Backlog - June 7

For this backlog we go all the way back to June 7th. My Dad was off on a fishing trip so my Mom and Sister hatched this idea of going to Reno. I decided to tag along... when do I ever pass up an opportunity to visit casinos?

On the way there I found a few caches including #1800

Shasta Vista
Distant
Big Sign 89
Goat Fire
Don't Bug Me
Welcome to Nevada (or California)
Cinema Nevada

The last cache on the list was a puzzle that I found on accident.

This was my second trip to Reno. As an older and more experienced gambler it was a totally different experience then the last trip. Last time I was there the machines dropped coin, but all I saw this time were new modern machines that took bills. That was disapointing.

What! me geocaching?

Friday night I got a call from Daveydude. I think he had called everyone else and was desperate for someone to go with him. Reluctantly I agreed to go geocaching the next morning at 7am!!!

So the next morning I got my lazy ass out of bed went down to McD's for a sausage egg biscuit... with cheese. Just something to sit in my gut a while and remind me why I sleep in on Saturdays. They are oh so tasty though. So I met up with Dave and we took his new geo-rig up Spencer creek.

There are a few new caches out there and only one of the old... boxerlover's Tie One On. Dave posted a DNF and the Boxer's archived it. It is probably there someplace, but it is very overgrown. I got a pretty good cut across my shin pushing my way through the brush and downed trees on the old road. We also made a mistake of splitting up... I took the old road and Dave cut up the hill. Then I heard him yell something I thought sounded like "I found it" so I sat around and waited... after waiting a while I thought he might have cut through the woods back to the car so I went back and he wasn't there... so I went back down the old road and started yelling for him. Eventually he yelled back and I learned he had been searching that whole time and hadn't found it. By that time we were both beat up and needed to look for easier caches.

We found 6 on the day... mostly easy enough

Rooty
Mossy Waterfall
Underwhere?
Hounds Rockpile
Nice park job honey.
Yo Adriene.
Wind in the trees

Trail Blazers

No Geocaching for me this weekend. I did however get to meet 2 Trail Blazer dancers and Clyde Drexler this weekend at seperate events. The blazer dancers were signing posters at NAPA Autoparts on Friday. My coworker heard about it on the radio and told me to go down there so I did. They were very nice and posed for a couple of pictures and signed a poster.



Clyde was signing autographs at Lee's Mini Storage on Saturday. I guess the owner is a long time blazer fan himself and met Clyde when they traveled to the Basketball HOF to see Clyde inducted. The owner of this place had a lot of signed Drexler items in his office. So I don't know how he convinced Clyde to come down and sign autographs but I was glad he did. I waited in line for 4 hours. I had him sign a poster, and I took this picture of him signing a basketball.

An old cache

I have been neglecting my blog for too long. I can't believe I skipped a whole month. In the next few days I will backlog the events of the last month.

This weekend I went to Albany to visit. I didn't even take my GPS. I just haven't felt like geocaching lately, but I hope to get out a bit more in the next few weeks before the really hot weather strikes.

I did manage to find one cache. A webcam

Smile Your'e on Candid Camera II

I have been all but ignoring this cache for 6 years. I have driven by this one so many times. This day I just decided to stop and make the call.

An interesting event

This Friday I am off to Las Vegas again. I decided not to pursue any geocaching adventures this time, but I'll take my GPS and maybe find a cache or two if I feel like it.

One cache I did notice was this event

WWFM V (Las Vegas)- Pirate's Booty

It is a flash mob event... the idea is to hang out and look like an average tourist and then all at once come together in a big group. I've never seen such a thing, but it is popular in some areas. Since I will be in town I'll probably try to attend. Depends on if I can wake up that early.

There are several caches along the strip. The main cache I have yet to get is the Welcome to Las Vegas sign virtual... there is also a regular cache there now... two caches in one stop. We are always either in a hurry going in or too tired on the way out to stop. If I went there with other geocachers it would be different. Maybe someone at the event will take the time to go with me.

March of Dimes

Today was the big March of Dimes walk. Our team raised nearly $6000 and I raised $742. As it turned out I was not the #1 fund raiser on the team. I was beat in the last week by my coworker Megan. Her daughter was born 10 weeks early and is the reason many of us at the bank have adopted March of Dimes. Looking at her today you could never tell.

I was pleasantly surprised at the generosity of some people. I hope I wasn't too pushy... if so maybe I'll try new tactics for next year.

Check this out

With this service you can get hints and log finds by text from your phone. Some of you might already know about this but it was all new to me.

Check out this link for details on how to set it up. It was really easy.

I already had it send me a hint (very fast) maybe this weekend after the March of Dimes walk I can try it out in the field. I have been to a lot of caches where this would never work, but for around town it looks like a nice feature.

I am still collecting funds for March of Dimes. It is not too late to donate

http://www.marchforbabies.org/blazerfan

Two sunny spring days

Today and yesterday were both very nice spring days. A good chance to get out and find those caches I had been saving up. It feels good to walk around without a coat. My legs are sore and my neck feels slightly sunburned, but it is a good feeling.

