The Caching Team is Back - North Texas Caching

What a great day for the team to get back together for some caching. This time, I specifically looked up the most favorited caches in the area we were near and what a blast we all had looking for them.

Of course, we logged a couple of DNFs in this journey, mainly a few that were just WAY too high up for us to even start. Maybe another time.

Our first find of the day (I ate that bison) scared made Zane jump when he found it, and the rest of us weren't all that sure about it either. But, a clever hide in a neat area.

Hoist the Colors was our next find, and after finding a way around the mud and missing the poison ivy in the area, this was find to and even more fun to get once we'd located it.

This next one was in a quiet corner of a park, although at first we were confused to what we'd find there. Another really great hide, worth all the fave points it has earned. We couldn't all get to it at once, so after Zane, Lisa, and I found it, we hid it again and sent Evan and James to take a look. 中國獵槍 "Chinese Shotgun" is worth it if you ever have a chance.

Because of a prior find, going to Park Pull and Grab was a breeze - a fun PNG, and NOT A LPC, so even better.

Our next took a while, but this is totally our own fault for making it harder that it should have been: 12-31-2013. Just...no words for our approach here.
The last was chosen by Zane on the fly, because he liked the name of the cache. We were a little concerned as we pulled up to park, and there was a lot of odd music playing randomly in the area, but the find itself was neat and well-hidden: The Ghost of Nurse Betty.

Frogger island adventures

Back in 2014, a group of us decided to spend a day out on Lake Lewisville and just have some fun. We of course pulled up geocaching and found this cool cache in the middle of an island on the lake. We jumped in, swam to the island, and we met with a ton or thorns and poison ivy. Needless to say, we weren't prepared or successful that day. But we were today!

To start off with, this time since it was chilly (and the water cold) we got a raft to get from the boat to the island instead of swimming. This also gave us the advantage of have dry clothes and shoes, which was way useful.

We then got ready and explored the cool old things scattered around the island (and got a fun group shot).

Then, the cache. Wow. I'm not going to spoil it for others too much, but glad we had a tree monkey with us!

Getting revenge on a previous DNF

A while back, we spent close to an hour looking for Rusty Bridge #4. Today, we found it. Finally!

We then headed across town to try our hand at Rusty Bridge #5 (Bridge to Nowhere). We were intrigued by the name, and since it was in the same series, we went for it. This one was much easier, and the location was just odd.

A lovely afternoon walk and many caches

Up until today, I've been sitting at 666 caches for quite a while. Since it is so pretty out, we decided to head out and get back into the geocaching groove. This was a nice walk, and we got to enjoy a very nice walking path (and some off the path). Thankfully, it is a nice day early in the year, and no poison ivy at any of these caches!

Our first couple of caches were simple, but one (Home away from home) was in need of repair. We swapped the bag and the log out since it was wet and ruined.

We then had quite a long walk to our next cache and our first encounter with thorns for the day. Given the location, we didn't expect something so fun, but it was neat find due to surroundings (W T D (Plano) # 7). We also had some fun hanging out on the bridge and playing with light.

We then looked for a few more caches in the same series (W T D (Plano) # 5, W T D (Plano) # 4, W T D (Plano) # 3, and W T D (Plano) # 2). We found three of the four. On the fourth, we found a cable tie in the tree, but no cache. The area looked flooded. However, we did find a nice friend in a nearby tree, and James got to crawl around in some thorns.

Walking and caching in the Burke Nature Preserve

There is a park I used to drive to on the way to work every day and I always wanted to explore. So when Lesley and James and I got together for the afternoon to walk, this was a good spot to go. The main goal of the day was walking, and we saw a lot of neat things, but we did also sneak in a couple of caches. Both of them were actually pretty neat, and since the GPS bumped around cause of trees and bridges, they were a bit more of a challenge than most Dallas caches.

One of these caches was definitely our favorite, as it did involve some neat stunts and cooperation to get. And with two accident-prone people, this was quite amusing.

