I got an unexpected Wednesday off a few weeks back and had enough time to plan a trip to Cortland to do a day of caching. This spot we went to is one a few of us have been eying for a while, so it was nice to do it.

The premise of the setup is this: This is about a four-mile stretch along the Finger Lakes Trail and on it, there are many caches. The theme is, pretty much, Caddyshack. The “course” is set up with names from the movie, which made it fun. There are other caches along the trail as well, which made this one heck of a fun day.

The Finger Lakes Trail, for those that don’t know, is a trail system in New York that covers 562 miles. It’s a pretty night system and there are a bunch of caches out there!
The weather was excellent. Sunny, but not too hot. The bugs were out a little, but nothing a little bug spray couldn’t take care of. What is offered as a suggestion is a good idea — park one car at one end and another at the other. That way, after walking down the trail, you don’t have to flip around and walk four miles back!

I took off a little later than expected and then got tied up in Delaware County traffic:

We did a few caches along the way and parked Brent’s truck at the bottom of the trail. We then took the Jetta to the top. It was a little bumpy, but not too bad. The Jetta handled it fine.

These back roads to have their signs though:

Apparently I need an Earth mover to make it to Marathon!

Though none of the caches fully stick out, none of them were bad. They were all solid. We got to hit up one Golden Ammo can (given to someone when they hit their 1,000th find), which is always nice to do. The course itself was pretty wild.

How about this count though — from the time we dropped off Brent’s truck to when we got back to it: 26 caches. It took us several hours to complete this (if we had just been hiking, we probably could have done this clip in a little over an hour). I’ll have full totals at the end.

One thing that was cool was the leanto. This is a spot I could easily see people camping at. There’s a shelter, a place to have a fire and all sorts of other items. Inside the leanto was toilet paper, books, older newspapers — all sorts of things that could occupy you in a clip of bad weather or if you had to stay for the night. The log book for that portion of the trail was also there, so we each signed.

Images from the trail:

Brent with cache in hand (above)

The leanto (above).

Inside the leanto (above).

Just in case you need it (above).

Watch your head (above).

When we were done with the trail (and out of drinking water), we headed back up to get my car. We ran into this interesting fellow, who was just walking the road. Apparently he lived nearby. Anyway, his first question to me was if I went to church or not. What followed was about a 15-minute conversation about miracles, some girls he knows/knew and something about how he can feel pain if she’s hundreds of miles away. This went on for quite a while. I really am not sure what was said or what he meant, but it was obvious he felt blessed and the almighty gave him some powers. Maybe he did. Who knows. Either wait, it was a bit bizarre and we soon had to make our way out of there.

After a quick brake-check (Brent had left his cell phone on top of his truck and it flew off going down the hill), we were off to Cortland to hit a few more caches.
One included a second 5-star terrain cache. The reason it’s five-star is because you needed something else to make the grab on this one. My suggestion? Bring a tall friend.

In the end, a stop at A&W was also in order, so that was a delicious dinner.

Overall, one heck of a fun day on an unexpected afternoon off.

Final count: 37 (30 traditional, 3 mystery/puzzle, 1 Earthcache, 1 virtual, 1 multi, 1 letterbox).

If you’ll note, we found six different types of caches in one day, which makes us eligible to go find the One Busy, Well-Rounded Day in NY cache in Syracuse (GC1P1MZ). I’m hoping to go get this one as well as a bunch of others in Syracuse soon. That trip will also get us close enough where I’ll want to head up toward Oswego to grab the one DeLorme square that sits all by itself. I’m hoping to go do all of this soon, so we’ll see what happens.

More later!

I have a couple of interesting geocaching tales to share, so hopefully I can get these typed up over the next couple of days. I need to try and start doing this more daily!

Anyway, a few Wednesdays back, a couple of us made our way toward Hudson. The goal was simple — get a cache or two in one DeLorme square, thus closing that one out. It was a loner — mixed in with already found squares — so I really wanted to land it.

Off we went. But of course it was going to be more caches than that square, right?

On our way to our first cache, I spotted something I had never seen on this road (and it had been a while since traveling this one road) — so we had to stop. Not having my regular camera, I had to use the point-and-shoot and get the best I could, but I saw a really nice set of waterfalls. Seems like it would be a good spot to come back and explore. Looked like there were paths heading down to the falls, so it seems like I could get closer. These were a nice set of falls, though.

