Carry a big stick or a big stick carries.....

This past Saturday, two of the teachers I work with and I took 13 middle school kids to a Science Olympiad.   Over the course of the day, the kids, in groups of twos and threes, competed in various science competitions.  Overall, they came in 6th place and because of how they accounted for the different winners, the team qualified for the southern state competition to be held in about a month.

During part of the day, I also introduced about 11 of the kids to geocaching.  The high school where the competition took place is Riverside Poly High.  Those of you who are basketball fans, might recognize the high school as the one where professionals Reggie and Cheryl Miller played their high school basketball in the early 80s.  I wasn't aware of this until the evening awards ceremony was held in the gym, which is like a shrine to the two of them.

The high school is located off the 91 freeway and Victoria Avenue runs the length of the high school on its western side.  Victoria Avenue has been around as a graded road for almost 120 years, which in California years is ancient history.  There is a large middle median section in the road, with a dirt trail on it and lines of trees, most notably palm trees, especially at its northern end, just north of the school.

It was this northern end of the road that one student and I head to right after lunch.  He was one of the kids that didn't have a competition at this time and there were two geocaches, one about a third of a mile north of the school and the other about a third of a mile south of the school.  I figured in the time I had between the competition and the actual awards ceremony, we couldn't get all of the kids to both of them, so I went for the northerly one with only one student.

The cache was a small micro cache, one of those mini, log only, type of caches no bigger than your finger.  It was hidden on the side of a palm tree.  When we got over to the cache, we started looking around it and I spotted the cache pretty quickly, but decided to let my student also find it.  The startled look he gave was one of, "Oh my, is that really it?"  The cache itself wasn't really notable, but what made the site interesting was the history surrounding the site.

The palm tree had been planted in 1903, making it at least 107 years old, because the plaque at the base of the tree didn't indicate that it had been planted as a seed.  I was unaware that palm trees were that long lived.  What was also notable was the palm tree had been planted by our 26th President, Theodore Roosevelt.  This was probably on the same trip where he had visited the Grand Canyon and Yosemite National Parks.  Out side of a small, tombstone-like plaque at the base of the tree, there was nothing distinguishing about the tree that gave anybody a clue as to what had transpired there over 100 years ago.  Many cars drove by while we were standing there logging the cache and I wonder how many knew of the significance.  Probably very few.  It was an interesting history lesson.

A couple of hours later, I took 11 of the students south of the school in search of the other geocache hidden nearby.  I knew this one would be an easier find and would provide a good introduction to the hobby.  As we followed the GPSr toward ground zero, I got to explain geocaching to one of the parents who went on our walk plus several of the kids who happened to be close by.  Once we got to within 50 feet, I showed everyone where the geocache would probably be and explained our ethics that if one of us should find it, then he or she would just walk away and stand in the middle of the trail, so that others would have the chance.

It worked well, all the way until the end.  Several of the kids got a kick out of the last kid, who appeared to be staring right at the cache, yet didn't see it hanging on a branch or stick right at head level until he stepped back about a foot.  I commented that had the cache been a snake, it would have bit him.  He contradicted me by stating that if it had been a snake, it would have mocked him first, then bit him.  It was a lighthearted moment for all.

We took the cache out in the open so that all could see the contents, none of which interested anyone which didn't surprise me, but I was able to explain again the ethics of leaving more than you take.  They all seemed to get that part.  The cache was a small decon container, so I was able to drop a geocoin and a travel bug that I got on our trip to Stockton and Santa Cruz last month, so that worked out well too.

Several of the kids expressed an interest in doing this again, so I'll probably have the GPSr loaded with caches surrounding where we'll be competing come the beginning of next month.

Pictures were taken at the geocache:
Rushmore's Hand - by wife&mom

My caching partner

The Tadpole, my regular caching partner is a little under the weather today. Early Sunday morning, he was ill, throwing up and just not feeling very well. This is not the first time he's been sick, but it seemed to be the first time where he just wasn't feeling well and complaining a lot about his overall condition. He stayed home from church and was lying on the couch when we got back from church. He was complaining about being in pain, so I asked him generally where it hurt. After he showed me, I decided to probe a little bit and discovered what I needed to know.

I told him to get dressed and we were on the way to Urgent Care to get him looked over by a doctor. Blood work followed and we were then sent over to the Emergency ward to be checked in. Once over there, he was prodded by other doctors, including several surgeons. Eventually, at 8:15 he was wheeled into surgery. An hour later he was in recovery and another hour later he was in his hospital room.

Today, he is resting comfortably, sans appendix. He's already watched all three of the Back to the Future DVDs and I'm sure tomorrow will probably be dedicated to either Jurassic Park or the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Since his surgery was done laparoscopically, he'll have a much shorter recovery time and will be enjoying his summer vacation and hopefully will be up for some geocaching adventures in the near future.

