Northwoods GeoCats

You're Kidding Right?

noreply@blogger.com (tonka_boy) — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 16:39:00 +0000

Don't you just hate bloggers that start a post with, I know it's been a long time since I posted. . . So I won't start with that.

But I thought a new post was appropriate to answer a comment left on

The Best Geocache in Minnesota - Confiscated by the Cops

An anonymous reply reads:

You all really think this is a good idea? Burying a full sized coffin in a state park? That's about as stupid as your 'adventures' that involve digging around on private property. I suggest you research your caches more carefully and use some common sense.

Our comment to the anon poster:
Wow, I sense a little hostility here. If one might want to read the entire set of linked posts about this cache, one would learn that the coffin was not buried. Nor was it in a state park. And the park in which it was placed had no defined geocaching policy. So the cache was entirely legal (as the police finally realized). In the end, we find that the cache was within the rules of the park and the geocaching community.

Geocaching is just a game. If you really don't like it, just ignore it.

I have a feeling that's not going to happen, right?

The Best Geocache in Minnesota - Confiscated by the Cops

noreply@blogger.com (tonka_boy) — Wed, 27 May 2009 02:06:00 +0000

You may remember all the time and effort that we put into finding the 2008 Halloween geocache series? I wrote at length about them.

The purpose was to find and collect clues from 12 Halloween themed geocaches, and use those clues to find the bonus cache - a full sized toe-pincher coffin, complete with skeleton and traditional ammo can.

Last February it was voted as the Minnesota Cache of the Month by member of the Minnesota Geocaching Association.

Here's some comments from the cache listing:

Fabulous! Certainly the granddaddy of all geocaches! The form for which all geocaches should strive.

Wow! What an awesome end to the Halloween 2008 Series! I don't think anyone could come up with anything to top this cache!

My five-year old daughter was SO excited that we finally managed to get out and find this one before it got any colder. ...Thank you so much for this series - I think she'll remember it when she's much older.

What an unbelievable series and some of the coolest containers ever!

WOW!!!!!!!!!!! And that doesn't even begin to show my appreciation for all of your hard work and time that you put into these Halloween 2008 caches.

AWSOME! This has to be one of our favorite caches of all time.

Absolutely outstanding - A cache that has to be seen to be believed!

Well it seems that a couple of muggles accidentally stumbled across the coffin in the woods, and instead of going along with the fun, reported it to the Dakota County Sheriffs Department.

Officials immediately went into CYA mode, and hauled the cache out. Here's the final log from the cache listing...

The Dakota County Park Service is pretending that geocaching doesn't exist when there are dozens and dozens of caches in OUR parks. On top of that, there are hundreds of website articles and web archives indicating the contrary. They may be attempting to make me, and one of my prolific and popular geocaches an example. And for that, they will get nothing from me in terms of providing geocaching entertainment. This cache has been pulled and will be archived by the end of the week.
Thank you all kind and reasonable people who have enjoyed my geocaches over the years.

You can visit the cache owner's blog to see photos of the cache under construction.

The cops even wrote about the find in their newsletter.

Technorati Tags: geocaching,Dakota County

Springtime Geocaching

noreply@blogger.com (tonka_boy) — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 16:28:00 +0000

Ah, spring! A time when hope flows eternal. A time for renewal and re-growth. A time for geocaching without ticks, spiders, and mosquitoes.

Yesterday was a beautiful day here in Minnesota. The temperature peaked at near 70 degrees, and the snow that fell last November is almost gone.

We decided on one of the nearby regional parks, and like last week, the trails were ice packed and slippery. The ice had melted In places where the sun was able to shine through the trees, leaving slippery mud instead of ice. Some very tricky hiking, indeed!

The first cache we found was guarded by a dead squirrel. Seriously! It was actually a stuffed squirrel - as in taxidermy - and was part of the camo. But upon first spotting it, I couldn't tell. I poked it with a stick a few times, just to be sure.

The second cache we found was a very clever hide inside a great big tree beacon. We almost gave up on that one, when Wayfarer reviewed one of the recent posts describing how they had accidentally fond it.

The third was a micro hidden amongst the branches of another downed tree. Again, if not for the logs of previous finders, we may not have found that one. Definitely not winter friendly! On to number 300, which we found - but that's another story.

Massive Geocache Beacon

noreply@blogger.com (tonka_boy) — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 03:02:00 +0000

Here in the upper-midwest, geocaches are often hidden in, what is known as, a beacon.

