2 more

Sunday I decided I had time to grab a couple of caches. I grabbed a cache that I couldn't find due to muggles the day before. Then I drove out to my parents for dinner and I found one out that direction. So I only got two but with my lack of caching as of late its a pretty good number. This next weekend is a 3 day for me so if the weather is nice maybe I can get a few more. These were the finds on the day

Submerge
ROCK'N'CACHE!

Cache day

Yesterday I decided to take advantage of the sunshine and find a few caches. After searching for a couple I gave my uncle a call and while he had found all of then I was looking for he said he'd come along (that keeps me from having to call him for hints). So I found 14 on the day and even found a couple with rain_man_rich and ridemcowgirl who we were following for a portion of the day. These were the days finds.

Plum Crazy
G.M.
Grey in Grey
In Return
It's Done
Errors
Found Item
California Here We Come
Bros. Headquarters
TREEKLE
Three Trunks
Pig Banjo
I'll Fly Away
Pine-ing Away

There are still a lot of caches I have saved up to find in the area. Not sure if I'll get out for any today or not.

First caches of '08

Yes, I have been rather slow at caching the last few months. Bad weather and a new house have cut down on my time for caching. So today in the rain and cold I decided to get a few. If I had a better rain coat I probably would have gone for more. Of course its not even noon yet I might feel like going out again in a while. So far these are the finds for the day

Sweet Tooth
Another Creeky Cache
Check It!
Thanks

2008

Well blogging this year isn't off to a very good start. I don't have internet at my new house yet. I was weighing my options as far as TV and internet... finally decided to just get cable. So it will be installed this weekend.

I really wanted an option where I could get more Blazer games as Charter Cable doesn't carry the Comcast Sports NW channel that most games are on now. If I went with a dish then I'd have to buy NBA League Pass and there was conflicting information on if those games would be blacked out or not. In the end I just hope that CSN is added by Charter soon.

Maybe I'll get off my lazy butt and find a few caches this weekend after my internet is in.

Last Day of 2007

So today is the last day of 2007 and that means its time to look back on the year. It has been a pretty slow year for me since SallyC moved to Salem. I had many months with only single digit finds, but on the other end of the spectrum October and May were my #2 and 3 all time months for the number of finds I had. Several cache excursions with Daveydude, Iseek, Duck and Biggieet_al kept me in the numbers.

Highlights for the year include:

• Hid a measly 2 caches and 1 event (will have to make up for this in '08)
• Reached the 1100, 1200, and 1300 find milestones
• Adopted more than 30 SallyC caches
• Found Caches in 5 States

Some of my favorite caches of the year include:

• Wildfires are for the birds!
• Valley Floor
• Miller Lake Ridgeline Cache
• Dead Ends! It's Miller time!
• Sorry, Try Again
• Bolan Creek Cache
• Bobby's Booty
• Tempus Fidget
• Babe
• Beginning or Ending of Albany Ave. ?
• Cemetery Ridge
• Welcome to Utah
• Hangin' Out At The Country Store
• Tombstone
• TREED

So a big thank you to all the geocachers who hid these caches and others I have found this year. Hope to see you all on the trail in 2008. Have a Happy New Year!

More caches and plumbing

Well Early this morning I got my plumbing issue taken care of... only cost me $350... ouch. The pipes behind the hot water heater were clogged.

After that I found 2 caches and I might fit in a couple more as its a nice day.

VERTICAL BANJO
Leaping Legume

Tomorrow I'll write up my year end summary. Where did 2007 go to?... seems like it just started.

Caches and plumbing

Well I walked and got a cache today

Grace

After that I ran the washing machine and the hot water went out. The tank isn't filling with water. I think there is an air lock in the pipes. I tried hooking the cold water to the hot water behind the washer, but it doesn't seem to have enough pressure to push all the air out.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to all of my loyal blog readers. Now that I'm all moved into my house I should have time for geocaching again. As is traditions I picked up a couple of Christmas caches today

TREE WITH 17 TRUNKS
TREED

I have all sorts of caches saved up to find so I should be able to survive the winter. As usual I'll soon be compiling a list of my favorite caches of 2007 one of todays might have made the list and I still have one more weekend to find more.

Getting back on track

I have been pretty busy moving into the new house. Moving stuff and unpacking has been a slow process. I still have a long way to go as I have a lot of junk.

