Monday, December 31, 2012

Last Day of 2012

The year is over. 2012 was the year the world was suppose to end, but as we can see it continues despite a Mayan calendar and a fiscal cliff. 2012 did see the end of Hostess cupcakes and the First man to walk on the moon. It also saw Olympics, elections and 100th anniversary of the Titanic sinking. On the geocaching front it was slow for myself, but saw a few highlights.
  • Hid one cache
  • Found 43 caches on 8/4 with DaveyDude and Biggeet_al
  • Found my first caches in Idaho
  • Found my first Munzee
  • With Cliff (aka Turner) taught a couple hundred cub scouts about geocaching

Some of my favorite caches of 2012 include:
After some thought I think my goal for 2013 is to have more "favorite" caches for the year. At least one a month. So I'll search out the best of the best and make the effort to go after it. Hopefully that means seeing you all out on the trail. Better yet... lets just make plans to go together.

Thank you to everyone who hid the caches I found in 2012. Have a Happy New Year!

Sunday, December 30, 2012

Bucket List Caches

Last year anticipating the end of the world I made a "Bucket List" of geocaches.

Bombsite Cache
Pyramid Rock
Mt. Elijah Cache
3 Corners (SE Oregon Hatrick) 
Alice's Rabbit Hole
DR. Who.
The Government Duck
Ramblin' Rogue aka Whoopee Tyee!
Five Bar
Hot Cache 

Of the list I only got the Mt. Elijah Cache this year. It was a fun one and I enjoyed the area a lot. The 3 Corners (SE Oregon Hatrick) is still big on my list. I think if I'm unemployed for any amount of time this summer that I'll try to convince my dad to go out with me to find that one.

Maybe I'll come up with a good list of slightly more local caches and make it my goal to complete for 2013.

Thursday, December 27, 2012

Merry Christmas! belated

The world didn't end, but my habbit of posting on Christmas day did. The tradition of finding a Christmas cache however lives on as I found

Hope 

Really easy cache that didn't even require a GPS. That one probably does me in for 2012. I'll end with just 126 caches for the year, but that is 3 more then last year.

Christmas was a really good day. Spent the time with my family and had roast beef dinner. I got a new Roku streaming player, and so far I think it rocks. It lets you stream TV shows and movies from the internet to your TV. I used it last night to watch the blazer game on NBA Broadband. Most of what you get is "on demand" which is nice if you know what you want to watch (and its available somewhere). It does take away from the "channel flipping" of normal TV.

Hope you all had a good Christmas as well. I'll be thinking back and doing a summary of the year soon. Have to think up my favorite geocaches of 2012.

Saturday, December 22, 2012

End of the world?

Yesterday the Mayan calendar rolled over. Despite all the predictions of doom and gloom it would seem that time just goes on. Just like it did before the Mayans and just like it did after. If the Mayan civilization had continued I dare say that they would have probably carved new calendars by now. Myself I have a new 2013 calendar sitting in wait to be hung up in 10 days or when I get around to it.

Its been a slow month for geocaching but I did manage to attend an event and find one cache

Southern Oregon Cachers' Christmas Party
THIRD ROCK FROM THE SUN(SON)

I'll probably find one on Christmas day to keep up with tradition and call it a year. 

Friday, November 30, 2012

10 Years

It was 10 years ago today I made my geocaching.com profile. I didn't start caching for a while, but I was already hooked on the idea. Who would have known that 10 years later I'd still be at it. Even if I'm not as enthusiastically involved as I once was.

I knew there was a cache behind my work so I did what I didn't do 10 years ago and found a cache

Friday

A fitting name for today I'd say.

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Backlog - 11/03

Earlier this month I actually did go geocaching. I went with Family to Brookings and we stayed the night at Whaleshead Beach. I found just one cache on the trip

Angelic

I also had a DNF at

Boardman Challenge#2-Searching in Urnest

Took a few pictures and called it a good trip.


Monday, November 26, 2012

Last of its kind?

So I acquired one fairly old Hostess Chocolate Cupcake. It might be the last one I have for a while... certainly the last one made by Hostess.

Very sad to see such an icon of a company die. Just goes to show that or economy is still very broken. Some people don't seem to think it matters, but that was 1000's of jobs and even if the brand is bought the new company will not need all the people laid off.

Lets just say that I would much rather they bailed out Hostess then invest millions into a failed battery company. Where are the priorities!


And yes, I just ate it.

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Happy Halloween!