• Tree Hugger
• Jane Goodall

Post-Valentine's Day Caching

We had to get out to work off the Valentine's Day chocolate, and had a beautiful day to do so. We met up with Andy, Lisa, and James at a nearby lake where there are several caches. This was our second trip to this area, and we walked past some fond memories on the way to making new ones.

There were lots of thorns today, if the names of the caches we found give you any clues:

• Stangelina's - I've actually meant to find this one on numerous occasions when dining at either of the two places this references, but it was likely much better to have come from the direction we did.
• Shoreline 7 - This one has an innocent enough name, but there were plenty of thorns, even in the winter.
• 1 Is the line we like to sign another FTF... - And, you guessed it, more thorns :-)
• Fishing #04 - Thorny Poison Fishing - Thorns in shoes, hats, pants, everywhere. The name isn't lying. Ran into some muggles on the way who asked why we were in the area, but then their dog distracted them.
• Overgrown Street Ending - No thorns this time, but a really cool tree growing on a barrier at the end of a road.
• Off the trail - Not a bad find, and easy enough to give Evan and Zinny time to sit and chill.
• Shoreline 6 - A little bit of a walk since we didn't find the right path right away, but not too bad to find even though there were a few thorns and it was broken. Downside really was all the burrs that got stuck to us.
• I Just may stick you! - More thorny fun, and our last find of the day.

Out with the team on a warm January afternoon

Surprisingly, we had another warm and sunny Saturday afternoon. So, we met up with the team (chemqueen, eolyn, stargazer216, and lysax13) for a day of caching with Zinny. It was a great afternoon, starting with several park and grab caches near the point we met at. Most of these were really simple, but we did enjoy Just the Right Angle for the challenge it presented. I stared at the cache for several minutes before I realized what it was that I was seeing. This one blended in very well.

We then headed to a park nearby to grab some more difficult caches. The first is my first find of difficulty 4 and terrain 3: Fishing #02 - Bushwacking Swamp Fishing. And, boy, wasn't it swampy. We loved finding this one and have the muddy shoes to prove it.




We then headed to another nearby cache and dropped of a travel bug while we were there.

Caching team back in action

As per usual recently, I started today off on my own for caching. I suppose this is what happens when you wake up at 6:15am and cannot think of something else to do. The weather was pretty nice this morning, and there were some caches I had wanted to hit up Wednesday (due to proximity to others I found) but that I ran out of time for. These ended up being fairly easy, with one of them at least a little more challenging (near a lamp post, but not, so a little of a 'decoy'). With all of them, I'm glad I headed out before the rush of muggle activity.

Before work and working out, I had some time to meet up with Angela at a Starbucks to work out some puzzle caches. I brought four that were annoying me, and because I knew what at least a few of the coordinates should be, we were able to figure out how to solve and come up with the coordinates. We were not so lucky on the other three, but will keep trying anyways. I wish I liked puzzle caches more, but it turns out that I'm just not that great at them.

With this interlude, I had a bit of a break before meeting up with James and Lisa. This put three quarters of our caching team back in place, and I am so glad we got to go out again. Since the weather was turning (there was tons of lightning to the east), we packed up a few extras things in case we should need them. Turns out we didn't, but it was probably a good thing to have tried.

We stuck close by and picked up some caches in a nearby pack. Of course, the first was the hardest and did have us crossing (or going under in our case) a train track. We found and signed this one pretty quickly once we got to it. Nearby, there were some nice flowers on a vine.



There was another cache very near, so we headed there next. This involved crossing some water, and I was of course wearing open toed sandals, so I hitched a ride on Lisa's back. We got to the location easy enough, but did not find the cache there. We did see something in the tree that probably had something to do with a cache, but never found a container or log. A few minutes later, at a different cache, we found two cache containers, and the log in one of the containers had this cache's name at the top in cursive. We left this where it was, but it seems perhaps out of place.