Finally, we were back on the road and we were soon at our first destination. We found a couple of caches in Cairo, but they had an interesting art project going on. Apparently, they have these bears and people paint them. They really are incredible. We didn’t look at all of them in the town, but we checked out quite a few, which was pretty cool.

Take a peek at some that we saw:

It’s pretty amazing what people can do when it comes to art. There were several more that we looked at and didn’t get photos of, but overall it was pretty wild.

We continued on and found a good BBQ joint to eat at. If I can ever remember the name of the place, I will come back here and change this line. The pulled pork sandwich was awesome.

We did two Earthcaches that day, too. I’ve really been getting into the Earthcaches more and more recently. In fact, a few of us are planning a caching/photography trip to Maine in early August and so far I have about 25 Earthcaches planned for the trip. Now, I just need to place a few I have been working on. More on that down the line, however.

Some of the caches in this area really drove us up a wall, however. See my last post about parking coordinates to see why!

Anyway, we continued along and soon were in the area where we needed to find a cache and fill in that square. We did that successfully, which is a good thing.

And though we DNFd one that day, the place we did it had some interesting photo opps.

The other thing about geocaching, is though it usually brings you to some wonderful spots, sometimes there are just places that people put caches that make you scratch your head. So, you have to look everywhere.

No, the cache wasn’t there (as Brent found out), but we’ve found them there before, so it had to be checked. Needless to say, this spot was out only DNF (but again, we had those falls at least).

We did get on one of those back roads that always make you wonder where you’ll end up in the search of one cache. The road sign was worth the detour:

Those poor kids who live on that road and have to learn that at an early age, eh?

In the end, the cache was at a cool location.

Two more things in this post.

First, when doing one Earthcache, we found that there was another cache nearby, so a 2-for-1, which was nice. BUT, we also found MORE waterfalls!

Oh, yeah. A 5-star terrain story, right?

A while back Brent and I had been in this area and had to DNF a 5-star terrain cache. It’s a multi and the idea is that you can basically drive up to each spot.

Now remember, if you need special equipment, the terrain is usually a 5.

The first part, well, we’ll let that fly for those who go and find this one. Enjoy it, I’ll say that. The second, we were within 10 feet before I figured it out.

The cache is at a parking lot. You have to go up an embankment and there is a barrier against the hill forming a wall. Anyway, once up there you can see down one of them. About six feet or so. Guess what?

Anyway, I won’t give it all away, but it took us a good 45 minutes to get the cache. We used all of the following (and then some): A tripod, monopod, hiking stick, umbrella and a few other things.

But we were soon signing the log, thankfully.

The 5-terrain was ours (we got one the next week, too, but that’s for another post).

Brent working on figuring a way to get the cache:

Final count: 26 (19 traditional, 3 unknown/mystery, 2 Earthcaches, 2 multi-caches).

More later!

When you fill out a form to create a new cache at geocaching.com, you’re given the chance to add additional coordinates (parking, views etc.) with the submission.Some people choose to use this feature, others don’t. I don’t always, but try when necessary.

The thing about geocaching is that people from all over will find your caches — locals, travelers etc. Some people will have an idea by reading the description, others won’t.

Example 1: While out on a caching adventure Wednesday, we came across two that looked like a nice hike. About a quarter of a mile to the one, then another .15 of a mile to the next. So, round trip of maybe 3/4 of a mile or so on a nice path in a park. The description showed we needed to enter this area off “203.”

We were on 203. Didn’t see an entrance. Followed TomTom (my GPS for roads and such) and got to a parking area and saw a path. We were “closer,” at .20, so we went walking. The trail ended in a field. Then it was wooded and we needed to bushwhack. Before we knew it, we found the path — some .18 from the spot where we parked and another .10 to the cache. So, we actually made it more difficult on ourselves.

We ended up finding both caches and making our way back up. At one point, we also saw a posted sign. So we hurried to the car and took off out of there.

Two other times during that day did we get confused in where we were supposed to park. That also led to us getting back to the same spot twice.

