New Challenge

Yesterday my 50th cache hide was approved. It was several weeks in planning and took a special exception from our local approver, but here it is

blazerfan & SallyC's Revenge

The cache requires you to have 2 finds in each National Forest in Oregon. Ok, actually Klamath National Forest extends into Oregon as well... but I excluded it because there aren't many caches in that section. I hope it is a unique enough challenge to get a few people out and about toward finding it. I realize the cache is about the same as other challenges and requires you to "start over" as it were, but yet I think it will require cachers to see a bit more of the "wild" parts of Oregon. I'm still deciding on a FTF prize.

In an effort to get more Oregon cachers working on the DeLorme challenge I posted about it in the PDX and EVC forums. EVC has had no response... their forum seems pretty dead right now much like the sogeo forum. The PDX forum however... I don't even know what to say besides that I'm disapointed. Most of the responses seemed kind of negative. Maybe I'm just being overly sensitive on the issue. My hope is that in the silent majority of cachers reading these forums that I've sparked the interest of a couple of them. I think people should have as many excuses as posable to get out and see the state... not that any excuse should even be needed.

Cache 77, The Final

Well Saturday SallyC and I headed to the coast to get the final for the Oregon Delorme Challenge. After a bit of searching Sally found it and we found a few more around town and had some Fish & Chips to celebrate. It was definately a big undertaking, despite my having about a third of the map sections done before we actually decided to try completing this cache I actually revisited every section this year.

We also found a cache in every county, but our cache in Umatilla County didn't qualify for Counting Counties in Oregon. With how careful we were I'm still wondering how we missed that one. Time constraints kept us from searching out multiple caches for each county and map section... once we found one we moved on. Oh well, its just a game.

76 caches

Yesterday SallyC and I completed all the sections for the Oregon DeLorme Challenge. Now all that remains is finding the final cache and signing the logbook. We started the challenge back in February or so by picking up some of the closer sections that Sally didn't have. I had about 26 when we started. We pretty much completed it in 4 parts

Mar 31-Apr 2 we cached around Bend (8 sections)
May 19-22 completed every section west of I-5 (17 sections)
Sep 16-27 drove all over eastern Oregon (21 sections)
Oct 7 found our last sections toward Diamond Lake (4 sections)

Its been fun... sometimes we might have pushed ourselves a bit too much trying to fit everything in, but I know I saw many different parts of Oregon. Now that it is nearly over I'm not sure what we'll do next.

Recent events

Saturday was 3rd. Annual Pizza By The Riverside hosted by Iseek and Eyeseek2. Great event with a turnout of over 50 people. Many local cachers were missing so that number could have been even higher. It was by far our biggest local event ever.

Day 7... belated

Well for Day 7 (Friday) we had planned to grab sections 55 and 56 as well as the original stash and then head home. We decided since Sally was so close to completing CCIO that we'd grab a cache in Polk and Benton County while we were at it. Well after 2 DNFs in section 55 and a lot of hard searching for other caches we finally finished around 9pm and still had the drive home from Corvallis making it our longest day.

I still have 4 sections of the DeLorme challenge to complete and Sally has 5. Sally is done with CCIO and I still need a qualifying cache in Coos County. So we still have a bit of caching to do, but we should be able to do it in a weekend.


Our finds for the day:
You Can Just Hold It Till The Next Town
Castaway's "Island Park" (Help Wanted)
marion forks gets stoned
Secret pond
The Benton Extension

Day Six

Drove today from Pendleton to Troutdale. Crossed off 6 map sections and 7 counties. I'm now 6 sections from completing the DeLorme Challenge and 5 counties from Counting Counties. Todays finds include:

Don't Strike Out
Threemile Rockpile
Fourmile Canyon
Henry's Endeavor
Along The Trail
Final Exit
Polallie Creek
Creekside Retirement Cache
Women will love this!

Day Five

Today consisted of driving from Baker City to Imnaha and back to Pendleton. Lots of driving and a stop by the Oregon Trail Interperetive Center. Collected 3 more DeLorme map sections and 3 counties. Todays finds include:

Chinese Cemetery
Early La Grande
The Wayside
THE LIVING END CACHE.

Day 4

Drove many miles today but ended up like 50 miles from where we started. So we drove to from Ontario to Mitchell and back to Baker City. Picking up 3 map sections and 2 counties. Todays finds include:

Vilsmeyer Country Store
TB Trading Post
Clyde Holliday
I Hate Graveyards & Old Pawn Shops
Fossil Fields Forever

Day Three

Made the trip today from Burns south to Burns Junction... then to Jordan Valley and North to Ontario. But even with all of that ground covered caches were few and far between. But I crossed off 3 sections. Todays finds:

"Under the Wide & Starry sky" R.L.S.
NHS
TACO BUSTER
You Know You Are Coming Here Anyway!

Day Two

Made it over Hart Mountain to Frenchglen then we took a side trip to to the Steens and made it up to Burns. Only 2 caches and 2 sections down, but a lot of ground covered. Pictures will have to wait. Caches found were

French's Lookout
Lava Tube

Actually ran into a cacher from Tucson at French's Lookout... pretty odd place to run into a cacher... but then again when its the only cache for miles maybe its not so odd.

