Morning Geocaching and Another FTF

I woke up around 6:00 this morning and booted up the computer to see if there were any new caches published. As my 8th grade history teacher, Mr. McKinley would say, "Well lookie lookie, the dog pooped a cookie." There was a new geocache published about 9 miles from home. I loaded up the GPS, grabbed some travel bugs, filled up my coffee mug and was on the road.

The roads in Temecula were empty this morning, however, the traffic lights were turning red just to spite me. I got through the phantom traffic and was quickly ascending the road that leads into the hills just West of town. As I was rounding one corner, two coyotes were just entering the bush after having just crossed ahead of me. I was thankful they were safely in the greenery and not tattooed to my bumper.

I pulled onto a side road and then off into the dirt just as my GPS beeped the announcement of my arrival to the cache area. The arrow on my Garmin Etrex Vista was pointing to a tree just off the road. It wasn't long before I had the small mint container in my hands. I opened the log to reveal an unsigned empty page. It was my first opportunity to put my new signature first to find log entry down on paper. "Hick@Heart was first to paint this blank canvas. FTF!!!" The FTF prize was a $1 casino chip from nearby Pechanga Casino. I think I'll make a travel bug out of it. There was also a geocoin that I picked up and I left a travel bug dog tag. This cache was just off of my favorite kind of road. The type of road that I don't know where it goes, but it looks like it would be really fun to go find out.

There were a couple of other caches up here that I needed to grab and I had another travel bug that I needed to drop off. I was soon thumbing through the contents of an ammo can named Pam's Betty Boop. I grabbed a couple of bugs from here to take down to San Diego geocaching next week. This cache boasted a spectacular view of the Temecula Valley. The sun had risen above the mountains to the East and the entire valley was awash in it's power. There were hot air balloons carrying passengers over Temecula's wine country and I felt like a giant peering down over a miniature city. I cold also see the 10,834 foot peak of Mount San Jacinto and the 11,499 foot peak of San Gorgonio. The fact that I have not climbed these mountains will not stay true for long as I am planning to summit San Jacinto later this year. I stayed and enjoyed the view and enjoyed the feeling of finally being HUGE!

From there, I moved to another cache that was a camouflage ammo can hiding in the bushes. I picked up another travel bug which turned out to be only half of a travel bug. I'll post about that as I get more information from the owner.

It was really nice to be out in the hills before the heat of the day. It's been in the 90's and a welcomed cool down is on it's way. I picked up four caches, a geocoin and 3 travel bugs. I love being out in nature. I guess the moniker "Hick@Heart" is pretty fitting.

I love an ammo can in the weeds!

A view of the road that brought me up here.

Hot air balloons over the valley.
San Jacinto on the left.

Solo Geocaching

The Boy was in no mood for geocaching today. I tried everything to convince him it would be a good time. Who wouldn't want to hang out with me, right? Ok, well maybe I don't blame him. I knew that dragging around a 6 year old that didn't want to be there wouldn't be that much fun so I did some solo caching.

I had the Fozzie bear travel bug that I wanted to drop off so I started my trip at a regular sized cache. This was a 50 cal ammo can right next to a business. By right next to, I mean RIGHT NEXT TO. Right at the large glass windows near the front of the business. The cache owner got permission from the owners to put it there. Some logs mention employees coming out to give hints as to the location of the cache. I dropped off Fozzie and picked up Doug. So it was me, Doug and a list of nearby caches. Ready for action!

I picked up a bunch of caches today. A few were skirt lifters. There were some that were "hide a keys" stuck to various street signs. I even got 2 out of storm drains. One cache was a piece of trash. I'm not sure how I feel about a geocache hidden inside a rusty old soup can and thrown in a field. I guess an ammo can could be considered junk too. It was somewhat of a tough find. It's amazing how you can completely overlook a piece of trash.

There were plenty of caches that had something interesting to check out. A couple were at some nice fountains. One of them was at this odd rocket sculpture. Those are the urban caches I like. I know where Lowe's is thank you very much. I did not know where this rocket thing was and I was glad to have found it. I even got a picture of Doug at one of the fountains. Since Doug is just a useless plastic head that tours the world, (kind of like Joan Rivers) he couldn't get any pictures of me.

