Banged Up, Battered, & Bruised

I went out caching with Chaosmanor and the Tadpole on Saturday.  We didn't find nearly as many caches as we did on Veteran's Day, but it's not about the numbers, but about the quality of caches and the companionship that comes along with any caching trip with friends.

I found another neat spot to hide another cache.  I called it Banged Up, Battered, and Bruised mainly because of the cache container, an ammo can that I found at my nearby surplus store.  It had several dents, was heavily rusted on the inside of the cache and just looked pretty much used up as a decent ammo can.  Now as a cache container, almost anyone can do miracles with a couple of cans of spray paint.

I found a red jeep in another cache earlier in the day, so I decided to drop that into the cache as well.  It's just a short walk from the parking spot to the cache, but it was in a nice spot.  I hope it ends up lasting a long time out there.  Now I need to start working on my 30th, which I'm pretty sure will be a puzzle cache, with a hike.

Picture was taken near:
Banged Up, Battered, and Bruised - by Webfoot

Last summer run

This weekend, I'm taking it easy. It's probably the last weekend that I actually have the entire weekend to go caching and yet I'm staying home. The first couple of weeks of school have done a number on me and I'm tired, so I just decided to rest. The next couple of weekends, I'll be attending my son's cross country meets, so I'll be getting a couple of caches here and there near his meets, but no large cache runs will happen until sometime in November I suspect.

This past weekend, I drove up to the mountains near Crestline and Lake Arrowhead with my friend Chaosmanor to do a end of the summer caching run. We did a run right at the beginning of summer and so it seemed rather appropriate to create a bookend on the other end of my summer vacation. One cache we found has already been archived. Apparently, someone was taking issue with the placement of a metal container uphill from a turnout, hidden in a waist high stump of a dead tree. The cache had been destroyed, the owners had come out and replaced it and within three days, the cache had been destroyed again, since that's the state we found it in last Saturday. There's no way the container could have been interpreted as trash; there was nothing else around to indicate that this was a dumping ground. This was just someone's attempt to spoil other people's fun. That's sad in my opinion.

One cache that we did find that was intact made it to my top 5% list. Red Rock Wall is located at a turnout on Hwy 18 which is also called Rim of the World Highway in this area. The turnout is huge and affords at least a 270° view of the Inland Empire located below. We could see the former Norton Air Force Base located in San Bernardino. Had it not been so hazy, we probably could have seen all the way to the Palm Springs area, a distance over 75 miles. We could also see the thunderheads that were building in the mountains to the east of us, mountains where we would eventually be and rain from which we would eventually get wet.

The coordinates for the cache were almost dead on, the hide was well done. It became apparent rather quickly that one of us was going to have to go over the Red Rock Wall in order to retrieve the cache. We couldn't see the cache from our vantage point, but our GPSrs were pointing us about 15 feet beyond the wall. This could be tough since there were a lot of muggles at the overlook, but it appeared to both of us they were more interested in the view than what two middle aged men were doing down on the far side of the lookout. I started thinking how I wanted to do this, so I grabbed my camera and went for a walk. I took pictures at the main overlook, then slowly worked my way back taking some pictures and feigning other shots until I got to a spot where I could go over the wall.

Once on the other side I spotted the well hidden ammo can attached to a strap that prevented it from sliding down the hill. There were plenty of bushes so I wasn't in any danger myself, but I could see where it could become a problem for the ammo can due to where it was hidden just beyond the main line of bushes. During a lull in muggle activity, I made the grab and then gave the ammo can to Chaosmanor who placed it in my car where we could make trades and sign the log more easily than trying to do it on the other side of the wall.

It's really interesting watching people at a large turnout such as this. You would think there would be a constant stream of people, making retrieval or replacement of a cache nearly impossible. That didn't seem to be the case here, or at least it wasn't the day we were there. The muggles seemed to come in waves, all coming and then all leaving at the same time. There were times when it seemed quite crowded and other times when we had the entire turnout to ourselves.