All for parking coordinates.

Remember, the area we were caching in is not our own, so we didn’t know it that well. In fact, it was the first time I had been to this area in a very long time. So long that it looked new to me. Therefore, it’s frustrating to try and get around and look for a place to park when you have cars behind you and whatnot.

This has happened to me before as well as others I know. It seems like if you are parked somewhere when you go to hike and find a spot to hide the cache, it wouldn’t be too hard to take some quick coordinates for parking. And in the end, it would help people find your cache a little easier. I know I’ve skipped a few caches where I just got frustrated looking for where I’m supposed to park. I don’t mind longer hikes from parking coordinates. I don’t like guessing and ending up on private property.

There are obviously times you don’t need them and I’m not advocating that every cache have parking coordinates.
Simple rule to me would be — if it might be confusing for non-locals, quickly take some parking coordinates. If it’s for a state park or something where it’s easy to realize where one has to enter, go with that if needed. But put yourself in the shoes of a non-local and help the caching community out a bit!

I’ll be making sure to do it on all of mine that could be confusing.
Just my two cents, of course.

More later!

Just a week after heading to the Allegany State Park GeoBash, a few of us ventured up across the border to cache and attend an event in Brockville, Ontario. Heck, if we couldn’t make the super-long roadtrip to Bell Buckle, Tennessee for GeoWoodstock 7, we needed to hit some sort of an event, right?

Also, this was toward the end of the no passport needed for getting in and out of Canada, so it was good timing. As of June 1, the passports are needed. Thankfully I have mine, but I also think I’ll be getting the smaller passport card as well. Easier to use and carry.

But, I digress.

The plan was to basically drive straight up into Canada and then do some caching en route to the event. We stopped in one spot — in the Syracuse area — to hit one cache where one of the others picked up one of my travel bugs that was in a cache and moved it to Canada. Outside of that, it was to the border and across with pretty much no problems.

You’ll remember last time we did the Canada thing for geocaching, we got brought into customs to be checked over. No problems, of course. This time, straight sailing. Though the GPS that was our navigator didn’t have maps loaded, so we were going old school. Follow the aarow and do your best!

What was nice is the first one in Canada was one that we had DNFd in January — and it was found fast this time. With all that snow, I can see how we missed this one!

We soon came upon an interesting location for a cache where you had to go over this old wood bridge. It was a very gool bridge to check out. I took some photos after we found and signed for the cache.

One of the areas we stopped soon after was at a very nice garden area. That followed with this one spot where we found duck eggs, so we quickly got out of there. The owner soon disabled that cache for a bit so the ducks won’t get disturbed. Very good move!

From the garden:

The duck eggs:

One of the caches we hit soon after that was in an area where there was an old beat-down car. Guess where the cache was? Interesting little hike and end point!

We soon were on our way again and made our way to a series of cemetery caches. These were quite interesting for sure. It was almost a mix of old and new cemeteries. What was really interesting about these was how they were all attached, named differently, and yet basically in the same spot (though a few were across the street from one another).

Here are some images from these areas:

After these caches, we stopped at a store to grab a few things to bring to the event for the potluck part of the dinner. I will say this — when Canadians put on a potluck event, they come packing some awesome food. Everything from chicken, to hot dogs, to all the trimmings and some amazing deserts (the maple sugar pie was incredible).

The people I had the chance to meet and talk to at the event were incredibly welcoming. I also had the chance to place second in the GeoGolf game and got a geocoin out of it. Pretty cool stuff. Everyone there also won something in the raffle, which was pretty impressive with everything they had there. I don’t know if I have seen this many raffle items at a major event, let alone a smaller one. Well done!

The event was here:

During the raffle:

After the event, we cached for quite a bit longer. In all that day, I got 40 and I was exhausted at the end. Slept well in the hotel and we started back the next day.

The way home included going a different way from Canada — crossing in Ogdensburg. The goal here was to cross off several DeLorme squares (which we succeeded in doing).

Before leaving Canada, however, we hit caches along the way to the crossing bridge. Some of the images at caches we stopped at:

There were no problems in crossing the border, which was nice. One of the coolest Earthcaches I’ve ever been to was in Alexandria Bay, which made that day so much better.  The cache — called the Frontenac Arch. This spot gave some incredible views of the area and was a wonderful stop on the trip home.