Beacon: [bee-kuhn] a fire lit on the top of a hill as a signal

Okay, maybe a geocache beacon is not a fire, but in geocaching terms, certainly a signal. If you see the beacon, you should be able to find the geocache.

We recently found a geocache in the beacon shown below. If you were the hider, where would you put the geocache in this beacon?

More Island Geocaching

noreply@blogger.com (tonka_boy) — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 16:48:00 +0000

Well, it wasn't like this.

And it certainly wasn't like this.

But we did some island geocaching yesterday. The difference, this time we walked to the island.

I admit, that concept might confuse our faithful California readers. But around here, walking on water isn't an exercise reserved only for the Faithful. The water looked something more like this.

This is a shot of Lola's Lakehouse back on dry land.

And here's an aerial view of the lake. Lola's was our starting point, directly south of the island. For reference, it is exactly 1/2 mile from shore to the island at that point.

We scored the two geocaches on the island, but the really cool part was the winter walk. (Sorry.) I'm talking about 18 degrees of cool - with a 10 MPH breeze. It was a brisk walk out there. Once in the shelter of the island, though, it was quite comfortable.

The island is hilly and crisscrossed with trails. Once we neared the caches we did some bushwhacking that took us through knee-deep snowdrifts.

in 1886, Lambert Naegle purchased the island in Waconia Lake for $5,200 and built on it a resort hotel. He named his resort the "Coney Island of the West." The name could have come from as many as three sources: 1)It was named after the more famous Coney Island of the East, in Brooklyn. 2)It is a shortened version of the town's name, Waconia. 3)It was named such after the area's high population of "conies," or rabbits.

In 1889 Reinhold Zeglin bought and operated the hotel complex. Legend has it that period celebrities such as Mark Twain and Al Capone visited during this period.

In the 1940s and 1950s, Frank "Shorty" Dvorak owned and operated the dining, dance, cottage, day camp, and launch facilities on the island.

Today, it's all in ruins - the resort cabins, lodge buildings, and homes.

A great day of geocaching!

Technorati Tags: geocaching,Lake Waconia,Coney Island

Picking up Archived Geocaches

noreply@blogger.com (tonka_boy) — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 18:25:00 +0000

A few weeks back, one of our local geocachers passed away. He had over 20 hides, several of which we had found. The rules at geocaching.com forbid anyone from adopting the caches, and the family didn't want continued emails when finds were logged on these caches. So the listings were all archived.

Now the containers are basically, litter.

We decided to go pick a couple up. I figured it was a nice thing to do, plus, those are good containers that can be recycled into new geocaches.

We knew exactly where a couple of them were, and wouldn't need a GPSr to to find them. The first one was a Park & Grab, but when we got there, it wasn't. Someone must have already picked it up.

The next one was a bit more remote - off the Luce Line Trail. Our readers may recall that we too have caches out on the Luce Line.

The snow was still pretty deep and we had to do a little snow-whacking to get to the hide. But the container was there, and we picked it up.

It was a perfect day for a hike on the trail - the first day since winter began that the mercury had risen over 32 degrees. The sun was shining, and as we walked I had to remove a layer to keep from over-heating. When we were getting close to the next hide, I asked Wayfarer to turn on the GPSr. We would need help in zeroing in on this one.

You may remember that we are now using Trimble's Geocache Navigator on Wayfarer's new Blackberry. Problem is (as we discovered while on the trail), Geocache Navigator does not list archived caches. Didn't even think of it until that moment.

And if you've ever tried accessing GC.com from a mobile device, you'd know that that's a losing cause. We turned around and headed back to the car.

Oh well, it was a good day for a walk in the woods. We'll have to go back some day soon.

Geocaching and the Present Day Penny

noreply@blogger.com (tonka_boy) — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 01:44:00 +0000

When wayfarer and I get to the woods we like to "really get away". That is, to reach a time and space where our experience is not interrupted by road noise or jet planes. Where just the slightest hint of imagination could suggest that we've been transported. The forest is ancient, and the trail, timeless.

We still have those pesky satellites guiding us to the cache, but you get the point.

We almost achieved it today.

Our journey started in a very busy section of a close-by regional park. Hundreds of people were out enjoying the relative warmth of the 25-degree day. Some were cross-country skiing, others snowshoeing, and we were geocaching.

