100 Finds, The Geocaching Century Mark

The day is upon us. Team Hick@Heart has found 100 geocaches. Today was a beautiful day. Perfect for geocaching. I mapped out some hides and The Boy and I were off.

We started at a cache called Accuracy. It is not really necessary to sign the log. The idea is to put your GPS on a specific spot and log info such as the weather, how many satellites you are receiving, how strong your signal is and what latitude and longitude are you seeing.

Next we hit a relatively simple mathematical mystery cache. It was nice to be out on the rural roads rather than in town. We found one cache that had a pretty fun container. I've seen these on line but this is the first time I found one. It looks just like some poop in the grass but when you turn it over there is a cylinder holding a log. A log within a log if you will! Ah, the things you pick up/reach into while geocaching.

We climbed partway up a hill to find Hillside Hotwheels. Finding an ammo can under a bush just never gets old. We found a nice geocoin in there. A guy called PennyPacker from Etiwanda, California released 18 of these while on a 3400 mile road trip. the coin shows the Western United States. this discovery added a nice new icon to my list of trackables found.

We grabbed a couple more semi urban micros. At least these were in a quiet part of small town Menifee. I also logged two more DNF's while in this area. So here we are sitting at 99 finds. It's time to get the big one.

I had solved Magical Mystery Tour earlier in the week. I had to rely on a hint from the owner. There is no way I would have gotten on the right path. This cache is actually on my front page of caches closest to my house so I had to stare at it all the time. I knew this was the one. The Boy and I headed over to the area and began climbing the rocks. I finally made the find. this cache had not been found in almost a year. Everything looked good however a spider had taken up residence inside. I signed the log and made note of the milestone find. The Boy and I took some pictures tryng to use our hands to make the number one hundred. After 6 or 7 shots I felt I had it. It was only after I got home to look at the pictures that I realized we were holding up the number 001. I guess I'll have to make that up when I reach 200!

I'm happy to have reached 100 geocaches. I'm sure the urge to hunt the parking lot skirt lifters will subside. (For a couple months until I get close to 200!) The boy and I really enjoy geocaching together. Geocaching is all up in his head too. The other day while walking into a store, he stopped to examine a pay phone for geocaches. He said, "No treasure there." and moved on. Good job, The Boy!

Here are some more pictures from today.

Someone Give Me A Geocaching Trail, Please!

I t has been raining pretty steadily and is supposed to continue through the weekend. I wanted grab a few caches but I know the trails are going to be way too sloppy and I had my three year old daughter with me.

I had mapped out some more urban type caches that looked like numbers pay dirt. We got a break in the rain so me and the girl headed out. I picked up a few but nothing very exciting. Some of the caches in the area I was seem like someone just wanted to put a cache somewhere and did just that.

I approached several and did not even attempt them. One was in a Post Office parking lot. I don't like the idea of snooping around federal property. Another was on a guard rail right next to a busy road with a 55 MPH speed limit. No thanks.

I picked up four but my desire for the wilderness only got stronger. I have a geocoin that I scored as an FTF prize a while back. I've been virtually dropping it in all the caches I find. That does a couple of cool things for me. It logs the 'cache to cache mileage' and it generates a map. The map shows all the points I've visited and shows lines connecting them. It's kind of fun to look at every once in a while.

It's raining again. Hopefully we get another break tomorrow. Nine more to reach 100 finds. I already have that special cache picked out for the milestone.