Despite the good weather today and yesterday are completely different as far as geocaching goes. Yesterday I found 43 caches, mostly drive up micros. Today I found 2 caches after hiking up a steep mountain road. It just goes to show that there are caches of all kinds... you can look for whatever you want.

So yesterday I woke up and looked out my window. It was already sunny and warming up. I looked at the caches I needed in the area and I called up Uncle Duck, I knew he would be up to going along even though he had all but two of them. We covered the north part of Grants Pass, up to Hugo, and then back. I needed 56 caches to reach 1800 finds and that was a very reachable number, but I got tired and decided to call it a day. I didn't count as I went along, but in the end I had 43. These were the finds

City Folk
I B I V
What Street #3
Ogle again
Healing Help
Old Airport
Unidentifiable
New Nano
Traffic Watch
Stick in the Mud
Coordinate Setting 101
SCAREDY CAT!
What Street # 4
Sparrow 2 The Saga Continues
Pin Up ( Or Hubba Hubba)
Stainless
Quick and Easy
Buck Brush 2 "More Bang For Your Buck"
Dead Antlers
Clip Job
Patrolled or Paroled?
Power to the People
TWIGLETS
Stick
"Duck" Laid an Egg
R U Tired of Caching
I Luv I-5
Sticks and Potholes
Uno Again?
Groovey
Cavity
Holy Moley
uno
Get after it time's a flying
Stuffed
Chevron
Hole in None
JCRW
Future Park
Everyday Goodness
Posted
Udderless
Wagner Meadows

Today I woke up and looked out the window at another nice sunny day. I was just looking at caches when I got a phone call. It was Daveydude asking if I had seen a pair of new geocaches in Gold Hill from the Lost Patrol. To be honest I had not noticed them yet. I don't often look for new caches. These two caches were up Nugget Butte on the North side of Gold Hill. I met Dave at the post office downtown and I stopped at the market for lunch to pack up with me (some very healthy corn dogs, but despite Dave's claims no soda for me). We took the hike slow, and stopped often. As the first good hike of the spring I was winded quickly. The first cache Not There Yet was near the top at a set of towers. A half mile beyond Nugget Butte was a pretty easy hike after making it up that far. The road is steap in places, but these caches are easily reachable if you take your time. On the way back down we exchanged a few stories of caches past and decided to call it a day.

Backlog - March 28

I'm not sure why I can't seem to remember to do same day blogs anymore. Oh well the events in this blog happened on March 28 which was the day of the big pizza event Arthur's Round Table. Our Southern Oregon events are getting larger. We completley filled the back room much like we did at Tubby's the month before. Perhaps as the weather gets nicer we will have a couple of events outside in a park somewhere. I probably won't do another back yard BBQ event this year... just too many people for my yard and deck to handle.

Just before the event I pulled up on a crew finding Pizza Power which I promptly took from them and signed.

After the event Kelly showed us some of his new caches and I found a couple more with GlenMart. These included

Pucker up!!
Where Is Ashley?
Cliché
NOTHING'S EASY!

After finding those I decided to go over to the library and find

Free Wifi 2
Oregon Reads -- Medford area

Free Wifi 2 is an old Lazyboy cache from the days before his break from caching. I'm not sure why I hadn't found it yet. Very easy. The Oregon Reads cache is a very odd one. They put out a series of these in Jackson county as events since they were suppose to be temporary. Now they are regular caches, but the coords of this one were off by nearly a tenth of a mile. Since most libraries in the county already have a cache nearby I think they might have spoofed the coords to get them approved. That is just a guess because the coords were just not close.

I finished the day by finding a couple in the parking lot of the rogue valley mall

BACK TO BACK
SHOULDER TO SHOULDER

6 years ago today

March 26, 2003 I found my first geocache

State quarter cache

I had no GPS and no clue what I was getting myself into. That little film canister with a couple of quarters and a wadded up peice of paper would lead to hundreds of adventures. It might not have been the most exciting cache by todays standards, but there was something about the hunt... and that moment of finding it... I was hooked.

Little did I know that 6 years later I'd still be having fun at it. I have a website and blog devoted to the hobby, and many new friends some of which I only know by their odd nicknames.

I have found 114 caches so far this year which puts me well on pace to shatter my previous record of 321 in a year. Last year I set my second highest mark with 309. So despite seeming to slow down I am finding as many as ever.

No whining... the controversy

As of late there has been some talk about a new cache in the area

NO WHINING

I've had conversations with a few geocachers about this one. I also declined the opportunity to search for it earlier in the week. Lets face it... I'll probably never get around to it. The cache started with 12 DNFs. That is about 10 more then it takes to be on my list to skip, but not everyone is as smart as me.

The problem with a difficult cache is that the area gets torn up by everyone that looks. Rocks get thrown about, moss gets stripped from trees, sticks and leaves get moved around until only bare dirt remains... and on and on. No single geocacher is usually to blame for this, it just gets a little worse on each visit. A standard geocache in a natural setting has an impact, but the difficulty amplifies that impact. The difficulty of a cache should take into account the environment that it is hidden in.

