Eleven Happy School Books

WARNING: The following blog entry contains spoilers to the caches listed within. If you feel you may be caching in Tucson anytime soon and don't want to ruin your hunt, please proceed with caution.

NOTE: Following the advice of my new friend, Erika Jean, I've removed the cache coordinates from under the titles, and instead made a link to the cache entry on geocaching.com. Without a membership (which is free, by the way), one will merely see a series of question marks for the coordinates on that site. I originally chose to insert the coordinates here for style, but it's not worth the fact that a non-cacher can easily get to the site without even being a member of geocaching.com. Thanks, Erika!

This entry was delayed for almost two weeks, mostly due to the fact that we were without internet service for awhile.

We set out on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day for another bunch of caches. The whole family came this time, which is always a plus for me.

School House Rock

First up was a cache that was reported as vandalized and almost completely destroyed. I checked it again and saw that some kind soul had re-hid the cache and added a new logbook to it. We set out to find it, and did so quite easily. We found half of a dollar bill inside, and maybe one or two more small items. We added a bunch of things to the cache (some kiddie bingo boards, a Sylvester toy, and a Disney hockey duck toy), and took nothing. The cache needed help. I did also notice that the container needs to be replaced, since there's a large crack in the lid.

Two of the Terrors striking poses.

Allen's Happy Spot (aka Allerilla the Gorilla)

Here is a cache that we attempted to find a few weeks ago and failed in the attempt. (Click here for more info... it's the second to last entry.) I had found previous logs which better illuminated the sketchy hint of "Pull up." That hint means "pull up your car... and stand on it." We made sure to bring the car.

The last time we had been there, I noticed a rock on top of the carport. We figured it would be under the rock. Sarah and I stood on the car. I could see the rock, but couldn't reach it. The point was moot, for I could see there was nothing under it. (I did worry that the cache might BE the rock. Some clever caches are hollowed-out rocks with a log sheet inside.) I started to wonder if it might be stuffed in the little crenellations on the structure's roof.

Hmmm...

Once down from the car, Sarah spotted it.

This was fun, and I'm glad we finally found it, but the height really isn't fair. What if the cacher was on a bike, or on foot?

123 Book Exchange

I was floored. We PASSED this cache on the way to the Electric Substation cache the day before, and I had no idea! I hadn't loaded it in as a waypoint on my GPS yet, so it didn't show on the map screen. Here's the map from the previous entry, now with the 123 Book Exchange cache circled (gotta love my work with Microsoft Paint, huh?).

This is a large-sized cache, and the first of it's size that we've found. As I walked up to it, I knew exactly what it was. There were reports that the lock and key that the owner had installed were both missing, and had been for over a year. These reports are accurate. The top was heavy, but I was able to lift it up without too much effort. Voila!

This is me next to the cache, as Skylar walks up to check it out.

I knew this thing was full of books already (a "book exchange"), so I brought a few with us. The kids had fun picking out books. Just look at Skylar!

I found a book entitled, "Iguanodon." It's aimed for the child that loves dinosaurs, but Nikki plans on reading it to our green iguana, Fizban!

 And she really did. She's nuts! Unfortunately, Fizban wouldn't sit still for the whole story.

Here's a priceless picture. Kids reading... quietly. Ahhh....

We took What a Girl Wants (novel), The Early Bird (children's book), Bears in the Night (ditto), Dinosaurs Everywhere (ditto), and Iguanodon (ditto). We left Brain by Robin Cook, The Devil That Danced On the Water, a Robin Cook omnibus, and some toys: A Disney duck hockey player, and a Planet of the Apes toy. Reading and caching, combined into one great treasure hunt. We loved it!

Goes to Eleven

We just walked to this one from the 123 Book Exchange Cache. It was a pretty long walk, and once we got there, we saw this. Is this the cache?

The hint on the cache's page at geocaching.com is: "Remember this cache goes to eleven." (This is inspired by the mock documentary, "This is Spinal Tap.") You can see in the picture that there's a combination lock on this thing. We tried all different combinations. I was trying to select all the numbers that would add up to 11. As you can imagine, with three numbers, there would be quite a lot of combinations! Starting from 119, to 191, 182, 128, well it goes on and on. Sarah got it right by choosing "211." It goes TWO eleven! Smart kid!

Here's Sarah with the padded panel that was in front of the cache, and the Marvel cards she found inside.

I'm holding the log book, which brings me back to high school, since it's covered in heavy metal band logos! (Click the picture to make it bigger.) Sarah is holding the "Swag Log" and the cover to the cache container. Savannah has the dinosaur book that she got from the 123 Book Exhange cache. Skylar is holding the mini-skateboard that she got from this cache, and a rock.

We took Marvel cards, a mini-skateboard, a piglet figure, and a flashlight keychain. We left an elephant trunk mask, a girl figure, a pumpkin man, and a wind-up toy. We also found a travel bug in this cache, attached to a replica of a Gettysburg cannon. Nikki wanted this for herself, but I had to explain to her that both the travel bug and the item it's attached to is not to be kept, but rather to be passed on to another cache.