The last cache in this park for us was near a park, but the weather had the muggles away. Good thing, too, because although we spotted the cache quickly enough, getting it proved to be a bit of a challenge. Thankfully, we have a tree monkey!



The next few caches after this were mainly PNG DNFs (for one reason or another). We headed to a cache Lisa and I first looked for in February 2011 for my 30th birthday caching trip. That night, we came up with nothing, but the extra daylight really helped us and we spotted it fairly quickly today.

Then, back to some caches that I couldn't find or couldn't reach on Wednesday. We first stopped off at a huge dragon, but we did not have luck finding this cache. Plus, we had to kill quite a bit of time because there were quite a few muggles out in spite of the drizzle. Lisa enjoyed having it out with the dragon - I suppose it was a good day for the Slayer shirt.



After stopping at another cache I was too short for, we stopped at another close by park and played in the castle and dungeons. And, of course, another geocache.



While thinking about parks, we also took James back to one of our favorite caches in the close by greenbelt. This was the cache that taught me to look up and bring good flashlights. He found it quickly enough; it was fun to watch as he figured out how to get it.

After dinner, we noticed there were two caches within walking distance of our car. We dug around a bit for one of them, but with the dark and the thistle and the small rodents everywhere, we decided to come back another time. So, we headed for the easier (and more boring) one and found that very quickly.

My favorites from the day:
Cheap Seats
Just Chillin'
Castle Hillbilly

Caching on my own

Usually when I go out caching, someone else is there with me. Sometimes its my whole team (lysax13, stargazer216 and eolyn), sometimes its my parents, and sometimes just my hubby. So, its been quite a while since I've been out caching without anyone else there, and it makes me a little nervous now.

On Sunday, I decided to give it a shot on the way to help some friends unpack their boxes after a recent move. Since its been a while, I stuck to some caches that seemed fairly easy on paper, and for the most part they were easy in real life, with one exception - I'm short! This was a complication not in finding one of the caches (it was fairly easy to spot once I got out of the car), but in reaching it. I am so glad that for once, I had my handy dandy tool set with me. Yeah extendable thing with a magnet on the end (although the magnet seemed to want to stick more to the pole than the cache).

Coolest cache of the day:
Door #1, #2, #3 or #4

Out again with our awesome caching team

Sunday was a beautiful day, and we had the great fortune of getting back out with the team. Since Evan still has the boot on his foot, he was our driver, while Lisa, James, and I hopped out and found things.

We started near my house and found some nearby caches that, really, I should have found a long time ago already. One of the neatest nearby was Sit a Spell, which took us a little longer to find that it probably should have, but was still a fun location for us.

We then headed out to retry a couple of DNFs and clear those off of the list. Success on both counts!

Denton Rd. Powertrail #13 (thanks to a note from the cache owner)
Soldiers of the Empire (was replaced since our first visit)

Before wrapping up the night, took Lisa and James to find my recent night cache, which we also did some maintenance on since recent growth obscured some of the trail markers.

Finally found annoying DNF!

While looking for something to do Tuesday night, Fred asked us to take him to the hardest cache we weren't able to find. So, we did - and we found it. I've been out there at three other times, in the daylight, with no luck. On a cold night without a good flashlight, found in less than five minutes. I think the main reason is that I had knowledge that my caching buddies (James and Lisa) had found it, so I felt more forceful about finding it. Anyways, goodbye DNF and I hope to never drive by this spot ever again.

Cascading Stone Tube

Caching in Arkansas

For Memorial Day this year, we decided to take a trip to relax in Hot Springs, AR. This was a great idea, so Lisa, James, Evan, and I packed up and headed out there Saturday morning. We found several caches on the way there, our favorite being one INDOORS. Took us a while to even think to look there - was different from what we were used to, and we appreciated it.

