Happy Memorial Day!!

Monday, May 31, 2010

I would like to wish all of you out in BlogLand a happy Memorial Day.  Do not forget the reason for the day, and be sure to think of the ones that have given us our freedom.  Without the sacrifices made by our veterans we would not be able to enjoy the life we live every day. 

Thank you to all who have given so much! 

To everyone, have a safe, and enjoyable day!!

Caching weekend up nort

Sunday, May 16, 2010

We had an excellent time caching on our trip to the Hazelhurst/Minocqua area this weekend.  We managed to find 18 caches during the day on Saturday, and a few on the way home today.  Not only did we find a few great caches, we also dropped of 3 travel bugs, and one geocoin. 

The main goal of the weekend was not really to find a bunch of caches, but mostly just to get away and relax a little bit.  We stayed at a resort we have stayed at many times in the past.  Blacks Cliff Resort is a perfect resort for rest and relaxation.  As always we enjoyed the cabin, the lake and the general relaxing atmosphere that only northern Wisconsin can offer.  Thanks to the owners Jenny and Troy...who are also cachers(The Gibbers).  They may not know it, but they are responsible for getting us started in geocaching.  Since our first trip to the resort, I have been following their Birch Bark Blog.  In the blog about a year ago they posted about one of their caching excursions and it prompted me to check out caching.  The rest is history!

Check out some of the pictures captured throughout the weekend.

This was the first picture taken of the weekend.  Ruth and I decided to get up early Saturday a.m. to go have a cup of coffee down by the lake.  The loons were talking(insert sound) and the fog was slowly moving to the center of the lake.  My favorite time of the day...god I love it up here.

Our favorite cache of the weekend was called "Arthur Stevenson's Homestead".  The history of the old house is so neat, and the area was a blast to explore.  If you are in the Boulder Junction area, do yourself a favor and find this cache(premium member cache).  

When we were exploring the homestead cache we also happened upon our very first Letterbox...we were looking for the cache.  We thought we found the cache, but quickly learned that we in fact had our first letterbox in hand.  We obviously did not have a stamp made, or with us, so we just made our mark in the log book, and put it back.  SWEET!

Here is the whole crew at another cache located on Lost Canoe Lake.  The water up north is so low, that this root system would normally be underwater.  

Team MuddyBottoms...such posers.

Here we are this morning before we left for home.  We are holding the two travel bugs we picked up during our journeys.  Thanks to Jenny at the resort for taking this picture and posting it on her blog as well.  Our mansion for the weekend was behind us...it was so hard to leave.  We will most likely make our fall caching trip back up to the cliff.  We better dedicate that trip to finding the rest of the Gibbers caches!!

T.F.T.C.(cabin)

Stay Tuned

Friday, May 14, 2010

I will not be posting again until Sunday night.  Ruth, my parents, and I are heading up to Minocqua, WI for an all weekend caching excursion.  We are heading up after I am done with work tonight.  We have a nice cozy cabin in the woods, and we are going up just to cache.  The truck is full of gas, the Lowrance, Nuvi, and I-pod are packed full of caches, and we are packed full of enthusiasm.  Stay tuned, as I most likely will have a few stories, and pictures to share!

Have a great weekend!

Weekend Caching...and Cache-Bag Additions

Monday, May 10, 2010

 Weekend Caching

We were able to do a small amount of geocaching this weekend, not much, but it was kind of nice to take it easy.  Its not always about doing as many as possible.

A new series was just published in our area before the weekend, and we decided to give that one a go.  It sure was nice to find some caches close to home once again, as a few new cachers have popped up, and are placing some nice new caches.  SWEET!!!  The name of the Series is "Town of Nepeuskun Series".  Nepeuskun is a local township just a few miles to the north of our town of Ripon.  This series was made to highlight a few of the historical areas around the area.  The series was very well done, and the cache pages include a great amount of history for each area.  If anyone is in the area make sure to hit this series...right after you hit our Mascoutin Valley Trail series of course.   Well done Skunk & Tarz!!!

 We ended up running into another group of cachers while finding one of the caches for the series.  Pictured here is: Sweech(Lower Left) Blondie BloodHound(Lower Right), and your authors standing behind them.  Not pictured is the talented photographer- Sparse Grey Hackle.  Thanks for taking the picture, it was nice running into you guys!

Here I am right after breaking the brand new cache!!  We were the second to find the series final, and I already broke it.....oh wait, you cant really break an ammo box.  See what I mean about the non-photogenic comment made earlier! 

Wee-ner mobile travel bug taken, and ready to move up-north this coming weekend.

Above the series we were able to throw another 6 caches in the mix while we were between the series caches.

Cache-Bag Additions

Ruth and I have always enjoyed trying to identify different plants, trees, and birds while out caching and hiking.  We will always make bets on what we think a particular plant or animal might be, but would have to wait to get home to settle the score.  We finally found a great set of small, color pictured books to take along with us.  Now when we have a bet placed we can settle the score immediately.  These books are great to have along, and we have pulled them out a few times already.  I would recommend anybody get a set like this for their local area, and you would be surprised how much you open them up.

The color pictures are great for quick identification.   Also the way they are listed-Trees By leaf type & Birds and flowers by color makes it very easy to find exactly what you are looking for. 

Here are the three books we have purchased so far, next we will be getting..Mammals, Insects, and Mushrooms.

I know a little about most trees from my woodworking experience, but there is so much more to know.

The birds I know the least about, this one gets allot of use!

Just a little piece of info I thought you fellow cachers would like! 

Please, please post a comment if you have any tips like this to make the caching experience even richer than it already is!!   Or, you could even post to the blog directly if you would like, I am always open to more authors than just myself!

Happy Mothers Day!!