Winter Ski Trails (Click photos to enlarge)

To escape the long loops in the trail, and to avoid the many skiers, I suggested that we take a short cut across the end of a nearby lake.

Not such a good idea.

The snow was thigh deep the whole way. But we made it, found the cache, and signed the log. We both decided that this section of the park was just too busy for serious geocaching. So we jumped back into the car and headed to a more remote section.

Remote Trail Through the Pines

Ah, this was more like it. The trail led us through thick stands of hemlock, white pines, aspen, and spruce. On the hilltops, the wind whistled eerily through needled branches, but the valleys were still and silent. The only sound was the snow crunching beneath our feet. This is what we were looking for. Alone, in a time and space that was just ours.

That is, until we rounded a corner and saw the present day penny that pulled us away from the place that we loved.

It was good while it lasted. We found the cache, signed the log, and made our way back to the car.

If you know the reference from which the present day penny came, make mention of it in your reply.

Top 10 Reasons to be a Geocacher in Minnesota

noreply@blogger.com (tonka_boy) — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 01:55:00 +0000

10. You get to use those cool Winter Friendly attributes on your cache listing page.

9. Geocaching in muck-lucks is very fashionable.

8. Where else can you go ice fishing and geocaching in the same day?

7. Sled dogs make great caching buddies.

6. You can ski right up to most geocaches.

5. After geocaching, you can warm up to a nice warm plate of lutefisk.

4. You can geocache all 4 seasons: Almost winter. Winter. Still Winter. And construction.

3. !0,000 lakes in which to hide a 5 X 5 geocache.

2. Beaver lodges makes great cache hides.

1. And the number one reason to be a geocacher in Minnesota...

Mosquito song in the summer is so beautiful.

Technorati Tags: Geocaching,Minnesota

Now This is a Geocache

noreply@blogger.com (tonka_boy) — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 01:03:00 +0000

Warning!!!

This post contains descriptions and photographs of specific geocaches and may be considered a spoilers If you geocache in the Eagan/Apple Valley/Rosemount area, you are hereby warned: do not read this post until you have completed the Halloween 2008 series by bflentje.

Being surprised on your own is just too sweet!

And if you've not read our previous two posts about the Halloween 2008 series, you may want to get caught up by reading this post and this post.

Now, on with the post. (Scroll down.)

We finally got the Bonus Halloween 2008 geocache.

The idea is to find all 12 Halloween geocaches and record the 3-digit code associated with each one. After some mathematical gymnastics, one should come up with the coordinates for the Bonus Cache.

We finished the 12th find on New Year's Day by finding Palu Bufo Marinus. It's a multi, and due to the deep snow, I almost gave up on the first stage. I figured it was buried. But the lovely and talented, Wayfarer, persevered and made the find.

I'm claiming the find on the 2nd stage, but I think we both saw it at the same time.

Anyway, we took all 12 codes to lunch at Coopers Bar & Grill, ($2.50 burger baskets on Vikings football Sundays) but couldn't crack the code. We didn't have a calculator that would compute that high a number. So we schlepped all the way back home to the western suburbs without the bonus cache.

Disappointment!

I worked on it off and on for the past two days. It took a while to get the math right, but this morning it all came together.

Let's go geocaching!

Racing ahead of another wave of winter storms, we hiked into the snowy hills to make the find. Fabulous! Certainly the granddaddy of all geocaches! The form for which all geocaches should strive.

Thanks, bflentje for all of your hard work and expense to make this our most memorable cache series to date. We enjoyed them all!

Here's a short video of the the most frightening geocache ever. View with sound on.

If you are interested in how this cache came to be, here's a link to Bart's blog.

Technorati Tags: Halloween,geocaching

Google Reader for Geocaching

noreply@blogger.com (tonka_boy) — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 17:17:00 +0000

With snow up to the window sill, all those well laid plans of geocaching will lie as dormant as everything else around here. (And our faithful readers in Southern California will continue to push their numbers up without us.)

You may recall this post from about this same time last year.

There's nothing to do here but practice geocaching by on-line proxy. That includes reading everyone else's geo-adventures posted on their blogs.

I was using My Yahoo home page for keeping track of all the blogs I follow, but it became too difficult to find the new posts. I'm reading up to 50 different blogs, and it's become totally unmanageable with My Yahoo. Then the lovely and talented Wayfarer suggested that I use Google Reader.

Vive la difference!

Google Reader makes managing blog subscriptions a snap.

