Archive for the ‘Stories & Tall Tales’ Category

The first International Geocaching Day was celebrated on Saturday August 20, 2011. Geocaching.com says that this will be an annual affaire held on the third Saturday of August each year.

If you found a cache or attended an event on 8/20/11 you will get a special souvenir on your profile on geocaching.com. (Souvenirs will be awarded soon but as of today, nothing has appeared yet!)

Not only did I drag ESP Boss and The Queen Mother out for a “quick” cache on Saturday, I also celebrated my 100th find. I had been “saving” lucky number 100 for a special occasion…

Okay, not really. I tried to get to 100 two weeks ago when I was caching with Sandy but struck out.

Anyway, not only did I get my 100th find on a very neat day in geocaching history but it was also the first ever micro placed by local caching couple jeananjoe that the EatStayPlay.com “Royal” Family successfully found.

Very cool!

I know every caching area as “THAT ONE” cache hider who is so mean, ruthless, and nigh impossible to find their caches. Well, the micros of jeananjoe are my cache-placing nemesis.

And we found it!

Readers Weigh In:

• Did you participate in International Geocaching Day? What did you do/find?

Last week I wrote about planning the big geocaching adventure for Sandy. It was her very first time ever geocaching but she’d been hearing about it from me all summer long.

I decided that we should head to nearby Willow Lake. I chose Willow Lake for three reasons:

1. There was a high concentration of not-too-difficult caches around the lake. I wanted an area where we would have multiple caches to go after so if we couldn’t find some Sandy wouldn’t get discouraged.
2. Heritage Park is pretty busy every day of the week. Two women out alone — well I wanted to be someplace where we wouldn’t be isolated.
3. It a GORGEOUS area! So I knew that even if caching was a bust there would be plenty of scenery for us to enjoy.

And my bonus reason was that I hadn’t looked for any of the caches there!

We left right after work and of the 7 caches we looked for, we found 6! That’s not too bad for an early evening of caching and especially great for Sandy’s first caching adventure.

By the end of the trip, she was already asking me how much my Garmin cost! Prices have come down quite a bit since I got mine: Garmin Venture HC. That’s a link to Amazon.com

Readers Weigh In:

• What was your first geocaching adventure
• How long did it take before you were hooked?

 

A few weeks ago, I was asking my Facebook friends for some help coming up with ideas for the FindYourGeocache.com blog. GEO*Trailblazer 1 said that I should be stopped and questioned by the Secret Service and then write about it. But, since HE’S had that experience, I thought it would just be easier to ask him to share his story with us.

Here’s the story of meeting the Secret Service while out geocaching. Now THAT’S hard-core!

Let’s turn on the Way Back Machine, which by the way you Ole Time Cachers will remember. Back to a time when Geocaching did not exist and SA did, that’s “Selective Availability” for those of you who do not know.

I guess you could say I was the techie for the time and did not know it. I was learning and teaching GPS. I was more into Benchmarks due to the fact it was one of the ways around SA by knowing the error for the day from known coordinates (Benchmark).

A good friend told me I would like this new game called Geocaching and he gave me the web site. Not having a computer made it hard for about the first year and there were no cables or any way to hook a GPS to a computer (my, things have changed!) At that time, you relied on entering each point by hand OH and my GPS then only has 2 decimal points (Benchmark second part Triangulation) used to find GZ (geocache, benchmark).

Now you are wondering what all this has to do with meeting the Secret Service while Geocaching.

It would take a novel to write all the things I (we) were involved in and around this time.

The reason for our visit (GEO*Trailblazer 1 & Tiggr) was a Lewis and Clark Mission 200th Anniversary. We walked in the footsteps of our forefathers 200 years to the day in many places as they did (back to novel).

Our Mission were Geocaches and Benchmarks:

• HV1846 MERIDIAN STONE
• HV1847 ZERO MILESTONE
• UA0016 FREEDOM
• HV4442 WASHINGTON MONUMENT
• GC8347 a Woodchucks Paradise
• GC2E52 Mile Zero

This is where the fun started as we were walking the Ellipse and making tracks. We rounded the corner to the Washington Monument of the ZERO MILESTONE and were getting the required clues.

I set my GPS at the Benchmark in the Center of the Compass Rose of the Washington Monument and was turning to talk to Tiggr when I noticed 5 little red dots in my heart area.

From my experience I know what this is and I look up and see a Secret Service Agent coming at me saying. “Sir what are you doing?”

Without hesitation I said in a loud voice: “GEOCACHING!”

I would give a million dollars to have a picture of his face at that very moment he was awed yet had to continue with his duties.

Tiggr was saying the whole time this was going on, “I told you that you were going to get us in trouble with that thing.”

But I took advantage of the situation even while going through a complete shakedown; I am a Warrior and can keep a cool head even under pressure and got to explain all about Geocaching.

After he was satisfied he asked for my ID at which point I gave him my ID and USA Freedom Corps ID and he disappeared.

A few minutes later he returned gave me back my ID and said to have a great tour of the City.

By the way, we were there and had a full run of the city with hardly any people as the City had been evacuated due to a storm approaching.

When we got home I found out the reason for the shakedown…The Original 100 Documents of the Founding of our Nation were being put on display at the very time we were out front playing on the White House Lawn.

(Back to the novel)

We also visited Philadelphia, Plymouth Rock and some very historic Benchmarks on that trip. Hmmm, maybe I really should write a novel as I have just touched the surface of the deep and wide adventures I have made while geocaching.

Readers Weigh In:

• Have you ever had an exciting encounter with law enforcement while out caching?
• If you have a story you’d like to share, please contact me and I’ll feature YOU as a guest author!