With that said I haven't actually looked at the area... or for the cache. There are plenty of caches around to find so I probably never will.

Central Oregon Run

Yesterday was my Parent's 40th wedding anneversary. They decided to celebrate by us all going to dinner at the Cowboy Dinner Tree near Silver Lake, OR. On the way over I picked out a few caches to find... and we had plenty of time to search for them all. I had 9 lined up and only 1 was too snowed in to search for. These were my finds

Crystal - an old virtual at the Crystal Springs rest stop towards Ft. Klamath. It would be easy to hide a traditional cache in this area, which is probably why virtuals eventually grew out of favor. There was a lot of snow here so I suppose a virtual might be the best year round option.

Going to School - This is a cache Lazyboy would be proud of. Despite it being easy I still had to climb over some snow.

Do You Feel Lucky? - a fun cache near the Kla-Mo-Ya Casino

TIMBERRR!!! - Oregon History Lesson #17 - In an old logging museum right off Hwy 97

El Fuego - just off Hwy 97

Beef ? No. - A nice break on the road to Silver Lake.

STUMP ROCK 49 - A five month old cache that was still waiting for a finder. Nearly 100 miles as the crow flies from my house and I was the FTF.

State Plates - Probably the easiest logscaler cache you will ever find. I left my GPS sitting by the cache and had to go back for it a few hours later. I didn't worry much about someone picking it up as its pretty quiete out there.

More March of Dimes

I had initially set my goal for March of Dimes to $500 and I achieved it. However I reached it with the generous help of many people I had never met... while many of my friends and family have yet to donate... so it would seem that I have more fundraising potential. After talking with my coworkers I have decided to raise my goal.

If you haven't already please click on the link and make a donation. Your money will help prevent birth defects, premature birth, and infant mortality

http://www.marchforbabies.org/blazerfan

Backlog - February 7

In today's backlog of geocaching events past I was in Las Vegas. At the Weekend Before the Super Bowl Pizza Fest Lost Patrol had given me a group of wooden nickels that he has found in different places. Included in that was a small geocoin that wanted to go to Las Vegas. On this trip I hadn't planned to do much geocaching besides maybe a virtual, but now I had to find one big enough to hold this coin. My choice was

A Kiwi Connection - Las Vegas

It was an easy enough cache to find just off the north end of the strip near the Wynn casino. I got around to it early and the weather was clear, by the time I reached the cache though it had started to rain. It rained on my hard as I walked back. I was soaked and could ring water from my jacket. When I got back to my room I had to dry my shoes with the hair dryer. Overall it was a fun weekend and I ended up winning money... which I promptly spent.

Backlog - February 14-15

I have been neglecting my blog again... I've been sick with the flu the last couple of days so I haven't even thought much about geocaching. Since I am back to work and almost feeling better I thought I'd start with a backlog of caches from the weekend of the 14th.

So the weekend was the Go Coastal-Wintertime Fun-1 # 3 event. This event is one of the biggest in the state and they have a lot of sponsor give aways. We take up a large portion of a Chinese buffet restaurant. I had planned to maybe take off Friday and go with Duck and Kelly to spend a couple extra days over there searching for caches. I had a hard time getting the day off work so I decided not to go. Later I got a call from Daveydude he wanted to go over Saturday and stay till Sunday and that worked out well.

Dave and I cleaned up the area before and after the event. The event its self was a lot of fun... good food and good people.

The weather was so nice that Daveydude and I walked all over town picking up all sorts of caches... just an hour or so later it unleashed a big rainstorm. Otherwise it was sunny most of the weekend. These were my finds before the event.

Cache Across America - Oregon
GRANDMA GRANDMA
Rock My World!
in the middle
summer wild flowers
Our Dearly Departed
Captanrdr's Grassy Knoll
Drive-in Theater Myrtle Lane
Does Any Body Really Know What Time It Is?
one nation under God
Jade's Rescue Me
Dancin' for Cache
In-Spire-d
Courtesy Cache

These were the finds after the event

Lab Cache
Ariolimax Columbianus
AT THE PORT
Roundabout
Stumped at the park
Another Bay Area Welcome
Poisson's Inspiration
Woof!
Hey Myrtle!
Marshfield Softball
Skeezix
AAA or AA
Is It an Ash or Is It an Oak?
What a tub of a tug
One Watershed, Many Needs
Bad Duck's Evil Cache #1
Fallen Fire Fighters Memorial
E.T., Your Mama Wants You
Defending Hog Heaven
Even the View is a Winner!

And on Sunday we found these caches

Don't 'B' nervous
Mutt and Jeff
Ho! Ho! Ho!
NO MAIL HERE!
Captanrdr's "Daveydude Special"
In the Woods at Empire Lakes
Pick Me! Pick Me!
'The World Is Our Playing Field'
Play Time
Red Dyke
Guard The Post Libby
river bend

March of Dimes

I've got 3 months to raise money for the annual March of Babies. More or less I got tricked into it last year by my coworkers for my "health" since they were walking. I didn't know much about it at the time besides that you walk 6 miles. The only money I raised was what I donated, and our team was one of the lowest fundraisers. This year we have all vowed to pick up the pace on asking for donations. The cause is a good one so if you want to help out visit my web page

http://www.marchforbabies.org/blazerfan

Don't worry I'll remind you all again before its over and I added a statbar to the lower right side of the blog.

