Caching in Toscana, Italy

This was another day on our cruise, and another stop where we did a tour with Evan's parents. This time, however, we had a tour guide who knew all about geocaching and even helped us look for it. So, during the tour, we stopped to find this cache (Il primo bacio), and I think the log I made says all I can for this one.

"Thanks for this cache in a wonderful place. We had a grate time."

Geocaching in Monaco

Monaco is so beautiful! Had to get that out right away - a truly lovely port. Due to the nature of this port, however, Evan's parents opted to stay on the ship while "the kids" explored. We took a hop-on hop-off bus around the city to get a quick tour, then we set out on our own in a few different places.

One place we explored was a hill with a long ramp to walk up, hence the name of the geocache here: La Condamine - La rampe Major. It wasn't hard to find, but there were tons of muggles so that was, of course, fun. Wonderful location for a cache!

Geocaching in Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France

Evan and I took a cruise with his family from Barcelona to Venice, and we had a lot of lovely stops along the way. At this particular port in Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France, Evan's parents booked us a private tour that catered well to his dad's needs. The tour was a mixed of mini bus and walking in accessible areas, and it was a real treat.

As a part of the day, we went to a museum in the town. Across from the museum was a geocache, Maison des Alpilles, so of course we found it. The tour guide hadn't heard of geocaching before, but she was on board to wait for us as we found and signed the log.

Christmas Eve Caching in Houston

I hardly ever pass up the chance to go geocaching around Christmas - it is something my hubby and I enjoy doing together, and this year his brother joined us in our fun. However, it was also a harder one to plan, as BIL wanted to do no LPCs, and with where he lives in Houston this was hard to find. In any case, we did manage to grab a couple on a lovely (Texas) winter afternoon.

• HEAR IT IS!
• Sam Was Here! #8021

More caching in Ireland

Evan's family and I went to Ireland for a week and spent some time in Limerick and Belfast. Mainly, we were very touristy and went to musuems, took driving tours, went to some castles, crossed a very old rope bridge, went to the Giant's Causeway (still my favorite place I've ever been) and generally fun tourist things.

We also took the time to find a geocache while we were there: Merrion Square.

Visiting In-laws

This year has been crazy, so I'm a little behind in blog posts for the caching I've done this year. Starting with late February, life just got really busy!

In March, I was visiting my in-laws the weekend after my grandma passed away. This trip was mainly to help with things at their house, but also to take Justin out for his birthday. In addition, Evan and I took him geocaching one evening, were we found 6 caches after dark all fairly close to their house. My two favorites from this trip out were:

Caleb’s Favorite Mystery Cache
End of the Earth

Out and about in Garland

We headed out today to take our friends to find the cache next to Stanley the llama - only to discover Stanley was gone!!! They still found the cache, but what a bummer way to start the day off.

Instead, when they left to visit other friends in the area, we grabbed several PNGs nearby. Pretty easy, other than navigating the parking lot and waiting out muggles.

By far one of the most disappointing trips I've made, since I really liked taking my friends, especially my geocaching friends, to visit Stanley. Bummer!

Checking in on my night cache

I got a few emails and DNFs for my Creekside Night Cache, so while my buddy Jen is here with her boyfriend and his kids, we decided to go check it out. Their first night cache, and once they figured out what they needed to do, they really made good time out of it. Cache was in perfect order, and we dipped a few travel bugs from Seattle here.

Interesting caching day...

Ideally, we would have spent the day caching in Portland, OR, but that was not meant to be. Car difficulties necessitated our stopping on the side of the road and waiting for AAA to come tow the car. But, never fear, the handy dandy geocaching app says there is a cache...135 feet from us? My, isn't that convenient?

So, anyways, after finding ourselves in this predicament, we decided there probably wasn't much else to do to kill the time waiting, so we did what any other geocacher would do (at least, I hope that is true) and found the cache. Thank you, Cedar Falls Hunt for making the afternoon stuck in the sun waiting more interesting.



After the tow truck arrived and we were once again safely in Yelm, we did venture out for a fewmore caches in the rental car Evan and I had (5 seats, so use your imagination on how this worked out). We ended up finding a cache surrounded by bees (at least according to the logs of others, which we missed), G&E'S FIRST CACHE, and the other cache at the Wal-Mart, Yelm has Joined the Ranks, before deciding to locate a more interesting cache.

So, we then headed over to And Itty-Bitty Citty Park for the first puzzle cache for many in the group. After running around the park, we came up with the coordinates for the final, and made our walk there. We did find a cache at the final, although we were confused by the log book and golf things inside. Either way, a neat experience.

Last once for the day was Don't Drink the Water!, which happens to be hidden where Seth's 1st birthday party was held and where Sophie took her first steps. Pretty easy to find, but neat to think about other things as well.