Day One

Day one of our eastern trip and we've made it to Lakeview. Crossing off sections 21, 22, 23, 31, and 72 on the DeLorme map... I only needed two of those sections myself... so I now have 53 of 76 needed. We also picked up a qualifying cache for CCIO in Lake County... giving me 16 of the 36. Found for the day was

Trivia #3
PASS-A-CACHE
Bleatty
my first micro
Homefront
Filling the Gap

Poker Night

Not so great night for me playing poker. I always post my winning, but never my loses.

Tomorrow is my last day of work before the big caching trip. Got to get a lot of stuff ready. We'll have some big gaps of nothingness to drive through... so we'll need to take food and water as there may be no place to stop along the way. Should be interesting...

gonna take a lot of money

Getting ready for the big cache trip today... I bought some new tires, got my oil changed and replaced a burned out brake light. Will need to start charging up all my batteries and getting some pocket queries downloaded. Since we only need one cache per section I've mainly looked for easier ones right off the road.

Would kindof be nice if someone would hide us a new cache in the south of Section 31... the only one there seems to be a micro up in the hills. If anyone from the k-falls area reading would like to help out please hide an easy cache just north of Bly (has to be just over N42* 30.000) we'll be there next Saturday.

We're also trying to complete the Counting Counties in Oregon cache. Wheeler county looks like the one that will give us some fits as its not really in our route, but is pretty far away for us to leave undone. I'd ask for someone to hide us a cache closer to the eastern border... but one of the rules is that the cache had to be placed before 2006.

Eastern Oregon

Well its getting very close to SallyC and my trip to Eastern Oregon in our quest to complete the Oregon DeLorme Challenge. I am 25 sections short and the trip should cover 21 of them. After our trip to the coast where we covered way too many miles a day we are trying to plan less driving per day... one problem is that there is a real lack of caches in some parts of Eastern Oregon. Just one week to go.

#1000

Well after weeks of talking about it I finally found my 1000th cache. I called SallyC up and convinced her to go with me up Taylor Creek and find

Alone, But Not Lonely

A great cache by Iseek & Eyeseek2 on the Burnt Timber trail. Lots of trails up Taylor Creek... room for all kinds of caches... In fact Sally hid 3 new caches and I hid 1. Still lots of potential up there. I also checked on my old caches up the road... they are still there and in good shape, but had not been visited for almost 2 years.

So now that I've got my 1000th cache out of the way I can get back to my normal routine... what ever that is.

999

Well I am one cache away from 1000. Its been a long time coming... I've been pretty slow lately... I should have been past this a couple months ago. I'll give some consideration to what cache should be my 1000th... and go for it tomorrow. Todays finds included

Tune In Turn On and Drop Out?
Mr Wizard
"Box Office"
Get Lucky
Not a Through Road
The Ice Box
Cave Junction History Lesson #2

New Caches???

Well on tuesday I decided to hide some caches on a new bike trail the city is building. One section near me is complete and runs along Allen Creek behind a church and some houses as well as Allen Creek Elementary. I hid two caches along this stretch, but they are still unapproved due to this guideline

• Caches near or under public structures deemed potential or possible targets for terrorist attacks. These include but are not limited to highway bridges, dams, government buildings, elementary and secondary schools, and airports.

Guess I have never tested this guideline before. Ok I agree that hiding a cache near these areas is a bad idea... especially on their property... but this is a public bike path. The path is going to be used... geocachers hiking on this path and looking around are only going to attract attention if they try.

I went ahead and archived one of these caches that was in direct site of the school, but I'm trying to save the other.

First August Cache

Well I haven't done much caching lately but did find one yesterday

No Jumping

Sally and I were up in Roseburg to see Etta James and this was a pretty close one. Only problem was that we forgot a pen... so I left pennies and hope thats enough as the area was starting to get crowded and I didn't want to risk going back one more time to sign it. As it was we had to talk to some odd guy on a bike telling us about a "water sucker" not sure what he'd been drinking.

Anyway in the last few weeks we had also been in Roseburg to see Big Bad Voodoo Daddy and Alice Cooper. Great shows... I am really impressed with their free concerts Music on the Halfshell. Alice Cooper was at the fair and he still puts on the "all out" over the top rock and roll show of old... but no chickens are harmed anymore.

I also noticed that Lazyboy has quit blogging... said something about not having enough time. I've put in 28 hours of overtime since Friday myself.

I'm now 19 caches from 1000

20 to go

Well Sally and I went after a few caches yesterday and ended up with 3

Ashland Crest
Mountain Top
Siskiyou Peak

All great caches and a great day to be up there looking. Couldn't have asked for better weather. I even had to put on my sweater for a bit which is a big change from the 100 degree weather we were having.

We went up the the area because when chubby forest monkey visited the area recently she left me a gift near Siskiyou Peak. Went up to find a nice painted rock with the blazers logo on it. I'll have to take a picture of it.

With those caches I have just 20 to go before my 1000th. Seems like I've been talking about it for a long time... so I'd like to get them found and move on.

Wow!

Actually found a cache today

Oh, 1 Odie

Thought I might be FTF but DrDan had beat me to it. That puts me 23 away from 1000 finds.