Almost to Butte Falls

So I got a call on Sunday from my Uncle Duck asking if I wanted to go geocaching on Monday. Since it was MLK day I had the time off and it sounded like a good plan. We decided to head up to Butte Falls to get all the caches we passed on the way up to the Cache Machine on Friday. We started caching in Gold Hill and worked our way up towards Butte Falls. We never reached the city limits (ie the cattle guard) as we had too many others to find. We stopped at LazyBoy's house and he convinced us we could find another half dozen in the dark. I was convinced we had about 40 finds, but in the end I had 53 which tied my all time high. If I had known I was so close to the record I might have stopped for one more. These were the finds for the day

Lovey Dovey
Dardanelles II
Tribute Cache
Water Works
Madrone
Dowden Falls
Broken Arrow
Bridget
Creeky Cache
234 Gold
Hanky
Pankey
OLD OAK TREE
BEWARE BLACK CATS
BARKING DOGS
MERRY GEO-CHRISTMAS
All you get for Christmas
Christmas Coal
NICKEL
COWS
Most Photographed Building in Oregon?
Miss Muffet
HOLY GROUND
This Way To Butte Falls
Gravel, Gravel
GREENBIRD
A guard rail on the way to Butte Falls
Hey It's A Bus Stop On The Way To Butte Falls!
Nether-Nether Land
Bus Stop on the Way To Butte Falls
I'm Getting Closer To Butte Falls
Bovine Escalator
two of spade
TUMBLE ROCK
BIT .THE. BULLET
What is Cobleigh?
It's A Stump On The Way To Butte Falls
Water For Residents Only
On Obenchain
Come and get me,Lazyboy!
GEPPERT BUTTE RD.
Fork In The Road
CAMO GLOVES
Warty's Butte Falls Bus Stop
BUS TURN
Crowing About Things
B- F- L
Hot Dog LazyBoy's Back!
The Long,Long Log
The Legend of Lazyboy
NEAR OWL BEND
The PIERCE Ransh
COW COUNTRY

First cache of 2009

Automated Cache Machine redux

I was a bit bored at work and decided to look at LazyBoy's blog. Not 15 minutes before he had posted about reactivated the old Cache Machine. The new cache had not even been approved yet. I called Uncle Duck and asked if he'd like to go and find it again. I lefty work early and then took off for Butte Falls. We were First to Find and enjoyed chatting with Al and Jill for a while.

It might have been the only cache of the day, but it was a fun one.

2009 off with a bang

So my first post of 2009. I suppose this is the first post because nothing has happened so far this year. I haven't gone caching or done anything else even remotely exciting.

I did book another weekend trip to Las Vegas. February 6-9. I'm still undecided as to if I'll seek out another geocaching group like my last couple of visits. I'll probably just look for a couple of virtual caches I have yet to find.

I might find some caches this weekend if the weather is good. Its a 3 day weekend so hopefully one of those days will be nice.

Last Day of 2008

The year has come to an end. While I haven't been out caching as often as in years past I was able to put up good number (for me). These were some of the highlights of the year.

• Hid just one cache, but had 2 events and created an EarthCache
• Reached the 1400, 1500 and 1600 find milestones
• Found 42 caches on 11/16/08 around Las Vegas
• Found 37 caches on 08/02/08 with Biggieet_al
• Attended GeoWoodstock VI

Some of my favorite caches for 2008 include:

• Introductory cache offer
• Outer Limits
• Official GeoWoodstock VI Cache
• Beary Sweet Junk
• Just Clowning Around
• Old Railbed
• Great Meadow Rest Stop
• Homestead
• Crapped Out, I'm going caching
• Not Too Tough by a Mine Site
• February 23 On Mount Suribachi
• Oak Identification 101

The Highlight of the year was definitely attending Geowoodstock VI. It was quite an event and very fun to have that many like minded people all in one place. It almost makes me want to drive to Tennessee for the next one.

Last but not least a special thank you to all who hid the caches that I had so much fun finding. This coming year I'll try to do a little better and actually hide a few for you all to find. I hope to see you all on the trail in 2009. Have a Happy New Year!

One more

Just one more day to go this year and I got one more find as that last cache in Nevada was found today so I could log it... so I finish the year with 1620 total finds... unless I decide to find more tomorrow.

So I came up with a few statistics. I only went geocaching 31 days this year which is an all time low, but I averaged 9.9 finds per trip which is an all time high. I had 309 finds for the year which is my second highest ever and best since 2005.

