Unusual things to see near a geocache

Every now and then, while out geocaching, I'll come across things that are out of place.  In this case, these things aren't really out of place, mainly because the geocache is hidden near a museum.  So perhaps the geocache was out of place, but it really wasn't either.  It's just a way to link the two things together somehow.  A couple of weeks ago, my two older children and I took a day and visited the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA).  It's located near downtown Los Angeles, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits.

LACMA is a complex of buildings housing a multitude of artwork.  I believe there are 9 buildings in all, but we were only able to go through half of them.  All the better because we'll be able to come back again in the future, possibly enjoying the same exhibits, plus new ones which we were unable to enjoy in our first go around.  The contemporary art building was a favorite of mine, because I was familiar with several of the pieces of art.  There were several of Andy Warhol's iconic paintings, plus a Stuart Davis painting that I recognized while still several paintings away.  I'd done a research report on Davis in high school and was very aware of his style.

Several years ago, I'd found a cache overlooking the main tar pit area of the La Brea Tar Pits, but it had since been muggled.  There was also an earthcache located in the same general spot, so I was familiar with the area.  After we spent a good five hours at the museum, we walked across the street to a burger place and had dinner.  After that, my kids indulged their good old dad and "allowed" him to find a couple of geocaches.

I'd like to offer my apologies for not writing much these past couple of months.  Being busy isn't the word to describe what this year has been like, but that's the best that I can conjure up at the moment.  Adding new projects to my life, most notably the 365 project, has impacted other areas, including this part.  I shall endeavor to write more often here.

Pictures were taken near the following geocaches:
That Black Gooey Smelly Stuff - by carlosguerrera
The La Brea Tar Pits - by GeoCraig

Walk in the pasture

I went up for a hike today, primarily to take some pictures. All of the geocaches up in Johnson's Pasture, located just north of where I live, have been found. It was a gorgeous day, slightly breezy. It was a crisp day for the second full day of spring.

Picture was taken near the following geocache:

Welcome to Johnson's Pasture - by juniperb

365 continues

Several times in the past, I've written about the 365 project.  I wasn't sure I was going to be able to attack something like this.  Although I do tend to take a lot of pictures, I don't necessarily take them every single day.

When I looked into this project, it was in the middle of December.  I posted a picture on the 18th following a geocaching trip up in the desert on a day where it rained up there for most of the day.  But I didn't take another picture until a week later on Christmas Day.  I suspected that I might not be up to a project like this.  I was wrong.

I started posting photos in succession on the 30th of December, once again after a geocaching hike.  I have yet to miss a day.  I've played little tricks with myself that has helped me out tremendously.  I have my fall back pictures in case I end up with no inspiration that particular day.  My fall back pictures tend to be flowers.  Living in Southern California, we have flowers blooming year round, so it's relatively easy to take pictures of flowers.  I think I could post a different flower picture ever single day.

However, I didn't want to be known as the "flower" guy.  I follow several photographers on the 365 Project, and while their photos are excellent, I also find them rather repetitive.  They do certain things very well.  I'd like to see them expand into other areas, just to see them stretch themselves a little.  This is one of the tacks I'm taking.  I'm trying to take a bunch of different photos of different things, just to expand and stretch myself.  I know I can take good landscapes and flower and plant pictures.  Can I take a good street picture?

I don't think I'm that good with portraits or with black and white photography, so I've been experimenting in that area.  My daughter issued me a challenge for the month of March - no flowers.  That's been tough, but I've worked other things in.  I kind of cheated today, not taking a picture of flowers, but taking pictures of the aftermath - the berries.  And now, as I look at my monthly calendar, I've seen March peppered with pictures of birds.  My daughter has already said I can't take pictures of birds next month.  We'll see how that goes.

I've been lucky to have included a couple of geocaching photos into my 365 project.  I actually thought the bulk of my photos would be geocaching photos, but that hasn't turned out to be the case.  I haven't been geocaching a lot this month due to other commitments, but with a two week break looming on the horizon, that might change shortly.  Either way, I'm glad it hasn't happened that way.  I'm enjoying working on still life, playing around with different objects just to see what the light will do.  Almost every photo I think about posting goes through the black and white processing just to see what it might look like in that medium.

I've gotten into the habit of taking my camera with me almost every where I go.  Sometimes, I go out with a specific goal in mind, other times, I just take pictures and hope for the best.  Ironically, that's what I ended up posting today and I've already gotten some very nice comments back on that particular photo.

I guess what I'm really trying to say with this is I'm actually surprised that I'm still doing this.  As I posted in an earlier post, I didn't think I would be able to do this.  But I can and I'm finding it easier and easier to find good quality subjects to photograph.