The replacement was just a reversal of how we'd made the original grab. Chaosmanor handed me the ammo can, I hooked it up to the strap and then placed it behind the bush where it had been hidden when we first got there. I took a couple more pictures (some of which turned out quite nicely I think), then made my way back over the wall. I wanted to make sure I'd hidden it back as well as when I found it so I walked back and forth along the wall, looking down to see if I could see the can. Nope. It was a good replacement. Afterwards we both commented on the audacity of placing an ammo can in such a busy place. The cache has been there for over 2 and a half years, so I guess the audacity of hostile bob has been rewarded.

My top 5% list is a very subjective list. It's a list of the caches I've found over my 7+ years of geocaching, that I've found particularly rewarding. Sometimes they make the list because of the view. Others make the list because it was a good hike to get to the cache. Some caches make the list because they made me laugh when I finally found them. Caches get added from time to time and they do get deleted from the list as well. It's an evolving list. I try to edit the list on a regular basis, removing the caches that have been archived, while adding new ones to the list that I think merit inclusion. I've kept a couple on the list that have been archived because I enjoyed them and thought others would enjoy the area and experience where the cache had been originally hidden without finding a cache. If you ever get to my area of caching, I hope you find my list useful.

Well, my summer has definitely ended. I'm back into the routine of school as our my children. My oldest is away at college. My middle child is starting his last year of public education and will be graduating next June. My youngest has just started his last year of junior high school. It's amazing to think about the fact that next year at this time, he'll be in high school and I'll have two children in college. I look back on the times we've had with a smile on my face. Although the time has seemingly gone quickly, in reality it has been a slow journey to now and there are still many more good years ahead of all of us.

Pictures were taken at or near Red Rock Wall - by hostile bob

Camo the Ammo

Since I’ve been home this week, I’ve been working on the puzzle cache, The Window of the Soul. I thought I’d share with you my camouflage technique. Last week I went down to our local surplus store and picked up two ammo cans. The Grade 2 cans were a little bit too worn, so I took two Grade 1 cans for $7.97 each. One is an interesting orange color and the other one is the standard green that most of us have seen.

Last time I posted I was uncertain whether I was going to place this cache on the east or west side of the park. Since that time, the decision was semi-taken out of my hands by the placement of two caches, Where is the parking lot? and The kings Heart on the east side. I was originally planning on placing my final for the puzzle where this cache, "Call" of the Wild, used to be. If you click on the nearest caches, you’ll see that Where is the parking lot? is only 470 feet away from the original placement of the “Call” of the Wild cache, so I figured that for cache density sake, it would be prudent for me to place this new cache on the west side.

Today, I hiked up to scout possible locations for the cache. I’ve had one spot in mind for awhile and actually, it’s where I should have placed my Size Matters…..Especially in California cache. I had so many problems with muggles where Size Matters was placed, that if I’d placed it up here instead, it probably would still be with us today. Why I didn’t place it there is beyond me, but I probably had my reasons at the time. Anyway, the hike was fairly easy, considering that I’m still recuperating, but I found the perfect place for the cache, just off a fire road, yet secluded from muggles eyes and giving a 360 degree panoramic view of the hills and the city below. Today, I didn’t have any kind of view because the hillside was shrouded in fog. It was a different view, but beautiful in its own right.

After coming down the hill, I finished up the camouflage on the ammo can. Yesterday, I painted the ammo can a rusty color using primer paint. Much of the foothills in this area are this color rock, so it’s a good color with which to start. Fortunately, I have a very similar type of bush in my back yard that matches where the cache is going to be placed, so I picked three sprigs from the bush to use as cover on the ammo can. I laid the three springs on the side of the can, then did a quick spray through with both a flat green and then a flat black paint. This creates some break up in the main color of the can and will probably make it a little bit tougher to spot. My purpose is not to make it that much tougher for the cacher, but to make it tougher for muggles to spot it should they wander up in the area. I think if cachers don’t think that muggles will ever spot their cache, they are deluding themselves.