I wonder how 2009 will go

Getting near the end... of 2008

So the year is coming to an end. 2008 has been pretty good for geocaching despite how slow I might appear to be. I'm trying to get my numbers together and start compiling a list of the best caches of 2008. I put up a list of my favorite finds for the year every December 31. Some people might look at my past lists and ask "why is that one on there" well sometimes its just a great hide, a great location, or the fact that I just had a lot of fun the day I found it so it sticks out in my mind. I tend to have a bias to caches found outside of the Rogue Valley probably because these trips tend to stay in my memory longer.

It looks like I'll end the year with 1619 finds, but I have one more find that I'm waiting to log (a cache in Nevada that was hidden while I was there... I'm waiting for someone to come along and log a FTF) For those who are pure in geocaching heart this might sound like cheating, but in a game with no rules or winners it doesn't really matter much does it? I probably have a couple dozen questionable finds. I could have had about 50 more finds if I claimed every cache that Sally hid while we were out caching... now that I've adopted most of them it would probably be really bad form to go and backlog them. It just goes to show that every cheater has his limits.

Merry Christmas!!!

In keeping with tradition I found one cache today in the cold with a bit of snow/rain falling

Starting Again

I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas

Tuesday September 16

So in this backlog I was on a vacation of sorts. I took the week off of work and was just relaxing. I had been sick for several days however and thats not a good way to spend your time off. So what do you do when you don't feel well and its freezing outside? You wrap up in several layers and go geocaching of course.

On this day it had been freezing early, but by the time I thought about this around 11 the sun was out and things were starting to thaw. I drove up to the trails and started my hike. My understanding was that the trail made a loop so I took the high trail... well I'm not sure where that part of the trail actually led. I ended up on a dirt road where there was a lot of dumped trash. I took a few up hill shortcut trails and eventually worked my way back. I found the furthest out of the caches first, Twisted. I walked a ways back and one again found myself with a high trail or a low trail. This time I took the low trail and eventually came up on a cache that was between the two, Understanding... I walked up to it and after finding that one I decided to take the high trail. Well it turns out the next cache was on the low trail... this trail is actually a loop that starts just a ways down the path of the first low trail that I didn't take in the beginning... I didn't know this yet however. Are you still following me? anyway I was very close to two caches but ended up passing both of them and coming to the next, Happy Trails or Tails. So I found this one and this happens to be were the loop starts... and I had a cache on each side.... so I made the loop again finding Burned Out and then Oak Identification 101. This ended uncle Duck's new caches so I proceded back down the trail and picked up Huff & Puff and Midway which have been there for a while and I just hadn't gotten around to. I then walked back to the car and found the last cache I needed Tree Warts which gave me 8 for the day.

Backlog - December 6

Once again I have been neglecting my log so its time to make some new posts. This one is all about 12/06/08. I called my uncle Duck to see if he was interested in going caching since it was the first weekend in a month that I didn't have to work. It was cold and foggy so we started with breakfast at McDonalds... unlike LazyBoy who tries his best to confuse the poor kids by ordering round eggs and no cheese we just made regular orders and had them in seconds. Uncle Duck also introduced me to my newest addiction... McDonalds sweet tea.... that is good stuff.

So after breakfast we hit a bunch of caches in town that he had but I didn't. He hoped it would warm up a bit, but it was not to be. We headed out to Elk Trails and grabbed a handful of caches. I got number 1600 at some point but I have not bothered to figure out which one it was. 23 in all. These were the finds for the day.

Unhoused
Lazy
Tummy Troubles
Centered
Square Tube
Yesteryear
GPFD 2
Went BANG!
Books, Books and We Hope, More Books
'TWEED
What street? #1
Holey Canoley!
GOURD ABOVE GROUND
Isaac's cache
February 23 On Mount Suribachi
Night Rider
Hsss
Recycle
Green Baron Flies Again
What A Way To Live
MICRO MOUSE
Horizontal Oak
No more lube TB Hotel

Pictures of Nevada

Earth Cache

While I was gone my Earth Cache was published. So if you are ever over by Plush, OR you can find my new cache

Oregon Sunstone Earthcache

Even More Las Vegas

I got back from my latest Las Vegas adventure yesterday. Probably my most balanced trip to Vegas so far as I came home with most of my money and some of my "losses" were actually spent on food and asprin.

Once again I spent some time on the Nevada forum and Moose Mob arranged a caching trip. I have to be honest and say most of the day I didn't know where the hell we were. I know we went through Searchlight, Laughlin, we could see Bullhead City accross the border with Arizona and even found a cache just accross the other border in California. It was a fun day with over 40 caches found.

I have yet to get my camera out and see what the pics I took look like, but I'll post a couple of them once I do.

Permission granted

Soon after asking permission for my Earthcache from the Lakeview BLM it was granted. So that was easy and mostly painless. They were very quick, but it has taken me a few days to get around to actually typing up a cache page to submit. Earthcaches are submitted and approved differently... you submit it right through the earthcache website and if they approve they submit the cache and later you adopt it.

I learned something while writing up the cache page. I'm not a geologist. Sunstones while interesting to find are really pretty boring to explain. I almost fell to sleep just reading about them... and most websites only have a brief description if they bother to put one at all.