One cache was a micro, hidden in a huge oak tree. As I'm walking up to this giant tree I'm thinking, "Great, there's a micro hidden in there." After a couple of minutes, I spotted the match container hanging in the branches. It was wrapped on with wire and you could only remove the lid and retrieve the log. I quickly found that this tree was infested with ants. Lots of ants. As I'm signing the log I could hear large dogs barking and they sounded like they were getting close. So here I am, trying to get this log back in the container. The branches are trying to poke my eyes out, the ants have claimed me as their territory, the dogs are going to eat me and I have convinced myself that the soft ground cover is filled with rattle snakes. Basically, I'm freaking out. I got the log back in and was a big man again once I was safely back in my car. The only problem was that the ants came with me. I picked them off and was on my way.

Today was my biggest day geocaching as far as numbers are concerned. I've had bigger days as far as bonding with my son is concerned. I had 19 finds, one DNF and one did not attempt. It was nice to be by myself for a while. Even though today's geocaches were urban, they were all in industrial areas and no one was around. Just me and Doug. Thanks, Doug.

We decorated some eggs tonight and I'll share a picture of that too.

The ant infested oak

Another fountain

My new swath of smileys.

I took this picture to try and look natural as muggles passed. It turned out kind of nice.

Happy Easter!

Find My Secret Geocache

"Find My Secret" is my latest geocaching hide. You may remember my camouflaged ammo can. Well, The Boy and I want and hid it yesterday. After our geocaching adventure, we climbed a local hill and found the perfect spot. The camo did a nice job of blending the can into the surroundings.

There were a couple of old exercise bikes on the top of the hill. I have no idea how or why someone would drag these up here but they were way too big for me to CITO. The wild flowers were beautiful and there were a few nice sized cactus bushes up there.

"Find My Secret" is not a normal cache. It's a mystery cache. The idea is that there is a travel bug of mine floating around out there called "My Secret". The travel bug is a container that has the actual coordinates of the cache inside. The rules are that once you get the coordinates out of the bug, you have to move it to a new cache. That makes it a little bit of a challenge to track it down.

I put one of those electronic 20 questions in there as the FTF prize. Have you seen those things? You think of something, the toy asks you questions that you answer yes or no. Then it guesses what you were thinking of. It is very fun to play with. I find myself going how did it know that with those odd questions it asks?

The cache was published late last night. Our local reviewer works very quickly to get caches published and seems to always do it at night. I held onto the travel bug until the cache was published. I didn't want someone stumbling on it early. Today, I started receiving notes from local cachers looking forward to its release.

I had my hiking boots and GPSr in the car and had a cache in mind to make the drop. When I got near it, I changed into the boots and headed into a small wooded area. I quickly discovered that I needed to approach from a different angle. When I got back on the road, I noticed that there was a large group of people eating lunch in a field about 50 feet from ground zero. They were probably wondering what this guy in a dress shirt, Dockers and hiking boots was doing tromping around in the trees. I couldn't leave the bug there so I headed off to another cache that I thought might be large enough to hold the container. I found the cache, added a smiley to my list of finds and dropped off the bug.

When I got home to log the bug drop, I found that the cache I put the bug in was a Snake & Rooster cache. Snake was one of the ones that had sent me a note saying they were looking forward to the bug drop. I guess they get a bit of an advantage but that cache has been around since September 2005.

This should be a fun cache to watch. hopefully as the summer geocaching picks up, the bug will really start moving. I wish I could say that the idea for the cache was all mine. Tonka_Boy actually told me about a cache like this in the Minneapolis area. Today, Snake told me that there was a similar cache in San Diego, but this is the first of its type in Temecula. So far the feedback is very positive.

Edit: 3/17/08 Congrats to Eric and Hill on the FTF on this cache! Enjoy the 20 questions game!

Pictures from placing the cache are below.

Weekend Geocaching

It was supposed to rain Saturday afternoon and Sunday. I had quite the honeydo list and didn't think I'd get out geocaching this weekend. I got done with the chores and the rain was still north of LA so The Boy and I headed out.

To reach the first cache we just listened to the GPSr and went down the dirt roads. The road soon became steep and was washed out. We were in the race Escort this time and I think I was at the limit of it's off road capabilities.

We were soon on a normal road and signing our first log. The wind from the approaching storm was strong and cold. I decided against going after the caches requiring hikes in the hills. Instead, we just grabbed a few that were close to parking.

We didn't find any real spectacular caches but it was nice to sign a few logs. I made some finds on difficult micro geocaches that made me feel pretty good. These are the type that I would have missed a few short months ago.

On the way home I snapped the above picture. You can see our shadows were long and the clouds were getting dark. I like this road because I don't know where it goes. I found myself singing John Denver, "Country road, take me home......" We found 5 out of 5 geocaches and made it home safely. A little while later, I was watching the lightning flash across the sky and the rain finally hit us.