After settling in and relaxing that night with a boat tour of the lake, we got a good night's rest and set out Sunday morning with no particular aim in mind other than exploring the area. This of course meant driving in the mountains and finding geocaches. We ended up seeing some great sites, including the impressive gallery of a rock shop in the area (the quartz is quite amazing). We also found some rather large puddles of water as a result of the recent heavy rains, a couple of which forced us to turn around (we are in a CRV, but an old and grumpy one).

We visited the science museum and spent a lot of time there - very nice place, especially if you had kids to bring. Grabbed a cache placed outside of it, but wish we hadn't, as three of the four of us discovered ticks over the course of the next day.

We headed back to town and walked around the main drag (and, of course, cached along the way). I've been caching in a downtown environment before (Ft. Worth, TX), but this was a quite different experience. These caches are quite out in the open (to us, at least), but they've been there forever untampered by muggles. Quite impressive.

We also picked up a few things on the way back to Dallas, but more than anything, I got ant bites...

Some of my favorite caches from this trip:
Rock Hounds (owners are nice and helpful if you need it)
Upon The Arrival (great story)
Travel Bug Outhouse
GOOGLING HRPTY HRRS (neat carving on site)

Easter egg hunt - GPS style

So it's Easter Sunday and my beautiful girlfriend and our very close friend Judy setup a little Easter egg hunt for Evan and me. Today we were given instructions to meet up at the DART park and ride at the Parker Road Station in Plano to join forces and navigate around the city collecting eggs. At the end of our journey, a treat to share was promised.

So the ladies sent us to the park and ride, each with half of the required coordinates for the first find. Once we met up, I hopped into Evans fly ride and off we went!

It took us a little while to get warmed up, not knowing really what we were looking for but after the first egg.

Caching in Arbor Hills

After a recent adventures, we figured we'd go out and make a nice afternoon of caching. We planned a route and started on our way. I had already been to this park and found some of the caches, but all were new to the rest of the group. So, we swung by a few of those that were on the route as well.

There was a lot of walking, a lot of tree climbing, a lot of sun, a lot of poison ivy...a lot of everything. I am going to let the pictures do the talking on this one.

Powertrail at night

Last night we set out to finish the power trail we started a couple of months ago with Lisa and James. This particular series is meant to be PNG, but we prefer walking, so we made a night of it. This meant parking cars at one end, driving one car to the other end, and walking back to the other cars (no pretty loops here - straight shot).

First cache for the series was in a busy intersection, but no one really noticed us because they were so busy hurrying to somewhere. We took the crosswalks here as a chance to cross the road. Sadly, there were no sidewalks for multiple parts of this trip, so there was a lot of walking on uneven ground or in the street. I am grateful for the blinky lights and reflectors I sewed onto my bag.

Made it to the second cache and looked around the area for a bit before we spotted the cache. Very neat fake sprinkler. If there weren't two more right next to it that were real, I may not have noticed it. I saw it, Evan grabbed it, and the wind threw dirt into Lisa's face. There was a note on the cache that the next three were the same type of container, so we moved towards those confident of our abilities to find them. However, no luck at #03 and #05, even after moving most of the camo a landscaping crew had placed.

Getting past the mud, we proceeded to the final two caches in the series. These were both quick grabs, for which we were glad after not finding two.

There were three more caches between us and the car that were not part of the series, but we grabbed them along the way. All were easy light post grabs, so a pretty upbeat (if boring) end to the searching for the evening.

Turns out we had good timing on the end of the search - less than five minutes after we arrived home, we got some nasty weather, including 60mph winds and golf ball sized hail. Very lucky we weren't stuck out walking in that mess!

2011 caching goals

You could call these my 2011 new year resolutions for geocaching - I made some at the new year. But, in reality, they are an evolving target. I started the year with one simple goal: find 100 caches in 2011. That would mean 2 per week, and when I made this resolution, it seemed very reasonable. However, looking back now, I should have known that I could do better - it is only April and I've already found 154 this year!

