Sherminator18's Geocaching Blog: January 2016

Sunday, January 24, 2016

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.

Tuesday, January 19, 2016

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

Monday, January 18, 2016

Days 8&9 /366

My photos from this weekend for Project 366

Friday, January 15, 2016

Day 7/366

Day 7 of #project366

Thursday, January 14, 2016

Day 6/366

Wednesday, January 13, 2016

Day 5/366

Today’s photo was taken from my backyard.

Project 366 Photography Challenge

I decided to participate in a challenge to take a post one photo a day for one year. It is the intention of this challenge to practice and improve your photography skills. These photos won’t always be geocaching related but sometimes they will be. Here are my photos for the first 4 days of my challenge

Pursuit of a Lonely Cache

On Saturdays I usually spend some time with my “Little” from the Big Brothers, Big Sisters Program. I’ve been introducing her to geocaching and I think she has been enjoying it so far. It was only slightly above freezing this Saturday so we found one geocache together before we decided to move inside to somewhere warm. We opted to head to the library where I showed her how to sign into geocaching.com and log her finds on the computer. I brought her to my area’s holiday party a few weeks ago and she even won some prizes! Here’s the group photo from our holiday party, GC654F2.

2015 GeoRoc Holiday Party and Family Event

After I dropped her off, I headed back out into the cold to find some geocaches on my own. First, I wanted to attempt a new multi that came out a few weeks ago. It was put out by an Eagle Scout who, along with some other boys, were creating trails in the area for their final project. They had also placed multiple benches and made bird and owls houses for the area. I had no idea these trails had been put in here until I was searching for this cache. That’s one of the things I love about geocaching; it brings me to places I would have otherwise never discovered. The final container also looked like a wrapped Christmas present, ribbon and all. Check out the cache page here: GC67J2J

A Geocache Present!

After almost freezing my face off finding the multi, I headed over to a section of trails known as the Ontario Pathways. It once was a railway but since it was abandoned, it has been converted into quite a long section of continuous section of trail. It’s a very popular trail for geocaches in my area.

There is one geocache along the trail that I attempted to find last winter, but DNF’ed because of the snow. Quite a few cachers have also not been able to find it, so I reached out to a fellow cacher who had found it in 2013 and they were able to give me a hint.

Lots of DNFs..

I wasn’t sure what to expect, but after over 30 minutes of searching in the cold, I found the cache! It hadn’t been found in over a year and in fact I had found it on it’s 14 month anniversary of being lonely. Check out this cache page here: GC3PV71

Last find 10/19/14

Today my boyfriend, McDoogins, and I had his family Christmas party to attend but luckily there were a few geocaches and quite a few Munzees nearby. We were able to sneak away to find two caches and I was able to capture quite a few virtual Munzees.

Geocaching Ornaments

A local cacher in my area puts out a cache every year that contains geocaching themed ornaments that he makes himself. This year McDoogins and I were able to get there in time to get some for ourselves. They are now proudly displayed on our Christmas tree!

9th Annual GeoRoc Holiday Event

This year my local geocaching group needed a new volunteer to host our annual holiday party. I’ve hosted quite a few events before so it was suggested to me that I should host this year. I decided to buck up and do it. We had it at a fire department’s pavilion. From my best estimate we had about 75 people attend. We had a lot of food, games and fun. So far there’s been 54 attendee logs. I had a fantastic time and here’s some photos from the event.

Our log “book” made of snowflakes

Starting the raffle

JAKSolantern also put out a puzzle cache that was themed around Christmas movies and it was right near the event. Many cachers solved the puzzle at the party and went out in search of it. The container was a fantastic birdhouse and a smaller decon container and log were Velcro-ed inside it. Really amazing. It got a favorite point from me.