Hopefully I'll be able to find a handful of caches before the end of the year. I've got one within walking distance of my house so maybe I'll pick it up soon.

Home updates

Thought it was time for a few more pictures of my house.

Here is the hall bathroom



The Master Bathroom



And the master bedroom all but complete with my new furniture.

Event and caches

I'm a few days late, but on Sunday was the latest cache event.

Pizza With Beavers & Ducks

Also found a couple other caches

PIZZA PLACE
GIVE ME A SIGN

Several new cachers and out of town visitors in attendance. It was a pretty good time. Here is a picture of a cache find just before we all went in to eat.

A Find?

After a bit of cleaning at my house today I went to lunch with some of my family. My uncle Duck and cousin Oldendorf were there and had done a bit of caching beforehand. I decided not to be left out too bad so I went and found one cache

A_CORNy Cache

Painting and renovation

Well I have tried to work on my house as much as I can. Thanks to my uncle the painting is mostly done. And my dad tore out most of the kitchen floor that needed removed. All of this while I had to work overtime moving our Cave Junction branch to a new location... the timing of which couldn't be worse for me to get much done on my place. Oh well I can use the extra money.

Here is a picture of the remains of the kitchen floor

This is a picture of the master bedroom in a darker green. Not a good picture, it looks much better in person and after the second coat.

This is the second bedroom in progress.

The living room painted a nice beige color with the half wall removed.

My uncle convinced me to paint one bathroom chocolate brown. I think it looks pretty good.

Kitchen demo

No geocaching lately for me. Today was demolition day at my house. Removed a few kitchen cabinets to open it up. and took stuff off the walls to prepare for paint. Have a look





Also rain_man_rich came by and gave me this cool house warming gift

New Home

Well it is official. I closed on my House yesterday and I got the keys. Its pretty exciting. I won't be moving in right away as I am going to rip out the carpet, paint, and have new hardwood floors installed.

I never got the last 5 caches needed to make October my biggest month of finds. With a new house, winter weather, and a whole bunch of work stuff I might not have much time for caching the rest of the year. I'll try to get a few were I can.

Record setting month???

Well I tried to find 7 caches today to beat my all time record for caches found in a month. Currently my record is 80 caches set in March of 2004. That included my record of 53 in a single day.

I got my first 2 finds with a little luck

Double Mystery
Golf Course

The next 5 caches I was thwarted by muggles or just plain no finds. I gave up after that. Guess with all those extra eyes searching yesterday I just forgot how it was done. So for right now I have 76 finds for the month.

Here is a picture of one of our many finds from yesterday.

Big caching day

At the last event I was invited to go along with Biggieet_al and Duck the next Saturday for a caching trip to Medford. So today joined by Oldendorf we made the trip and found a lot of new caches. I found 30 to be exact... just enough to reach 1300.

Most of todays caches were easy drive up micros so there were none really exciting. A few of them were too urban for me... but we found them all the same. These were the finds for the day.

Travelers Bug Hangout
Wild And Scenic Rogue
FARMING ARTIFACTS
Phone Tree ??
SLEEPING BEAUTY
Little oak
OLD MILT
OLD STAGE ROAD VISTA
Dahlia
Willow Creek Bush
LEWIS and PARK
FOUR FINE FIR TREES
NO BAKERS DOZEN HERE!
yield!
Fiddlers Three
JUST BECAUSE
POLE VERMIN
the bolted rock award!
MEAN MAG MICRO
Ellendale 35
CLOCKOVER
Rockit
ANOTHER CREEKSIDE CACHE
Little Cedar?
Cedar? 2
WILDISH TREES
YAPIDNA 2
Cut Grass
That's da crunk
BOES 12 GA.

Country caching

Today was the Walk in the Country Folks event. I found a few caches beforehand and showed up for the event at 1pm... guess I misread as the event was at 1:30. So I sat by myself for a while. After the event my new neighbor rain_man_rich and I found a few caches. We had a couple no finds and hard searches which kept us from finding too many. These were the finds for the day.

Lonesome Cedar
Redwood Wetlands
ducks by the creekside # 5
ducks by the creekside # 4
ducks by the creekside #2
Just in case
ducks by the creekside #3

GeoWoodstock VI: the website

The website for Geowoodstock 6 is up and running. You can now register for the event. It is totally free with free food and activities, but you have to register to get a food ticket.

