The Boy Scores an FTF!

I got an E-mail notification of a newly placed geocache only 4.5 miles from home. I wasn't able to go after it right away so The Boy and I headed out about two hours later. It was in a sports park and there were surprisingly few people near ground zero.

I didn't take the camera this time because I wanted to try videotaping our geocaching adventure and posting it here on the website. I was considering this to be an opportunity to practice video posting before the upcoming flash mob event.

The Boy made the find easily enough and we were pleasantly surprised to find what Webfoot would call a "Virgin Log." I got pretty good footage of the find and of The Boy opening the log and releasing "that smell"

I was all fired up about the idea of creating video geocaching posts. I even made another video. It is a "How to make a geocache" type video and was prepared to post that one as well.

I felt like a real Speilberg. Now time for some editing. This is where the trouble started. My Sony Digital camcorder does not have USB, it uses I Link. My computer doesn't have I'Link. They don't make adapters between the two because USB and firewire are two different technologies and are not compatible. (VHS vs. Beta maybe?)

Well, I'm smarter than silly electronic gadgets. I found an A/V out to RCA cable and plugged the camcorder in my recordable DVD player. I copied the movie clip onto a DVD-R as I laughed and pointed at the Sony. So, the genius pops the newly created DVD-R into my DVD drive in the computer and the computer says, "OK, genius, what do you want me to do with this blank DVD-R?"

It turns out I'm no genius.(big surprise!) The computer doesn't recognize the format the DVD player records in or something. I guess I need to find an A/V out to USB adapter????. If there are any techie readers out there, please offer up some suggestions. I don't want to buy a firewire hub for the computer because I no longer have money.

The Boy and I picked up a few more caches after the FTF. We got seven that day. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures to help tell my story and to entertain those that don't actually read all of this. I have some great video of the whole thing though. As soon as I can claim victory over the Sony, I'll be able to share it. I really need to get it straightened out before the event in May. I would love to be able to share our fun with all of you.

I will tell the story of one of our other finds. We went after another cache in this very large sports park. I remembered a couple stories from the last event about this cache and the fact that it was up high. We approached a large solid metal gate that guarded some very important dumpsters. I figured it must be under the cap at the top of the fence post. They must have made this gate high so that people couldn't launch unauthorized trash over it. The post I was looking at was probably 12 feet off the ground.

I lifted The Boy over my head so he could search for it. It was difficult to maneuver him and he quickly said, "OK, let me down." I said, "You didn't even look for it." He opened his hand to reveal the cache. It was one of those nano caches that is about the size of a pencil eraser with a magnet in it. Good job, The Boy. I signed the log and it was time to replace the miniature treasure. This time up, The Boy decide to become very ticklish and did a lot of squirming and laughing. He finally stuck the thing back in it's hidey hole and we laughed our way back to the car.

That's what's great about geocaching with The Boy. He turns a nano in the park into a memorable experience.

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!