Monday, March 22, 2010
Since I forgot a video last week, I will post two tonight. These I thought were cool, it just shows what people will do to find a cache.
Wow...I would love to do a cache like this!!!! I am jealous
Video's of the week.
Hiding, Finding, and Maintaining
Sunday, March 21, 2010
This weekend was an all caching weekend, well except for the four hours I worked Saturday morning. When I got done with work we headed out to research a large state owned marsh near here for cache hiding spots. These hides will be a part of a 26 cache series that is being put together by 5 fellow caching groups from the central WI area. So, look for that to be published right around Easter weekend. After we found the spots we headed to Fond Du Lac to get some dinner, and the few things we needed for the cache containers.
Today, we headed out on a small run and grabbed 16 caches around the French Creek Wildlife area. What an awesome area, it is basically a huge public property that is a mixture of marshes and hardwood ridges, we really enjoyed the area, and will be back again. Here are a few pictures that we took today.
Success....the French Creek Wildlife area is my background while I retrieve the log. This cache had not been found since last fall, it was still nice and dry!!
Here is another shot of the same body of water, not a stitch of wind today. The ice is holding out as long as it can. It is amazing how two feet of ice can melt in just over a week, when it took all winter to form.
This has to be the biggest cottonwood tree I have ever seen, maybe even the largest tree in general. You could wrap a 25' tape measure around this bad boy, and still be about a foot short of touching ends. There is a chain grown into one of the larger upper branches. By my calculations, that chain was probably enveloped by the tree over 80 years ago! I wonder if it was for a swing, or something like that. It is pictures like this that we are glad we have a timer on our camera, and that we make sure we have the tripod before we leave.
When we got back from our caching run, we decided to make a run to perform some maintenance on our caches, and make sure they are all good for spring. One of ours we had disabled due to the first waypoint being missing, and we finally got that one back up and running. Also, one of our parks tour caches was missing due to the fact that the pay-phone it was stuck to had been removed. So we have a little work to do again, but for the most part, our caches are ready for the busy non-snowy Wisconsin caching season.
I forgot the video of the week this last Monday, so I will be sure to post two tomorrow when I get home from our ritual Monday all you can eat wing-night run to the local establishment.
New Job=Less caching
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
I have been on unemployment and looking for a job since December 1st. Although it is very conducive to caching, it is not good for the wallet or the self-esteem. This last Wednesday I got a call while ice fishing with a fellow cacher(Scrappy Scout) from the owner of Ripon Truck Repair. He said he had a job available and was wondering if I would be interested. We set up an interview for the very next day. When I got there on Thursday I had a talk with him and I was offered the job, and I started the very next day.
I am so glad to be working again, especially at a place to close to home...it has been 10 years since I have had to drive less than 45 minutes to get to work, and the gas savings is a nice bonus as well. I now spend all day sandblasting frames and crane kits off of military vehicles that have been in action and need to be re-furbished. I love sandblasting, but it has been years, and involves stretching muscles that have not been stretched in years. I now get home and want to kick up my feet and rest.
Now caching will have to wait for the weekends only, oh well!!
Keep checking back, I am hoping to do some caching this weekend!
Don't forget to enter the chat room when you can!
Too Many things for one title
Monday, March 1, 2010
2010 WGA Winter Bonfire & Chili Feed
On Saturday we did a little caching on our way to our first Wisconsin Geocaching Association event. The Bonfire and Chili Feed was a huge success, and we had a blast. We met many new cachers, and talked to many more familiar faces. The chili was excellent, and so were the many many dishes brought by fellow members. It was nice to swap a few stories around the fire, and check out some cool coins and bugs around the table inside the field house. Click HERE to go to the WGA picture page for this event. I will definitely be going again next year, maybe it will even be closer to home. We ended up grabbing ten caches before the event, making it a total of 11 for the day, a good winter caching day.
Sunday Cache Run
Saturdays ten caches and an event were not enough, on the way home we were already planning our full day of caching for sunday. We figured we would invite our friends who are new to caching along with us, so we sent them a text on our way home from the event. After some talking they decided it would be easier for one of them to cache, and the other to stay home with the kids. It was decided that Jackie, 1/2 of the TrollPatrol team would be joining us.
We headed out at 8 a.m. and headed once again to the Wild Rose area. We had 35 caches on our to-do-list and ended up finding 19 of them. We started the day with a series of pretty tough winter hikes, so that slowed our day down quite a bit right off the bat. Who cares though? I love the great caches that we did, the numbers will always be there, it is hard to pass up so many quality caches. We completed another 3 of the Walk on the Wild Series by labrat wr, who placed this great series. We only have one of those left to find which contains the last code needed to find the series final "Ryan's Rebus". We look forward to finishing this very well done cache series!
We also did a couple of terrain five caches on islands, but we must admit, we cheated a little and drove the truck right on the ice, right out to the islands. They were still some very fun caches.
Here I am signing a log on an island, you can see the truck in the background.
One of the caches we found was called Graffiti Bridge, I wonder why?
Here is Jackie of "TrollPatrol" in the green taking their first trackable.
Here we are at one of the Walk on the Wild Side caches, camera perched in a tree to get a group shot.
Monday Cache Run
Today, Scrappy Scout, a Milwaukee area cacher, and I decided to meet up half way and do some caching in the Slinger, Mayville area. We managed to find eleven pretty easy caches on a nice relaxed easy going day of caching. I had a really great time with Kevin(scout) today, and I am sure he will have something to say about it on his blog as well, which is in my list of watched blogs.
One of my favorite pieces of history are old mills, either sawmills or grain mills. This was the site of an old grain mill in Mayville Wi. I love these sights. This one was just the old race(waterway), but it was still fun to explore.
New Poll, Weekly Caching Video, and What Not.
The March Caching poll is now up, so please cast your vote on your perfect day of caching....don't worry, you can be honest, nobody will know it was you!!
Here is the video of the week!! This video is so stupid and cheesy that it is absolutely hilarious....enjoy!!
If you get a minute, hop in the LIVE CHAT...ANYONE is welcome, and we would love to talk with some of you cachers that are from outside the Wisconsin border as well...we don't bite, honestly. Take a minute, pop in and see what the topic of discussion may be.