I'm all registered and have a room reserved and everything... even if its 7 months away.

A year gone by

It was one year ago yesterday that SallyC and I finished the Oregon DeLorme Challenge. It has only been done by one other cacher since (though 2 more are ready to complete it.)

In the 2 years since the cache was hidden it only has 8 finds and 3 of those were out of state geocachers. It does take a good bit of time, money and dedication to complete, but it is worth it just for bragging rights.

FTF feaver

Last night I noticed a new cache near my house that had yet to be found. So I took off after dinner and got a FTF.

Ladeana

The weather is suppose to improve this weekend so I might try and find a few more caches. I have a lot just in the Grants Pass area... in Medford I have hundreds. I'll have to decide if I want to hike a bit or just do a bunch of cache-n-dashes.

Columbus Day caching

Yesterday was Columbus Day, and that means a day off for me. Some people don't think Columbus should be honored with a holiday, but I disagree. I'm an equal opportunity holiday taker... I'll take a day off paid in the name of just about anyone.

With the day off I called up my uncle Duck to see if he was interested in picking up some new caches. Mainly I wanted to get a new cache called Tombstone. This cache is in and old tombstone quarry recently discovered in Josephine County. It is an interesting place with several stones in different stages of completion. A tombstone quarry also makes for a perfect October cache.

Also found 10 other caches that I had been saving up in the area

You're Benched
Deceptive
Defence
TINY PARK,BIG TREES
POLEMIC
ODS Snoogan's 5 - GP
Camping Out in Joy
Three at Sixty-One
Would You Marry Harris?
Salute

Weekend of caches

Yesterday Daveydude and I went out to Cave Junction to find some of the new caches in the area and pick up a few older ones. These were my finds for the day.

Mother Hubbard
GOATHEAD
1 + 7 =8 cache
2 + 6 =8 cache
2 x 4=8 cache
8 cache
1 dollar cache
4 dollar cache
7 dollar cache
8 dollar cache
View #1
Those Flyboys Gotta Love Em
Barbwire
You turn me right & left
“The Secret Cache Stage 1”
“The Secret Cache Stage 2”
“The Secret Cache Stage 3”

We ran out of time to complete the secret cache series. So those must wait for another day.

Today I decided to pick up a few and ended with 7. I was thwarted by muggles all day... including a concert and sidewalk chalk artists. These were my finds

Tower Power
It's Done 2
Over the bridge
cornered -- no longer Centered
Hello Gilbert
Mycorrhizal
R and R

House hunting at an end?

Well my house hunting days may be over. I found a nice little 2 bed 2 bath house and put in an offer on it... and it was accepted. As long as nothing comes up in the inspection it should be just a matter of days before I'm moving in.

Mmmmm more pizza

Today was another geocaching event put on by Sparrowhawk on her way down to Las Vegas. While I missed the bulk of the event due to a lapse of memory and sleepiness I got there just in time to enjoy some of the conversation and pass on a travel bug. It was a good time and I wish her the best of luck.

Pink Ribbon Journey/TBs to Las Vegas (Grants Pass)

Mmmmm creek side pizza

Today was the "premier" Southern Oregon geocaching event.

4th. Annual Pizza By The Creekside

This annual event is always fun. Pretty good pizza and good friends. There were some 75 caches hidden in preparation for this event and I found one... the closest to the event.

Hangin' Out At The Country Store

Sitting at the airport

Well here I am sitting at the Las Vegas airport and I have a lot of time to waste. Lucky for me there is free internet.

I didn't get as many caches as I was hoping but I did manage to drive to St George, Utah through Arizona and pick up finds in 3 states. That means this month I've found caches in 5 states Oregon, California, Nevada, Arizona and Utah. I only wish I had more time.

Here is a picture of the Hotel I stayed at

Here is a picture of a graveyard in Arizona near the cache I found

And here is the sign at the rest area in Utah

My cache finds for the whole weekend were

Beginning or Ending of Albany Ave. ?

Pump-It-Up!

Cemetery Ridge

Welcome to Utah

Driving Diversion

I also had a couple of no finds. I'll try to post more pictures when I get home.

Viva Las Vegas

Well I made it to Las Vegas. Its pretty late so no caching tonight. Tomorrow I'll get a few.