When I woke up this morning, I was surprised to see the sky peeking through the clouds. I needed to go back out. It seems like it just rains travel bugs out in PJ's neck of the woods. They have spotted 15 trackables since March 1st (two weeks) and I've only found 4 since December. I ran a pocket query of caches with trackables in them that were close to me. I found one that had a Green Jeep TB. I had still not spotted a Jeep TB and decided I needed to go after this cache.

The Boy and I hiked out and found the first of three caches hidden along a mile long bit of trail. It was beautiful out here today. The wildflowers were brilliant yellow, purple and white. In our second find was the Jeep TB and a Fozzie Bear TB. I audibly said "Yes!" when I opened the cache container. Fozzie is owned by 2Bugs. I've actually been to their website before and this was my first 2Bugs find. These folks LOVE trackables. They have spotted 1470 (yes that's one THOUSAND) and they own 1089 trackables. Check out their site. It's pretty nice.

After our hike we grabbed three more in Hemet. One of which was one of those nanos that is only abut 1/4 inch long. On the way home we stopped and hid my latest camouflaged ammo can. I'll explain that one in a separate post.

It turned into a beautiful day. The wildflowers were simply amazing. Over the whole weekend, we made 11 of 11 finds. The race Escort also made it through the weekend and is resting comfortably in the garage.

Camouflage Ammo Can For Geocaching

I'm not feeling too hot today so no geocaching for me. That doesn't mean I can't do a little work on my next geocache. I've had this ammo can for a couple weeks. I got it at the surplus store for 4 bucks.

I started off by grabbing some ultra flat camouflage spray paint a Wal Mart. I got black, brown and olive. I put a coat of olive over the whole ammo can to cover up the yellow stenciling. Then I cut a leaf off of a fake plant from inside the house. (Don't tell anyone.) I laid the leaf on the can and hit it with some of the brown and black spray paint.



I think it turned out pretty good. The whole idea is to break up the shape of the ammo can. The real test will be once it's outside in the natural light. I've seen some that were solid black and are actually pretty hard to see.

Now I just need to find some cool swag to fill it with. I know the perfect hilltop that is in need of a cache. Tell me what you think of this new ammo can.

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.

Geocaching on Rawson Road

When I woke up this morning I decided it was about time to go drop Fish Tank in a cache. I also needed to send Brianna's Geocoin on its way. I saw that my cache total was at 58 finds. That means all I have to do is go grab two nearby caches and I'm at 60. Well, If I'm going to grab 2 I might as well grab 12 right? Check out the string of caches right down the street on Rawson Road.

Rawson Road is the old road into Hemet. The entrance is only 2 miles from my house. This is a beautiful country road bordered on one side by Rawson Ranch and on the other by an ecological preserve. The only thing that isn't private property is the road itself. I posted my first ever DNF on this road, and since becoming a Groundspeak premium member, I've learned there are a lot more caches here than was previously visible to me.

The boy and I actually drove to the farthest (6 miles) from home and worked our way back. When we stopped at our first cache a local resident stopped by to tell us the lady that lives across the street is crabby and her husband just passed away. I could smell the rural neighbor politics. He gave us permission to go cruise around his property. We might have done that if there was a cache on his property and if I hadn't recently seen a clip from Deliverance. We grabbed the cache and headed on our way.


The dirt road was really nice in some areas and in others it was badly washed out from all the recent rain. There were a few long stretches of washboard road that tries to shake your brains out. Most of the caches here are micros and nanos. Imagine that, nanos out in the country with no less than a bizillion places to hide them. At one, I was walking and looking at my GPSr when the boy holds up the cache and asks, "Is this it?" Yep, good one, the boy.


In one spot there is this really old abandoned hose built out of rocks. You can't go up to the house but it is quite a sight from the road anyway. And, of course, there is a stinking nano-cache nearby. We spent some time on the three DNF's for today. When you walk up to ground zero, and it is a huge metal fence blocking the road and somewhere a little tiny camouflaged container is stuck to it, how much time are you really going to spend on it? I know my brother suffers from "mocrosiscannotfindus" and this would have been a therapeutic trip for him!!

The views were awesome today. The recent rains have turned the area along Rawson Road into a green wonderland. Here is a nice shot taken along the way.


We did not meet our goal of 12 finds today, we were stuck with 11. That is still my biggest day of caching so far. On the way home we climbed the hill up to one of my caches to drop off Fish Tank and to see how my ammo can was holding up to all the rain. The cache looked good and the boy took some nice picture from up there. I'll put some here. My favorite is the last one. NICE!