Should have cached!

Sunday, January 31, 2010

Well after my complete weekend of ice fishing, I realize I should have gone caching.  I spent a total of 20 hours on the ice this weekend and had exactly 0(zero) tip-ups.  Not even a nibble.  We did have fun playing cards though, I did manage to win a few bucks playing 31.  Today we also watched a recovery team pull an ice-shack out of the water that fell through a little while ago during the warm weather/rainstorms we had.  It was very interesting to see them do it, I did take some pictures, but the camera is still in the ice-shack on the lake.  I will post if I think of it. 

The whole weekend I was within a mile of the great 4/4 cache on Big Green Lake called "The Green Lake Leprechauns". This is a cache I have wanted to do since day one, which is landlocked and can only be reached by water.  The ice as good as it is, I might have to knock this one off of the to-do-list this week maybe. 

Don't forget to vote for the February Poll question!!!  Also, please check out the chat room whenever you can, you could possibly be the first person to actually chat with me!!  Not to popular yet, but I am hoping everyone gets some use out of it.

The battle for MuddyBottoms's time.

Friday, January 29, 2010

During the winter there is nothing I love to do more than ice-fish.  So, this weekend instead of geocaching, which I really want to do, I will be spending both days in the confines of the heated ice shack.  I would not say much fishing goes on, technically we have our 3 tip ups out per person, but that's about it.  We do, on the other hand, play lots of cards, shake lots of dice, eat lots of food, and of course drink lots of beersoda...yeah soda. 

I have all the necessities loaded up.  I have the beer, venison, snacks, propane, and I even have the auger and the rest of the fishing gear.  Oh yeah, and a roll of quarters which I am sure to lose playing ship, captain, crew.  I LOVE IT!!

This is exactly what I am after!!! Wish me luck!!

Mini Cache Run

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Today I went on a short little run for 9 caches in the Randolph, Cambria, Dalton area.  I had a great time finding a few more winter caches.  The wind was brutaly cold, but it was definitely a fun time.  I had 12 caches on the list but did not even attempt 3 of them due to roads being plowed in, or muggles in the area.

I did a few cemetery caches, one of which was a multi and a few traditionals on public land and in parks.

Paperless...I thought it would never happen to me.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Well, if you have read the blog in the past you remember my post about how I like to cache at a low-tech level.  I used custom made paper sheets to write down every cache and its details.  I also use a paper map book to lay out the caches in order so we can easily drive to each one.

Those days are gone, but purely by accident.  This year I bought my wife an Ipod Nano for Christmas.  While on the WGA Forums, I realized there was a program designed just for nano's to go paperless.  This program is called CacheMagnet, and I had to try it.  It is a totally free download, and it works absolutely flawlessly.

I thought I would never go paperless, but the fact that I already had the Ipod, and the program is free, I had to make the switch.  I will be the first to admit that it is really nice to have all of that information at my fingertips.

The program loads all of the information about the cache, size, D/T, cache owner, coordinates, even the hint and a few previous logs.  All of this information is great to have with you at ground zero, especially if you are having trouble finding the cache.  There is usually great information to be had in the last few logs, and that is nice to have.  It is so easy to load, even for a technology illiterate person like me.  What I do is make a bookmark list of all of the caches I want to hunt in a day, then create a pocket query out of the bookmark list.  When you open the PQ, CacheMagnet automatically opens the zipped file and it is as simple as sending it to your Ipod.

 Here are a few screen shots of our Ipod running CacheMagnet.

 Here is a list of all of the caches I put into this PQ'ed bookmark list. I think you can put up to like 400 caches in at once, and the clicker wheel lets you move up and down on any screen.

When you click on the cache you wish, you can from there look at the description(main page), look at the hint(if available) or check out the last 5 logs.

Here is what the main page looks like, it has every bit of info you need.

What a great tool, I am glad I took the time to check it out, and glad I let my stubbornness go for a second to give it a chance.  

First Winter Caching

Monday, January 25, 2010

Today I finally got out to find my first two winter caches.  With it being warmer the last couple of days, I figured that most of the snow was melted.  It was also very comfortable outside for caching.  It is also supposed to get rather cold in the next few days, and those are the days I like to retreat to the ice shack, so I figured today was the day.  My plan was to knock out a cache that I would not be able to get to in the summer months...and the perfect candidate was "Wet Maze".  This cache has a stout reputation as being a winter only cache, and I quickly figured out why.  Lets just say that it really is wet, and it really is a maze.  I was super glad I had on my new waterproof boots, because the whole time I was walking through 3 inches of water on top of glare, super slippery ice.  I made the find and really enjoyed myself on a great day to be caching.

This was my first obstacle, this ice was covered by 3 inches of water and it was super slippery, and thin.  I waddled my way across it while it was cracking the whole way.  The cache was located on "the island" in the background.  If it was easy everyone would do it!

 

 This was the trail I followed the whole way..."the island" is in the background.

 

 This was the view from the cache looking back toward where the journey started.

I then stopped at another cache in the Eldorado Marsh called Slips Cache.  This one took me on a much easier hike though an open grassy field.  This cache had no attributes and the hint was "one odd rock", so I figured it would be in a rock pile and very much not winter friendly.  I was correct, it is definitely not winter friendly, but with the recent snow melt, I was able to see the container nice and easy with no snow cover. 

Although it was only two caches, it felt great to get out again.  Tomorrow I will most likely spend the day in the heated shack watching my tip-ups not go up.

Welcome 2010!!

Saturday, January 2, 2010

Happy New Year to all of you blog readers!  It is crazy how busy I am, you would think unemployment would be boring!  I have been super busy in the woodshop, and really need to get out caching.  The worse thing is that we are totally winter people, and have all of the gear to get us to just about any geocache.  I am hoping to get out soon!  Keep checking back, and vote on the poll question.