Taking it on the Road

New York State

I'm travelling with my son as he starts his college career at RPI--Rensselaer. We were very productive today, getting the boxes of stuff he left up here with relatives in July, and shopping for the last few things (like a trashcan). After we settled into our hotel, I went looking for a Travel Bug Hotel :)

Larger caches that can hold a lot of stuff are sometimes called a "TB Hotel", where people can drop off their Travel Bugs, or pick up others. A Travel Bug is some kind of smallish item that is tracked through the Geocaching web site. Sometimes the item itself has a tracer number etched on it, and other times there are tags with the number on them that is attached to the item. People drop them in a geocache and wait for someone else to pick it up and move it to another geocache, hopefully moving it closer to its "goal". Some goals are "I want this bug to travel the world", or "This bug likes mountains, please take a photo of it with you at a mountain".

The cache I was looking for reportedly had 7 trackable bugs in it. I looked at the goals for each one, and I thought I could really help with 2 particular ones. The first one wanted to go to "football towns and take its picture with the local team's logo or mascot". Um...hello? Gainesville! Plus as a bonus, I'll be going back through Boston on my way home and I figured I could find some kind of Patriots logo somewhere. The second bug was from a (at the time it started its journey) a 4-yr-old boy in England. He wanted his bug to go to amusement parks around the world. Well, I'm not planning on going to any amusement parks, but I can sure put it a lot closer to Orlando! Someone else can pick it up and take it there--or at least that's the idea. According to the logs, this bug had already been to Disney Paris, and some other parks in Europe.

I found the cache after a moderate amount of searching, but unfortunately, the football bug wasn't in it :( The amusement park one was, as well as an item that hadn't been listed online--a trackable geocoin in the shape of an apple. I grabbed those two things, signed the log, and went back to the hotel. A good day :)

This is "Luke's Wuggle" :)

I'd like to send a trackable out someday. I just haven't yet decided on a goal. I have some nebulous ideas though, so maybe someday soon :)

Lessons Learned So Far

I'm sure there are more to come...

I've been Geocaching for 15 days in a row now and here are some things I've learned:

1. I'm not a woodsy person. This could become an issue with Geocaching longterm ;) I've gone looking for a few caches in overgrown areas, and I get nervous about spiders, snakes, poison ivy, mosquitos! and all the other things out there that can get me. I also can accept my limitations, and don't go for something that's more than a 2-star terrain rating.

2. Don't sign logs with a marker. I started out bringing a purple highlighter to sign logs because it was the smallest pen I had and my pockets were getting full. Then I thought it was kind of different and cute. I signed maybe 3 or 4 logs with it before I learned that if a log gets wet or even humid, it's soggy and any marker on it runs. Plain old ballpoint pens work best and are still legible on damp logs.

3. Don't use paper punches on logs. Another thing I thought would be my "signature" was to use some of my scrapbooking paper punches with different symbols next to my name on cache logs. I think I only did it once. The first cache I found in August had a soggy log and I knew that ahead of time. I brought along a couple pieces of paper stapled together. I used my pawprint punch in the corner and saw immediately that I wouldn't be able to use that on other logs because it was too big. I switched to one with a musical note, but even that was a problem--not only that it's still big enough to take up a lot of space especially on micros, but a lot of logs are written on both sides of every sheet, so a punch takes away a lot of 'real estate'. I ditched the punches.

4. Just keep caching, just keep caching, just keep caching...I've been 0-for-whatever a few times now, but there are so many caches out there I just have to keep looking. Yesterday I found one with just minutes of daylight left and felt great to get the find! Yes, I know nighttime caching is a thing, but I don't think I'm ready for that yet.

My streak is still alive and I have high hopes that I can complete the month-long challenge, but it is becoming more and more of a challenge as I cross the easier closer caches off my list.

Rainy Find

Deadman's Curve

I clicked the magic "Find Nearby Caches" button on my app and this one appeared towards the top of the list. I heard the thunder approaching and headed out to try to beat the rain. I almost made it. I had just gotten to the nearest cross-street when the faucet opened. I parked close-by and waited it out. While in the car I looked around to see if anything stood out in my sight. I saw something that I thought might be the cache, but double-checked by reading the hint on the entry. Sure enough, that was it :)  

Another entry in the Arachnid Archives:

I didn't have to fight him for the cache at least

1-for-4

Day 3 continued

The rain did let up and the sun came back out yesterday. Mike, Titus and I went to look for some nearby caches and this time I was a little more prepared:  bug spray, jeans, gloves, clippers, boots, plastic ziplock bags, paper, and some tradable swag. The first one we tried was questionable because the difficulty rating was higher than my previous finds, but I wanted to give it a shot since it was so close. I got to within maybe 10 feet of it--didn't spot the cache--when I gave up. Too many mosquitos (even sprayed down with Deep-Woods Off), and too many hidey-holes for snakes for my comfort. Maybe I'll try that one again when it's colder.