Jason goes skydiving

Here is the video

Color change, again

I decided too many blogs had the same color scheme... so I changed mine a bit. I'm too lazy to create my own theme anymore so I stuck with what I had, I just changed to the "green" color scheme which I think is better for a geocaching blog anyway.

I'm still looking forward to Sunday when I fly out to Vegas... I have a lot to think about. But before that on Saturday is my best friends wedding. I'm the best man so I have to make a toast... I have to come up with something to say, don't want to look like too much of an idiot.

A trip to the Redwoods

Took a trip to Crescent City yesterday and found a few caches. We stopped by the Trees of Mystery walked though the trail and rode on the Skytrail tram. That was a lot of fun. Took a few pictures and drove home.





These were the caches for the day

Nothing special
Messy Kraut
Wave to Smokey
Tempus Fidget
TONS OF FUN ONE
Goobercache IV
Goobercache VII
Goobercache VIII
Goobercache XI
Yurok Loop Cache
Babe

Next Stop... Las Vegas

I should be able to find a few caches this weekend and perhaps a few the weekend after when I'm in Albany. But what I am really looking forward to is the 9th through the 12th when I'll be in Las Vegas. Most people probably focus on the casinos and nightclubs... but I've been focused on the geocaching. There will be plenty of time for gambling after dark. Oh sure I have to attend a conference for a good portion of the day but I should be able to get a few caches in. I'm even trying to plan a bit of a road trip.

skydiving

I did it... I went skydiving. Yes me, the guy that doesn't even like to climb ladders or walk down steep hills. I've never even flown in an airplane before.

So this was all my friend Dave's idea. For some reason he got this idea in his head that before he got married he was going skydiving... and for some reason I agreed to go.

The process was easy enough. We drove up to Molalla and signed a bunch of waivers... then we paid our money and went through about 15 minutes of training. After that we waited forever and finally got the call to go suit up. I told my guy I was not a big fan of heights and could never jump on my own... he said not to worry he'd jump and I'd go with him. Soon we loaded on the plane like a bunch of sardines... we climbed to 13000 feet and they opened the doors. The experienced people jumped first and I scooted down the bench. My instructor told me to walk toward the door turn toward the cockpit and that he would step left and I'd follow... and thats what we did. After tumbling a bit we steadied out and it was amazing. After a few seconds of freefall (120 MPH) he pulled the shoot and we floated softly back to the earth.

Pictures

Here is a picture of Bobby lake from an area near the cache.



And a picture of a small island on Waldo Lake... would be a great place for a cache but is too often full of muggles.

Camping

I went camping to Waldo Lake over the weekend. Found a few caches while I was out

Crestview St.
CHARLATAN
Bobby's Booty
Diamond View
Up From The Ashes

I loaded the nearest 300 caches to the lake in my GPS but didn't have any real plan's except for hiking to Bobby Lake for the new Bobby's Booty cache. I was a day late for the first find on that one. Stopped at the store in Oakridge and decided to check the GPS... sure enough there was a cache just a couple hundred feet away on Crestview St. On the way back we stopped by the Diamond Peak viewpoint and ran into a couple of geocachers... one of whom happens to be the sister of Beaver Lover. I'll post some pictures later.

Adventures in the sky

I've been a lot of place in Oregon and to several states but I have never flown in an airplane. Not even a short trip. Some people find that amazing. I don't really... all my family lives close and I've always been too poor to travel far. However, a conference in Las Vegas is coming up and I have scheduled my first airplane flight for September. Well that was the plan until today... today I got booked on a much different flight.

Skydive Oregon

My friend wanted to do this before his wedding... so I agreed. On August 25th I get the rare distinction of jumping out of the first airplane I ever rode in.

30?... dang

Well today is my 30th birthday. I don't really feel 30... well except my left arm has been pretty sore lately and I can't see a thing without my glasses anymore.

I saved a nearby cache just to have one to find on the occasion

Elk Lane Park

oh my

I actually found a cache yesterday

Nebraska Canal Trail

I haven't had much time for anything, but with the bank conversion done and the newest branch open I should have my weekends back.

Today is also my nieces first birthday.

Happy 4th of July

I have been so busy lately that I never thought I'd find my 1200th cache, but since I had today off I went out and got the 7 I needed.

