Happy New Year :)

The story thus far...

When I last blogged, I was trying to do the "31 days of Geocaching" challenge.

Short version: I failed.

Long version: I was up north in Troy, NY getting Seth settled at college. I was able to find caches the first 2 days. The first was the Travel Bug hotel I mentioned in the last post. The other 2 were on the next day. One was a 'Virtual' cache. Virtuals are usually places that are historically significant, or there is some kind of marker or plaque telling about the location or a person, or something like that. The cache owner poses questions on the cache page. You go to the spot, read the material and find the answers. You send e-mail through the Geocaching.com site to the owner with your answers and claim a Find on the cache page. This particular find was a plaque honoring a WWII veteran that became a local congressman after the war.

The other find was a 'Mystery' cache, also called 'Puzzle' caches or 'Unknowns'. There are a variety of these kinds of caches. This one involved finding the first stage--a normal container. In the container were coordinates for the second stage, and once at that location, you had to answer some questions based on the information available there. This cache was at a Shaker site and was about the figure of Mother Lee. Basically, all I know about Shakers I learned from looking for this cache *chuckle* I had a great time and had a nice walk, but I was a little nervous that I would take too long and the site would close before I could return to my car. It all worked out though, and I had another day down in my quest for the 31-day streak.

Not much shakin' here

The next day however, the dream came to an end :(  Seth and I finished up some last-minute shopping and went to his dorm. It was much busier! This was the day the majority of students were moving in and things were pretty crazy. We met all the RA's and the RD and Seth went up and down every hallway looking for fellow Slytherins (the dorm was Hogwarts themed, where all the students were divided into the 4 houses and Seth and his roommate were Slytherins). I had to drive back to Boston, so I didn't want to stay too late but I didn't want to leave either :( I used the excuse of wanting to meet his roommate (and I did actually want to meet him), so I stuck around until about noon. But the roommate didn't show up by then and I really did need to get going. I said my goodbyes and tried not to cry (too much). By the way, we still have yet to meet "John". I'm halfway convinced he doesn't exist :p

I had found a cache listing at a small park not too far from the campus so I thought I'd give it a shot and see a little of Troy besides RPI. The park was very pretty, with a waterfall spilling into a gorge. The cache was supposed to be just off the trail that led down to the bottom. I couldn't find it and couldn't stay too long to search, so I headed to the highway. There was a series of caches at every rest stop on the Mass Pike, so I planned on looking for those. I attempted 3 of them and came up empty handed each time. By the 3rd one I was getting frustrated and also anxious about the time. I didn't want to be driving after dark--I can get lost enough in the daytime! So I drove on through without any further stops until I reached my hotel in Quincy. Once there I called Zach and Des to let them know I had arrived, and looked for listings of nearby caches :)  There was one not too far away and when they showed up we all went looking for it. Zach was ready to get all hardcore and go climbing in the trees, but the difficulty and terrain level on the listing didn't seem to require that much effort, and from the hedge at Ground Zero (the spot where the GPS coordinates match up with the cache listing) I was pretty sure it was something small hidden in the bushes. After 10 minutes or so, and the light fading fast, I abandoned the search--streak over :(

The waterfall is hiding behind the trees

I had a great visit with Zach and Des, and I was able to find another Virtual the next day at a very nice park on the waterfront.

The next day I was flying home, and I had a list ready for the drive from JAX to Gainesville. The morning started out fine--I woke up on time, got to the airport with plenty of time to spare. Then I got to airport security and found my iPad was missing! Ack! I came this close --> <-- to accusing the TSA of stealing it when they reminded me of the app that lets you find your iPad from your iPhone and vice-versa. When I used that I found that I had left it at the hotel. Doh! I was so embarrassed/relieved/mad at myself. The manager at the hotel was great though and shipped it back to me. I got it about a week later.

The flight was uneventful, but when I landed in Jacksonville it was raining. I took my time at the airport retrieving my luggage and had some lunch, but it was still raining when I went to get on the road home. I tried for some caches anyway on the drive, but I found that the geocaching app on my phone really doesn't like rain or even heavy clouds. The coordinates were bouncing all over, and the one I thought for sure I'd find due to the description was also a DNF (did not find).

I ended up back at the house 0-for-5.

I did get some finds the next couple of days, but at that point the 31-days was a bust and I gave up on the remainder of the month. I was ready to give it a rest for the time being until the weather cooled off and the mosquitos died down.

To be continued...