Thursday, December 18, 2014

Caching with new friends in Grand Cayman

Lesley and I went on a cruise without the boys (we have more vacation time), and since all we wanted to do in Grand Cayman was walk around and shop, geocaching fit in here quite nicely. We made a couple of new friends on the ship who joined us, and really made it a lot of fun for us. I quite enjoyed all of these caches, for quite different reasons, but in the end they gave a great first time geocaching.

  • By George, it's Fort George! - great intro cache, even with the puzzle tied to it to open the cache. What a tiny little fort.
  • How Bazaar - the GPS was very inaccurate here, but we were able to spot the loot without notice. Neat little place to shop for crafts here.
  • Spirit of Recovery 1 - this cache was so easy, I missed it. Simple, funny hide.

Sunday, November 2, 2014

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.

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Caching on a work trip in Nebraska

I has a quick trip up to the Omaha area for a presentation, and I am going to spare the details of all the things that went wrong with the travel arrangements. Except for a good kudos - my wedding ring fell off and I didn't notice until I was back in DFW in another terminal and American Airlines was able to find and bring it out to me. Woot!!!

The morning of the presentation, my co-worker and I had some extra time, so he asked if I wanted to geocache (my co-workers know of my all states goal), so we did find a few. And since the hotel we were in is in Iowa, I even got a new state. However, the Iowa one was the easiest of the bunch - the other two were much neater.

Thursday, October 2, 2014

Chilling in Glasgow

Evan and I spent a lazy day in Glasgow, mainly enjoying the hop-on, hop-off bus. But we did take the chance to explore the beautiful City Chambers, where we found a cache (The Stone that Built Glasgow - City Chambers). We also had some fun with our gnome travel buddy.

We also toured a church that had been restored.

Wednesday, October 1, 2014

Giant's Causeway and Belfast

While we did find a geocache in Belfast, I would be lying to say that this was more than an afterthought. There were some changes to the itinerary of the trip, and Belfast was added as a port. CJ was immediately on board for heading out the Giant's Causeway, and THAT was the big highlight of the day. What a FANTASTIC spot. I want to come back to spend more time here - as well as several other places we passed that just look like fantastic spots to visit. I loved Iceland, but this area...it was probably my favorite stop.

First off, don't argue, and go to Giant's Causeway. It really is that awesome.

Once back in the city, we grabbed lunch (Made in Belfast) and a quick geocache (Callender Street).

Sunday, September 28, 2014

Photography and caching in Iceland

I want to start off by saying that Iceland was awesome, and one day is not anywhere near enough time to spend there. But, alas, one day is all we had, and we filled it with a photography tour of the area. This is one of the neatest tours I've been on, as the leader is an experience photographer and had a great eye for when to stop. We also had multiple times to check out rainbows and play with that. I am likely going overboard with photos on this post, but it was really quite fantastic.

We did also happen to find three caches on this day. It was nice that we would be enjoying the scenery and taking photos, then one of us would open the app and have a cache very nearby.

Thursday, September 25, 2014

Climbing lots of stairs in Lerwick

After finding another yarn shop (Jamieson's of Shetland) and getting a couple of gifts for family members, Evan and I split up from CJ and Lesley to find a geocache and shop while in town. We loved the setting of this town and took quite a few photos, then I set off (since Evan was still in his boot) and proceeded to climb what felt like a million steps to find a cache in front of the very beautiful town hall (Red Herring?).

The only downside to this day was the big wait to get off the ship - but we used that reading and resting.

Also, Evan had some issues walking, so we got a cab at some point and he gave us a neat little tour, including seals!

Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Cache by the fish market in Bergen, Norway

In Bergen, Evan and I set off on our own to explore the town, making good use of a hop-on, hop-off bus that traveled around the town. I made a nice yarn shop find to keep my hands busy once we got back on the ship (Strikkelykke - it was awesome!).

We did try to find a couple of caches while in Bergen, but didn't have luck on the first one (where the photo was taken). However, we had success after killing time to wait out muggles at Strandkaien.

Sunday, September 21, 2014

Starting the trip off with a geocache at the hotel

CJ, Lesley, Evan and I finally made it to Denmark, and we are so glad to have started the trip off with a geocache right at the hotel. I have to admit that we made this much harder than it had to be, but it was still a neat location and we enjoyed exploring the grounds. If you ever find yourself in Copenhagen, check out The Tower and the Arena.