The reader makes it easy to subscribe to blogs - just copy & paste the URL in the subscription box. It uses an expandable menu structure to manage categories - simple. The un-read posts show up in the body of the reader, and I can choose to read the posts right there or jump to the blog itself.

(I prefer to read people's posts on their blogs. It's more personal that way, plus I find links to lots of related stuff.)

I am way happy with my Google Reader!

So, how do you manage your blog subscriptions?

Technorati Tags: geocaching,google reader

Geocaching - It's Not About the Numbers

noreply@blogger.com (tonka_boy) — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 23:20:00 +0000

Saturday was an unusually warm winter day. (It seems that we are in for a real chiller this year.) It's dropped 25 degrees so far today and is supposed to go down another 20 by tonight.

Anyway, we decided to head back to the area that we tried two weeks ago when we got frozen out. Although there was four inches of fresh snow on the ground, some of the caches were labeled as "winter friendly". We figured that we'd get a few.

But we had to pass on the first one. A bunch of kids were sledding way too close by for my comfort. I never want to be the reason that a cache gets muggled.

The next one was somewhere around this old limestone kiln.

But where?

DNF!

So on down the trail we went. In the center of this next photo you can just see the bridge under which the next cache was hidden.

Did I mention that there was fresh snow on the ground?

Did I also mention that it was an unusually warm winter day?

Did I mention that I don't like bridge caches even on a good day?

It was all drippy and slippery under there.

Another DNF!

But we found this gi-normous old cottonwood tree next to the bridge. And it had this huge hole near the bottom. Now most of us have seen holes near the bottom of large trees. Great places to hide geocaches.

But this hole was so big that the cache container could have been a Mini Cooper.

Really!

Here's a shot I took up into the tree. Spooky!

So we did get one find that day. It was camoed as a bat hibernation box. There was a full sized ammo can inside!

Looks real, doesn't it?

We walked 3 1/2 miles (uphill, in the snow) and got one more smiley. But it's not about the numbers. Is it?

Giant Smiley in the Woods

noreply@blogger.com (tonka_boy) — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 04:07:00 +0000

The other day I was planning some geocaching adventures for next spring.

Yeah, I said next spring.

It's minus 12 degrees wind chill here today. No geocaching for a while.

Anyway, I came across a giant geocaching smiley out in the woods near Black River Falls, Wisconsin. I thought that was way cool, so I contacted the owner, Snyder Bear and asked if he would guest author a post on our blog.

Here's Snyder Bear's post.

Our first cache we ever did as a family, is actually the "left eye" of the smiley (Oak Ridge Tower Cache), and we wanted to place something in the area in honor of this. What better way to honor such a cache, than with a huge smiley right around it?

Our original thought was, to raise the age old question, "is it about the smiley or about the experience," and then we'd let the cachers decide in their comments.

The Jackson County Forest (JCF) caches are independent of each other, yet placed in the forest so they resemble a smiley when geocachers look at the series on their GPS units. That way people can get as few or as many singular smileys as they please. We thought about creating a multi, but the uniqueness of actually seeing the smiley on the map afterwards, was a real incentive to make this work.

We wanted to put a group of caches together so that fellow cachers could park in a central area, and cache a fair number of smileys if they so desired. We had placed some caches along a recreational trail to the southeast earlier and the most enjoyable comments we received alluded to them liking the ability to park and grab a series of caches

To place all of these caches, I contacted the land manager (county supervisor who oversees the area) to ask for permission - and the incentive was, this would add another facet to what our county public lands now have to offer. There's a permit process we established together. The supervisor actually took this request to the county board for approval, so that was nice. He was really receptive to the 'Cash in Trash Out' aspect of this type of recreation as well.

We grew up in the area, so we know it well. But for those that may be passing by, this could prove somewhat daunting if they plan on caching the entire series. You can't really get lost in the area with all the access roads running about, but you do have to contend with a terrain that involves a small bluff or two.

Originally we wanted to name them all the same with a theme of a smiley being the main focus, but in discussing this with one of the reviewers, they suggested totally avoiding the 'power trail' aspects, and make them stand alone caches, since they are out in the country and not actually on any established trails.

Before hiding the caches, I assured myself there was enough room to do a smiley shape around the noted cache first, then I played around with Google Earth by pinning the caches to their locations. After that, I transferred those coords to my hand held. After making up 20 some caches it was just a matter of getting the permit in place and taking the hike. Well, it actually took three hikes - but the placements were pretty easy, being in the wilderness and all. Most of the caches ended up being pretty easy to find geobeakons for the area.

