Last Day of 2006

Well it is the last day of 2006. It has been a good year for caching, but its time to put the year behind us and start with the next. Some highlights from this year include

• Hid 9 caches
• Reached the 900 and 1000 cache milestones
  
• Completed the Oregon DeLorme Challenge
• Found a cache in every county in Oregon
• Set a new record of most consecutive days with a find (7)

Some of my favorite caches of 2006 include:

• District 3 Firehouse Cache Dash
• Another Hole in the Wall
• One Hell (gate) Of A Cache
• The Other Clark
• Clatskanie Park Travel Bug and Game Exchange
• Cow Creek Final
• O'Brien Creek Cache
• Mr Wizard
• Alone, But Not Lonely
• Homefront
• French's Lookout
• Lava Tube
• "Under the Wide & Starry sky" R.L.S.
• THE LIVING END CACHE.
• Spectacular Toketee – MGD clips by 100

And of course the best cache of all was the Oregon DeLorme Challenge. Now I've tried to talk others into completing this cache and I've heard a range of excuses from high gas prices, having to buy a map (which you don't if you ask the right people), and that the cache has no real "connection" to them and something like CCIO where you must find a cache in each county has more meaning. To that last group I'll say that you can find a cache in each county but you'll miss a lot of great places. Exploring is the name of the game and this cache will make you explore all corners of Oregon. In my opinion it was worth every penny spent.

Thank you to all who have read this blog and hid some of the great caches we found this year. Hope to see you out on the trail in 2007. Have a Happy New Year!

Caches

Found my last caches of 2006 with SallyC today

LOVE and JOY Nearby
This One Is For Sally C
Davey Dude Done Dood It!
All keyed up and nowhere to go
Get out of Dodge

Its that time of the year...

Despite the rain today I decided to go find a couple of Christmas caches.

The Stonecutters
Steelhead Crossing

Both pretty nice caches on this rainy Christmas day.

Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas

House hunting

Well I've been looking for a house to buy for a little over a month. I've seen a few in my price range... most need some work... not sure what I want. I made an offer on a small house... very small... they countered my offer and I think I'm going to turn it down. After a lot of thought I think I need a bit more space then that... even if I may never see a price that low again. Sally didn't like the neighborhood anyway.

No geocaching for me recently... should have gone out Saturday as it was really nice. Oh well, the rain might let up again one of these days.

New look

I hope most people have notice the new look of this blog. After changing the look last December I thought it should be an annual affair.

I haven't been doing much caching, but I have been looking at houses to buy. I've looked at about 6 or so different places in my price range. One thing I've learned is that in my price range you don't get much. I looked at a place today for a second time... I like the location... I like the yard (though I don't know about the yard work) but it needs new flooring... kitchen updates... bathroom updates... new windows. Not only does that sound like a lot of money but also a lot of work.

James Kim

If you've been watching the news latley you've seen the story of the Kim family who were stuck along Bear Camp road on their way to the coast. Sadly James was found dead today. Being so close to home I thought I should write a bit about it.

As geocachers I imagine many of us have found ourselves on mountain roads in areas unknown to us. Sometimes determination to get where we want to go gets in the way of common sense. I hope this tragedy can be a lesson for all of us weekend adventurers. Reversing any one of several mistakes would have led to a much happier ending. Paying attention to warning signs, turning around at the first sign of snow in the road, staying with the car, and keeping on a marked path.

The cache One Lane Rd appears to be close to where I imagine they made their wrong turn. Many of the caches near it including some of mine are probably inaccesable most winters.

4 years

Well November 30th was technically my 4th geobirthday, but I usually celebrate on March 26 because that is when I found my first cache. In the months between when I signed up and when I found my first cache I just watched the website and looked forward to the day I might work normal hours and be able to find caches. I didn't even own a GPS... in fact I didn't have one until I found my 5th cache. I think I tell this story about twice a year so look for it again on 03/26/07

Today since it was sunny and I had some time I went to look for a cache by SallyC

Red Hot!

No problem finding it as I have many caches in this park and know the trails. Sadly I had one of my cache containers in this park stolen recently, but the logbook was left behind. So I picked it up today and am waiting to archive it until it is logged by IVHS76 who was obviously out caching just before I got there today.