Thursday, September 4, 2014

Looking forward to caching in Europe

In a few weeks, I'll be in Europe, caching my way at each stop we make. This is just a countdown to the trip.


CountdownClockCodes.com

Sunday, July 20, 2014

The Orange Show in Houston, TX

Evan wanted to get out of town and visit his parents, and Fred came along with us. We went to the San Jacinto monument, visit various other spots in town, saw Evan's family, and went out to karaoke. A busy weekend, and on the way out of town, we stopped by the Orange Show. Like Quigley's Castle when we were in Arkansas, it was an experience...one I might now repeat.

Dementia Concretia

Saturday, July 12, 2014

Post bachelorrette party cache

One of my best buds is getting married, and I threw her a fun party to celebrate. She ended up staying over, and we went for breakfast at the Coffee House Cafe right next to this cache. When we were leaving, I pulled up the app on my iPhone, and the cache was ten feet from our car. So, couldn't pass this one up: Coffee anyone?.

Sunday, June 15, 2014

Caching in Florida

My aunt, uncle, and cousin who are currently living in Indonesia came to the states for a bit, and we decided to join them at a beach house in Panama City Beach. It was a very fun weekend, and thankfully I kept applying enough sunscreen to avoid a burn. We built a few sand castles, swam in the ocean, played catch with the kids, and spent a lot of time as a family.

The night before leaving, we headed to an oyster bar and sang some karaoke - got my aunts up there to sing Sweet Home Alabama.

On the way out of town, we stopped at a center and went window shopping while picking up a cache in Florida: Wear your Sundries best.

Saturday, May 24, 2014

Caching in Arizona, Utah, and Nevada

Evan and I took a trip to Vegas for Memorial Day weekend, and of course we toured the casinos and had fun in Vegas. But, I'm not a big "bright lights, smoke, and gambling" gal, so we spent a day outside of the city driving and getting caches. On the way out of the city and towards Arizona, we picked up a few caches. The one in Arizona(Heart Break Hotel - Arizona was a neat old building that is mostly gone. While we were stopped, a cop decided to stop by and make sure nothing was wrong, but that was pretty easy since the car was still running. We grabbed some photos and then jumped the border.

We didn't spend much time in Arizona before leaving for Utah, but where we grabbed another: Border Jumpers ~ Old 91. The view from this cache was amazing, and so were all of the Camaros we saw while looking. We grabbed dinner and headed back to the city.

Sunday, April 20, 2014

Caching on the way back from Fredricksburg, TX

Over the weekend, my hubby, friends, and I rented a house outside of Fredricksburg for the weekend, mainly with the purpose of exploring the area and taking some good photos with our new cameras. We of course went shopping downtown, ate at local places, and explored the brewery. But we also decided to drive down some gravel roads and stop at one of my favorite types of places: a cemetery. And this cemetery also had a geocache - a great boon.

Zion Hill

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Caching in Arkansas

Decided to stop quickly for a cache while visiting the area, since I haven't been to Arkansas much recently due to so much work travel and going to new places instead. On this day, we explored the area and grabbed a cache full of fun things.

Gardens Travel Bug Hotel

We also stopped at Quigley's Castle...it was an experience. I'd always wanted to see it, and now that I have, at least I've satisfied that curiosity.

Lunch break caching

It was such a beautiful day outside that I decided to meet up with a friend and go find a few caches over the lunch break. She had her soon-to-be stepson and his cousin along, so it was a really nice time to find four caches. These were all off of Legacy Trail in Plano.

Sunday, February 16, 2014

Caching at the dog park

Since we haven't had such lovely weather, we took Zinny out for the second day in a row to the local dog park. Since I wanted to walk around, I pulled up the handy-dandy geocaching app and noticed there was a cache just off the path around the park. So after Zinny ran off her energy for a bit, we went for a walk to locate it. Sadly, the only thing left was the lid: Strong Fences.

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.

Thursday, January 30, 2014

Someone spotted my travel bug!

I got one of those happy emails that told me someone spotted my travel bug. Or, in my case, the car my husband is driving. Just a happy thing to share on the blog. 

Saturday, January 25, 2014

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.


Sunday, January 19, 2014

Walking out in Little Elm

It was a beautiful day, and we wanted to take advantage of that as a chance to take Zinny out for a walk. Met up with some friends and took their kids caching for the first time. I was very impressed with them both - so excited and really good at looking for a cache. Ethan even found the first one of the day before any of the adults (Little M #4).