Lots of news this month that I am behind on. First as of tomorrow I work for Washington Federal bank (at least for a while) that means 3 banks in less then 3 years and I never left the same office. We'll see how well this conversion goes.

Second I found some caches with Turner over the weekend and we went to an event. It was actually the first event I attended this year. That is pretty sad as we use to have monthly events around here. We even found a couple of "penny pipe" caches which are a plastic tube closed on one end with a penny wedged into it. The other end is open. The log in the first one was only held in by friction. I'm not sure these containers will last through the winter, but we'll see. There are certainly a lot of them.

My new cache "Kelly" Bigelow Lake has had a few finds and that will probably be all until next year. My second newest cache Little Craggy Falls has been found twice this year after it had gone 2 years without a find. My personal favorite of my caches Taylor Camp Cache hasn't been found since 2009. These out of the way caches are usually among the best and more then ever they are the ones I am seeking out. However the weather will keep some of them out of reach for a while.

Tonight was also opening night for the Trail Blazers and they beat the LA Lakers 116-106.

Sunday, October 07, 2012

Mt. Elijah

Last week I talked to Dr.Dan about making a trip out to Mt. Elijah for a couple of caches one still unfound. The trail head is a ways off I estimated about a 90 minute drive from Grants Pass. Most of my hiking books give directions from Williams but we came from the Oregon Caves. I decided on that path partly because there were fewer turns to goof up and because its the second weekend of hunting season and there would be fewer to run into from the caves direction.

The hike itself was not too bad. The trail makes a series of switchbacks and then comes up a ridge line. You have good views of Bigelow Lakes as well as the rest of the valley. There is another trail to Lake Mt peak and the NF boundary that might need to be explored later.

At the top were these caches:

Mt. Elijah Cache
Mt Elijah #2 

On the way up I hid my first cache since 2009

"Kelly" Bigelow Lake 

Its right off the trail to Mt Elijah as a side trail splits off to the lake. We'll see if Kelly ever goes after his tribute cache.







 

Saturday, September 29, 2012

Night Caching on B Street

Decided to try a rare night cache today. I wanted to go on a hike, but couldn't really decide on what and where. I saw this night cache and decided to call Uncle Duck. The cache was on Beacon Hill just off B Street. I hadn't found his cache at the bottom of the hill so we stopped for it

Staub

Continued up the trail spotting reflectors on the way until we finally saw the double ones. This cache was well planned and while its all up hill we took our time and it was no problem. It was a fun find.


Hide and Seek (Night Cache)

I took a couple of pictures from the cache location of the City at night. Nice view any time of day up here.


Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Grants Pass Food Carts

I've blogged before about food carts and other restaurants in downtown Grants Pass, but I haven't updated it for a while. So Grants Pass has grown from one Vietnamese food cart to having that plus a sandwich cart and 2 hot dog vendors. I've also seen a cart called "Taste of Alaska" but never at lunch time.

The sandwich cart called "Wowzers" is pretty good. I haven't seen him around for lunchtime lately. Next time I see him I'll take a picture.

The first hot dog cart I saw is owned by Mike Machado. Very friendly and you can get a hotdog chips and soda for $4. I'll have to go snap a pic for the blog soon.

Today I stopped at the cart called Big Fat Wieners. It lives up to the name serving giant hotdogs for $3. I got the Memphis Pulled Pork dog which is a giant hotdog topped with pulled pork home made BBQ sauce and coleslaw. Honestly while it was pretty good... it was too messy for me to eat while walking back to work. Next time I'll just get a regular hotdog. The provocative name might turn off a few... it shouldn't. Try it out.

The Grants Pass city council met to discuss new codes for mobile food vendors. It looks like they will be kept off 6th and 7th streets, but that hasn't really been decided. I would hope that they have looked over other cities policies on food carts.

 

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

August

It sure seems like this month has gone by fast.

So a little backlog

August 1: I found a cache. I went to get lunch and I knew one was in the area so I found it.

E.T. phone home

August 3: Was my birthday so I had chinese food.

August 4: DaveyDude asked if I wanted to go find some geocaches over the old Oregon Mountain road. It was a fun day but I'm glad there is a tunnel now. Biggieet_al ended up joining us and we had a good day. I think I logged 43. I won't link them all but my favorites of the day were

Toadally Awesome for the location
Rest Stop on Redwood Highway for the hiding spot

I guess that's about all I have done geocaching wise. Now for some pictures.





