Thursday, December 31, 2009

Cache Partners Redux

I've almost been writing this blog now for almost two years, starting in January 2008.  Many of my caching partners have come and gone, but there are a couple who have decided to hang around me for a greater part of my caching career.  Chaosmanor has been hanging around me in geocaching the longest.  In fact, we met through Where's George? before either of us got involved in Geocaching.  It should be noted that Chaosmanor is a husband and wife team, but I usually associate Jim with the Chaosmanor handle.

Through the years, we've been on numerous geocaching adventures together.  Our first was on the western edge of Los Angeles County, where we hide a cache together near the spot where the television show The Lone Ranger, was filmed.  Since that time, we usually went out caching with each other several times a year, usually when I had time off.

There, for awhile, Memorial Day weekend we usually got together to cache, and then we started meeting during my spring break.  We are planning a trip down to San Diego over my spring break to find some caches as well as some virtual flags.  In the past year or so, we just tend to get together when the moment strikes and both of us can get away for some caching fun.

It's really interesting to note that, although we do have different belief systems about a great many things, there are still many more things that we have in common.  Many of our silly hobbies that we play, we share a common interest in, so we tend to get along very well.  I enjoy his company and consider him one of my friends.

Yesterday was supposed to be a hiking day for us, but with the rain, we decided that we'd probably stay dryer by hitting some of the suburban caches around my neck of the woods.   The best words to describe the two of us when we went out caching in the rain would have been, the odd couple.  There I was, wearing a hooded jacket and long pants and he's walking around in shorts and not jacket.  Later in the day, we ended up walking through a field, which was very damp.  By the time we had walked out of the field, I was wishing that I had worn shorts, as the bottom three inches of my pants were soaked.  But then again, with my hood, at least I could see, since my glasses were staying relatively dry.  Each of us has our own idiosyncrasies, but in the end, it worked for us.

We both were working with our iTouches for the first time on a longer cache run, so we got to pick each other's brains (boy, that's loaded) for ideas on how to use this new app we'd downloaded for the iTouch.  It worked well, because I think we both ended up learning some new things about the app which will help each of us as we continue to cache in 2010.

As always, I look forward to the next time I can cache with Chaosmanor.  He's enjoyable company and we have a variety of different interests that always keeps the conversation running throughout the day.  Happy New Year to everyone.  May 2010 be better than the previous year.

Pictures were taken at the following geocaches:
SwitchBACK! - by WestwardHo
Mojave Green Travel Bug Motel - by The Dananator

Profile for Webfoot

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Interestingly, this post of yours highlights two cachers who I have connections to, but with whom I have never cached.

Webfoot, as you know, you introduced me to both Where's George and geocaching long ago.

I know chaosmanor from GPSgames.org. We probablt were teammates for Minute War somewhere along the line. I know we have swapped e-mail over the years about various topics.

It's nice when you have a trail partner. I enjoy reading about your adventures.

Erika Jean said...

Sounds like a great group of cachers!!

Here's to more cache finds with fellow cachers... HAPPY NEAR YEAR!

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
chaosmanor said...

I'm a bit slow to respond to this, but as you know, things are more than their normal chaotic around here, at the moment. But I wanted to let you know that the feelings are mutual: you are definitely a friend, and a great GPS-companion :-D I also think that we share a lot more philosophical commonality than you might realize. In the broad picture, we certainly disagree (congenially :-) on many things, but in a large number of the details, we seem to agree far more than not. And I have long felt that if you take care of the details, the Big Picture will take care of itself.

In any event, here's to many more adventures together! A Webfoot-chaosmanor day may not always be very efficient, but it is always memorable. Thanks for those memories :-)