What’s in a Name?
BUSted
2nd try
Park Here
SPARCY
Mow and Stow
The plane truth

All but # 1200 were hidden by Turner and Stitch. If it weren't for a couple of no finds I would have ended up with on of their caches for the milestone, but I couldn't find cornered -- Centered and ODS Snoogan's 5 - GP. The first one I think is missing, the second was a tough hide and I had to give up due to the heat which was in the mid 90's by that point.

Now I'm just relaxing on my day off before I have to go back to work. Hope everyone has a great 4th of July and a happy 231rst birthday to the good ol' U.S.A.

One more

The last cache I found on the weekend is now active so I could log it

Those who came before us #3

That leaves me with 7 finds for the 1200 milestone. I'll be pretty busy with work the next 2 weeks so it might have to wait, but I do have a lot of local caches saved. We'll see how it goes.

A few more

Yesterday was the Oasis In The Country event. It was a fun one with a pretty good turnout for the short notice. Depending on if anyone else wants to host I might put on the July event myself.

After the event I went with Iseek & Eyeseek2 for a few new caches

Where's John? #1
Where's John? #2
Davey come back 2

In between a couple of those we also teamed with IVHS76 and son to find a few of his new caches. We were happy to have him guiding us.

French Peak Multi
Those who came before us #1
Those who came before us #2
Those who came before us #3 (as yet unapproved, but the coords are in #1 and #2)
Bolan Creek Cache

The French Peak cache was a 11 part multi... probably the longest I have completed for just one smiley face, but I think it was meant to tease a couple of evil cachers in the area so I think maybe its fitting. Also while logging caches in the area I discovered one I forgot to log on our last cache outing.

FOR JOHN & CHRIS,LUCKY 300!

I was hoping the the Firehouse Tour cache would be fixed in time for us to find it this weekend, but it was not to be I guess. I'm hoping the owner will give us the coords to the new final cache if it changes any.

It was a fun weekend. If the #3 cache above gets approved one of these days I'll be just 7 caches from 1200.

Sunday of Geocaching

On Sunday I got away from work for a bit of geocaching with Iseek and Daveydude. We headed toward Cave Junction with a few caches in mind and we found all but one, Firehouse Tour. You needed 6 caches to find this one... each contained a part of the coords, but someone had replaced the logbook of the second cache and not written in the coords needed. We attempted to guess and finally asked for help from Uncle Duck... the area he mentioned fit the rest of the coords perfectly (and was later confirmed correct) but we never found the cache. Didn't log a DNF as of yet because we were unsure of the coords. Beyond that I ended with 21 finds on the day and had a good time caching with friends. These were the finds for the day

21 GUN SALUTE
Impowered
S.O.S , VECTOR
Butterknife
Barracks 146
Cave Junction History Lesson #1
Where'd J'rome?
Rocky View
Not the Dump #1
Not the Dump #2
Not the Dump #3
Not the Dump #4
Not the Dump #5
Not the Dump #6
Not the Dump #7
Not the Dump #8
Firehouse Station Two
Firehouse Station Three
Firehouse Station Four
Firehouse Station Five
Firehouse Station Six

GeoWoodstock VI

GeoWoodstock VI is coming to Sacramento May 25, 2008

While we have a year to wait for it I find this pretty exciting news. Over 700 geocachers have logged GeoWoodstock 5 so far. That is a lot of geocachers to meet. So as of right now I'm planning to attend, but we'll see what is happening in a year.

Bike riding

Saturday when daveydude and I went caching I showed him my PDA. He has an effective but time consuming method of writting down everything he needs. So yesterday he bought his own PDA so in exchange for some help getting started with it he took me around to a few caches... 22 to be exact

Larry made me do it!
reflector stick
BOWLING IS FUN!
ATTRACTIVE!
WICKED BITS
GOLFING?
TREELINE
The Road to Home
DUCK DOO DOO
TRICERATOPS
TAKE A SEAT,REST YER FEET!
I Hate I-5 / Lucky Dog
ROCK SCENE
EROSION!
HIGHWAY 99 PIT STOP,REVISITED
CONCRETE MONOLITH
BABY CROC
FORKED TREES AND BIRDHOUSES
SPOTTY
ROCKY CORNER
BCT 13 - Phoenix-Talent - Orchard Path
Which?

Many of them were along the bikepath and we rode bikes down. I'm not use to such physical activity... I'm lucky I survived.