Saturday, July 28, 2012

Las Vegas and more

It has been a lazy geocaching month but I did get one find

Out Back of Silverton

It was my only find in Las Vegas last weekend. I searched for another but didn't find it. I did scan a munzee I saw there though.

NBA Summer League was happening in Vegas so we got to see 2 blazer games. The last game they held out their top rookies though so that made it a little less exciting. My sister went with me so we went and saw the Titanic exhibit at the Luxor. That was pretty neat. They have a very large piece of the hull and a lot of personal items. Along with dishes and other ship related things. It puts a very human perspective to the story. We also went to Circus Circus and rode the roller coaster. That was fun.

Saturday, June 30, 2012

June caches and Cub Scouts

I'll start with Thursdays adventures. Cliff (of Turner and Stitch) and I spent a day at Cub Scout camp to teach kids about geocaching.

I guess I'll start with saying that we had very little info going into this. I had traded a few emails with another geocacher about it, but details were scarce. In fact I had to look up the camp online to find the location. Even then all it said was Ruth-Hyde park which I had never heard of. Turns out to be a camp owned by the Girl Scouts. After some asking around the bank of girl scout mothers I finally got directions. So on the big day we show up and we never saw our contact. The camp manager had no clue we were coming, but was glad to see us. They crossed out soccer on the event sheet and put us in.

Despite the mix up we had a lot of fun. There were well over 100 kids (about 20 at a time every 40 minutes) and only a few in each group had heard or geocaching. We hid some temporary caches on one of the trails up there and let the kids loose after some basic instruction.

Things to know for next year if we are asked again, and if I still live around here
  • Make sure to contact the camp director personally
  • Bring more GPS's
  • Try to get another volunteer or two
  • Put stuff in the caches
My old Garmin legend just wouldn't hold a signal and even my new Garmin 20 seemed a bit off. Lots of tree cover. Would have been better if we had more time to have set up, but we spent a lot of our morning trying to figure out what we were doing.

The kids like to have turns with the GPS and with only a couple of them and 5 temp caches we just couldn't let them all have a turn. It would be nice to have a few extras, but the cheap ones I could get like my Legend just didn't seem to work well enough. One scout mother looking at the GPS which said about 90 feet 30 feet from the cache said "This just isn't going to work, that's not good enough" (Makes me wonder how I ever found 1000 geocaches with it? hahaha)

Anyway my other news is that I found 2 caches today

Home Sweet Home
Shack by the Track?

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

The food of downtown Grants Pass

Here is a food cart follow up story.

I know that with this economy real restaurants downtown have been hurting. To be honest I don't frequent any of these places despite working close to some. As I said before I usually would rather pick something up. So that leaves me with fast food or our one food cart.

Its unfair to focus on one cart so I've decided to do reviews of everyplace downtown I've been. For the sake of ease I'll call downtown A through M streets. 4th through 8th.

Taste of China: On A street near the high school. This started as a truck over by the Alibi Tavern. Its simple Chinese food and pretty cheap. Its probaly the place on this list I go to the most. My favorite Sweet and Sour Chicken with fried rice. If you call ahead they will have your food ready to go.

One Fifteen Broiler: On D street next to the Dutch Bros coffee house. This is a good steak house. I've been here several times for lunch and dinner. Lunch menu is a little limited for me. I'd recommend going for dinner and having steak.

Powderhorn Cafe: Famous for a group of old (influential) men that use to meet here for coffee. That made it kind of a landmark for locals. Almost all of those old men are gone, but it can still be hard to get a table. Good for breakfast and lunch. Try some pie while you're there.

4th Street Deli: This bakery and Deli is only open early now. They use to have great soup and sandwiches for lunch. In the mornings they have donuts and other baked goods plus Biscuits and Gravy for $2.50.

Circle J Cafe: On G street. Might be the closest place to me for lunch. They have hamburgers, pizza, sandwiches,  sweet potato fries... and probably salads. Like a lot of these its a small place and can get kind of crowded. My favorite a burger with the sweet potato fries of course.

Blondies' Bistro: In the shopping center on G street. I've been for lunch and dinner. Its a pretty nice place. I recommend the steak sandwich.

Laughing Clam: On G street by Blind George's. Good if you like seafood. They have Fish and Chips, Prawns, Clam Strips, Crab Cakes and the dinner menu has jambalaya. They also have hamburgers. I like this place, but I've had some under-cooked items. It can be really busy at nights when they have live music.