As a parent, you're never prepared to see your own child in pain, but I have to say, he held up tremendously well. He kept his sense of humor throughout and was giving us thumbs up only 45 minutes after he was wheeled into the recovery room. His comment to the nurse when told he had to give them a decent assessment of his pain level was, "What pain?" Needless to say, he had apparently been in a lot of pain earlier in the day.

I'll get this blog back to its usual geocaching drivel with my next post.

Pictures were taken at or near the following geocaches:
Cheeseheads on Dirt Mulholland - Dad, Jen, & Beth (Mostly Beth)
Mary E. J. Colter built it - by Yrium and Whistlestick

Tadpole

This weekend I got to see my son working on his second and third hides. We'd gone on a hike last Saturday morning and discovered that his first cache had been muggled. Now, this was not unexpected, but nonetheless, it's got to be disappointing when your first cache disappears, especially if you've put some effort into placing it and making sure that it has some good swag in it.

I posted over a year ago that the Tadpole, my youngest child, is the one who has taken to caching. The others went along from time to time, but when other interests came along, caching became the thing that was quickly dropped. Now, this may happen again as he ages. Last September, he turned 13, which means that his interests could change, especially when he gets to high school next year. It was about that age when his older siblings started to drift away from geocaching. He's assured me that it won't happen to him and I tend to believe him.

I'm not sure if him turning 13 is making me feel old or the fact that my youngest turns 20 next month. I can remember a camping trip to Yosemite one year when he was about 5 years old and he looked up at Half Dome and proudly proclaimed "I'm going to the top of that some day." I immediately started calculating how old he'd have to be before I figured it would be safe for him to climb to the top and I figured that 13 was the magic number. Then I started figuring out how old I'd be at the time and that just wasn't computing very well.

He told me recently one of the things he enjoys doing when he finds other people who geocache is to literally name drop. He loves telling them that he geocaches and that his father also geocaches. Apparently he really gets a kick out of people's reactions when they find out his dad is Webfoot. As he likes to tell it, "YOUR DAD IS WEBFOOT!!!!!" Apparently, I'm developing quite a reputation in the local area for some strange reason. I hope that's a good thing.

After lunch on Saturday, we went out for the second leg of our caching expedition. The first leg had been a maintenance run. The second leg in the afternoon would be a hiding run. We'd already hiked along the trail and had scouted out some locations. Now it was just a matter of setting things up in my case and him picking the right spots for his caches in his case.

I have to say I'm impressed with his hiding ability. After I hid a my letterbox hybrid cache, we then started back working away from my cache to find the perfect spot for his. After getting past the requisite 528 feet as per the geocaching.com rules, I suggested several spots that I thought would be fine for a cache, but he would have none of that. He wanted the spots to be perfect. I kept thinking to myself, wouldn't it be nice if all people took this much care in hiding caches? He scoped out several spots before deciding on a location.

He started taking coordinates for the cache, determined where the cache would be and started doing all the things an experienced cacher would do while hiding a cache. He let me verify his coordinates with my unit and then he hid his cache not three feet away from the trail. Yet the cache is so well hidden that a person would have to stop in that exact spot in order to see it and there's not obvious reason for a person to stop right there. In other words, it's a perfect spot for a cache.

After the first hide, we did it again in another spot along a side trail in another very good spot. At both spots he decided on the names for the caches using local features as his guide. He asked me for help in writing up the cache page for each cache and then they were submitted. Within a half an hour, he was the proud owner of two new caches, Bike Ramp and Reservoir View. Within hours of publishing both caches had two finds apiece.

The way he went about hiding these caches makes me believe that he'll be into caching for the long haul. He enjoys going out and finding, but he also likes to hide them and he takes great care in his hides. One of the first two finders sent me an email regarding the caches and had this to say about Tadpole's caches:

"I really enjoy Tadpoles hides, there is always lots of swag in the decons."

I showed my son that particular note and the grin on his face lasted most of the evening. That really made his day. I think he's also been checking his email more frequently as well to see if there have been any more finders. That's the sign of someone who seems to care about what others think about their caches.

Pictures were taken at the following geocaches:
Are We Not Men? - by Firehouse16
Wupatki - by wolfb8 (libby)
Grand Prix Crache - by crash77
Sunset Crater - by wolfb8 (libby)

Spring has sprung!

I don't cache much in the winter. According to my stats on It's Not About the Numbers, my longest cache drought has just been broken at 45 days from January of this year to March 15. I'll attend events and grab some easy ones and still go after a FTF, especially if the crazy Kentucky weather will allow. I just don't like being cold at all!

Yesterday wasn't tremendously warm, but the girls and I were heading to visit a sick relative in the hospital in a nearby town. I'd never cached around this area before and figured it would be a good time to finally pick up a few. This town was perfect for caching with my kids too, mostly fairly good size caches and only a few micros. We met some new cachers at one of the first caches as well. We ended up with a find count of 7 for the couple of hours we were out.