Well anyway I submitted it so now its up to the GSA to decide if it meets the standards to be an Earthcache.

Permission is a dirty word

In one of my previous logs I mentioned the fact that you must have permission to set up an Earthcache (See guideline #6)

Obviously the extra hassle of getting permission knocked the wind out of the idea, but I've regained my breath and decided to write a letter to the Lakeview BLM to seak permission.

I'm a big believer in personal liberties. If my cache is sitting out on public land not hurting anyone then it should be allowed and I shouldn't have to ask anyone for permission. This might seem a little backwords in our current era of enviromentalism, sensitive ecosystems, and political correctness, but its still the way I feel.

Oh well I'll ask this time... it is rather harmless.

In the news

The local Medford newspaper has a story today about geocaching. Several locals get a mention including Beaver Lover, Peanuthead, The Lost Patrol and even myself.

You can read the article here.

Does it make me a more legit cacher now that I've been mentioned in the news paper? I'm glad she picked my better quotes. If she had just relied on me it would have been a terrible article. I think I did right by leading her to Chris, Nick and Mark... even if they are addicted to picking up Travel Bugs and Geocoins.

Update: I didn't notice at first that the captions on the pictures were wrong (they are now fixed online but the printed version is wrong.) Now people are going to think that I'm Peanuthead... or that Mark is blazerfan. I wasn't on the geocaching trip. Poor Peanuthead... he finally gets his picture in the paper and they put my name on it.

A Trip East

I was talked into going on a little camping trip with my family this weekend at Hart Mountain just outside of Plush, OR. I took a day off and ended up finding 8 caches along the way, but none on the other days. Mostly caches on Highway 140 between Medford and Lakeview. While in the area I saw some wildlife (including 30 bighorn sheep) and searched for sunstones.

There is a section of BLM land designated as a sunstone collection area. I took coordinates at the area with the idea of maybe setting up an Earthcache. When I got home and started filling out the form it is required that you have permission and a contact person to set up the cache. While it might not be hard to call the Lakeview BLM office and inquire about permission the whole idea just put an end to my enthusiasm. When there is no container and public land I just can't see the need to ask permission.

So these were my finds for the weekend:

CAMMO TOOLBOX
LAKE CREEK HIDE
Great Meadow Rest Stop
Sanitary Stop
3678
Old Railbed
Skidoosh!
breadcrumbs # 3....blue creek

Another Las Vegas Adventure

This week was my latest jaunt to the land of bright lights and money sucking casinos. I was in Las Vegas Monday through Friday for the WIB Technology Summit. The conference actually started on Wednesday so that left me all day Tuesday to cache. However like clockwork everything at the bank began to go haywire and I was on the phone nearly non-stop the first 3 days.

Before I left I inquired on the Nevada Geocaching website for anyone interested in going with me and I found a lot of people. Our group ended up being vegaschick, AHOLLYS, chidyfam, and sappire34. We found a number of caches despite the constant interuption of my phone. These were the finds for the day

Absolutely Starbucks
On My Way Home
Bison 4
Hi! I'm Johnny Cache...
Go behind the wagon
NV801
A Piece of the Tropics
Bullet # 4
The Poet's Cache...Out of the Knight
City View
Bison 5
The Las Vegas Travel Bug Hostel
The Argument
A FAR OUT BUG DEPOT
Coin Swap Shop
Got Balls
Mountain View
That's How We Roll

Here is a pic of the caching crew. Thanks for the tour

Pizza and such

Saturday was the 5th. Annual Pizza By The Creekside. This event has become very popular and is always a great time. Geocachers from all over attend each year. Eyeseek2 makes several custom cache containers to give away. And they always seem to pick a weekend with perfect weather.

Before the event I got an email from drdan52000 about maybe hitting a few caches before the event. While I waited on him I got a second call from rain_man_rich and I told him he might as well join us. We only had time for a handful of caches but it was a fun. Here were our finds for the day

Saundering
Belly High
Fruity Crick
Beware The Bear
GPFD 3
AIR BALL
It Happens
What Street # 2

RIP Mr. Duckworth

Sad news today as former Trail Blazer Kevin Duckworth has passed away at the age of 44. Duck was one of my favorite players as a kid. He was money from 16 to 18 feet and other centers had to respect his shot this would pull shot blockers like Hakeem, Manute Bol, and Mark Eaton away from the basket. He was a two time All-Star and named the league's Most Improved Player in 1988. Besides being a good player he also seemed like a good person and I wish I would have gotten a chance to meet him.

Not clowning around

On Saturday DrDan and I went for the only 5/5 cache in the area Just Clowning Around . We were able to drive within .68 miles of the cache. That few tenths of a mile though were more or less straight down the hill. Going down was hard as we had to push our way through the underbrush while we slid down the steep slope. Anyone who has gone caching with me knows that I am not much for going downhill... I'm very cautious and slow, but I got there. We got down to the river and climbed the rock the cache was on. We didn't find much evidence of a cache, after confirming the old location with Tom Fuller I'm sure its gone. We replaced the cache with what we had and started the climb out. This is where the trip got worse for me as my legs were shot and started cramping up. I briefly considered the idea I might have to spend the night on the hill. With a lot of rest and water (thankfully I packed a lot) I was able to slowly work my way up the hill. It took me over twice as long to climb out as it did to come down. I forgot my camera on this trip, but Dan took this really nice picture upstream from the cache.