The next one we attempted was farther back in our neighborhood. We were pretty sure we were right at the spot of the cache but came up empty-handed :( I'm hoping the owner removed it for maintenance even though there was no note on the webpage. That's better than the alternative--that someone took it. 0-for-2.

Next we tried one that promised to be "in sight". You were supposed to be able to just look around and spot the cache, but we failed at this one as well :(  I read a lot of comments from other geocachers--early posts complained that it was too high to reach, some said it was very cleverly hidden and not an easy one for newbies, but other posts said it was an easy grab-and-go. I was really getting frustrated not being able to find three in a row. Grrr.

At this point Titus signalled that Mike's blood sugar was low so we had to stop and get something to eat. While at dinner I looked for more nearby caches and we decided to go for another one in Possum Creek Park. Mike and Titus went to the dog park and I went to find the cache.

This one I found, and it was the first one so far that wasn't a tiny little thing--it was a mid-sized peanut butter jar. Some of the prior posts mentioned that this cache also had a soaked log, so I put some paper in a ziplock, signed it, and left that in the jar. I decided I was going to start 'stamping' next to my name with a paw-print stamp I had from back in my scrapbooking days. It might be too big after seeing it on this one, so I'll have to rethink things (I have some smaller stamps, but they aren't as cute).

The worst thing about this cache-site were the number of black widow spiders around it. I can see the need for a walking stick or something like that to beat down spider webs in the future. 1-for-4!

Not a black widow, but a more visible spider nearby.

At the Movies

Streak is at 2!

Seth and I went to see "The Wolverine" yesterday. It was better than I expected. It was entertaining, and that's all I ask from a movie. When we exited the theater I brought up the Geocaching app and looked for nearby caches. There was one 142 feet away. When it's that close you kind of have to look for it ;) We got to the general area and I think my eyes skipped right over the cache, but Seth spotted it--good eyes! Day 2 down and the one I intended to begin with is still unfound.

Now we're on Day 3. Mike and I spent all morning running errands and now it is pouring rain. We'll see if it clears (or at least lessens) in an hour or so.

Geocaching

Geocaching

My friend Glen introduced me to Geocaching in 2003. I thought it was kind of neat, but didn't do anything with it until 2006. My boys and I were going to drive from Florida to Illinois and I thought it would be cool to try to find some geocaches along the way. I downloaded info for half a dozen. Unfortunately, we only found one but it was fun trying. Ever since then I've been receiving the e-newsletter from Groundspeak--a Geocaching community--and mostly ignoring it.

A few months ago my friend Allison mentioned Geocaching along with her family's plans to vacation in Yellowstone. This piqued my interest again, and I opened the next newsletter that arrived. It had a story about a guy that found a cache that had been unfound for over 10 years, somewhere in the middle of Canada. I thought that was pretty cool, and opened the next newsletter. Groundspeak was hyping "31 Days of Geocaching" in August so I thought I'd get back into geocaching by trying to do the 31-day streak.

A few days ago I updated my profile on geocaching.com and started looking for nearby areas to search for caches. I downloaded Groundspeak's app and picked out the cache with which I wanted to begin. And then that was all thrown out the window :)  My husband Mike and I were out at lunch at Wahoo Grill when I checked "geocaches near here". It said there was one 400 feet away and I figured we could grab it easily. Well, it wasn't so easy and we didn't find it; I chickened out when I saw a whole bunch of what looked like poison ivy.

On the drive home I did a search for geocaches nearby and one popped up in Possum Creek Park. Ever since we got our new puppy, we've been going to that park almost every day. They have an awesome dog park and it's a great place for our little Titus to run around like a crazy man :) I looked up the cache when we got home and saw that the last few people that found the cache said the log was full and soaked. I thought I'd be helpful so I took some small pieces of paper, stapled them together, and put them in a ziplock bag to put in the cache.

When we went to the park in the late afternoon we took a brief detour to look for the geocache. I found it, but my plan failed. The cache was too small to fit what I brought. Mike struggled to fit one more piece of paper into the cache and we counted that good enough, even though it will probably get soaked from the existing wad of paper that used to be the log. Oh well, we tried. The important part is that we found it and had fun doing so :)

Mike and Titus witnessing my find :)

Afterwards we went to the dog park and Titus got to play with a nice dog that loved to run. He got nice and tired :)

Relay For Life

Walking on Sunshine

Hopefully it will be a nice day/night at least.

A few weeks ago all the March of Dimes notices starting going up all over town. I still don't think I'm ready for that--it's something like 8 miles--but I thought I'd look for another 5k (3 miles) to do. The one I participated in back in November for the Fisher House went fairly well. I wanted to get back out and not only get some exercise but also contribute to a worthy cause.