Pictures were taken for the following dates:
March 1st, 2011.
March 10th, 2011.
March 13th, 2011.

Thousand Word Thursday

Picture was taken at or near the following geocache event:

Full Moon Rising - February 11 - by West End Geocachers

National Parks and caching

Yesterday I found a geocache in a national park area.  This, of itself isn't that unusual, because it's fairly easy to find Earthcaches and virtual caches inside national park units.  What's much harder to find are actual physical caches, because the National Park Service (NPS) has deemed geocaches not conducive to the national park experience.

When I first started geocaching, I looked at the geocaching maps just to see where possible caches might be hidden.  I actually thought it was pretty cool when I noticed a physical cache hidden near the chapel in Yosemite Valley.  That cache was removed pretty quickly after that by the rangers in Yosemite National Park, which considered it litter.  I can see their point, especially if it creates new geotrails to the cache site, something like that could destroy the local environment.  Non-responsible geocachers who sometimes don't heed the warnings about putting food into caches could also cause problems.  Any kind of food in a geocache would be found by a bear fairly quickly in Yosemite with some possible dire consequences for the bear, if not a cacher who happened upon a bear at the cache site.

There have always been exceptions and it also appears as if the NPS is lightening their stance on physical caches.  I have always been aware of the geocache at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.  GCNP Bright Angel has been around since April 2001.  It's also one of those rare caches that geocachers covet, because it's rated a 1 difficulty, but a 4.5 terrain.  That kind of combination in geocaches you don't come across very often.

Something that took me by surprise, however, was another physical cache that I just noticed at the Grand Canyon.  I'd pulled the GC mapping feature up, mainly because I wanted to get the link right for the GCNP Bright Angel cache.  I clicked on the link and immediately realized that I'd clicked on a different cache, yet one that's found within the boundaries of the Grand Canyon National Park.  Camping in the Canyon is hidden in the South Rim Campground and has permission of the campground manager to be there according to the cache page.  It's been there since last August and of this writing has 62 finds.  Apparently the NPS really is lightening its stance.

There are six caches found within the boundaries of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, a unit of the NPS in west of Los Angeles.  I was in Thousand Oaks Saturday with Chaosmanor caching and he told me about this one, but I didn't look closely at the cache page.  I was rather surprised at first when we pulled into the visitors center parking lot for the recreation area.  At first we thought it was going to be outside, but our GPSrs kept pointing inside the building, so we had to wait 10 minutes until the center opened.

Once inside, we walked through the exhibits, looking at a photography display by a local artist on loan to the visitors center through the middle of March.  Chaosmanor spotted the cache from a distance hiding on the backside of a bookcase.  I'd been looking in the general area, but hadn't spotted it yet, so he let me search a little while longer until I also came up with the location.  After signing the log book, we put the cache back and then had a very pleasant conversation with the rangers about geocaching and other things.  We both expressed our pleasure that the park has allowed this kind of activity and encouraged the rangers to express our views to the higher ups.

While researching this post, I looked to see if I could find any information about geocaching on the Santa Monica Mountains NRA website.  It's fairly well hidden, but I was able to track down this page that details what you can do with a GPS in the national park area.

I'm almost wondering whether this area is a testing area for the rest of the NPS.  The Santa Monica Mountains has not one, but 6 physical caches within its boundaries.  If this proves to be a positive experience for all concerned, I can see where it will expand to other areas.  It's small step, but a step that I consider in the right direction for the park service.

Picture was taken near the following geocache:
SAMO ParkCache 1 - by SAMO-NPS

Wordless Wednesday

Picture was taken near the following geocache:

Eagles Valley View - by GaryIII

Caching with dogs

My dog Jack, is not one who's very good at long walks.  We've walked him down into village area of our town, which is about three quarters of a mile away and he's really tired about halfway back from there. For him, that's a long walk, but then again, he's a smaller dog and those little legs just keep churning along, but he's also the kind of dog who will just shut down, lie down and say, enough, I'm tired.  Needless to say, I don't take him with me too often when I cache, although, he does have his own Geocaching account and has logged 10 finds.

I have been hiking and caching with others who bring their dogs along for the trek.  All of these dogs have been much larger than Jack, probably outweighing him by fifty pounds or so.  I would think a larger dog has more stamina for hikes of several miles. The last thing I'd want to do is have to lug around a dog who just refuses to walk any more.  That would be tough, especially if you're miles from transportation or only midway through your caching day.

