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.

Caches

On Saturday SallyC and I went out and picked up a few caches. Most of them were hidden a couple of months ago by Iseek and Eyeseek2 for their pizza event. It was a nice day to get out and work off some of the weight I gained Thusday. Finds for the day included

Country Aire
Are You Ready To Rock?
What's My Line?
Caballo Blanco
Aaron's Outdoor Adventure Cache (A Rare FTF)
WARNING
Between Two
River View
Lying In Wait
Stuck Up
ODS Snoogans`5: Limpyng Along
Just A Cache
Guarding the windmill

Happy Thanksgiving

Hope everyone had a good thanksgiving. I know I ate too much. I've had a cold all week which didn't help, but I was pretty much recovered so I could enjoy turkey. If I had felt better I would have walked off some turkey by searching for a cache... plenty of unfound caches around for me.

Last Saturday SallyC and I went out and hid a few caches. We also found the cache Peavine which is out by itself and rarely visited.

Still nothing

Not sure how many of my loyal readers are still around. It has been a very slow around here... and this has never exactly been a well writen or overly entertaining blog. But if you are still reading thank you.

One of the things I've discovered in the past few weeks is PodCacher. It is like a radio show for geocachers, but published on the internet. Its fun to listen to, but I've found the episodes a little long for my liking. I've only listened to a handful of shows, but its something to do if you can't be out caching.

Rain and lack of daylight have kept me from going out. I might decide to grab a cache at lunch time one of these days if the rain lets up a bit. Beyond my normal hours I've also put in some weekend time... so that hasn't helped.

November

Well not much geocaching has been going on. Saturday I went to the Trail Blazers home opener... they won the game in the last seconds. I didn't even attempt to find a cache anyplace along the way. I did stop just north of Beaverton and bought an older console radio I saw on Craigslist. I'm going to fix it up a bit with a new turntable and such but it doesn't need any cosmetic help as it has been well taken care of.