GHFC was organizing for the Lung Cancer walk/run, but for reasons I won't get into here, I decided I didn't want to do that one. There were a couple of 5k's advertised at Starbucks on their bulletin board, but one of those was today and I wasn't quite ready for that. Another one is associated with the local roller derby team, which could be kind of interesting, but I went browsing to see what else was happening and came across Relay For Life (American Cancer Society). My friend Lorie was listed as a team captain for the relay coming up in Newberry, so I figured that was an omen :)

This isn't exactly a 5k, it's just going around a track for a number of hours (overnight!) as a team--in a relay (go figure). I'm not sure how I'll do, but Lorie said anything will be a help to the team. It runs from 6pm Friday evening, until 11:30 am Saturday. I may get one of those boxes of Starbucks coffee or something :)

I used the Relay web site to send out my "please give money" letter to some friends and family, but when I previewed it the promised link to the donation page wasn't showing up correctly. If anyone out there feels like donating, here's a potentially working link:

Direct link to donation page, I hope

Or you can go to the Relay For Life home page, scroll down to "Support a Participant or Team", type in my name and hit "search", then click on the "donate" button when my name and team's name shows up (we're "Friends For Life").

I plan on taking a lot of photos and giving an update here in a couple of weeks. I will have a gym bag packed Friday night, and as soon as it's over on Saturday I will be heading to GHFC, taking a long shower and soaking in the hot tub!

Searching for a topic

Amazing Race

I've had a few thoughts for posts and never actually wrote them down. I'm sitting here watching yesterday's dvr'ed "Amazing Race", and figured I might as well start with that.

My friends Penny, JoAnne and Allison have watched the show since the beginning and they finally got me to give it a try a few seasons ago. I loved it because it's live-action World of Warcraft questing ;) I know I'd never be able to compete on the show, but it's fun to see the various parts of the globe and all the activities highlighted.

It's also nice when the people on the show aren't cutting each other down, but working together in their team. I also appreciate those that honor their word when they make a deal with other teams. Last season, two teams were stuck together due to a bad choice of airplane flights. They said they would do the challenges* together when they got to Russia. One team was finished with their synchronized swimming challenge early, but they kept their word and waited hours for the other team while cheering them on.

Anyway, last night's episode had teams racing in French Polynesia. The last challenge before the final sprint to the check-in mat had one teammate walking on low stilts, kicking a coconut across a small stretch of sand. The other teammate cheered from the sidelines. There were some native people dancing on the sidelines as well, and some of the teammates tried to learn the dances.

I have a sneaking suspicion that the dance might be important in the finale. The final 3 teams are always quizzed on the countries they visited over the course of the entire race. Last time around, they had to have paid attention to how the native person greeted them at the check-in mat--the contestants had to do a matching game of "hello", "goodbye", and the flags of the visited countries. When the teams were doing the stilt challenge, the cameras focused on the dancers a few times, so we'll see if that's important or not. If the next leg of the race also has dancers, I'll feel more confident.

Jan. 7, 2013

Space Shuttle Sadness

I read a tweet by @andylevy saying the Eddie Money Geico commercial is the saddest show on TV. It's up there for me, but Eddie probably needed the money and I can't think of many Geico ads I liked, so that one doesn't stand out per se.

The one that gets me is the Toyota commercial about their Tundra truck pulling the Space Shuttle Endeavor. I've got nothing against Toyota, but the only things I'm impressed with in that ad are the tires on the trailer supporting the shuttle, and the overpass for not collapsing.

The point of the ad is supposed to be "Yay Toyota! They are so powerful!" But all I feel is "That's America's greatness right there--a sad hulk of former glory being dragged along to its own funeral." Maybe they wanted more of a parade feel to it with the crowds lining the street, but that fails. It's at night with eerie lighting, so it has a horror-movie look, and then there are those people who are trudging along behind the hearse shuttle like they are in a Dickens funeral procession. It's just very depressing overall.

I've read about Cuba getting all these nice new shiny tractors from their Soviet benefactors back in the 60's and 70's. Then the gifts dried up and the Cubans couldn't get any replacement parts for the tractors, and gas was hard to get. Their once-top-of-the-line machines then had to pulled by cows and donkeys. That's what this space shuttle ad is.

Jan. 4, 2013

Hey there

So here we are, in 2013. Glad you made it.

New Year's Day held good omens for me--3 bucks walking through my backyard in the morning, a woodpecker pecking away near my driveway, and I actually made it to the health club for a workout.

My resolution this year is to learn Hebrew. I just did lesson #1 on Rosetta Stone. I was able to match the spoken phrases to the pictures fairly well, but I don't know how much I retained. It was just "the girl/boy/woman/man is drinking/eating/running/swimming/reading/writing" basically.

In order to not forget stuff I really need to commit to a regular schedule of lessons, but I hate committing to things when I don't have some outside force holding me to it. This is one of those things I need to improve. Sigh.