Most of the time, the dogs are just with us because they like to be outdoors with their companions and they love to run and/or go for along walk. All of our walks with dogs have usually been over a couple of miles.  Yeah, they get tired at the end, but they always seem to have extra energy, much more than I can say for me after some of our hikes.  It would be nice to have that kind of stamina.

When you're caching with dogs, you have a different mind set as well.  You're constantly on the lookout for them, making sure they're not getting into trouble.  Then again, sometimes, they just need to explore, like Sheila did last week when she decided to climb that tree.  The cache was there, just not up that high.  But she had the right idea for the most part.

Another thing to like about dogs is they don't eat very much while on the trail and if you have the right equipment, they'll even carry their own gear.  One dog I went on a hike with had his own saddlebags for carrying his own water and everything else he needed for the day trek we had planned.  All you really need is a good container to use for a water bowl and you're really good to go with a dog.

The other thing I've noticed about dogs is they're smart enough to rest in the shade.  I'm pretty sure what goes through a dog's mind is something like this.

"Oh boy, I'm going on a walk with food guy!!  Walk, walk, walk, pant, pant.  Run, run.  Oooooh.  There's lots of good smells on this trail.  SQUIRREL!!!!   C'mon Food Guy, let's go!!  You're going too slow for me.  Oh, wait, you're looking for that geohiddenthingamabob aren't you?  That's OK with me.  I get to rest and relax in the shade while you look.  I hope it's a difficulty Five.  That way I get to rest for a good long while, cause I know you're not that good at finding those geohiddenthingamabobs.  SQUIRREL!!!"

You know, you can stop me at any time, because I could probably go on for a long time like that.  I'll leave you with one more short story before I sign off today.  There was a cacher in the San Diego area who went by the handle Yrium.  He took his dog with him on many of his caching outings.  Several of Yrium's logs were written in the style I posted above, as if his dog had written them.  They were some of the best logs I'd read and always seemed to bring a smile to my face.

Unfortunately, Yrium passed away a couple of years ago after a battle with cancer.  Although I'd never met him face to face, we'd written emails back and forth, played fantasy baseball together, and so I felt like I knew a little about the man.  Every time I log a cache for Jack my dog, I try to write it in the style that Yrium used to write for his dog and then I dedicate the log to Yrium's memory.

This past month, my friend Craig and his other companion Sheila lost their third companion Gromit.  He's on the left in the second picture.  Gromit went way too early in either people or dog years.  He was a good companion and a good trail walker.  He will be surely missed.  This blog entry is respectfully dedicated in memory of Gromit.

Pictures were taken at the following geocaches:
Leaf Me Alone - by Whinger
Jumping to Conclusions - by Webfoot

Wordless Wednesday

Mt. Rushmore?

Picture was taken near the following geocache:

30 YEARS OF PACMAN : V 15 - by michealamoody

Another picture in the desert

Last Monday, I headed out to the desert to finish up another series of geocaches patterned after the PacMan figure.  We'd actually started the series in December, but weren't able to complete the entire series because it had been raining most of the day out there.  The last ten caches were located in very rocky areas and we didn't want to risk injury due to a slip on wet surfaces, so we waited until better weather to finish it off.

The holiday last weekend provided the best opportunity to finish up the series, so out we drove.  We had two different spots to fix, so we drove down to one of the other caches we'd already found, then shuttled over to the back of the head.  From there, it was just a nice hike to pick up the six we'd missed in that direction.

After lunch, we drove over to another starting spot, hiked up to the cache at the top of the head, then made our way over to the west to get the others.  Hiking in a counter clockwise direction, we found an easy path amongst the boulders down to the road.  We kept looking behind us and were having a hard time picking out our route we'd traveled down. This was the same dilemma we'd had on the 18th of December.  We couldn't see a sensible route up.  We really had made the correct decision to hike those last four in the opposite way than we thought about doing them.

What this all really means is I've had a decent start to the new year as far as caching goes.  I'm averaging right now, slightly over a cache per day.  Last year I averaged over 2 per day. My average will go up as we get into warmer weather, but I'm really not concerned about how many I average, but whether I have fun.  And, I have another picture in the desert.  I already had a Smiley, which is located just to the east of the PacMan.  Then last year in April, we completed the Groundspeak Series.  Next up on our list, whether it happens this year, or possibly next year is a giant Kokopeli located in the southwest corner of Utah.  That one looks to be about a three day adventure, so we'll have to plan this one as an overnighter, possibly camping trip.  It should be fun.

Wordless Wednesday

It's a gusher!