With the camouflage applied to the can, now all I have to do is gather some goodies together to place inside it while the paint dries. Depending upon how well I’m feeling after today’s hike, I may be able to place this cache tomorrow or Friday. Once placement has happened, all I’ll have to do then is send a reviewer note on the cache page and wait for our local reviewer to look at it and hopefully approve it.

Hidden within Eyes and Windows

I’m going to be starting my third week of recovery this week. I'm still a little sore, but I can walk around very well and I'm able to drive a car. I’m really just restricted in what I can lift for the next couple of weeks. Last Thursday, I had my staples removed and got taped up in replacement. I was even able to find a cache after I’d had the staples removed, so I guess I’m definitely on the mend. Everything is healing according to plan and I should be back at work next Monday.

Friday I got to drive around a bit for the first time since the surgery. I went to the local big box hardware store to pick up some spray paint, then drove down to the local surplus store to get a couple of ammo cans. I’m used to having a supply of ammo cans and/or decon containers, but I’ve run out of both recently, so it’s high time I get restocked.

This week, I’m going to be working on the camouflage for one of those ammo cans for a puzzle cache that I’m planning for my 20th hide. The two pictures below are the puzzles for the cache. I guess once the cache page goes live it’ll make a little bit more sense than just looking at the pictures here, but I spent the better part of an hour finding the right picture and then another hour or so putting all of those eyes together for the graphic. It’s interesting to note that both of my sisters are in there as is my wife, my mom and dad, my three kids, my niece and nephews and lots of my daughter’s friends. For those who’ll ask, one of those eyes is from a Halloween mask my son wore one year and the other is rather large fish eye that you can see I pulled from a picture I took of my son down at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach a couple of years ago.

I have several possibilities for where this cache is going to go, but I’m leaning toward the western edge of a park in our fair city because it’s the least cache saturated area and there are several good places where I could hide it. One of the reasons this area is less cache dense is mentioned in my last post. The five stage multi-cache is hidden over there and it takes up a large portion of room with all the waypoints that were created for that one. I’d loved to hide this puzzle in between two of the waypoints, but I don’t believe there’s enough room to do that, so I’ll have to be satisfied with one of the many spur trails up there. Then I’ll have bookend puzzle caches on each side of this rather large open area.

The cache will still be a short hike in to find it. When I first started caching back in 2001, all of the local caches were hikes. The closest cache to my home at the time was 7 miles away and a half mile hike to get to it. The other thing that stood out with caches at the time was the size. Most were large size, five gallon buckets, ammo cans, Tupperware containers, etc. I’ve made a conscious decision to keep it that way, at least with my hides. I want all of my containers to be at least large enough to hold a geocoin and/or travel bug, so I haven’t hidden anything smaller than a decon container. That's probably a little smaller than what I was finding most of my first year of caching, but I’ll hold to that size and no smaller as long as I’m caching.

The second thing I’ve tried to strive for is not to hide any “cache and dash” caches. All of my caches, you have to get out of your car and walk to find it. Even if it’s only a block, I’ve hidden my caches in such a way, that you’ll be forced to get out of the car if you want to find it. Because of these restrictions I've placed upon myself as a hider, I’ve come to realize that my caches don’t necessarily get as many finds as others, but I hope they can be viewed as quality caches as opposed to a numbers run kind of cache. My hope is, if enough newer cachers find my caches, they’ll get the idea that geocaching is not all about hiding an Altoids tin under the nearest lamp post skirt in every Wal-Mart shopping complex. Anyway, by the end of the week, the local park will hopefully have a new cache hidden in it.

Pictures are from the following caches:

Grand Prix Crache - by crash77
The Window of the Soul - by Webfoot