Caching in Glide

Yesterday I went caching up by Glide with daveydude... we managed 13 with a couple of no finds. I got a 14th at the end of the day as we came back. These were the finds for the day

Quick Change
The Eighth Sign of the Zodiac
Bank On It!
Lone Rock
Red Barn Ruins
Boat Slide
Dead End Valley
WHISTLERS
Cache a Frisbee
Where's Ben?
Whistler's Cache
Collision Course
Sorry, Try Again

The last one on my list is a famously frustrating cache... it is a micro in the woods, but it has not been maitained and what was left was wet. ***SPOILER highlight the paragraph below only if you want to reveal secrets of the cache. ***

The cache was a micro hanging from a tree, but there were 30 of them and only one has a log... each other has a hint. We searched them all... most were wet and soggy. We replaced the log in one.

When looking for that last cache we stumbled on this covered bridge



My last cache of the day was R.V.CACHE which was hidden by daveydude... so he pointed me in the right direction. It was a fun day... good way to start a 3 day weekend.

More on the NBA Draft

Yesterday, I was so happy when the Trail Blazers got the #1 pick that I almost cried.


I've been a blazerfan since around 1989-90... I was in the 6th grade and that season I started watching and they went to the NBA Finals. It was easy to be a fan then. Unlike other people I never quit being a fan... I've pretty much watched every game I could for the last 18 seasons. Even in the mid 90's when they were constantly out of the first round of the playoffs... and those great teams of 99 and 2000... and the "jail blazer" years that followed. For the last couple of seasons we've had a nice change of personel and now we have a great core of young guys... the future looked bright and then with this Draft Lottery the future just got a whole lot better. Other years the #1 pick might not mater so much, but this season has two potential superstars... and we get our choice. It can't get much better then that.

Go Blazers!!!

My Blazers just got the #1 pick in the NBA Draft. This is a great day... I am still stunned...

Off the list

Well I crossed the nearest active unfound cache off my list today

GP Trees - California Black Oak

I had looked before with no luck but spotted it today. It was a super micro container and hidden in such a way that I couldn't get it. I have tweesers but still couldn't get it. I finally reached into my first aide kit, got some tape and put it at the end of a stick... worked like a charm.

While I like urban micros of this kind (the type that aren't in residential areas) it is a big change from the adventures of Miller Lake yesterday. Funny to think that they are both part of the same game. It just goes to show that there are caches for everyone if you bother to look.

I'll attach one more picture of my adventures of yesterday.

A Trip to Miller Lake

Last June SallyC and I drove up to visit Miller Lake and found the last bridge gone making it a hike we were unprepared for. Months later my dad and I drove through the creek on the quad and got to the trail head. We ended up with two caches.

Dead Ends! It's Miller time!
Miller Lake Ridgeline Cache

We were FTF on the ridgeline cache which was hidden in October. It was a hard hike the way we took... you'll have to read my log to get the full story.

Neat

I discovered this website http://www.itsnotaboutthenumbers.com/. You can upload a pocket query of your finds and it will give you all sorts of interesting stats and it will create maps for you like this map of Oregon Counties color coded for how many caches I've found in each.

So I've found at least 1 in every county and I've found many in surounding counties. It might not be good for anything but it is interesting to see everything in detail.

GeoBreakfast

Today was the Breakfast with Bears GeoEvent. It was a good event with a pretty good turnout. After the event I found a few caches with rock&crystal after they mentioned Peanuthead's Valley Floor cache, and I offered to tag along. It is one of the oldest caches in Oregon and for some reason I had never found it. So with their help I crossed these 4 off my list before taking off for some mother's day shopping.

Valley Floor
BITTERROOTS
DEAD WALKMAN HIDDING
DEEP,DARK,CACHE.

After picking out a gift I decided I'd had enough for the day.

Another caching Sunday

Well today was a nice sunny day and I got out and found a few caches that had accumulated in the area. I did these 7 caches before lunch

Cup O' Joe
Vicky's Cache
Healing Waters
RAPPED 1
RAPPED 2
CHB
Watch It

All of these were of the urban variety, and a couple of unique hides. I tried for GP Trees - California Black Oak but I was stummped so I stopped for a while. A few hours later I decided I wanted 10 for the day... so I found these

GP Trees - Palms in Grants Pass?
GP Trees - Adolescent Giant Sequoia
BIG FLY

I returned to try the black oak again, but there were too many muggles in the area. So I had to drive out a bit and find a big fly to complete my 10. Next weekend is the Breakfast with Bears GeoEvent so it should be a good opportunity to find some of the many Medford caches I don't have. Daveydude has been busy and I haven't found many of his 200 plus hides.