China Buffet: On the corner of 7th and G. This was a Sambo's back in the day. They have a lot of choices in the buffet. It was decent, however this place has a very poor record with health ratings.

Hannah's: At 5th and H. This is a southern restaurant. They have things like fried chicken, jambalaya, hush puppies, fried okra... you know southern stuff. Good, but can be slow and expensive.


Rosso's Trattoria: An Italian place on 6th street. If this place was a food cart I'd have their Italian Wedding Soup everyday... well maybe every other day. It is small and can get packed so I recommend going for lunch early.

Royal Barge Thai Cuisine: On H street. It might not look like much, but I like this place. I recommend the BBQ chicken and some Won Ton Soup.


Taqueria: On H Street next to the Rogue Theater. This is essentially the same as Si Casa Flores over by Fred Meyers. I'm not always a fan of Mexican food, but I do eat here. I like their enchiladas and the huevos rancheros.

Thai BBQ: On 6th Street. I've only been a couple of times, but I liked it. I can't recomend anything specific. Go try it and you tell me.

If a place isn't on my list I haven't eaten there (or forgot about it) places I haven't been. G Street Bar & Grill, Mediterranean Bar & Grill, Wonder Bur Cafe, Blue Stone Bakery, Lupita's Taquaria, Four Seasons, Luigi's Italian Sandwiches, and the Gold Miner. There is another BBQ place that was called Chick n Ribs its something else now, but still BBQ. And there is another yellow building across from 7/11 its Latin Cuisine of some kind. Never tried those either.







Sunday, June 24, 2012

More on food carts

Here is another news story on our local food cart.

For those too lazy to click the link, someone tossed a home-made bomb into their garage. Luckily it didn't do any damage. The best part being that when he called the Sheriff they didn't have anyone to send out. They also say that many people have been harassing them.

So a little background on this. Right now in Grants Pass you can operate a food cart with permit on the street. You pull into a parking spot and sell right from there. He just has to follow city laws and not stay parked in any one spot more then 2 hours. This makes people angry because he could potentially park in front of any business. They don't pay property tax and other overhead costs. Some think that because of this he can undercut other restaurants prices.

I do think it would be better if he had a more permanent place to park. Maybe someplace like the farmers market parking lot could allow food carts on weekdays by permit. I would love to see more carts in town and a bigger variety of food. Maybe its time to dust off the old writing desk and pen a letter to the editor. I don't really want to attend any city council meeting and argue with weirdos, but if you don't the more vocal will get their way.

As for Sàigòn Xích lô I'm still a fan. They are very nice people, and the food is good. If you haven't tried it go show them some support. While you're downtown walk around and check out some local businesses.

Sunday, May 27, 2012

Food Carts

It may sound strange for someone who is as picky of an eater as I am to like to try new things, but occasionally I do. I suppose things like Indian, Vietnamese and Korean aren't new anymore. I like them all. In Grants Pass there is one Korean Restaurant (its good but no one will go there with me) and one Vietnamese Restaurant (I wasn't impressed.)

Recently though there has been a Vietnamese food cart downtown called Sàigòn Xích lô. Its caused quite a controversy much like some of the food carts have in other cites. I have never gotten a chance to try the ones in downtown Portland, but there are a bunch with a wide variety of food types. I've hear Medford has a handful as well.

The main controversy with this cart is that he doesn't have a permanent place to park. They just park in an empty space on the street and move every two hours.Click Here for a news story about it. Personally I would like to see more food carts with a bigger variety of food. When I'm at work I don't like to go to a restaurant and sit by myself. I'd much rather pick something up to go and take it back to work or to home.

I've tried this cart a few times and had the first 3 items on the menu. All were pretty good. I wish they just had simple cheap Pho. That's what Grants Pass really needs is good cheap Pho... and Indian food.






Friday, May 18, 2012

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Days 2, 3, 4 and 5

Didn't get around to updating my blog for the rest of vacation. Just got home today and have 31 caches to claim for it. I could have had a lot more but I didn't stop for several. Had a snake scare me away from one (watch out for snakes under those piles of rocks.)

So the trip was Grants Pass to Crane. Then Crane to Boise. Boise to Burns and finally Burns to Grants Pass. We took some side trips like driving 100 miles extra just to go to McDermitt. We also drove off the highway to visit Arock, Danner and Drewsey.