Picture was taken near the following geocache:

Eti Wanda the Hedge Hog - by maddmaxxawr

Calibration

Last week, on my hike in the North Etiwanda Preserve (NEP), I tried calibrating my GPSr.  Not that I really could calibrate it accurately, but I tried to see how accurate it was compared to the adjacent signage.  Usually, when I'm out geocaching, I don't need to take any kind of altitude readings with my GPSr.  In my opinion, I believe that most of that handheld models are accurate to a certain degree, but not accurate enough for anything outside of fun and games.

When Chaosmanor and I hiked to the top of Simi Peak back in November, I put my GPSr on top of the bucket on the peak that held a laminated piece of paper stating the height of the peak, 2403 feet in elevation.  I just wanted to see if my GPSr would register the same.  It did, after a fashion.  We actually watched the number start out at a lower elevation and then watched as the number climbed up to 2403 feet, which was when I snapped the picture.  I suppose that if we were willing to wait several minutes of battery life, the unit would have settled down and produced a constant elevation.  I might have to try that sometime, but it's not high on my list of priorities.

The NEP has mile markers every quarter of a mile.  Those mile markers also indicate the elevation at the point as well.  The last time I'd been hiking in the preserve, over a year ago, I did the same thing and got the exact result. This time, the result was four feet different than what the sign post said.  After taking the picture, I picked my GPSr up and it immediately registered the "correct" elevation.  Then again, does the elevation listed on the marker indicate the elevation at the top of the pole, or at ground level?  My assumption would be that it should be a ground level.

Picking up my GPSr, actually brought it up to the top of the pole, which would have been the four feet difference, but once again, it's readily apparent that these gizmos shouldn't really be used for super accurate measurement of elevation or of latitude and longitude.  And yes, I'm writing this all with tongue firmly planted in cheek this morning. After all, it's just a game we're playing out here.

Picture was taken near the following geocache:
NEP on the Rocks - by maddmaxxawr

Wordless Wednesday

Picture was taken near the following geocache:

NEP_pd8 - by Ranger Rick

Finding caches I couldn't find

Last October, I hiked in the North Etiwanda Preserve (NEP) for the first time.  It was another instance of geocaching getting me to explore something in my own back yard.  On that day I found 12 caches and DNFed five of them, a very high DNF rate in my opinion.

For whatever reason, I kept having difficulty finding some of the caches I was looking for that day.  It wasn't because of tree cover, since there was little tree cover around.  I just couldn't find them.  Yesterday, I went back out again to hike that trail for several reasons, one of which was to rectify those DNFs.  There were several new caches along the trail as well, the weather was beautiful and I had cabin fever.

It has rained for most of this vacation and I really haven't been able to get out and do any kind of hiking this past couple of weeks.  The weather was finally cooperating and I was going to take full advantage of the situation.  The NEP provides a 3.25 mile loop trail, but with spur trails you can walk a lot longer.  I ended up walking just over 5.6 miles for my morning hike, with an elevation gain of over 2000 feet.

Fortunately, the gain was very gradual, so it didn't seem like I was gaining much in elevation, yet every mile marker post I came upon, it told me I was climbing.  Had I gone the other way on the loop, the gain would have been steeper and more intense, but I knew that from the last time I'd hiked the loop.

With the mountains as a backdrop, I was able to get some really good pictures, more than I can probably post here in three different post, so I'll have to post them gradually over the coming weeks.  There was a lot of snow on the peaks, which top out at around 8800 feet.  I was hiking at 2300 to 2500 feet above sea level so you can see there's quite a bit of snow on the mountains.  Last night, the overnight low got down to 29˚, which is quite cold for our area, which also means that the snow will stay there for awhile.

The daytime temperatures were warm enough that I was able to hike in shirt sleeves yesterday.  That also means that once again, people back east will watch the Rose Parade out here tomorrow and see people enjoying the wonderful weather and wonder to themselves why they live in the snow.  I think the single best advertisement for Southern California year after year is the Rose Parade and to a lesser extent, the Rose Bowl.  Only once since I was born has it rained on the Rose Parade.  That's a pretty good track record.

Needless to say, I enjoyed the weather yesterday.  The setting was perfect for a good hike and for some caching.  I was able to find those caches that I couldn't find over a year ago, plus all of the others that I had planned to find.  I saw several deer, one that crossed right in front of me on the trail and two others who watched me warily from a good distance away.  It was a good day, one that was a fitting end to the old year of 2010.

Tomorrow begins a new year, one that I'm sure everyone hopes will be the best year ever.  Resolutions will be made and some will be kept.  I resolve to continue to have fun while geocaching.  I found more geocaches this year than in any past year.  It's quite an achievement, especially since I was out of commission for several months due to personal reasons.  I was just lucky the rest of the time I went caching I guess.