A few finds

Well I went out and found a few caches today ending a long dry spell.

Get a Start on Cathedral Hills
Heart Felt
Deedy's Sleepy Hollow

I've been pretty lazy lately and I need to get out and find some. I'll consider today a small step in the right direction.

A FTF?

Well yesterday I noticed another new Daveydude cache on waters creek trail. He had hidden one earlier and BDC of all people got there first. With 2 caches to find and a First to be had I decided to quit sitting around the house and go caching. These were the finds for the day

CROSS THAT BRIDGE
FORKED TREE

My new GPS kept a good signal under the tree cover. I'll have to go test it out a bit more.

new event

Biggie posted a new cache event for April

THE DUCKS FLYING WEST!

Should be fun

30 caches

Well today I adopted 30 of SallyC's caches. I was with her when she hid most of them so it shouldn't be too much trouble.

For those who don't know, Sally is taking a new job in Salem. It is sad to see her have to go, but without a solution to the county payments problem there would be few opportunites for work in Southern Oregon. I know without her hides there wouldn't have been a lot going on in the valley for a while there... and when I met her I was in quite a slump, but her enthusiasm kept me active in the game and together we accomplished the Oregon DeLorme Challenge. And obviously I'll miss her beyond caching as well since we were often up to no good... :P

Here is a picture of one of our many stops on the DeLorme Challenge

Geocaching... whats that?

Well I haven't been geocaching since I found my one with my new GPS. That may soon change as there are a few new caches around and I'll be house sitting for my uncle this week. That use to mean a week of dial up internet but now he has cable and I can bring over my laptop and have wireless even.

Yesterday I went to Portland for the Trail Blazers game. Another poor performance... I had such high hopes for them in these games I picked out. I have one more set of tickets this season so they have one more chance to give a good performance. I left my GPS at home for the trip... maybe next time I could find a cache or two on the way up.

Pizza Party

Today was the latest pizza event

Spring is Coming Pizza Party

Was fun to see everyone. I didn't spend any time geocaching this weekend despite the great weather and my new GPS. I've just been too lazy. Even BDC found a couple of caches this weekend. Maybe next weekend I'll find a couple.

One cache

Well with my new GPS in hand I managed one whole cache and that was on Friday.

Snagged by Wire

I did load caches onto it and read a bit of the manual. Well I skimmed the manual... and looked at the pictures.

A New GPS!

Well my good old trusty Garmin Legend still works fine for finding caches, but the last few caches I hid with it have had some coord issues. So I bought a new Garmin GPSMap 60csx. I'll have to break it in this weekend.

1100 and counting

Well I finally got cache 1100 this weekend. I had 3 finds

Firehouse Station One
ducks by the creekside #1
EEK's Half Brother

I've been playing around with a program called "Cache Stats" which uses a pocket query of your finds to calculate stats. It is pretty interesting. One interesting fact is that there were exactly 100 days between my first find and my 100th. There was 180 days between 1000 and 1100 but that wasn't my worst... I had a 199 day gap between caches 400 and 500. My best was 59 days between #300 and 400.

A travel bug's journey

Well I have had the TB For ZAFARA since September when Sally and I picked it up around John Day, OR. Since Zafara is local I didn't think it would take long to get it to him. Finaly dropped it off Monday in a cache near his work

Wildfires are for the birds!

Also had a few other finds on a very nice President's Day

Central Point rest home
Dardanelles
The Seat of Knowledge
Silica Hole
A Classick Park
One More, For This Rest Stop
Call you on the telephone
EVIRD YRTSUDNI EN
GREENFIELD
Steelhead Crossing, Part 3
Another Try

Also over the weekend was the event Pizza XLIII (Company is coming). It was a lot of fun, but I wasn't feeling so well for most of the weekend.