Some pictures from the first couple of days. More to come







Sunday, May 13, 2012

Day 1: Grants Pass, OR to Crane, OR

Decided to take a trip East this week. Today we traveled over to Crystal Crane Hot Springs in Crane, OR. Had breakfast at McDonalds in White City and was not too surprised to see Lazyboy. Having trouble uploading pictures but these were today's caches.

Wagontire - Population 2 (+1)
Obsidian Point
Whoa! Ya Missed it
Crystal Crane

Sunday, May 06, 2012

Bike Path Caching

I went out today with Kelly and Iseek to find some new geocaches on the bikepath between Central Point and Medford. Daveydude later joined us and we had a good time. I had 20 finds on the day which was 5 times more then I had found all year. It has been a long time since I went caching with everyone so I took some videos and pictures.






The finds for the day included:

TOLIP  
TB 

And here are some old time videos



Saturday, April 28, 2012

March for Babies

Today was the annual March for Babies. We didn't do as well as previous years for fundraising but we still managed to raise about $2500 as a team. I took the team pic so I am not in it.


Wednesday, April 25, 2012

My first Munzee

So I had heard a bit about Munzee its a lot like geocaching except you find a QR code you scan with your smart phone instead of a cache. Many people have been placing them on geocache containers. The one I found yesterday was hidden by Kelly in front of his work. Its the first one in Grants Pass.

While cell phone coverage has been growing there are still out of the way places that a Munzee just wouldn't be possible but a cache would. I can see them being much more successful in an urban environment.

I might put out one of my own and I'll probably scan them when I see one. As for seeking them out... probably not, but then again I don't even go geocaching much anymore.


Sunday, April 22, 2012

April Cache

My one cache a month streak is still alive

JCT1

Sadly the container broke and I couldn't put it back as it was... just my luck. This was a hard one to grab even on a Sunday afternoon. Lots of muggles and an odd to reach hiding spot.

I spent most of my weekend power washing my deck and cleaning up the grill to start the season. All my deck furniture is out and I even got a new coat of water seal on all the rails while it was warm.

Monday, April 16, 2012

Well...

I still haven't found my cache for the month, but I'll get one before the end of April to keep me on my 1 per month average. Next month however I plan to blow that out of the water. I'll be taking a vacation to Eastern Oregon and Idaho. Should be able to pick up a few without trying too hard.

In other news the bank I work for has been sold. In the fall it looks like another system conversion. I'm not sure if I'll get to see it or not. Sometime in the next month I should know if I'll be let go. From what I know most of their IS is based in Seattle... that would certainly expand my geocaching area. I'm preparing a new resume and keeping my eyes open just in case. So if you know of any good jobs let me know.

Monday, March 26, 2012

9 Years

9 years ago today I found my first geocache State quarter cache

I had signed up for a gc.com account months before and I planned to try it when the weather got better. The day before I found my first cache I ordered a GPS online. While I could have waited for it I decided to try to find a cache without it the next day, and I did.

Today I decided to find a cache to keep my one a month streak alive. Didn't need a GPS for this one

Housed

Maybe when the weather gets nicer I'll look for more then one at a time.

Monday, February 27, 2012

Memories of an odd bench

A little backlog for a cache earlier in the month. I got a call from Cliff (aka Turner) asking if I was going to the Discover Roseburg event. Sadly I had other plans but while we chatted he mentions he resurrected an old cache of mine and called it

Horse Lottery? Revisited

Of course my original cache wasn't much and certainly not one to be remembered, but those first couple dozen caches you find always seem to stay in memory. Anyway he mentioned it and I saw it hadn't been found... so I went and grabbed the FTF. Very rare for me these days. Only my second cache of the year and I didn't need my GPS for either of them. My new GPS is probably wishing it was purchased by a real geocacher so it could go on adventures. I'll have to dust it off soon.

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

One cache, new phone

A whole month gone by and I only have one cache to show for it

Dutch & Lucile

This cache was so easy that I didn't use my new GPS or even my new phone.

Previously I had an Android phone. I have used the geocaching app to find caches before but I didn't think it worked all that great. Android was buggy and in my opinion doesn't work all that well even when its running right. So I switched to the iPhone. I never thought I'd own an Apple product. It would seem to be against my very nature. But I've never been happier... it works so well. Best of all I can actually answer it. Probably 25% of all calls before my phone would freeze when I tried to answer. The only app I have purchased is the geocaching app and I'll have to try it out someday.

Sadly I am going to miss the Discover Roseburg 2 event this weekend. Might be able to grab a couple this month... we'll see