Caching at night in Yelm, WA

For our last cache on our first day (boy, this was a busy day!), we heading out after dark, after explaining to the kids to keep quiet. We headed to The Tooth Fairy and quietly got out of the car. With some guidance, Seth spotted this once, since he was practically standing on it. However, we did have to wait out some muggle neighbors patiently and quietly before getting it, and everyone did great.

Caching in Olympia, WA

After our busy morning caching around Yelm, we met up with Jen, Justin, Seth, and Sophie to head to Olympia. The main reason for the destination was the awesomeness of REI, but we of course took some time for caching.

First stop after the REI stop (as always, longer than necessary so we could play with the goodies) was Pretty. Odd. Oly. They had previously searched with no luck, but more patience has us finding this fairly quickly once in the right location. We then headed over to Rockin', a fairly similar find made by Sophie.

Next up was probably the easiest of the day, by far. I spotted it while we were still driving to the location: The Office Cache!.

Decided to try a slightly more difficult one next, although in truth, what made it difficult was the inaccuracy of the GPS units under the trees. Once approached from the correct direction, this wasn't too bad. Again, made it harder than necessary: What I grow up I wanna be a park.

We got tired of getting in and out of the car, so Justin headed over to a park he knew in the area, with a walking path around a lake. This park also happened to have great views of the capital.



As we headed to the first cache, Attack of the Micro's #3, we noticed someone else there who also, it seemed, was looking for something. So, we asked, and then joined forces. There were muggles everywhere, so it was hard to keep from being obvious, but after we got away from our initial hunch, Evan and the kids were able to spot the cache. We parted ways from our geocaching buddy, and headed on to the next target.

If we thought the previous spot was busy, this was even more so. Luckily, there were benches nearby to relax at until the worst of it cleared up.







Once we were more muggle free, Justin and I headed over to search for The End of Puget Sound, while Evan, Jen, Seth, and Sophie kept enjoying the shade of the trees. We got to meet up with the same geocaching buddy here, with her husband, and search together. After our friend's husband found (where Justin had stuck his hand without success), we signed, put away, and Evan and Jen brought the kids over. This was a neat place to look at wildlife, with a few seals (or otters, we fought and gave up trying to decide).



We then made our way to the next cache Dancing Waters, also with our new geocaching friends. He found it very quickly, but was kind enough to make the kids think they had spotted it first.

Last one before heading back to Yelm was Percival Bridge. Also not too difficult, and a fun little walk.

Caching in Yelm, WA

Over Labor Day weekend, Evan and I went out of town to spend to time with our bud Jen, her boyfriend Justin, and his kids, Seth (9) and Sophie (7). This took us to many different places in the Pacific Northwest, starting in Yelm, WA. This is the first of many blog posts about this trip.

Evan and I got into Seattle late on Saturday, and drove out to the hotel in Yelm and crashed for the night. Not used to the time change of two hours at all, I was up bright and early on Sunday and ready to cache until Jen and crew were ready to join us after church. So, I made a list of all of jenden1978's finds and Evan and I set out to find any of those located in Yelm.

First was a little fun and we made it a LOT harder than necessary. Mainly because I headed under the bridge and said, "hey, Evan, check here," and he looked all but where the cache was. After some spider webs, splinters, and a lot of searching, we found in 30 minutes what should have been less than 5. But a fun start to the day, and at least it wasn't 100 degrees like back home! If anyone is in Yelm, my favorite we found there was Yelm Prairie Line Trail.



After that, we headed nearby to High Water?. I found this before Evan even made it all the way across the street with the pen, but was later surprised to learn that Justin hasn't yet found it, and it took Jen a couple of tries. I am guessing that this is where experience pays off!

We took a little break and the local Wal-Mart for drinks and jackets, then noticed there was a cache (two actually...more on the second in a later post), and decided to find Little Lighthouse on the Prairie. Admittedly, I was a little disappointed as we drove up to it, because it was so much like so many back home. But, as hubby was replacing it, and gentleman in a minivan drove by on the nearby road, honk, and gave him a thumbs up. Yes, it is still there and not muggled, as others have logged it since. Whew.

Headed a bit away and over to The Five One Zero Loop. When I saw where this one was, I was not to keen on going to find it. Too much traffic and a little nerve wracking. However, we were there, so I went and looked while Evan enjoyed using the circle. Was easy to find once I pushed past my nerves.

Since Jen was up, we decided to head to her hide next, Light, Hearted. Very neat hide, and it gave us a few minutes to chat in the morning as well. While there, she recommended our next couple of finds as well, so we went off in search of Bypass to...Nowhere.. and Apple of My Eye.

My two favorite of the morning:
Light, Hearted
Yelm Prairie Line Trail