I will not resolve to find a certain number of caches.  In my opinion, resolutions should be self improving.  Finding more caches next year, does nothing to improve myself I believe, although it will probably get me on the trail more so I guess I can resolve to continue to be more physically fit than in the past.

I also resolve to post more often here.  As I look back to when this blog was started, I can see my post counts fall every year.  116 in 2008, 100 in 2009 and only 80 this year.  I plan to reverse that course this year.  And so to all of my readers out there, please enjoy tonight, make it safe and may 2011 truly be the best year ever.

Pictures were taken at or near the following geocaches:
NEP_pd4 - by Ranger Rick
Washed Out Plumbing - by bustindustin

More than I can chew

Earlier this month, I mentioned that I was going to attempt the 365 project.  I figured that I'd start the project on the first of next month and just end up taking a picture every day for the next year.  Already, I now know, I've bitten off more than I can chew.

I uploaded two pictures earlier this month, just to see if this project would be difficult.  In one sense, I can see where I could do this, but in another sense, I know myself well enough to know that I won't be able to do this every day over the next year.  I love taking pictures, but at the same token, I'm also a perfectionist.  I will not publish a picture of my toenail just to satisfy a daily challenge.  It would get onerous very quickly.

Several years ago I challenged myself to try and find a cache for 33 consecutive days.  At that time, I was the main person picking up the Tadpole from his elementary school.  Because of when his Spring Break was and my Spring Break, I figured there was going to be a 33 day window where it would be relatively easy to find a cache every day during that period.  And so I attempted it.

Once the 33 days went by, I continued finding caches each and every day.  Some days were relatively easy, while others were more difficult to accomplish but I persevered up until day 57.  That day, I ran into a string of caches that I couldn't find and it became frustrating enough after five DNFs that I just said to myself, enough.  I wasn't having fun anymore, so I ended the streak.  There is no way I'd ever want to attempt any kind of consecutive streak again.  I think the longest streak I've had since that time has been 11 consecutive days.

And so I thought I'd be able to take a picture every day for 365 days.  Uh huh.  Right.  The nice thing about the 365 Project is you can upload pictures to specific days.  It doesn't hold you accountable for an every day post.  So this project will take several years to achieve fullness, but I can live with that.  The quality of the pictures will be much better than if I ended up taking a picture every day and I will also continue to enjoy the project as it develops.  I know myself well enough that if I were to attempt this, I would end up hating it in the end.  I don't want to do that.

In the meantime, from time to time, I will post updates of my progress on that project.  I've noticed many other bloggers contributing to their own blog by having a Wordless Wednesday every week, which just includes a title and a picture.  I may end up doing something like that as well, although the way I like to write, actually having to have a wordless day might be painful to me.  But I can always try it and if that doesn't work out, so be it.

The two pictures posted here are the two I've posted thus far this month.  One is of an inch and a half long millipede we spotted out in the desert the week before Christmas Day.  We actually saw two different ones, but this one was a little bit more cooperative than the other.  The second picture is of our California Desert Tortoise (yes, I have a permit for it) that lives in our back yard.  It came out of its burrow on Christmas Day and was sunning itself under one of our orange trees.  Today is the first day since Christmas where I haven't seen it wandering around in the back yard.  I suspect the rain today had something to do with that.

Please enjoy these offerings and others in the future.

Sobering thoughts

Whenever I go geocaching, I'm always on the lookout for memorials.  There is something about memorials that deeply touch me, especially soldier memorials.  Perhaps it's because I was lucky and was never forced to serve.  Each of us must choose our own paths and mine didn't follow a military path, although it's not because my parents didn't try to influence me in that direction.  I just knew in my heart that the military life wasn't for me.

But for many men and women, it is their choosing and I salute them for it.  It must be extremely difficult to be away from your family during the holiday season.  I can't imagine being thousands of miles from home, away from my family, let alone having these conditions imposed upon me and also being shot at in the process.

I've made it my custom, when I come upon a soldier memorial to take as many pictures as possible.  The memorial is a poignant reminder of those who never come back from those far distant lands.  It reminds me of the family left at home grieving for their lost husband, son or Daddy.  It reminds me that I have been truly blessed to live in a country where we value freedom so highly.

A friend of mine is serving in Afghanistan right now, away from his wife and children.  A former student of mine was killed earlier this year over there one week before his 20th birthday.  My niece's husband served in Afghanistan several years ago and is now safely home.  My nephew serves on a carrier in the Pacific.  His carrier group was scrambled last month when North Korea decided to bomb a small South Korean island.  At the moment, he's on leave and is safely home in California celebrating the season with us, his family.  My thoughts and prayers go out to all of these people and many others who I don't know.