One of the final caches of the day was at a waterfall below Watertown. Makes me wish I had the tripod and main camera. Good falls for sure.

In the end, the weekend netted 66 finds in two countries. I had the chance to meet and chat with several great people and it was an interesting trip overall.

A special thanks to Geogranny and Binrat, who we visited with Sunday after the event for a bit. We left with several ammo cans and carabiner buckets — and have a cache in the works in honor of all of our new friends in Brockville. Thanks again for the hospitality Sunday morning!

Final count: 2 countries; 66 caches (1 event, 1 multi, 2 letterbox hybrids, 4 earthcaches).

More later!

OK, so I have all the postcrossing cards ready to go and will be hitting the post office today to send them out on their way to their destinations.

These are being sent to the following countries:

• Taiwan (2)
• Finland
• Germany
• Holland

I went with some local flavor post cards, which is what I’ll likely be doing for the first couple of times I do this. I need to learn a bit more about it, however.

For example, when can I send again? I know you can only have five moving at a time — so does that mean when all five of mine are logged, I can send more? Or do I have to wait to get five? Oh, the research that needs to be done. I’ll be peeking around the website tonight after work, most likely.

What I would eventually like to do is go through Moo and create my own postcards from my photography. I think it would give the postcrossing a bit more of a personal touch if the postcards are from images I have taken. They might not necessarily be of my local area, but at least it’s something I created, which I think gives a better feel to this whole thing. I could be wrong, but it’s worth a try. I basically can get the cards made for a buck a piece, unless I get 60 — in which case you can then save 10 bucks. I think I’ll probably start with 20 cards first, though, and see where this whole thing goes.

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For those who know I had applied to a Ph.D program in the hopes of returning to school and eventually teach at the college level, I was denied entry to the one program I applied to. I haven’t heard back to hear why I was passed over, but hoping I can see what I would have to do to make myself more attractive to the program — or other programs. I do have a deferral to a school to go back for my second master’s degree, but I can’t afford to go further into student loan debt, so I have to see about funding. Also, I’m not sure I’m willing to work for two years on a second master’s when there’s no assistantship or anything because it doesn’t really guarantee it will make me more attractive in the job market.

I’ll keep plugging away. I continue to look and see what I can find to better myself, my financial situation and my life situation. I’ve been in the same area for more than five years and at times, it’s become tough to make ends meet. The economy stinks right now for sure and it’s tough. I’m thankful for what I have, but it’s rough at times to get by, so I keep working to better the situation. We’ll see what happens.

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I’m about halfway through writing a post on the Brockville, Ontario geocaching trip. This one has a bunch of photos as well, so I’m trying to capture everything. It was such a great trip where I met so many cool people so I don’t want to forget the stories and people. That will be coming soon.

Weather pending, I’m going to end my de-caching time Wednesday when I take a short trip with Brent to hopefully close out another DeLorme block and county. If the weather holds, it could be a good caching day with a lot of interesting finds as well. But, there are thunderstorms in the forecast, so it might be a day of dodging the drops and just grabbing a few here and there — as long as we get the DeLorme and county squares filled in!

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Not much to report on the softball front. Our team has played three games (should be four, but one was rained out) and I’ve made one of them. Work has blocked the other two and is looking like it will block the two we have this week. I’d like to actually take some swings and play a little, but that’s the bad part about this job — when there are things to be covered, I have to miss games. I’m used to this in the early summer, but I’m usually good at this point in the season. As things look, I might be lucky to play in 5-6 games this year, which kind of stinks, but there’s not much I can do about it.

That’s about it for now. I’ll have the Brockville story soon.

More later!

First, one thing I have to say is that I didn’t take as many pictures as I would have liked during Saturday’s stay at the ASP Geobash. Seems like I always do that at events — go with the plan of taking a lot of photos and then come away with only a handful, if that.

I get mingling too damn much and that hampers the photo opportunities.

Well, so did rain.

