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.

Slow going, and MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

Monday, December 21, 2009

In refference to geocaching it has been very slow around here for us lately.  I have been busy with other stuff..moving snow, working in the woodshop etc etc etc.  We are hoping to get out and find some our first winter caches.  Very inconvieneintly we will be recieving another very large snowfall later this week, which is sure to make our eventuall cache run even harder.  Oh well, it would not be any fun if they were all easy to find.  Maybe Santa will even bring us some snowshoes.  Keep posted, after the Christmas wave passes over I am sure we will make some finds.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Team MuddyBottoms would like to wish everybody a safe, enjoyable Christmas Season.  We hope you have the time and the ability to share the season with the people you love, and enjoy every minute you have.  If you cannot be with your favorite people, plesase let them know in any way possible that you care.  

Enjoy the season, and the caching!!

May visions of FTF's and full ammo boxes dance through your heads!!

Mini Cache Run....W/ Spoilers!

Sunday, December 6, 2009

Today my Dad and I (oldyweds) decided to make a quick 15 cache run while the ladies prepared Christmas such things.  We decided to head to the Waukau area.  We managed to find all 15 caches we set out after.  We had some easy ones and some not so easy ones, but none proved to be hard enough for the powerhouse dynamic duo!

One of the caches was near the Eureka locks.  A great cache in a great area, we have spent countless hours just below the dam in search of the illusive walleye.  We have shared many successful days fishing, as well as many more unsuccessful days.  It was nice to see ice forming, as I love to ice-fish more than open water fishing.

One of the caches had a much harder difficulty rating of a four, but with the help of our F-150 ladder, it was not a problem.  We stood under it, looking at the tree we would have to climb,and then hit hit us...use the truck!! heheheehe, such cheaters we are.

We did not take any more pictures than that, but we had a blast on our few hour cache run.  One of the caches we did at the Waukau dam area took us across the creek and up a pretty steep incline, I wish we would have taken the camera, because the sun was bouncing off of the winding creek, a great picture it would have made!

Check out the scrolling picture slide show that I put up, if you have any interesting pictures of your caching adventures I will gladly post them.  I will also post your caching name on the picture if you wish.  muddybottoms@live.com is the e-mail addy if you are interested.

Tree Hunnerd

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Today we were successful in reaching our 300th find.  We left the house this morning at 6:30 with 38 finds needed to reach 300.  We found our milestone cache at 2:45 this afternoon.  What a day, we had a blast, and wish we could cache like this every day.    We did have some trouble on our final which was Seldom Entered / Often Seen.  We had to call our Geobuddy CodeJunkie who I knew had done this cache before us.  Although we found the cache container, it sounds like it is not in the condition it was supposed to be.  We contacted the owner just to let him know that things may be a little out of place. 

With deer hunting coming up, we both hunt, so it may be a while till we get any more finds, but that is just fine, there is little we love more than the gun-deer season.

Here is Ruth signing our 300th log.

Numbers Run and a Toga Party!!

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Another #'s Run

In my last post we talked about finding 30 caches in one day to get us to 200 finds and beyond.  Well, exactly one week later we went on another numbers run with my parents, the OldyWeds.  We found 28 caches on 11-8-09 and had an absolute blast around the Wautoma/Wild Rose/Neshkoro area.  Here are a few pictures of our day.

  Here is a fancy picture of Mr Oldyweds, and me, Mr. MuddyBottoms enjoying a great covered bridge cache.

Here are the OldyWeds walking back to the truck after taking a walk along the pines.  We really enjoyed this nice little walk.

This tree felt a little out of place amongst all of the towering pine trees.  This was another cache that we enjoyed, we took the wrong way to the cache, but it still was a great hike. We found the  Billy Goat Gruff, but the troll was not around to visit.

We had a great day enjoying the fall views in a great part of the state.

Toga Party!!

Today we were members of a "World Wide Flash Mob".  We attended a great event cache put on by fellow cachers JimandLinda.  A group of cachers assembled in a Fond Du Lac park, all of which were dressed in togas.  We all arrived at exactly 11:00 a.m. signed log, won prizes, ate a feast(grapes/dehydrated), took a group picture, and completely dispersed at exactly 11:15.  We did get a few strange looks by by passers, as would be expected.

After the quick mob takeover we quickly retreated to the Coliseum sports bar right down the street.  At that point we all enjoyed a great lunch of all you could eat pizza and wings, while watching the Badgers kill Michigan.  We had an absolute blast, thanks to the much appreciated work of JimandLinda!  Unfortunately we did not bring our camera, but there are plenty of great pictures on the cache page, which I linked to above.

Yet another #'s run is planned for tomorrow.  We are hoping to find 38 plus caches tomorrow to get us to #300.  Wish us luck, I will have pictures and details to post tomorrow evening.