I leave you with a You Tube video that a friend of mine posted earlier today on Facebook.



I know we will always have soldiers overseas, but hopefully next year, we will have fewer of them in harm's way.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.
Pictures were taken at or near the following geocaches:

Cricket's Reflection - by GeoCrickets
"United We Stand" - by Lizard Man

Here I go, There I go, Where I go

Last month, while on a road trip to Stockton, Chaosmanor and I were fortunate to attempt a couple of Wherigo caches.  A Wherigo cache is similar to a multi-cache in that you have to find clues as you walk along a route planned out by the cache hider.  You need a Wherigo enabled GPS unit in order to complete a Wherigo cache.  The Geocaching website explains a Wherigo cache this way:

Wherigo is a toolset for creating and playing GPS-enabled adventures in the real world. By integrating a Wherigo experience, called a cartridge, with finding a cache, the geocaching hunt can be an even richer experience. Among other uses, Wherigo allows geocachers to interact with physical and virtual elements such as objects or characters while still finding a physical geocache container. A Wherigo-enabled GPS device is required to play a cartridge.

Since I don't have a Wherigo enabled GPS, I haven't been able to find one until now.  In fact, the closest Wherigo caches is 20 miles away from me.  Chaosmanor recently purchased a Garmin Oregon GPS unit and it is one of the ones that are Wherigo enabled, so when we were planning out this route, I spotted a couple of Wherigo caches in Lemoore, CA and decided to put them in our bookmarked route.

As I noted above, doing a Wherigo is similar to a multi-cache, only the clues are given to you on your GPS unit.  You load the cartridge form the Wherigo website into your GPS unit, then head out to the starting coordinates and play the cartridge.   There are several ways to play the game.

One way is to play locationless cartridges.  These cartridges can be played anywhere.  There's a tutorial at the Wherigo site that allows you to try a Wherigo out before actually doing an actual physical Wherigo cache.  When we got to Lemoore, Chaosmanor let me have his GPS and I tried the tutorial out in a little park south of the first cache we were going to attempt.  If you're familiar with GPS units, the learning curve for these isn't that tough, although it took five to ten minutes for me to get the hang of it.  Once I solved the relatively easy tutorial, we walked across the street and tried the physical Wherigo.

This second cache was a relatively easy cache to do.  It was located in a large park, with very little tree cover, giving us ample signal strength to our GPS.  We picked up the clues by answering questions, then headed to the second waypoint.  Each waypoint is located in a zone, which is the way the Wherigo cartridge works.  Once you get to the next zone (which can be a variety of sizes), you then can get your next clue.  Eventually, the clues and cartridge took us over to where the cache was actually hidden allowing us to log our find.

We then headed into downtown Lemoore to attempt the other Wherigo cache.  We parked near the starting point, opened the cartridge and began.  This one was a little trickier since we were walking through the old town section of town.  Tall buildings cause signal bounce, so we didn't always get as close as we could to the center of the zone in order to answer the questions which would lead us on to the next waypoint.  This could be because the zone may have been too large.  I'm not sure on this, but it's something to consider if you're going to attempt a Wherigo in a city environment.

I enjoyed the second Wherigo more than the first probably for a couple of reasons.  One, the first one was in a park, where any kind of cache could have been hidden.  There wasn't much interest generated outside of going through the steps and finding the cache.  I also was new, it being only my second attempt following the tutorial.  The downtown Wherigo, I had a little bit more experience utilizing the cartridge and the buildings in the downtown area had some local history attached to them, which made the walk more interesting in my opinion.  Your mileage may vary depending upon your own experiences.

I enjoyed walking through the downtown area.   I'd been there previously, finding a virtual cache in one of the areas we walked through on this caching experience.  Looking at some of the turn of the 20th century buildings was enjoyable to me, especially looking at some of the Victorian architecture.  It gave me an idea for a Wherigo cache in my local area, although I'm not sure how I'll be able to set it up, since I don't have a Wherigo enabled GPS at the moment.

I'll have to download the Wherigo builder onto my other computer and try it out.  Perhaps I will be able to create one, without the need of a Wherigo enabled GPS.  We'll have to see about that.

There are quite a few Wherigo caches in California.  I noticed one in Yosemite Valley near Yosemite Fall.  I found this interesting because the National Park Service doesn't allow physical caches, but when I investigated it further, I discovered that the physical part of this Wherigo is outside the park in nearby El Portal.  I've heard rumors about Geocaching possibly bringing back the virtual cache.  If this does become a reality, I can see where some very interesting Wherigo virtuals could be created, especially in a National Park environ.