It was a decent morning Saturday at the Bash and we did, I believe, five caches, as we headed into Allegany State Park. We went to the event, mingled, checked things out and got in the group photo. I also traded some pathtags, entered in the raffle and mingled some more. Then there was the line for the chicken lunch. Once we got our lunch and sat down, the sky opened up and it started to pour.

As much as I felt bad for those still standing in line for their chicken, I was happy I wasn’t standing in the line anymore!

While we were in line, this is basically one of the photos I took. Actually, looking over everything, it’s the only photo I took at the Bash! Doh!

I didn’t win anything in the raffle, as far as I know. I never heard my numbers called. And I didn’t get back early enough to check the numbers again. In fact, we didn’t make it back at all, outside of one of the night cache — and by that time, the whole area was shut up and closed down!

As I said, the Bash was a blast. I enjoyed talking and meeting people from all over. I had the opportunity to talk to people from different states, Canada and from all over New York. That’s what’s great about geocaching events — the chance to meet people from all over the world and from different walks of life. Very cool.

The rain dampened things a little later in the day. It’s a shame, but it happens. The raffle went off and everything seemed OK.

Following that, I headed over to the CoinExpo, where I probably had more fun than the event itself. People trade coins (unfortunately, I don’t have coins to trade) and I also had the opportunity to trade the event group coin with a few others as well as several pathtags, which was awesome.

Some images from the CoinExpo:

After the expo, there was some geocaching to be had, which I found to be just a bonus as I had planned to basically do Bash things that day. We ended by meeting a grandfather and his two grandsons from Connecticut at some of the night caches and did four of them with that group. That was a lot of fun. (Not to mention I won a coin!) Also, before that, we made our way around the park finding a bunch of other caches — and of course — seeing other cachers along the way!

We went to head back over in the morning, but apparently everything was where they were holding the breakfast, which we missed. No problem. So, from there it was decided that it was time to start caching on the way home. First up was a nearby Earthcache near a dam, which was pretty cool. You could see the Bash area in the background, too.

Some of the caches that we did on the way home were part of the Enchanted Mountains GeoTrail in Cattaraugus County.

The way this geotrail works is as you get a cache in the towns of the county, you gain wood coins (that they send you). It’s over a two-year period as they released a certain amount of geocaches in 2009 and the rest in 2010. If you gain all the towns, at the end, you’ll get a real coin. We picked up six of the coins for the 2009 series. I’d like to eventually go back out that way and do a few more. There’s a chance I might be doing a camping/caching expedition later this summer, so I might see if we can plan those towns in the return trip.

This is one of the caches we found for this trail. Nice camo!

We did meet up with Mark of Team Ferret during the day though. Mark had camped at the GeoBash and here’s his setup:

Overall, the weekend was excellent. A lot of caches, a lot of meeting people. I’ll do things slightly different next year (staying at a cabin in the park, for one), but I’ll be back as long as I can have the time and get out there. I look forward to it.

Final tally:

81 caches total over four days (Thursday-Sunday).

The breakdown: 1 Mega event; 1 Regular event; 7 Mystery/puzzle caches (6 were night caches); 1 webcam; 1 letterbox; 6 Earthcaches.

I also, over the course of the weekend, got five coins and 17 pathtags. Of the weekend, there were only three DNFs as well — that being on the the first day.
Coming soon is the report for the trip to Brockville, Ontario as well as some other ideas and things I’ve been working on.

More later!

After seeing this over at Erika Jean’s blog, I’ve decided to try out Postcrossing.

The basic of this is that you register and submit your address. Then you can get upwards of five addresses and send these people postcards. Then random people send you postcards. Basically a new way of doing penpals of sorts, just without constant back-and-forth with the same people. You can get cards from all over the world.

For example, the first five addresses I got (which I will hopefully be sending out Saturday) are in the following countries: Germany, China, Taiwan, Netherlands, Finland.

That’s pretty cool.

From the postcrossing website:

The goal of this project is to allow people to receive postcards from all over the world, for free. Well, almost free! The main idea is that: if you send a postcard, you will receive at least one back from a random Postcrosser from somewhere in the world.

Why? Because, like the author, there are lots of people who like to receive real mail.
The element of surprise of receiving postcards from different places in the world (many of which you probably have never heard of) can turn your mailbox into a box of surprises - and who wouldn’t like that?