This turned out to be a really good hunt. Not only did we find four caches, our record in one day so far, (hey, the kids can only go for so long without getting tired or bored), but we found all the caches we set out to find.

Caches Found: 23

Enlisted Aircrew

 

WARNING: The following blog entry contains a spoiler to the cache listed within. If you feel you may be caching in Tucson anytime soon and don't want to ruin your hunt, please proceed with caution.

Enlisted Aircrew

Nikki and the kids had gone off to do something else, so I set off to find one cache during the late morning hours. The owner of the cache wanted to pay homage to his Enlisted Aircrew brothers and sisters, hence the name. I walked about two miles (since Nikki had the car), and turned down a side street. I crossed an alley and into a parking lot. I quickly homed in on what I thought to be the location. I was near a cactus, with an aloe plant next to it. I saw a few suspicious-looking rocks, but nothing was underneath them. Even when stepping between the two plants (very carefully), I saw nothing. My GPS was going all wonky on me for some reason. I don't know what could've been interfering with it. I walked back and forth about the area, and then it came to me. I remembered where we found the Safe Way... 234 cache. It was under part of a lamp post.

I opened the cache, and voila! An Altoids tin. (Very popular container.) I dropped the travel bug in (which was found in this entry), and signed the log. I headed on home. Just one find, but it was fun! I'll be keeping a sharp eye out for those skirt hides in the future.

The "skirt" is that square metal piece between the concrete base and the pole. It's hollow, and it can be pulled upwards, enabling people to leave objects in the empty space. Clever! You can see that cactus at the far right of the picture.

Chests o' Trinkets

WARNING: The following blog entry contains spoilers to the caches listed within. If you feel you may be caching in Tucson anytime soon and don't want to ruin your hunt, please proceed with caution.

We went geocaching again last Sunday, and the whole family came this time. We went after three caches, and we found them all. Read on...

The Safe Way ...234

Our first cache was nearby in the Safeway grocery store parking lot. That's all we knew. I parked in front and let my GPS tell me where to go. We soon learned that the cache was behind the store. We looked behind a tall metal cabinet thingie and found the skeletal remains of a bird. No picture for this one, sorry! The cache turned out to be underneath a metal plate on a lightpost. Nikki saw that it was loose and pulled it upwards. We found a little sardine tin underneath. We took some items and left some of our items, tiny as they were. They had to be, this thing was tiny. I forgot what the items were, sorry.

Cool Place

We got back in the car and headed for the next one. (I would just walk but everyone else gets tired quicker than I do.) This one was in a trail behind a bunch of houses. We found it pretty quickly under a tree. There was what looked like a birdhouse, but upon closer inspection, it most definitely was not. Observe:

The owner of this cache had built the semi-birdhouse himself. That's really neat! I also loved the way the "chest o' trinkets" looked, as well as the log book. These were all hand-made! Here's a picture of me holding both.

We also found our first travel bug in this cache. A travel bug is a trackable dog tag that you can place in a cache. It's usually attached to an item in some way. This allows you to track your item online. The item becomes a hitchhiker that is carried from cache to cache (or person to person) in the real world and you can follow its progress online. The one we found was in a small plastic bag with a lego.

This travel bug is "racing" with another travel bug. Whichever one goes the most miles wins. They both started in the U.K.! The travel bug with the yellow lego is till in the U.K. This red one made it to Florida, then up to Canada, back down to New Mexico, and ended up in Arizona - first partway up Mount Lemmon, and now down here near us. What a trip! The unfortuante thing is, our car is not so good. Otherwise we'd bring it at least 30 miles or something. I'll have to drop it off somewhere else locally. Maybe the next geocacher can do right by it.

Before we headed to the next cache, we decided to take a few miscellaneous pics.

The kiddos!

I really love this picture of me and my snookums!

Oh NO!!! Not Another ##@$$* Micro

Our last cache was a really tricky one. (Yes, this is really the name given to the cache!) It was located by the Pantano Wash, but farther south. Luckily for us, we didn't have do down in the wash, like last time. We looked so long for this damn thing. All that was around were little bushes and dirt. And my GPS was telling me I was 0.0 feet from the cache coordinates! Nikki and the kids kept kicking this log around, picking it up and putting it down, kicking it, etc. I picked it up...

The sun was in our eyes.

Wow! This guy carved a hole in the log and jammed an Altoids tin into it! There wasn't much inside since it was so small. And no wonder the coordinates were off. The Terrors were moving the log from it's original location, so when I was standing there, it was somewhere else. Geez...

We took some time to fool around and climb a tree. I'm a kid at heart, so I had to get in on the fun.  ;)

Yayyyyy!

Sarah, get that thing out of your mouth!

This is really good picture of Sarah.

"Honey, take the picture! Can't... hold on... much... longer...!"

We took the long way around (by mistake) when going back to the car. Skylar was really tired. She kept stopping and sitting down on the sidewalk. I wanted to hit some more caches, but we had to call it a day.