Approved Cache, and an Oregon Geocaching Slideshow

My new cache was approved

The other side of the river

Also on the Oregon Geocaching forum bigeddy posted a slideshow of photos from his finds for Counting Counties in Oregon. It is a really nice collection and I thought others who read my blog might enjoy it. He really takes some great pictures... I wish I could do as well. Maybe I'll at least put up a gallery of picture I took.

New cache

Well I didn't find any this weekend, but I did hide a new cache. Trying to keep my promise of at least one cache a month. It is in a park near my house so I'm not sending anyone anyplace new. I'll have to really think about new locations.

Next weekend is the cache event Pizza XLIII (Company is coming). Maybe I can get another cache hid by then.

Blazers, Super Bowl review, and why Charter Cable sucks

Over the weekend I went to another blazer game and they lost 88-86. They are now 1-3 in games I've attended this season. After being behind by 17 points at the half I was just happy they made it a game. Decided just to drive on back and made it home around 3am or so.

In past seasons Charter Cable would show the games broadcast by KGW in Portland, but this season they decided not to pick those up. So I don't get to see nearly as many games. In fact all 6 games I bought tickets for are games I otherwise wouldn't get to see. I tried to call Charter and complain but they don't have an easy. I'd drop their service in a minute if I thought there was anything better.

After driving home at 3am I was a bit tired, and despite it being a nice day I didn't bother to go hide, find, or maintain any caches. I just layed around till the Super Bowl. It was an entertaining game with the rain and all the turnovers. I was never sure what was going to happen. I also enjoy the comercials, but none of them really seemed all that great this year. And Prince as the halftime show? Ummm... not quite my thing. And I seriously doubt that many of the millions of beer drinking, nacho eating guys out there were saying "Yeah, Prince is going to Rock!" Now don't get me wrong... I'm glad they have gone away from the super lame pop productions of the past where the wardrobe malfunctions were 20 times more entertaining then the act. My opinion of the last 3 Super Bowl halftime shows

Paul McCartney = great
Rolling Stones = good in theory
Prince = not so great

I can see for miles and miles...

Anyone who has gone caching with me in any different town has probably seen me looking for street names and having to turn around when I notice them too late. Well some of that may soon change as I got my new glasses today. I finally got tired of blury road signs and decided to go to an eye doctor... it is amazing how much I couldn't see. Maybe they'll even help me spot those tricky micros.

Mmmmm Pizza

Yesterday was Pizza XLII and I thought we had a pretty good turnout for the first event of the year. Before the event Sally and I found a few caches

Valley Low, (Cathedral Hill)
Top Of The Hill Cache(A flat top)
Pop-Up, For The Pizza Event

A new event is already planned for February, Pizza XLIII (Company is coming).

I-5 caches

Over the weekend I went up to Portland to watch the blazers lose again. They are 1-2 in games I've attended this season. I use to remember every game I went to and could tell you how many they won or lost, but I've lost track over the years mainly because I've seen them play Sacramento so many times that I can't remember which game was which. My goal is to eventually see the blazers play every NBA team. So far of the 29 other teams I've seen 14.

On the way back I picked up 2 I-5 caches

I-5 Duck-In Cache South
ROAD TRIP!!!

The last one was a rare FTF for me. It just happens to be a SallyC cache she hid after coming down I-5 the weekend before and it was still unfound. Then I see today that I just beat Cheminer Will to it.

Later in the afternoon I went to a poker game and won $41 since I've lost the last couple of times it was nice to walk out with some money.

A New Coin Quest...

I've been working on the idea for a while. I needed a good FTF prize for the cache blazerfan & SallyC's Revenge. Obviously it needed to be something pretty nice. So I resurected and old idea I had for making geocoins in the ancient roman style and this was what I came up with



For those curious I made the coin using a product called Art Clay Silver. The clay is made of silver particles, organic stuff, and water. When its fired the clay burns away leaving 99.9% pure silver. I used 2 rubber stamps to press the coin but had to carve the lettering in as only the tree stood out from the stamp design. After it was fired I shined it up a bit and then I used an ultra nasty product call Liver of Sulfur to tarnish it. Then I polished it up and I think it looks pretty good.

First caches of 2007

Yesterday I went out and got my first caches of the new year

Nothing Going On
STUMP HOLE

Also I set up the first event of the new year Pizza XLII

While I'm not off to a great start part of my new Years resolutions are to keep up my blog a bit better and hide at least one cache a month.

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.