I’ll look forward to getting some of these postcards in the mail. Not sure what I should write on the ones I’m sending, so I’m going to probably do something small and then put my two blog addresses on there. Seems like it could be a fun way to see and learn about the world.

Also, it will give me something more on this blog to write about. I’ll post images and such from any of the cards that I receive.

More later!

OK, back from Canada. Good times above the border. A lot of cache finds, an excellent event and a lot of great people met. Look for that story sometime this week or weekend after I get done with all the Bash stories!

So we’re back talking about the Allegany State Park Geobash and Day 2 — a day we had planned to use as a major cache day AND get ourselves two coins along the Allegheny GeoTrail in Pennsylvania (note the spelling difference of Allegany and Allegheny between the two states).

The day started early — about 8:30 a.m. and we had two vehicles and five people on this trip. The idea was to go from Bradford, Pa. (where our hotel was) and head west in Pennsylvania, then North into New York, grab a few DeLorme squares for the New York challenge, then head to the ASP Geobash.

Simple, right?

There’s always wrinkles in the day, however. Like there’s no way we’ll ever get all the caches on the list and then looking back, it’s almost a slap to the head when you realize you missed planning a few other caches that could have been easily had or caches that could have made the trip a little easier (ie: one of the county spots that was close!).

For those who don’t know, the Allegheny GeoTrail is a series of caches in 10 counties in Pennsylvania. A cacher receives a passport and when they visit a special cache, they need to get a stamp from that spot to prove they were there. If you get six stamps in each county, you get a trackable geocoin. Should you happen to get all 10 counties, you will get a special 11th trackable geocoin.

Our plan was to get two coins — McKean County and Warren County. Our hotel was in McKean County and there were several of these caches within 15 minutes. Of course, that meant traveling all over the place.

We ended up with 38 caches for the day. But I wanted to take the time to talk about a few of the things that happened during this day.

Like how our day almost ended early.

It was our fifth cache of the day and second McKean County cache. The cache description was misread and we thought it said we could drive up the road if the gate was open.

Or not.

See, it actually said NOT to drive up there even if it is open. On our way out, we saw others walking up and I had known them from other caching adventures. They said we were locked in. The best way to finish this story is to show my log:

Well, this cache is a good lesson in reading the cache listing (correctly) and then being careful. First, when I read and I think others in the group, too, we read it that you can go up if it’s open. Doh! So, when we came back down, guess what? Gate close. Oh no!

Thankfully, one of the others went to someone nearby, who said it was his land, and he had a key and he let us out. He also noted that if we had asked, he would have let us park at his house!

This is a great area though. Beautiful and well worth the trip up, even with almost losing a full afternoon of caching. We were soon out and on our way! Thanks for the (challenging) smiley!

Let’s just say that was a saving grace. If not, we could have been in BIG trouble.

From there, we took some great walks and such to continue our quest for more caches and coins.

One of my favorite caches for the day was Golf, One of the Muggle Maggies pups, returns. This cache, located across the street from a golf course, is an interesting hide. While we were signing the log, two golf carts came to the edge of the course and shouted across the street to us — “You guys OK?”

Of course we are!

They soon went away and we continued on. Rather funny though. Nice that they were worried enough to check.

Two more McKean County caches later, we had the six stamps we were required to get the coin and we were on our way to another county.

On our way, we stopped to get another micro cache in a nice little area. When we got there, it took a few moments to find the cache as it had fallen from its spot. We all signed and as leaving, some other cachers showed up. As we were leaving, we stopped to exchange a few words. It wasn’t shocking seeing cachers — there were more than 800 at the Geobash for the weekend — but these guys didn’t even know about it. In fact, they were just camping elsewhere. Why were they caching that day?

“We’re taking a break from drinkin’.”

Oh boy.

We then went up and did several caches on a mountain — one an Earthcache called Jake’s Rocks. This area provided some great views and images. Take a peek.

These are some of Jake’s Rocks.

One of the views.

There are several lookouts on the way down the mountain which are beautiful spots to stop and look. Some of the rock walls near these lookouts have some interesting looking graffiti.

One of the Earthcaches we went to included the Kinzua Dam — an amazing structure that I would highly encourage people to see if they ever get the chance. It’s way better in person than in photos, but here’s one for me to share.

