reviews" has now been hidden. It is still there, so if you are just dying to know how I tagged a particular post, you can View Source and see the tags, but now they won't be taking up space in the posts themselves.

The reason that I decided that seeing the tags is no longer as important is because I've changed the entire Previous Posts section of my sidebar to display previous posts based on topics instead of just the 10 most recent posts. Typically, Blogger hosted websites show the 10 most recent posts under Previous Posts - as did this site. Now, you will see a drop down box with the tags I've used as categories or topics. Selecting a topic from the list will show you the previous posts for just that topic. For example, if you wanted to read my previous posts that I've tagged as being about geocaching software, just pick "Software" from the topic list and the Previous Posts list will suddenly change to show you just the 5 posts about geocaching software. Obviously, choosing the category "Geocaching" will return a very long list of posts since almost everything I write about in Adventures in Geocaching is about geocaching!

All of these topics reflect the way I've tagged posts at http://del.icio.us/AventuresinGeocaching. Each time I add a new post and tag it at Del.icio.us, it will automatically be updated in the appropriate category list. This was accomplished using a script called Freshtags and by re-tagging every one of my older posts. I'm also now using Del.icio.us bookmarks to display the Links and Blogs sections dynamically so all I have to do to add a new Link is bookmark it instead of editing the Blogger template. Both of these items can help make this a much more dynamic geocaching site instead relying on hard-coded HTML in my sidebar.

Finally, the last change involves the use of social bookmarking links at the bottom of each post. If you use one of the more popular social bookmarking services, using the icons below each post, you can now quickly and easily bookmark a post at Del.icio.us, Blinklist, Google, Furl, Simpy, or Slashdot. You can also quickly Digg any post or add to your favorites at Technorati.

If you haven't begun using one of these social bookmarking services to keep track of your web favorites, I highly recommend giving them a try. All the ones I've configured are totally free and most fully integrate with most modern web browsers. Using these can make accessing your favorite geocaching websites a breeze from any computer. In addition, sharing your bookmarks publicly or submitting to sites like Slashdot or Digg really help gain exposure to Adventures in Geocaching. The more people that publicly bookmark or Digg a post, the more visible the post becomes and the more traffic this site will receive. Learn more about social bookmarking at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Bookmarking or http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7001.pdf.

Now comes the begging section of this post.... if you would be so kind as to choose one, two, or a dozen of your favorite Adventures in Geocaching posts and bookmark and/or Digg them, I would be most appreciative. :) Using the icons below each post will automatically fill out the title and URL for you, so all you really have to do after signing up is add your own tags/description and click OK.