Needless to say, this required me to update those goals. So, I thought about it, and in mid-March I set some new goals:
1 - find at least 250 caches in 2011.
2 - find caches in at least 5 different states.
3 - start my own travel bug.

I am not off to a bad start - now I just need to get to another state. Evan, James, Lisa and I are going to Hot Springs, AR for Memorial Day, so that is one chance. I also anticipate going to OK for some reason or another (one always comes up). So, where should I head for the other two?

Caching with cops...and other curiosities

Every time I head out caching, I expect to see interesting things and have a good time. Today certainly lived up to those expectations, and hopefully next time around I can handle things as well as I did today :-)

We started Saturday with a goal of finding 15 caches. Mainly, since my allergies are acting up and I'm on a ton of meds for them, we decided to stick to park and grabs. A very nice way to ease back into things. We grabbed 11 of them pretty uneventfully - the 12th was when things got interesting.

We pulled up to GZ, shifted into park, and a cop pulled up behind us. She comes up, asks why we're there since the nearby business is closed, and Evan decides to just tell her. Of course, he does this by saying "we are out geocaching, and there happens to be one in that lamp post." She stares at him like he's crazy, then he explains what geocaching is, shows her our map, the GPS, etc. Meanwhile, I grab the cache. I am SO glad it was actually there. I'm also glad it wasn't just a pill bottle, as is normal for lamp post caches. This one was a decent size and has a few goodies in it she could look at. She seemed to get a kick out of how many people had signed the log. When I signed, she headed back to her vehicle and left. Pretty easy to deal with, but HUGE adrenalin rush. I was always worried that my first encounter would go poorly, but I am glad Evan made the decision and we went with it.

We headed to one more park and grab then met up with some friends (James and Lisa) to help him move his travel bug eastwards. Drove east above 45 minutes then did a quick look for a large cache that we could drop the bug in. Found just what we were looking for near the Lake Lavon dam. It was a little odd to walk around out there near a tiger refuge with so close by, but we long ago purchased some bear spray...which was at home. As we climbed down the hill and walked across the field, we kept our eyes open. Needless to say, nothing really happened. When we got close by, it was pretty obvious where it would be, so I climbed to the center of a bunch of cedar trees and made the find. Then James climbed in to actually get it (I am not a fan of sticking my hands in holes...). Let the bug and helped move it further along in its goal.

In the end, we made 14 for Saturday. Not too shabby!

Sunday we had plans to meet up with James and Lisa again and go on a 'cache walk'. I made a path for the John Carter Park in Plano. It is a nice park with a ton of caches hidden along its paths. I made a path with ~20 caches on it and a loop, with the option to head back halfway if needed. Sent the starting address to James and packed up my walking gear.

Since there was still time to kill before meeting up, Evan and I went out for a few more park and grabs. First thing, we pull up to the GZ and there is a cop in their car sitting there. Needless to say, we decided to save that one for later. Did not need a repeat - how many times can you get lucky before having problems?

Hit up a few more park and grabs in the area, most were nothing special. The last one we found before meeting up with James and Lisa was my favorite - it was in a neighborhood park that was oddly empty (it was beautiful out!). I think I might go back and chill there with Dylan some day when I need something to do with him.

Then we headed to the park. Sprayed/applied the sunscreen and bug spray, made sure water bottles were full, and went on our way. Every cache we found was different from the others, and it was very enjoyable. After our 7th cache, we decided to exercise that 'cut back' option and leave the other half of the trail (well, slightly more than half) for another day. At that point, we had found 7 of 7 caches we'd searched for, although some took more time than others.

On the way back to the car, we searched for the last cache on the way - Rusty Bridge #4 (you have to be a paid member to see this one). The other ones we've found in this series weren't easy, but they were not like this one. We ended up looking for an hour and not finding it. After reading the logs, seems that is not abnormal. I'm sure we'll be back when we hit up the rest of the trail.

24 finds for the weekend. Not our best weekend, but definitely not our worst!