Soon after this one, we hit up a really interesting cache called the 99 bottles of beer on the wall cache. I don’t usually share photos of unique containers, but I have to do this one as it’s that good. We all got a laugh when this was found and even better was that it was in an area where you would probably only suspect seeing this if it was trash.

Take a peek:

Following this and a stop for lunch, we did a webcam cache. The webcam is on the porch of another cacher and we had hoped to be able to meet him. Alas, he wasn’t there that day. We got the photo taken (though apparently there’s problems with the webcam when using a certain browser etc., so it didn’t come out but the owner gave us the OK. The fun started after, however.

One of the members of the caching crew went and chatted with a neighbor. The neighbor was asked about if he knew what was going on over at the house etc.

“They got a webcam.”

As for if they were still around that day?

“I done saw them leave ’bout an hour ago.”

Interesting, I’d say.

One of the final Warren County caches we came across was off a small trail near a rail bed. I knew what it was as soon as we got to the spot — and most seasoned cachers would know right away, too.

(NOTE: The ammo can was chained in there, so someone can’t steal it. Very smart!)

The best part:

Overall, it was one fantastic day. We got back to the Geobash at night, missing part of the early festivities. Some dinner was had, however. Also, I signed in, mapped my location, traded a few more group coins and discovered a few people roaming the grounds that had trackable nametags.

We then went and did the night caches and I luckily grabbed a pathtag out of one of them. After that, it was back to the hotel and a nice night of sleep, which was needed. Thankfully the day worked out well, the weather was perfect and it was a great day of caching in preperation of a full day of the event.

Coming next: The event and the day after.

More later!

I am working on the rest of the geobash postings as well as some postings from Canada. Those suckers take a little while!

But, before I get to those, I wanted to share this with you.

I went to the pathtag front page not too long ago and saw that a comment I had left about my experience was up on the front page! I thought that was pretty cool, especially with an image of my pathtag with it!

I am working on a couple of other pathtags, too, so keep an eye out!

The front page:

More later!

I’ve made it my summer mission to try and complete New York’s DeLorme Challenge — and at the same time, finish the “I Love NY” Counties Challenge Cache.

Neither of these will be easy as I have some odd spots I need to fill in. I hope to grab a couple of the stragglers here and there and then start working on the connected blocks.

For example, if I take one full day, I have no doubt I can get to New York City and Long Island and polish off all the counties and DeLorme squares down there. There won’t be a lot of time for other caches outside of those challenges, but it will still be a fun day of caching and all. I’m going to look into doing that hopefully within the next month.

Then comes the big trip (I hope). The goal is to possibly take part of a vacation and do a caching road trip throughout the state, camping along the way, taking photos and just having a blast. The goal would be to go up the Eastern side of the state, zig-zagging to get those caches in the counties and blocks. After completing the upper right portion of the state, start working along the top of the state and through the Syracuse/Oswego and Rochester areas for a couple of straggler squares and into the Buffalo area for the six I need out there.

Of course, that also opens some great opportunities for virtual and Earthcaches near Niagara Falls. I also know people up there, so maybe there will be something going on around the time we are there.

Unfortunately, this trip will probably be more during a weekday setup, so that would mean we probably won’t find any events. It would be fun to be able to stop at at least one event during the run.

I’ve talked to one cacher friend — Darren — who said he needed to check his calendar with mine to see if it’s possible to do. If we can, it’s perfect because he has all the camping gear (which, of course, I don’t have!)

If things can be done and planned well enough in advance, I might even have a wooden coin made up just for this trip so we can dump them in caches throughout the trip. Maybe like a “Push for DeLorme Challenge” or something like that — with the dates and caching names of those going on the trip. Could be fun. I’d love to do a pathtag for it, but that would require a lot of planning and a lot more $$$ than I have!

The best is that once you finish the DeLorme Challenge, Hog Wild has a geocoin you can purchase and have engraved with the date etc., so you’ll always have a memento from the trips you’ve taken to obtain this challenge cache.

I’m off this weekend for a trip north of the border for one night. I’ll have tales from there and will continue the ASP Geobash stories when I return!

More later!