Last Day of 2022

Much like last year, this year isn't any better. We lost my Uncle Mike (aka Duck) the other half of Duck-n-Deedy. Just a little over a year after the passing of my aunt. He's probably most famous for hiding the Oregon DeLorme Challenge.

We did a lot of geocaching together, both of us had started geocaching independently around the same time. My dad told him one day about my crazy new hobby one day and I think that weekend we went out and found 10 together, which in those days was a lot.

I went and saw him one last time a few months ago. He was recovering from open heart surgery and sounded good at that point. We even talked about the idea of geocaching together again when he recovered, but that was never to be.

I did find a few caches this year, which I told my uncle about. I even remember saying how fun it was to get out again. Only one, Under Bush, is still active. It did remind me of the old days. Maybe next year I'll try for a few more.

Last Day of 2021

I thought about stopping this tradition and letting this old blog slip away into the murking waters of forgotten internet where old blogs go to die, but here I am with one more yearly update. Just as a tribute to a couple of fine geocachers we lost in 2021. Kelly aka BIGGIEET_AL and my aunt Diane the second half of Duck-n-Deedy. 

Kelly was the first geocacher I ever met in the "wild" and we had a lot of great adventures together. I don't know how many caches we found together but he was with me for a couple of my biggest days. The last geocache I hid I named after him, "Kelly" Bigelow Lake partly in tribute and partly as a jab that I knew he'd probably never go look for it. It had been a while since I had seen him, but I imagined I would again. Gone far too early.

Here's a nice picture of Kelly logging a cache while DaveyDude examines some trade item.

Aunt Diane I have known my whole life, and with Uncle Duck we also found many geocaches. It's hard to imagine she's gone. The last facebook message I got from her was about Kelly's death. Her favorite part of geocaching was probably our pizza events. Again gone way too soon.

Here she is trying to get out of the way of my picture

Last Day of 2020

Well, 2020 was quite a year. Obviously, since March it has been all about the pandemic. It seemed pretty innocent at first... worse than normal flu bug, stay inside for a few weeks while it passes. Weeks turned to months, and despite a vaccine, no end is in sight. The NBA season finished in a bubble. Baseball and football have had seasons without fans. All while we sit at home.

I've had it lucky. For one I'm already a loner so social isolation isn't so hard on me. Second, I am lucky to be able to work from home a lot of my time. Even when I was in the office I was usually by myself. Despite some layoffs, it looks like my job is safe for now, but it hasn't been so good for many others. My favorite thing about living in Portland, besides Blazer games, is the food. Sadly I have watched many of my favorite places close, and haven't been able to really enjoy those that are still open. I just hope that these places can make it. Despite a new "lock down" I've only seen road traffic increasing. I think most people are just tired of it now.

And then we have politics. I grew up in a conservative town and I live in an extremely liberal town. My true leanings are the right side of the middle. Being in the middle can mean disagreeing with both sides, talk about frustrating. Add in a pandemic and weeks of protests. There is a lot that we need to fix in this country, and none of it can be solved when we have our backs turned to each other.

But 2020 did have some highlights

• 8th year of Blazer season tickets (cut a bit short)
• The Mandolorian
• Lack of Traffic during the pandemic was great
• Found some cool tokens
• Found a geocache for the first time in 2 years

So the geocaching highlight, since it was the only one

• Hanami

I was tired of staying inside and decided to go hiking. Found this one on my way home. I didn't even have my GPS. I looked in a spot where I thought a cache should be and there it was.

Maybe I'll look for more next year. I certainly need to get out more, that one hike almost killed me. Hope to see you out on the trail.

Last Day of 2019

Another year and another blog post. Like all years there was good and bad, but mostly I can't complain. It had good moments like the Blazers playoff run last season and bad moments like the entire start of this season. I spent a whole day in the ER with a kidney stone, but at least I wasn't dying like I thought I could be when it started. I was able to find a lot of great tokens for my collection. Didn't find a single geocache, I did sort of look for one last week... so maybe one day I'll try it again.

Highlights for the year include:

• Seven years of Blazers Season Tickets (despite the bad start)
• 2nd Cruise to Alaska
• 12 Grants Pass tokens added to the collection
• This Star Wars wasn't as bad of a dumpster fire as the last (On second thought, it was worse)
• Lost about 30 pound (though the holidays may have added some back)

No geocaches found so I can't list the best ones. I still haven't archived all of mine, but will be cleaning them up.

I've got some goals for 2020. Read more, hike more, explore more and eat more. Maybe I'll see you out there.

Last Day of 2018

Some habits are hard to break, and so I couldn't leave 2018 behind without my year in review blog post. Since geocaching has been the topic of this blog from its inception I have to report that I have found none this year. I actually did search for one after I saw a group of people searching through some bushes. I became curious and turned on my geocaching app. Sure enough there was a cache at that location and... it was missing or I just couldn't find it. Additionally after wild fire made many of my remaining active geocaches unreachable I disabled them. A reviewer then archived them before the roads were even reopened to the public. After that I pulled a "lazyboy" and archived almost all of my others.

Highlights for the year include:

• Sixth year of Blazers Season Tickets
• Ran my first 5e D&D Campaign
• Took over as Treasurer for the WCC

With no geocaches found I have none to list as favorites.  I'll probably try and adopt out a couple of my remaining caches and archive the rest this year. I might search for some, it looks like the app has been improved.

While 2018 was not the best year ever for mostly personal reasons it wasn't that bad. I've branched out to hit a few more restaurants here in Portland rather than just food carts. I've really started to focus on collecting Oregon Trade Tokens which is proving to be a lot of fun. I do hope to get out and do more hiking. Geocaching could still be a part of that. We'll see what 2019 has in store.

Last Day of 2017

The year is over. I though 2016 was an odd year, but 2017 just continued the oddity. As for geocaching I didn't even end up finding a Christmas cache ending 14 years of tradition. I did however attend a lot of coin shows.

Highlights for the year include:

• First geocache found in Colorado
• Attended the ANA Summer Seminar
• 5th year of Blazer season tickets

I'd normally list my top caches here, but with only 4 finds and none of them great I won't bother. You'll also notice that I didn't list Star Wars in my highlights of the year.

I imagined finding some more geocaches, but since the new app is pretty much useless in free mode there went the easy finds. Loading up my GPA and going off geocaching just doesn't appeal to me anymore. I'll probably start to archive some of my caches as I can get to them and remove the containers. Others I might have other geocachers collect or adopt.

Colorado and other stuff

I found my first cache in Colorado

A Birthday Walk With Sis

That's 9 out of 50 states... one day I may get them all. I don't exactly travel out of state a lot.

Since the geocaching app sucks now I don't do any caching. I might pay the $5 for the Cachly app, but I haven't had the urge yet.