The upshot of all of this was it was a new experience for me to try, using my GPS.  They probably aren't for geocachers who are numbers runners.  They take more time than the regular cache.  I would estimate the first cache we found in the park took us 15 minutes to complete and the second one in downtown took us closer to 45 minutes.  We might have been able to solve the second one more quickly but we did get sidetracked.  All in all, they were enjoyable experiences, something that I'd like to try again in the future.  I'd also like to create one.

Pictures were taken at or near the following geocache:
Lemoore's First Wherigo! - by JohnE5

Night caching and photography

Every now and then there are surprises that show up while you're out.  Chaosmanor and I, while on our road trip last month, stumbled upon a cache at night.  Now, I don't do much night caching and we weren't really going to do any night caching on this trip, but we were on our way back to our hotel room and I spotted this cache just off the freeway, so we thought we'd attempt it.

Once we got there, we discovered this particular cache was a virtual cache.  After we got the requirements for the cache, I went back to the van to get the camera to get some shots of this statue.  Had I had my tripod, I might have been tempted to try some long exposures, but I figured some flash shots would work this time.

This leads me to another topic, that of the 365 project.  Chaosmanor showed this to me, so I thought I'd look into this as well.  I'm going to try and do a literal 365 day project, starting on January 1st, 2011 and work through the year.  I probably won't get anything really earth shattering on some days, maybe even just the top of my foot or something along that line, but I do take a lot of photos and I think I'd like to try something like this.  I keep seeing the 12 on 12 projects, taking 12 photos on the 12th, but for some reason, I always seem to forget about the day until after the fact.  Perhaps with this, since I know I'll need to take at least one photo each day, I'll persevere.  We shall see.

Picture was taken at the following geocache:
Worthy Steed - by Original owner gallahad Adopted by Pamelot 7-2007

And the hard part begins

I found two caches today.  There's nothing really earth shattering about that, but it helped me fill another calendar date.  Almost 10 years of caching and I'd never found one on December 9th before.  But, as the title says, the hard part begins now.

I have 19 days left to fill.  Five are scattered in September and October.  I'm not worried about those, nor am I worried about the ones left in January and February.  I'm worried about the ones that I have to fill in December.  I have 6 more dates in December to fill, four of which are directly in the week of Christmas, including Christmas Day.  As I noted last year at this time, December can be a very tricky month, because it looks like there's all this free time available to do things, like geocaching, yet when all is said and done, much of that first week is tied up in doing things preparing for that big day.

Six open dates in the nice days preceding Christmas Day.  The only date I was able to fill in last year was Christmas Eve.  This should be interesting to see if I can pull it off this year.

Desert creatures and other things

My last cache hide was a multi-cache hidden up on my favorite trail.  It's now been hidden for over a month and has a grand total of two finds, one of which is the beta tester who went with me when I was laying out the final coordinates.  It's really too bad that the cachers around where I am aren't more of a hiking bunch.  I think they're missing out on some very nice hikes and caches all in the same boat, but that's another story altogether.

The reason why I bring this up is while on that hike, CraigsOutside and I encountered a tarantula on the trail.  That's not necessarily surprising since the area is know to have tarantulas, but what is surprising is before that hike, I've seen a tarantula in the wild only one other time and it was about 2 weeks before that when I spotted two others.

One was on the trail and was actually discovered by a couple of bicyclists coming down the hill.  One stopped about 50 feet up the trail from me and pointed it out to his riding partners who were behind him.  By the time I got up there, it was just ambling across the fire road.  Later on that same hike, I nearly stepped on one at ground zero of the first stage of my multi-cache.  If that doesn't get your adrenaline up, nothing will I guess.  Either that, or you're just a calmer person than I.

I've encountered my fair share of creepy crawly things while out geocaching.  I've spotted snakes from time to time.  Once, while out hiking we came across a very large rattlesnake.  Unfortunately, it wasn't really pleased with us being there, but there wasn't a whole lot we could do about it at the time, since we had it surrounded on a couple of sides.  We did the best thing we could do and that was to back up and make wide circles around it.  This snake encounter was in May, when the environment is becoming more habitable for all creatures in this area, but particularly reptiles, since they rely on the air temperature for warmth.

My friend CraigsOutside was bitten last year by a rattlesnake (read about it here).  This happened in November, which seems a little strange since you would think most snakes by this time in the year would have gone underground and started hibernation.  Southern California is a little bit more temperate and so in this area, we need to practice caution at all times.  One can never tell, obviously, when a snake could be lurking nearby.