Finding the caches of course was fun, but the best part of the day was seeing the signs of spring all around. This year spring means a lot more to me than most for several personal reasons and I've been anxiously waiting for it. Out in the middle of the woods near one of the caches we found, was a field of buttercups (also known by people from not around here as daffodils)! It was such a sign of upcoming warmth and better days. I love when caching takes me places and I find beauty unexpectedly! I now have this wonderful memory of my three girls excitedly picking flowers and having a very fun day just with their Mommy.

Caching with Munchkins

In my last post I talked about caching with others. I’ll take that one step further and talk about caching with the younger set. Caching with children takes on an entirely different mindset than caching with adults. First off, they are not mini-adults and we should not expect the same level of patience that most adults have, although I would suggest that some children have infinitely more patience than some adults, but that’s an entirely different story. The key to caching with kids is to not over do it. Find a hike and make it a short one. Hopefully, there will be more than just one cache along the hike. That was very difficult to do when I first started geocaching back in 2001. There weren’t many caches around and they were mostly hikes and long hikes at that. We found our spots to go caching. Now, it should be much easier for cachers to find hikes that have several treasure chests along the way that the kids can help find and enjoy. It makes the hike not seem as long if there are things to do besides just walking.

When my kids want to come along and cache, I’ll usually end up caching with one or the other of my children, or sometimes pairs of them. But, I have cached with all three of my children together only once. I think once was enough for my then 12 year old daughter. She really didn’t have much of a say so in the matter because we were on a camping trip in Utah and I had decided that we really needed to find a cache in another state, “just because.” She went along for the ride, but really didn’t enjoy the caching aspect of it much. She’s never been a cacher, however, she tolerates me caching for short periods of time when we’re driving down or back up to her school. We actually play a game as we drive around town. I’ll point out a spot, “Hey, you know there’s a cache right over there.” She’ll retort back, “Did you find it?” Most of the time, the answer is yes, but one time I answered no and she insisted that we stop so Daddy could find a cache that had eluded him in the past.

My middle son cached with me from the very beginning, but eventually over the course of the years, decided that it wasn’t his thing. On another trip to Utah, we cached along a route, (before there were route queries) and found 7 or 8 caches. He said he wasn’t feeling well, so we went back to camp and then my youngest and I went back out and found three or four more. I don’t believe the middle child has been caching with me since. In fact, he calls caching “one of the dorky things Dad does in his spare time.” One thing I’ve learned from being around him is you have to have a thick skin because he’s going to call it like he sees it.

My youngest is my cacher. While the other two have been out with Dad caching, he’s the only one who seemingly has gotten the spark and passion of using billion dollar satellites to find pieces of Tupperware in the woods. He’s cached with me ever since I started caching. The second cache we ever found was a hike of two miles (one way), he drank all of his water on the first leg of the hike. We found the cache, traded our stuff and then started to hike back to the car. Needless to say, the water had gone through him quite quickly and he started to cry because there wasn’t a bathroom around for miles. It was then he learned one of the great blessings about being a male: the world can be your bathroom. Most of the rest of the hike, he kept exclaiming, “I can’t believe you let me pee into a bush Dad.” Almost 7 years later, he thinks nothing of going out in the wilderness if he has to go.

The fun thing about caching with kids is the wonderment they get when they either spy the cache, or when it’s opened and all the treasures are revealed to them. A friend of mine asked me if we wouldn’t mind taking him and his two young sons geocaching. We settled on a date and my youngest and my friend’s clan hiked up along a trail near my house to one of my caches. I knew it would be a good cache to whet their appetites because it had a lot of kids’ toys in it. You would have thought it was Christmas when they opened that cache up. Unfortunately, they haven’t been out caching since, but they might in the future. They enjoyed themselves and it’s probably just a matter of time before they might start bugging their dad again to go out on a hike to find some treasures.

I don’t cache all the time with my son, but we definitely have our moments. He and I both like to cache during the summertime on our camping trips. Last summer we found 43 caches on a camping trip to Flagstaff, AZ and the Grand Canyon. This summer we’ll be heading up to the north coast of California into Redwoods National Park for some camping and caching, but we might not find as many. My daughter is coming with us. But she’s an adult now, so she might find it nice just to stay in the campground and rest while her dad and kid brother go out and do that geocaching thing. Then again, she may surprise us. After all, she did make me stop to find that one cache.

Pictures were taken at or near the following geocaches:

WD's Original - by sbell111
SQUIRREL ROCKS - BY TREE68
Old Frat Cache - by jeff_jones_86044
ONT Travel Bug Ground Control - by Crims0ngh0st & AcjLady
Plank's Resting Place - by ookami adopted by BootyBuddies
Bad Swag - The Travel Bug Starter - by Webfoot