Of course on Google Earth, the terrain looked a bit less intimidating sitting near the computer, but I knew the area quite well. I knew I'd be scaling a ridge area several times in placing the caches

What I wanted to do was incorporate a variety of placement techniques that we picked up throughout this past year from other caches that we went to. Being new to the sport, I wanted to also mimic the ones that seemed to be a bit more enjoyable to find, as well as more durable for being out in the middle of the boondocks. Maintaining them was a big before thought as well, so we were fortunate to have a few trails that run through and about the area for us to access, in case someone has a maintenance request.

Most of the caches are also winter friendly - but not knowing which ones are per say, will make for some interesting comments during the winter, I am sure. I placed the majority of the micros, in larger containers for easier GZ's, but still called them micros just for the 'micro in the middle of the wilderness' effect.

After looking at several of the caches and how we worded the writeups - we're likely going back out and visiting them soon, to up the anti on some of them - but that's part of the fun of having caches to maintain. You gotta make them interesting, I think - it adds to the adventure and enjoyment for those who venture out into our little neck of the woods that way, as well it giving us something to do.

Knowing they were being published several weeks before our Deer Rifle Season, was somewhat frustrating, but that was my fault in putting the placements off until the bugs and heat subsided. You'll notice several of the area caches tend to mention the thought of wearing blaze orange if your out-and-about during the hunting season around here.

We thought of offering tee-shirts or key chains that stated they had completed the "Smiley" as mementos - especially for younger cachers. And we may still do this, if we find cachers that happen to complete them all in one running. It'd be a nice change of pace for a cacher to receive such an item, other than your normal swag. It's still a thought at least.

The wife and I have the whole winter now to reflect on this past summers' learning experiences. We plan on working with the county and state forest people to create some unique caches in our region.

tonka_boy's note: The terrain of these hides range from one to four stars. Definitely a challenge to finish this series! Sounds like a road trip to Black River falls next spring.

Technorati Tags: geocaching,Black River Falls,WI,Wisconsin

ReefPilot Interviewed on Geocaching Podcast

noreply@blogger.com (tonka_boy) — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 14:58:00 +0000

I just got done listening to a geocaching podcast on which the Cache-A- Maniacs interviewed ReefPilot.

Who's ReefPilot you ask?

He's a Minnesota geocacher that has carried our Lucky Penny Travel Bug with him for the past year. His profession as a commercial pilot allows him to travel all over North America. As he stops in different cities, he "dips" our bug in local geocaches. He's now logged over 60,000 miles for us.

I learned that, besides geocaching, he is also into SCUBA diving and salt water aquariums. It's a pretty cool interview. You can listen to the entire thing on the Cache-A-Maniacs podcast.

Oh BTW, here's a Google Earth shot of that travel bug's travels. Too cool.

Technorati Tags: geocaching,podcast,google Earth,Cache-A-Maniacs

Slow Loading Blog Page

noreply@blogger.com (tonka_boy) — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 22:11:00 +0000

As many of our loyal readers may have experienced, we've had some slow loading pages on our blog.

You can see one of our pages loading, to the right here.
If you stare at it long enough, it does absolutely nothing.

Kinda like our blog.

So I decided to do something about it.

The lovely and talented, wayfarer, is very much into search engine optimization (SEO). Visit her blog to see lots of tips and tricks to make Google rank your pages higher.

She pointed out to me that web pages load in a browser from left, to right. And I had a bunch of slow-loading widgets in our left side bar. That caused the whole blog to load about like that photo up there.

So I moved all the testudine-like widgets over to the right side bar. The page should load much faster. Still having server errors with our sign-in log, but that's not this page.

Let us know what you think.

Too Cold for Geocaching

noreply@blogger.com (tonka_boy) — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 00:14:00 +0000

Okay, so it wasn't really that cold.

After geocaching in those hilly parks the past few weekends (and scoring relatively few geocaches) we decided to try some flat parks near the Minnesota River. I looked up a bunch of caches that we could score in quick succession. It would be a great walk in a wooded floodplain, with not a hill in sight.

The snow that we received last night was in the processes of melting and refreezing, making the walk quite slippery - even though flat. The lovely and vivacious, Wayfarer, clutched my arm tightly, so if one of us went down we both would.

