Summer!

So the summer solstice came and passed, and the weather is finally warming up. Like a warm, wet blanket warming up. :P

The year's half over and I still feel like I've done nothing [notable], and I'm ok with that. Meh. I'm on par with my reading challenge over on GoodReads.com (though, just barely. And I'm ok with that), finally got my first tattoo and just waiting to get it filled in with color, and I haven't been geocaching as much as I'd like to. It also doesn't help that I work weekends when the majority of the events I want to attend are (not just geocaching events, events in general).

I've also been wanting to blog more, actually writing stuff because I use to really enjoy that (still do), and I've just gotten out of the habit of doing it!

Hope your week's been treating you well!

ROAD TRIP!!! (sort-of) - A Wee Geocaching Adventure

Yay for blogging again...

So, the inspiration for this post is Geocaching.com's summer Road Trip 2015. (If you're new to Geocaching, here's a Geocaching 101 for you!)

Geocaching.com this summer decided to shake things up a little. The last couple of summers, August specifically, they have done a souvenir thing that you could "earn" for your profile (one year was find a cache every day in August you'll get the souvenir, the other year was "find this kind of cache" and you'll get the souvenir). This year to celebrate 15 years of geocaching, they decided to spread the fun out over the ENTIRE SUMMER! So every two weeks, beginning June 19th the website has enabled a new "challange" for it's users to get more shiny for their user profiles.

I'm excited, this year you have 5 different types of caches to find and earn a total 6 souvenirs. . So far, I got 3 of the 5. What's nice is everyone has until Sept 2nd to find the 5 different caches.

What's the kind of caches you're finding, you ask? I'll tell you! :D








On June 19th, you had to find a cache that had at least 10 favorite points, earning you "Fun With Favorites". Favorite points is usually a good indication of a nifty/cool/awesome cache (sometimes it's for the journey to the cache - like walking along a trail with the most spectacular views).

July 3rd brought us together, attending a geocaching event earned you "Meet Your Road Trip Crew". :) Had fun discovering a nice out of the way winery and a new favorite wine. ~.~

The most recent one, starting on July 17th, "Let's Get Extreme", was finding a cache that had a difficulty level or terrain level of 5 (caches are rated out of 5 on how much of a challenge it is, mentally or physically - a 5 terrain (or T5 if you want to get technical), you should have some sort of safety gear, like hard helmets and spelunking gear).



The next two are coming up on July 31st and August 14th will round out the summer fun. July 31st is "High Five for the Earth" - getting an Earth Cache or a geocaching event where you "Cache In - Trash Out" (i.e. clean up trash as you geocache). And August 14th is "Putting on Your Thinking Cap" for finding a Mystery Cache.

I will admit the "Let's Get Extreme" had me a little worried, only b/c I was afraid I would be trying to find this one by myself.  ~.~ Luckily I got a friend who caches as well to come with me and discovered it relatively quickly (if she wasn't there, I would have left sooner after looking for a short time. Took us about 15 min before I found it, granted it should have taken us a bit longer, but I would have walked away a lot sooner than that by myself).

My friend and I went to a near by National Park to find a couple more caches and to hike a little to an overlook with an awesome view. Well worth it in the heat and sweating buckets.

And in case if you were wondering about the different cache types, they can be found here.

Winter Is Here!!!

So it snowed today for the first time this season (and is still falling as I write this). It seems summer more or less fled the scene and winter took over, all while fall wasn't looking.

I've made a little headway in finding mys state's Geocaching Geo-Star but not much (compared to some).  Just need to get out there and actually do it. There were one or two I tried but couldn't find, in part to my GPSr's signal bouncing all around. Go figure. Been waiting to find the unfound ones when some/most of the leaves have fallen off the trees to get a better signal.

GeoWoodstock XIII is coming up in roughly 6 months, and want to go. :) 

Knitting has taken over my book reading obsession at the moment, if only because the holiday season is encroaching. :look

Plotsy People Being....Well, Plotsy

So, I've decided to not only do ONE state's 50 "Mystery" Caches, but a neighboring one too. I must be sadistic for "solving" them.  I think this type of thing is called GeoArt, where caches are laid out/placed to form a certain design on the map. Like the state ones, they form a star, I've seen an alien and a snoopy design. Go figure.

I know I'm not up to that level yet, creating GeoArt, but definitely up for placing a couple caches myself.  The fun part is coming up with them and finding good hiding spots.

Huzzah!

It's been a while since I've written anything more than my name, anywhere. I figured I'd get back into the groove with talking a little about Geocaching!

I joined the website, Geocaching.com, back in mid-April 2010, but hadn't done anything beyond joining. Roughly 2 years after that, I actually started participating in finding these Geocaches or Caches (for short).  I didn't realize then what an addiction it would become!!!

Roughly 272 caches and 2+ active caching years later, I can't get enough of it.  Now I want to place caches for others to find, from simple nano caches to large constructs that I've made myself.

I will admit, there are some pretty clever or interesting geocaches out there. Like the Tin Man (GC3JAY4) or Heads of State (GCE041). There are personal goal(s) each cacher has, whether it's solving a whole bunch of mystery caches, or trying to find at least ONE cache in each state, or even having a long streak of finding stuff (either quantity of caches found in one day or longest stretch of back to back days of finding caches).

Personally, I am on a kick of solving some mystery caches, specifically the 50 State Star ones.  And I'm also trying to come up with creative ways of releasing some trackable items.

Geocaching

I will admit there are some things that when I initially hear them I AM interested in them, but not necessarily gun-ho "LETS DO IT" sort of interested. (Some times it takes friends who've joined after I did to get me involved :look )

Geocaching has been one of these things.

Geocaching is probably best described as "modern" treasure hunting. From the site: "Geocaching is a real-world, outdoor treasure hunting game using GPS-enabled devices. Participants navigate to a specific set of GPS coordinates and then attempt to find the geocache (container) hidden at that location."

I will I have been recently trying to organize local caches so I can collect as many as possible in as few trips as possible. 

Lets see how well this works (and how long it lasts). ~.~

Back in the Saddle Again.....

It's about time I start blogging again.

I will say that in the last 6+ months I've had some adventures.  I've flew to Colorado for a party organised through an online book club I belong to, I've gotten into Geocaching (I signed up on a website that hosts lists of caches, but never did anything until CO), knitted some stuff (currently working on a scarf loosely inspired from the Wheel of Time series), planning a one day, round trip bus trip to NC to just ride up with a friend who's visiting me for a week, the two of us are going to a local event (same online book club people, just an unofficial event that some how has people coming from as far away as GA attending.  Ya, did I mention it's a "local" party?), and job hunting for FT work. :P

I will say, I think I am more into the IDEA of Geocaching than Geocaching itself. Idk how true it is but so far, its true.