GeoGearHeads 220: Logging II

On Thursday, March 17th I was a guest on the GeoGearHeads podcast. We talked about the new markdown used in logs, answered some listener questions about logging geocaches and some features we’d like to see related to logging cache finds. A big thank you to Darryl (DarrylW4) and Chris (The Bad Cop) for having me on the show. Check out the GeoGearHeads website or look for them on YouTube. 

My Thoughts on Trackables

When I first started caching, I found the idea of trackables very intriguing. Your item can travel the world to places you may not be able to go and you can virtually watch the adventures. I also enjoy helping other cachers trackables and moving them along. I try to move them to a new cache within a few days, but I admit that sometimes I hold onto them too long. It has become hard to find a cache that is large enough and secure enough for trackables.

I have recently begun collecting geocoins and other trackables to keep. I like purchasing geocoins from Mega events that I attend to remember the event. I also like to do geotrails that give you a reward, often a geocoin, for finding a certain number of caches. I also have quite a few other geocoins that I just find interesting. Many of these are displayed in cases at my house but sadly hardly anyone gets to see or discover them. With this in mind, I have hidden tracking codes for some of my trackables on my Geocaching profile page and on my blog. If you find tracking codes on either of these places, please feel free to discover it.

To find out more information about trackables, check out this FAQ page from Geocaching.com.

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Leap Day Weekend Caching

This year geocaching.com offered 2 souvenirs for this year’s Leap Day. The first souvenir could be earned by finding a geocache between February 27-29 and the second souvenir could only be earned by attending an even on Leap Day, February 29th. They hinted in their blog post that “you will want to earn both of these.”
On Saturday, February 27, my boyfriend, McDoogins and I went into town with our geopup Rogue to find some caches. Our first stop was GC6BTFJ “Bookworm” in a small park in our town. It was a very creative cache but unfortunately we did not find it in the condition it was intended to be in. We found the cache probably 50 feet away from the intended location. I’m hoping that it was not found by some muggle teenagers. We continued walking through town so McDoogins could find some caches that I had already found.

On Monday, February 29, I hosted an event at a different local park, GC69B3Z. Since I had to work that day I made the event from 5 – 5:30pm. I wasn’t going to be a big event; just a quick meet up so the local cachers could get the souvenir. Some prizes were kindly donated by IB Geocaching and the cachers really enjoyed them. I had a mob cache publish for the event where 6 cachers had to be connected to a site in order for the coordinates to the cache to pop up. In total there were 28 attendees at the event. Sadly, I completely forgot to take a group photo.

   
 Have you figured out the hidden message in the two Leap Day souvenirs? If you haven’t take a look at the Geocaching.com blog post here.

Cache & Release Podcast – Episode 49

I was lucky enough to be a guest on the Cache and Release Podcast last night. The main topic for the night was planning for a geocaching trip. I spoke a lot about many of the features of Project GC. A big thank you to Michael and Gary for having me on the show. I had a fantastic time!

A Fun (and somewhat frustrating) Gadget Cache

Join myself, McDoogins and our geopup Rogue as we try to figure out how to get into a gadget cache.

2015 Year in Review & Goals for 2016

Wow, it’s already 2 ½ weeks into 2016 already. I’ve been meaning to write a “Year in Review” post but just haven’t had the time. So here it goes.
As of the end of 2015 I have been geocaching for 1 year, 4 months. 2015 was a great caching year.

• I found 564 caches (plus 12 lab caches) on 145 caching days
• I attended my first Mega event, ASP Geobash X in May, along with Berkshire Geobash in July
• I made a trip to New York City in April and completed the Bridges & Arches of Central Park multi (GC17MX1) along with many other highly favored caches in the Big Apple
• A trip to Arizona in April for a family reunion allowed me to find the oldest cache in Arizona (GC57),  and my furthest from home cache to date, 1990 miles away
• Thanks to the Summer Geocaching Road Trip, I found my first of several 5 star caches
• I found 8 cache types in 1 calendar day
• On a trip to the Bahamas, I found my first international cache, “Atlantis” (GCC418)
• I added 6 new states to my caching map
• I published my first and second Earthcaches (GC5TZ00 & GC633EQ)
• I hosted 7 events and attended a total of 22
• I completed the New York State Star geoart (GC52TQV) (minus 1 DNF)

While these may seem like small accomplishments to some people I take great pride in what I have accomplished over the past year. Geocaching has allowed me to get outside and do things I probably never would have otherwise done; I went kayaking, I hiked up a mountain, I traveled, I went camping more times in a year than I ever have before and I made friends I never would have met without Geocaching. I’m hoping that 2016 brings many new, amazing memories.

Here’s some of my goals for this year. I’m fairly confident that most of these will actually happen but some are stretch goals. But how can you get anywhere in life if you don’t set the bar high, right?

• Make it to 1000 finds
• Host more events, including a CITO
• Hide more creative and fun caches
• Find caches along the kayak trail at Oak Orchard

• Make it to GeoWoodstock 14er and hopefully attend a Giga event!
• Attend more Megas; ASP Geobash XI (GC66H9W), Midwest Geobash (GC66A5W), L&A County Geocaching Event (GC64BR7)
• Find caches in more new states (Going to GW14 will make a huge impact on this one)
• Meet up with cachers I have gotten to know through podcasts and Twitter
• Find Mingo (GC30)! (Going to GW14 will also help this one happen)
• Publish another Earthcache
• Complete and find more challenge caches (we’ll see what the 1 year moratorium brings for this)
• Fill in more spots on my Finds Calendar, Jasmer and Fizzy grids

And most importantly get outside and have fun!

Day 10/366