The cache was easy enough to find - a peanut butter jar wrapped in camo tape, hidden in a rock pile at the base of a tree. It was half way down an abandoned boat launch lamp that led in to the river. Ice flows passed by us, and that's when we both noticed that we were COLD!

The weatherman had predicted 30 degrees and that's what we dressed for. But it never reached 30, and we were walking face-into a stiff breeze. We hadn't dressed for that! We made it back to the car with frozen ears and pink faces. Tears were streaming from my eyes.

Our geocaching ended as quickly as it started. One more smiley.

Thanksgiving Day Geocaching

noreply@blogger.com (tonka_boy) — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 03:32:00 +0000

Warning!!!

This post contains descriptions and photographs of specific geocaches that may be considered spoilers. If you geocache in the Eagan/Apple Valley/Rosemount area, you are hereby warned: do not read this post until you have completed the Halloween 2008 series by bflentje.

Being surprised on your own is just too sweet!

Now, on with the post. (Scroll down.)

The disclaimer is for the creator of those caches - cause I'm a nice guy.

We celebrated Thanksgiving by doing some geocaching. We wanted to finish up the Halloween series located just south of The Cities.

Here's another scary cache container found inside a hollow log.

Make sure you read this post for photos of our first hunt.

Well, we didn't get them cleaned up - still two to go - because today, one of them took a full hour to find. The name of the cache was Polycephaly - meaning, more than one head.

To get to GZ, we hiked the trail as close as it would take us, then bushwhacked to the edge of a steep hill. Luckily we chose to hunt this one in the winter when all the foliage was down. It would have required a machete otherwise.

We had pretty good GPS coverage from the top of the hill. The arrow on our device pointed directly at a giant, broken oak tree. Great place to hide a geocache. But as we went down the hill, the needle went crazy. First it pointed north, then east, then back up the hill.

Begin drunken bee dance.

Enough of this silliness. It has to be the big tree. So we went back to it.

It was obvious that previous searchers had torn through every log and branch within 20 feet of the oak.

So we looked.

We found nothing.

Wayfarer checked the post notes on her Blackberry. Polycephaly was found just yesterday. It has to be here.

We looked again.

We found nothing.

We went over that tree with a fine toothed comb. It must be nearby.

More drunken bee dance.

No, it had to be at the tree. The on-line logs claimed that this was the creepiest cache of the series - almost disturbing. It had to be here.

So I sat down and looked at the tree. Something had to be out of place. There must be a clue to the hiding spot. The tree was huge - probably 10 feet around at the base. It split into two main trunks some 4 to 5 feet off the ground, and both sections were broken off 12 to 15 feet up.

My eyes scanned from the base up to the top. Part way up through a split in the wood, I spotted something that looked . . . the wrong color.

Something was up in that broken trunk!

I climbed up as far as I could, and at the very limit of my reach, I put my hand into the tree trunk and grasped the cache container.

Polycephaly

Scary Halloween Geocache Series

noreply@blogger.com (tonka_boy) — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 01:12:00 +0000

Warning!!!

Being surprised on your own is just too sweet!

Now, on with the post. (Scroll down.)

Although a bit late for Halloween, the lovely and vivacious wayfarer wanted to do a Scary Halloween series of Geocaches located not too far away. This is a series of 12 geocaches based on a Scary Halloween theme. Each cache contains part of a code, that when deciphered, leads the hunter to Number 13.

We tried one last weekend, and were thrilled with what we found. So we thought we'd try our hand at a bunch of them this week. For the first one we tried, instructions on the GC website instructed the finder to select one of the masks sealed inside the cache container and photograph yourself. If you don't upload a photo to the page, the find would be removed.

After a nice walk around a secluded lake, we found that cache, donned the masks, and took photos.

tonka_boy

wayfarer

Then off to to the next one. But it was a bit more challenging that we had expected. View this if you don't believe me.

JK!

As we discovered one geocache after another, the miles went by as fast as the time. We put five miles on the hiking boots and ended up with seven out of the twelve in the series. We also scored one from the Halloween 2007 series.

Sweet.

We'll get the rest of them on Thanksgiving Day. Here's a few photos of some of the caches in the series.

And yes, these are real geocache containers.

Technorati Tags: geocaching,geocache,Halloween

Comment Luv Enabled

noreply@blogger.com (tonka_boy) — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 04:41:00 +0000

We enabled Comment Luv on our blog. When you comment on our blog, a link from your own blog will display along with your comments.