Events and stuff

My latest event blazerfan's Summer Geo-Bash went over pretty well. We had a good turnout of new and old cachers and even visitors from California. Got to test out the deck and my ability to grill. Overall it was a pretty good time. Maybe I'll think about it again next year.

Coming up next month is probably the most popular local event of the year the 5th. Annual Pizza By The Creekside. Iseek and Eyeseek2 always put out a bunch of new geocaches and the pizza in Wilderville is pretty good. For those coming from out of town this is by far the best event to attend.

1500 Plus

Last week Biggieet_al (aka Kelly) asked if I'd be interested in caching this weekend. Of course I was in for it so we headed to Jacksonville today and I had what I believe to be my second best day of caching ever with 37 finds including my 1500th. It was a fun day and despite having some well overgrown caches we ended up with just one no find. Here were the finds for the day

Twisty
The Way to Missouri
Great Joy
Swimm’n Hole
PROVOLT COMMUNITY CHURCH
Historic Bridge
WHERE'S JOSEPHINE COUNTY?
DEAD MAN'S CURVE
Applegate
BAH HUMBUG!!
RAT Office
SARAH ZIGLER TRAIL 2
MADRONE IS HOME
PARK here
NUNAN SQUARE
SOPHIA
WALNUT
KEEP THOSE PEARS OUTTA HERE !
4090
a TISKET ? a TASKET ? nope, a CAMMO BASKET !
CENTENNIAL
TRIBUTE TO DA DUDE
CORKED
BEEKMAN CANYON
PSEUDOTSUGA MANZIESH
WOODEN CAMMO
MEET ME AT THE TREE
THINGS AREN'T ALWAYS WHAT THEY SEEM!
WILLARD
In Memory of Marc!
The Old Shell Game
Beary Sweet Junk
Wheezers Cache
LOGS AND MANURE
Roadside Ambiance
Piggies in a blanket
Wide Spot

Something you don't want to find geocaching

In case you haven't heard this story already this happened at the Thomas Creek Bridge cache in Curry County. This is actually a cache that I've looked at attempting because of its high terrain rating.

BODY IDENTIFIED AS MISSING CRESCENT CITY WOMAN
Published: July 24, 2008
By Nicholas Grube
WesCom News Service

Two hikers found Michelle Ashlee Dickson's body Wednesday while they were geocaching near the Thomas Creek Bridge between Brookings and Gold Beach.

Dickson, 23, has been missing since last week and authorities had suspected foul play was involved with her disappearance.

"We confirmed that it is her," Del Norte County Sheriff's Office Commander Bill Steven said. "We are treating it as a homicide."

Oregon State Police is taking the lead on the investigation of the crime scene with assistance from the Curry County Sheriff's Office, Steven said. "They're listing it as a suspicious death investigation."

Steven said the two hikers stumbled upon Dickson's body while geocaching—which is a recreational GPS treasure hunting activity—in the ravine that the Thomas Creek Bridge spans on Wednesday. The Thomas Creek Bridge is the highest bridge in Oregon—345 feet tall—and is located north of Brookings.

Local Search and Rescue crews stayed with the body last night, and are now working with Oregon authorities to help them access the crime scene and recover Dickson's body.

The Del Norte County Sheriff's Office named 27-year-old Josiah M. Miller a suspect earlier in the week, when blood was found inside of his vehicle. Miller, who is originally from Del Norte County and now lives in Arcata, is a friend of Dickson's. He is also the last known person to see her.

He has not been arrested.

A Department of Justice crime lab in Eureka is still processing the blood evidence found inside Miller's truck to see if it belongs to Dickson.

I also found this portion of another story

Authorities found Dickson's car burning at the beach where she had reportedly met Miller. But they were stumped as to her whereabouts. A week later in Oregon, a grandfather, his grandson and a foreign exchange student from France were geo-caching - using a GPS device to hunt for a "treasure" someone else hid, - in the woods under the Thomas Creek Bridge when they found Dickson's body, Steven said.

A good day for caching

Today I went out and found 5 caches

Squirrel Egg
Again and again
Lifes A Beach
Shepherd's tool
Combo Cache

That puts me at 1471 finds. One more then Lazyboy. For those of you who are fairly new or out of state Lazyboy was an old time geocacher in Oregon. He was somewhat legendary for speaking his mind about gc.com and what he didn't like about it. It even got him banned from the gc.com forums for a long time. In September 2005 he archived all of his caches and hasn't had a find since July 06. Its only a tribute to my slowness that it took me so long to pass him. Now I guess I'll have to look forward to reaching the 1588 finds of Rooster-.