Sunday, May 9, 2010

We would like to extend a HAPPY MOTHERS DAY shout out to all of you caching moms out there!  We hope you have a wonderful day, filled with family, and the things you love the most.  We will be spending the day with Kevin's parents, hanging out and cooking Mom(team OldyWeds) a great dinner.

Enjoy your special day, you have earned it!

Here is a picture of me with my Mom...this was taken while caching on our Mother/Son weekend.  Every year, my brother and I each dedicate a seperate weekend to just hang out with Mom.  Last year we went on an all caching weekend to up-north Wisconsin.  The year before that we went to the Lakewood/Mountain area with the ATV's to ride the trails all weekend!

Love ya Mom!!!

One Cache

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Last night we did go out and snag one cache to celebrate our one year caching anniversary.  Nice and close to home, and an easy walk, thankfully because there was a big storm on the horizon.  The storm happened to drop a few small tornadoes near the fox valley, nothing that hit the ground though.

 Here I am with the goods, right before dark, sky even darker because of the storm.

Barrel O' Monkeys Travel bug was picked up to be moved along.

The happy couple, she always has a great smile, and I...well don't.  I am not photogenic.  

We look forward to our next year of caching fun.

One Year Anniversary

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Today marks our one year anniversary of finding our first geocache.  It all started because one of our favorite up-north resorts mentioned geocaching in its photo blog, The BirchBark Blog.  We had read this blog for years, and always had seen their occasional posts about caching, so finally one night I decided to create an account, and the very next day we were on our first hunts.  The account was under the name "Stobber", we only had 7 finds under that name until we realized we needed a more plural name to represent us as a team.   That was when MuddyBottoms was born. 

I am hoping to go out and get an anniversary cache when Ruth gets home from work.

Here are a few pictures from our first cache, and some memorable ones we found along the way.

Our very first cache was a lengthy multi-cache called Rush Lake View.  Here I am plugging in the coordinates for the final at WP1.

Here is our first cache...a lock-n-lock hiding in its place!  Success! We were hooked.

Here we are after finding Fox Proposal Point.  This was our last cache as Stobber, and the one that inspired the name MuddyBottoms.  As we stood up from taking this exact picture the name popped into our heads, well because we had muddy bottoms.  This cache still resides on our top 5 list, an awesome cache that helped fuel our addiction.

Here I am standing next to our 100th milestone cache!  Kind of a spoiler, so I will not list the cache name.  But it was concealed underground, about 300' into a culvert, directly above us is home plate for the local little league field.  As we stood there wondering where a large container could be hidden on a baseball field, I instantly knew it was below us, and the adventure began.  Thank god we had the mag-lite along...the camera flash makes it seem comfy, but you literally could see nothing.  Awesome!

Here we are with our 200th cache, called Old School | Playin Hooky in a HOLE!

Here Ruth is signing our 300th log, this one was called Seldom Entered|Often Seen

Here we stand with our 400th cache.  This was called Walk On The Wild Side #4.  This was part of a series with 6 Walk on the wild side caches.  The final happens to be our next milestone.

As mentioned above this cache was a final location for a series, this was called Ryan's Rebus, and it happened to be our 500th cache.

So, there you have it, one year down, and hopefully many more to come.  We have really enjoyed caching, and have gotten so much more out of it than just signing logs and counting our caches.  We cannot say enough how appreciative we are to our fellow cachers for placing caches in such wonderful places we would have never seen if it were not for caching!

Caches, Mushrooms, and Ten Years!

Monday, May 3, 2010

Yesterday Ruth and I decided to head out for a quick 10 cache run.  We decided to pick off a few that have been on our list, and a few new local caches.  Unfortunately we forgot the camera, so there are no cache pictures.  We did go 10/10 and threw in a few that were a bit of a hike, and it was a perfect day for those. 

The best find of the day was not any of the caches, but it was the Morel Mushrooms we found while out caching.  We have always kept an eye out for them, but before today had never run across an amount large enough to pick.  We stumbled upon these and had to take advantage.  If you know anything about morels, you know they are a prize to be found.  They rarely grow in the same spot 2 years in a row, and are almost impossible to farm on a consistent basis.  They are referred to as the million dollar crop, this is because if you could successfully grow one full acre of them it would be worth around one million dollars.   There are websites, and clubs dedicated to hunting for morel mushrooms.  They only grow in the spring, and can pop up overnight.  I think we will keep looking around in the next week or two, and then the season will be done.

 Here is a picture of our small take.  We soaked them in salt water to clean out the pores, and to kill off any bacteria.  The mushrooms were then cut into halves the long way to make sure nothing was inside.  Simply sauteed in a cast iron pan with a little butter and seasoning salt...they are really delicious!  If you run across a few of these, do yourself a favor and give them a try.  Go to The Great Morel Home Page to learn about where to find them, and which ones not to pick.

Video Of The Week...10 Year Style.

The video of the week is dedicated to the ten year anniversary of caching that happened in April/May of 2000.    This video contains some home footage of Dave putting together the first ever geocache.  With all of the ten year events going on, I figured this would be a good video to show.

Really???

Saturday, May 1, 2010

I stumbled across this blog in the Groundspeak forums...Letterbox and Geocache Abuse
  This person thinks that geocaches and letterboxes are trash hidden in the environment, trash that is supposedly causing damage to our sensitive ecosystems.  I agree we need to watch out for our wild areas, but I think this person may be over-reacting a little.  The way I see it, geocaching causes the exact opposite effect on our wild areas.  I know that when we go caching we always bring out as much trash as we can carry.  To solve this supposed problem, this blogger is stealing the caches that he/she believes are causing the problem...not sure that is an effective solution, but the one they have chosen.  Check out the link, and like I did, leave a comment and let this person know that geocachers make up a great community of nature loving freaks!!