It's Comment Luv.

A Saturday Spent Geocaching

noreply@blogger.com (tonka_boy) — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 01:40:00 +0000

Well it really wasn't a whole day geocaching. More like. . .

A Saturday Spent Driving Around.

I stayed up late last night, planning our geo-Saturday so we could score a bunch of geocaches. (It's not about the numbers.) I labeled them all on the trail map so we would be as efficient as possible. We should easily score the 14 in that park, then cruise over to Cleary Lake to finish up that bunch.

Note to our faithful readers in California . . .

It's different here. Twenty in a day, is a great day!

And it's not just the geocaches.

But with winter rapidly approaching, those toasty-warm 36 degree, geocaching days are soon to be past.

Just to be outside would be a good thing.

We arrived at the park, brimming with excitement, but were met at the gate by a sign declaring,

THE PARK IS CLOSED. SPECIAL DEER HUNT TODAY.

The Five Man Electrical Band says it best.

So we drove to a different park and ended up with four.

Geocaching Last Saturday

noreply@blogger.com (tonka_boy) — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 00:25:00 +0000

It was c-c-c-cold Saturday.

We went to a regional park down by Prior Lake - a place that we had hiked two years ago before our addiction to geocaching.

This time we hiked with a purpose!

Rather than take up bandwidth yammering on about it, I'll just direct you to wayfarer's blog. She tells all about our trip and also talks about the recent changes to our geocaching tech gear.

Cache on!

Technorati Tags: geocaching

Geocaching and Twitter

noreply@blogger.com (tonka_boy) — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 18:28:00 +0000

I've had some family and friends ask me about Twitter and why I use it to keep in touch with other geocaching folks. So I thought I'd post here, and just direct my peeps to this post.

Let's start from the beginning.

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and read other users' updates (otherwise known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length. These posts can be conversational in nature (placing the "@" in front of a user's name, designates a post to that specific user), or they can be links to photos, videos, or other web sites. Users can choose to "follow" other users, and receive just the tweets of those designated.

The feeling of family and community develops after following other members for just a short time.

But let's back up just a step, if you are not browsing the web with Firefox, go directly to http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/ and download it. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200. It's free. It will improve your Twitter experience. Why Firefox? Because developers all over the world are creating cool plug-ins and add-ons that are really helpful.

Once you have Firefox loaded and running, go to http://twitthat.com/ Drag the button up to your Firefox tool bar. This turns your browser into a tweeting machine. Just click on that button when you want to share a web site with your friends on Twitter. Just created a new post on your blog? twitthat! Uploaded a new photo or video to flikr? twitthat!

Most cool!

Then go to https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5081 Download the Twitterfox add-on. It adds a tiny button in the lower right-hand corner of your browser, that turns your browser into an automatic tweet reader. The moment someone you are following posts a tweet, it pops open, right on your browser.

Excellent! Here's what that looks like. Click to enlarge.

Last week when tatooedmommie was in that long line at her polling place, she was using her cell phone, tweeting photos to Twitter - and every one popped up in my Twitterfox.

Way too many Ts, but a great way to stay in touch.

Now that we have a Twitter-powered browser, how do we get followers? The best way, is to start following others. When you choose to follow someone on Twitter, they have the opportunity to follow you. So do a search on twitter.com for geocaching, or any other interest. Look through the list to find people that are updating tweets that match your interests. When you find them, click on "Follow". Chances are, they'll follow you in return.

Another way to find people to follow is to look at the profile of a person that you are following. There will be a whole list of people with similar interests. Click on their profile, read a few tweets, if you like what you see, click on "Follow".

And make sure you tweet, tweet, tweet. No one wants to follow someone who is not tweeting. With a Twitter-powered browser, and today's phone technology, there's no reason not to let us know what you're doing.

See you on Twitter real soon!

Technorati Tags: geocaching,twitter,twitthat,twitterfox,firefox

New Geocaching Blog Added

noreply@blogger.com (tonka_boy) — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 21:10:00 +0000

I ran into another geocacher on Twitter this week.

Twitter is way cool - and you are not cool if you are not on it.

Anyway, I added his blog to our blogroll. He geocaches in Belgium. You can jump right to his blog by clicking on this very cool picture right here.

Check him out.

BTW . . .

It snowed here today. Summer is over.