Before last year, I wouldn't have had rattlesnakes on my mind at all in November or December or any of the cold months of the year.  Craig's encounter had me a lot more cautious yesterday while I was looking through a pile of rocks on the side of the road.  I keep thinking that I really should get a hiking stick of some kind to carry along with me.  Many of my friends take one along when we go on hikes.  I've never found the need to carry one, mainly because it's one more thing in your hands while you're walking.  Maybe I need to rethink that.

I'll be hiking out in the desert over the next couple of months.  It's the most pleasant time to be hiking out there.  It's cool and comfortable, much more pleasant than during the middle of the summer time.  There's another figure out in the desert that we're going to create.  I've written about the Smiley series and the Groundspeak logo in the past.  Now, in the same general area to the west of the Smiley Series is a large PacMan.  There are 30 caches, plus one mystery which makes up the eye of the PacMan.   I have this feeling after we go out and find all of those, we might be singing "PacMan Fever" for awhile.

It appears as if each cache is about two tenths of a mile from the next cache, meaning this will be a 6 mile hike.  That will make for a good hike if we do it all in one day.  If we spread it out over two days, it'll be two good hikes.  Anything over a mile is a good hike, in my opinion.  And since one of our proposed hiking dates happens to fall on one of my open cache dates, that's always a bonus.

Pictures were taken at or near the following geocaches:
Give or Take 20ft - by madmaxxawr
Curiouser and Curiouser - by Terra Girl, Bean Dog, and my faithful sherpa Max

Beta Testing

Sometimes, when I hide a cache, I like to have the cache tested out by someone else.  A beta tester to a geocache serves a couple of important functions for the cache hider.  The primary job of the beta tester is to check the coordinates of the cacher.  Sometimes, when the coordinates have been gathered, they aren't necessarily the most accurate.

As I posted in my last post, the accuracy of hand held GPS receivers are only good to about 30 feet.  When I got to the degree confluence, my receiver said I was at the point +/- 7 feet. That was pretty good, but thirty feet could be a different story, especially if you're looking for a smaller type of container, which is where the beta tester comes into play.

I've been a beta tester on a couple of caches.  I enjoy being a beta tester for a number of reasons.  Sometimes, it's interesting to watch a person as they go through their hide process. Other times, it's interesting to see how close our two GPSrs are with regard to signal.  Sometimes they're way off and the hider will have to do some checking to see whether it's his unit or mine that appears to be off.  It can go either way.

The last time I was a beta tester, I chose to stand several hundred feet away and take pictures of the scenery.  I also took a picture after my friend Chaosmanor had hidden his cache and watched as he tried to verify his coordinates.  There was no way I could have seen where it was hidden and I actually had a tough time finding his cache, although I shouldn't have since it was fairly exposed from a certain angle.  I didn't approach the cache from that particular angle and had a more difficult time finding it.

On another of his cache hides, he called out his coordinates to me and I inputted them into my receiver and then went on the hunt.  My receiver sent me over there, which disagreed with his receiver.  But in this case, his receiver was also pointing to where mine had been pointing and so he had to take additional readings to make sure his coordinates were accurate.  In this case, it helped having that second GPSr along to verify the coordinates.

The second reason I like to have another cacher beta test my hides is I get to see the reaction of someone finding the cache.  On my last hide, CraigsOutside came along on the hike.  I had already hidden the cache, but was having some proximity issues with another one of my own caches.  This particular multi-cache had to have its second waypoint moved in order to be published.  The look on CraigsOutside's face when he found both ends of the cache was priceless.  As a cache owner, you only get to rely on the log write-ups of others to see how good the cache is most of the time.  When you get to see others attempt your own cache, it furthers the fun.

In reality, I think that every cache hide should have a beta tester.  I think many people hide caches too quickly and don't get accurate readings for their cache hides.  This leads to frustrations for cache hunters when the coordinates don't end up being very accurate.  Even with an accuracy rating of +/- 30 feet, there are things that a cache owner can do to make sure that accuracy is better than that.

Having patience when taking the initial coordinates is probably the first thing that a cache owner can do to insure accurate readings.  Taking more than one reading, or averaging the initial reading is always helpful, especially if there is overhead site disturbances, such as trees that could block the signals from the satellites above.  Having a beta tester along for the ride will also help, in my opinion.

Pictures were taken at or near the following geocaches:
Sandstone Game Paths - by Chaosmanor
Pathfinder 59s - by Chaosmanor