Grand Time

I know I normally post my geocaching adventures on my "Geobloggin'" blog but I am not 100% sure I that I want to continue running that site. There are a lot of reasons that I could go in to, but I won't at this time.

Sunday after church and lunch, I decided to do a little geocaching since I did not do any on Saturday. I actually had a plan (and stuck to it, too!) and did a minimum of driving, instead I hiked several miles around Breckenridge Park and Allen Station Park.

I started off the day grabbing a few park and grabs just a mile or two from home. One was right along Bethany Drive (Heritage Park and Grab) and the other was in a cemetary (Allen Cemetary). Neither took very long so I was able to get to the hardest geocache (4/4) of the day rather quickly. "Focus" was a team effort by a couple of local hardcore cachers, 9key and Team TechieGirl. I will not go into too much detail but I will say that it is very possible to find the cache without going to all the stages. As a matter of fact, I discovered the final on my way to stage one, but since I wanted the full effect of the hide, I followed it as intended. It was a very enjoyable find, although I cut my legs (I was wearing shorts) to ribbons.

After finding "Focus" I moved on to the two in Northwest Allen that I DNF'ed on a couple of weeks ago. It turns out the hider had made a rather large error on the coordinates so almost everyone struck out the first time. Armed with new coords, I found both hides (W.T.D. #1 and #2) in due time. Five down, and four to go.

The last four were new as well. Two of them ("Knot Low and Inside" and "Concrete Graveyard") were near enough to each other that I could walk from one to the other. "Concrete Graveyard" was the first one I went to. It was a large deposit of concrete slabs and rebar in the middle of a large wooded area. How long it has been there is anybody's guess, but finding the cache was not hard. I was surprised that so many people struck out on it previously.

After grabbing that one I hiked over to "Knot Low and Inside". That one was fun because it had a decoy and finding the actual hide took some time. It was a micro in the woods (that is getting to be old...) but a find is a find. On to the last two.

"Just a Frog on a Log" and "Old Tree" were in part of the nature preserve that I did not know was open to the public. After a short hike (1 mile round trip) I snagged two nice hides. "Frog on a Log" is a reincarnation of "Ribbitting", which was just a mile away. I always liked that cache and at the time I found it, thought it was pretty darn cute.

With nine geocaches down, I turned my attention to two terracaches in Richardson and some cache maintenance. The first one I looked for was, "What Did You Expect", a multipart terracache in Breckenridge Park. Stage one was a real bear because the coords were off my 50+ feet. The only way I was able to find it was with a hint but I am not too upset since this was the way a lot of people found it. After stage one was grabbed (reminded me of two geocaches I have grabbed, one in Plano and the other in Garland) I drove over to the official parking area and hoofed it to the final. I was on the wrong side of the creek (you always are on the wrong side of the creek in Breckenridge) so I had to find a safe place to cross to get to the final. After letting my GPSr setting down, I was able to find the metal marker on the ground. I left it uncovered since it was hard enough to get to.

With one terracache down, I decided to check on one of my caches in the area that had been reported missing. "Dead Men Tell No Tales" was a collaborative effort between me and 9key and it really ticked me off that it was missing. It looks like the cache thief is working overtime. I decided not to replace it and archived it on the web site.

On my way over to the last terracache, I stopped by to see if I could find "eeman's First Cache"...one that had stumped me before. This time I was able to find it and was able to score a smilie. This was an odd cache since the camo is more urban than the environment would require, but it seems to work well enough here. Who am i to judge?

I had just enough time to head over to the other nature preserve in Richardson to grab one more terracache (Routh Cemetary). Once I navigated to it, all I needed was a pic of the plaque to give me the info I needed to get another find on the terracaching web page. I think I have five total terracache finds...not actually a huge number but it puts me at number 43 in the state for finds.

So in my mind, the day was a success and I followed my plan. I only deviated once and that was to get a previous DNF (eeman's First Cache) so all is good.

After I got home I got cleaned up, called mom, and had a little dinner. I was tired and very scratched up but I was very happy. I wish more days could be like this.