Geocaching Road Trip II

noreply@blogger.com (tonka_boy) — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 01:36:00 +0000

After walking straight up the bluffs of the St. Croix River for more than one geocache, we headed north - up river - for more geocaching fun.

Our first stop was the historic Boom Site, National Historic Landmark, just north of Stillwater. Back in the 1800s, timber harvested upstream was branded with the logo of the company that had harvested it, and the logs were floated down to the boom where they were sorted by the brands and delivered to the sawmills in Stillwater.

Millions of logs from the upper St. Croix and tributaries were halted here, sorted, and rafted, later to be sawed into lumber and timber products. The boom site was operated until 1914, after which it was forgotten. But it was rediscovered in 1975 by a National Park Service survey to identify historic sites along the St. Croix River.

Just below the bluff, at the water's edge, is a cave that is not only an earthcache, but a waymark to boot.

During the logging era, a cookhouse and supply store were located on top of the bluff directly above the cave and used the cave as a storeroom. A hole was cut into the roof of the cave, and a simple elevator was hoisted through the hole so that supplies could be moved from the cave to the cook shanty.

View from the outside.

View from the inside.

We didn't find an elevator shaft, but it was an interesting place to visit. It was evident at the back of the cave that people have been digging under the terminus wall, seeking the upper level to the cave.

We spent a lot of time here, walking the beach. Then our journey took us farther up river to Pine Point Park, where several geocaches awaited.

After a bit of driving, we arrived at Pine Point Park - only to find that we had to pay a fee to get in. We only had a $10 bill, and the fee was $5, we drove back into town for change.

Finally, we get to hunt some geocacahes!

There were several to be found in this very muggly park, so we chose a couple that were away from all the action. Wayfarer was using her new Blackberry phone with Geo-Navigator, rather than using our antique Garmin that we were used to. A little learning curve, but it put us spot on the hides. Here's a few photos.

Blackberry with a Travel Bug we found.

Trail in the park.

Technorati Tags: Geocaching,Minnesota,Stillwater MN

Geocaching Road Trip

noreply@blogger.com (tonka_boy) — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 12:19:00 +0000

Yesterday we took a trip over to Stillwater to do some geocaching.

Stillwater is often referred to as the birthplace of Minnesota. A territorial convention in 1848 selected three leading Minnesota cities as locations for important public institutions: Minneapolis got the University of Minnesota, Saint Paul became the capital, and Stillwater was chosen as the site of the territory's first prison.

Looks like Stillwater got the short end of that stick.

But I've digressed.

Stillwater is a popular day trip for tourists who enjoy the historic downtown's used bookstores, antique shops, restaurants, historical sites and the scenic St. Croix River valley.

We parked the car in the public lot at the riverfront and proceeded to walk to our first cache only a few blocks away.

Note to self: Check topo map before geocaching in Stillwater!

You can see the bluffs overlooking the river in the above photo. And the photo below doesn't even begin to show how steep this street was. Brutal. (Click on any photo to enlarge.)

But the walk was worth it. Like many geocaches, the Stillwater caches took us places that we would have never seen. We did another cache at a local park.

Another hill.

Again, the photo doesn't do justice to the incline. Just try counting the steps.

Here's the view from the park at the top of the stairs.

While in Stillwater, we did one traditional cache, two virtuals, ate lunch, walked through a dozen antique shops, then headed up the river for more geocaching.

But those will be covered in tomorrow's post.

Technorati Tags: geocaching,geocache,Stillwater MN

Our First Waymark Post

noreply@blogger.com (tonka_boy) — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 13:44:00 +0000

I created our first waymark on waymarking.com

I know. I know.

This is supposed to be a geocaching blog. But I had to do it.

After yesterday's visit to the #100 Target store . . .

(hey listen, I go to that Target store about four times a month)

. . . we took a walk in one of the local parks here. We knew there were trails behind the ruins an old run-down homestead, because this was the site of one of our very first geocache finds.

Unlike a Target store though, this place has some real cultural significance. But the site wasn't on waymarking.com.

I thought, if Target stores can be listed, why not this place?

German immigrants, the Schmid family, settled and built a beautiful fieldstone farmhouse that now stands in ruins in Lake Minnetonka Regional Park. Pretty historic and worthy of a visit.

So rather than belly ache that I can't create a virtual on geocaching.com, I created our first waymark on waymarking.com.

Technorati Tags: waymarking geocaching