My new event

blazerfan's Summer Geo-Bash

A new cache

I hid my first new cache in a long time last night

Oregon Trailbreakers

When I first heard of geocaching I immediatly thought of two places that needed caches. Haines Apple Tree and Croxton Memorial Park and both had caches at the time. I'm proud to keep these areas active with caches today.

I haven't been very active at all lately and it shows. I have several containers stored up however and as the summer turns to fall I hope to hide a few more caches.

No one has proposed a cache event lately... I wonder how a BBQ event at my house would go over?

Another Vegas weekend

I spent this last weekend again in Las Vegas. As always I lost a bunch of money, but had a good time. I had only one geocache find for the weekend.

LV Money-makers

This weekend was also the last days of the NBA summer league. I was able to watch the Trail Blazers summer league squad win their last two games. I also got to meet blazers GM Kevin Pritchard and radio announcer Brian Wheeler. There were a number of NBA couches and players around that I saw at different times. Here are the pictures I got with KP and Wheels.

Sunday picnic

I went to a picnic yesterday and followed it up with about 11 caches. Could have found a few more but I went and bought a new patio table and chairs instead. These were the finds for the day.

Right in Front of You
Not out in the Woods
Right Arrow
Rusty
Serenity
No Sir-ee
Cross over
Hooked
Ride on in
Knight's Banjo
Turner Call Home

Post GeoWoodstock Pizza

Today was my Post GeoWoodstock Pizza (LIV) event. We had geocachers from all over but the turnout was actually pretty low. It's a fun group though and I had fun chatting with everyone. Along with the event I was able to grab a handful of caches.

GPFD 1
Piped
GEOCACHERS PRIZE
ACT #1
ACT #2
Standing at the Corner

I did have a no find at ACT #3 but it was probably just my own blindness. I haven't been caching much and I might be out of practice. With gas over $4 a gallon I might not be finding a whole lot this summer.

New Deck

I've been sick as a dog the last few days so no geocaching for me. This weekend with the event maybe I'll get out for a few.

The only good part of the weekend is that after a lot of waiting and even more money my deck is finally finished. It just needs some deck furniture and the grill connected.

This is my old deck like thing.


And this is my new deck

The Caches and People of GeoWoodstock

Well unlike some at GeoWoodstock I only found a handful of caches each day. 10 on Friday, 9 on Saturday, and 6 on Sunday including the events. The whole event was well organized... they had booths, drawings, seminars, travel bugs organized, and the food was good (they even had fortune cookies with geo-fortunes). My only suggestion would have been to have an area for trading geocoins and signature items. I packed my geocoins a long way just to end up trading 1 and coming back with 4 others... so instead of shrinking my collection it grew.

Thanks to IceCreamMan (the author of Serial Finder), Mauison, LoriDarlin, and Allanon my geocoin trading friends of old for the new coins.

It was also fun to meet YahotsWalker, RetiredProf, and 2Dee2Dee who are all finders of the Oregon DeLorme Challenge.

I met several Oregon cachers for the first time at this event. Sad to have to drive that for South to meet people from the North. Of course I saw a lot of cachers I knew as well. When reading through the logs its also amazing how many I missed seeing... I was literally there for 9 hours walking around so how did I miss so many people?

These were the finds for the weekend

Friday:
Last Chance to hate I-5
Barrier to Nowhere
You Call, We Haul !
T.B. HOTEL
Seven Iron
Hollar Fore
Hottest place on Earth
Lotsa-H2O
Friday Night Meet & Greet
Yuba City Park Cache #13 Clark Ave Waypoint

Saturday:
GeoWoodstock VI
Official GeoWoodstock VI Cache
My Little Pumpkin Cache
Pumpkin Head
Guido's Cactus Patch Cache
Guido's 1st & E Pole cache
Eye Level and Shiney
Angels in the Outfield
Mr. Electric Goes to Wheatland

Sunday:
DON'T JUMP
SHADY REST
colusa memorial park
All Geared Up
Sofa Dads
Tauhindauli

One more person to mention. It was especially nice of Cosmiccowgirl of the Hardings to stop and say hi and admit that she reads my blog... I knew I had readers I just knew it :)

GeoWoodstock VI

This was a great event. I met a lot of cachers... I specifically sought out a few and was able to find most of them. Geocoin trading partners of old, Oregon DeLorme challenge finders, and even blog readers. Was great to see everyone and put faces to names I often only saw in forums.

Wouldn't Lazyboy be jealous?

Look who I met... Jeremy is a pretty nice guy

Off to GeoWoodstock

I have not found a cache since my trip to Las Vegas so hopefully my trip to GeoWoodstock will light a spark under me to find a few. I should be in Yuba City tonight and might even make the Friday meet and greet event. Hope to see a few of my readers there.

Las Vegas

This last weekend I spent in Las Vegas. I had a nice time and lost a lot of money. My one good win was that I took 5th place out of 43 in a poker tournament. Other then that I was down on my luck most of the weekend.

Since it wasn't too hot I was able to find a few of the vituals on the strip. I left myself a few for next time. My finds for the weekend were

LAKE-VEGAS
Eiffel Tower
Toga Party
MM MM Good
IN THE BELLY OF THE BEAST