Happy Geocaching in 2013!

On this first day of 2013 we are excited because we are preparing our own cache to be hidden. We finally decided we were ready to venture into another aspect of geocaching and have taken some time to agree on a location for our first hide. We are keeping it in our neighbourhood so it will be easy to maintain. This first one is not elaborate, just a small cache hidden in a park, but we wanted to keep the first one simple. (The littlest goat has plans for a much more amazing cache that needs a particular location and lots of time to set up.)

As for finding caches, Little Goat and I took a trip to Vancouver for Christmas and I managed to drag my Mom out for a few quick searches. My Mom lives in Surrey and we started with a short walk in a park in Clover Valley to find GC23MZ3 Clover Valley Prairie. As it had been raining all week and this was the first sunny day, everything was wet and mucky and that is also the condition the cache was found in. Although the cache was a plastic box and the contents were in a plastic bag, the log book was soaked and everything was damp.
Next we took a little jaunt over to The Fernery GC23H2H. This one was nicely camouflaged and required a bit of a search but we came up with the goods. Nice waterproof container kept the contents dry and tradeable. We signed the log and replaced it quickly with muggles coming our way.
We then stopped briefly at Ball Park Tour #4 but it was too close to a private home and we were uncomfortable rooting around in the trees. We decided to skip it and move on to Pace On By GC24JA5 which is at the Cloverdale race track. We had just started looking around when another cacher joined us. She had only 8 finds so far and was pleased when I made the find as it was in a place she hadn't thought to look. We pulled out a very wet piece of paper and made our best attempts to sign it before hiding everything again.
Mom decided it was time to head home as she was getting chilled so that was the last cache of a very good year of caching. We managed to get 136 caches this year, our best yet. I know many cachers who say it is not about the numbers but about the experiences and the places you go, but it is still nice to see the numbers go up and to check your stats page and see how you are doing.
Once we get our cache published and ready for finding, come take a look and tell us what you think. It is called Scooby's Cache GC43KNV and we are looking forward to your feedback.

Summer trip to Vancouver and a little caching

I had hoped to reach 300 cache finds by the end of the summer (I know, its not about the numbers!!) but our recent trip to Vancouver and back  has blown that goal out of the water! We may be heading for 400 before the end of the year!!

My Mom came to Calgary for a visit at the beginning of August, flying out here on the 8th and spending a week joining in on our activities. Then my daughter and I packed up the truck and drove her back to Vancouver and stayed for our own visit. While we were in Vancouver we went to White Rock beach for an afternoon of playing in the sand, collecting pretty rocks (not to keep) and visiting with friends.

Imagine our surprise to find out that there was an earth cache just metres away from where we sat?! So we walked over to the White Rock (GCP6M8) and took photos of it and logged our find!

Like many Earthcaches, this is a glacial erratic that was left behind when the glaciers receded from this area. It has been painted white to aid in navigation as it can be seen for a long way out to sea and from satellite photos. Finding an Earthcaches always brings a geology/ecology/earth science lesson with it and makes geocaching that much more interesting. Usually to log an earth cache you need to answer some questions about what you see and take a photo of the cache to prove you were there since there isn't a log book.

The next day we went with some friends to the PNE (Pacific National Exhibition) for the day. We had two 8 year old girls along and spent most of our time following them from ride to ride as they tested their mettle on swinging, sliding, twisting, turning contraptions! By the smiles and shrieks, fun was the order of the day! After a quick bite for dinner, I explained geocaching to everyone and then we set off to find the one cache that is hidden on the PNE grounds. (GC3APCA) Hastings Park Cache is located in a nice treed area with several walkways surrounding a pond. The reeds of the pond hid a few ducks and a heron the day we were there and we could hear a frog as well. It is a welcome respite from the noise of the fair grounds and offers time for digestion before heading back to the rides.

Our next adventure was more laid back as we went to visit my sister in North Vancouver for lunch and a few caches. She is a new cacher and had dropped off a travel coin in a cache and then had decided she'd like me to pick it up and take it on our trip back to Calgary. However when we visited the cache, the coin had been taken but not logged. We are hoping the previous cachers were just inexperienced with geocoins and will log it soon, but there is always the chance that they have decided the coin is something they want to keep. Unfortunately, this happens frequently to geocoins and travel bugs and is one of the drawbacks in letting go of these objects. They may be taken by collectors or muggled by non-geocachers.


In my next post I'll tell you all about the caches we found on our drive home from Vancouver including cache #300!! Keep reading!