Geocaching Ups and Downs

So, it's been another year and then some...  OK, two years and then some, since I last posted on this blog.  I've come to realize I don't like writing blogs so much when nobody ever reads them.  The worst feedback is no feedback at all, ya know?  But, then there are times when I just want to write about my experiences whether or not anyone else cares.  Geocaching has been on the back burner for a while.  Life has its way of showing you what you need to do and when you need to do it.  At any rate, I have to go so far away from home to get more than a couple of caches, and only occasionally do new ones pop up in my area.  They're mostly inscrutable, unsolvable puzzles.
Anyway, life has its ups and downs, and geocaching does, too.  That's just how it goes.  

Yesterday was an up day.  I spent the day in Alameda, gathering just a few caches, then drove into Oakland for a couple more.  While much of the Bay Area, including my home in the South Bay, was sweltering around 100 degrees, Alameda and Jack London Square were a very comfortable 78 with a nice breeze.
I met a street character as I was walking back to my car from Jack London Square.  As I passed by, I heard him say, "Even the police don't know I'm ICORPS."

Well, I just knew this would be interesting.  I turned around and said, "You're ICORPS?"
He said, "Yeah, do you know ICORPS?"
I shook my head.
"You don't know ICORPS?  I'm the military CIA.  I go all over the world to kill people."
"Oh, OK."
He muttered a few other things about his job as an ICORPS assassin before I could ask him:
"So, where are you going next?"  I imagined a story of how he planned to track down Edward Snowden, or possibly go after Morsi or some other newsworthy figure.  But he waved his hand in a dismissive gesture.

"Ah, I'm dead."
"You're dead?" I asked.
"Yeah, I mean, I don't.. I'm 64 now. I'm dead."

Then his face brightened.

"But I got a 33 year old lady chasing me!" he bragged.
"In a good way?" I asked.
"Yeah!  And you know, she's got a son, and I said to her, 'do you want a daughter?'"
We both laughed, and I wagged my finger at him, saying, "Oh you..."
I did not say, "dirty old man."  I left it unsaid.  Then I said, "Well, you have a good day," to which he replied, "You have a nice life."

Street people can be colorful and interesting, but I often wonder how many people even notice them.  Oakland has lots of street people.  As I continued to walk around the downtown area, I saw some that looked very colorful, some that looked very scary, and some that just looked sad.  It made me sad.  I've always been just one unfortunate incident resulting in a very large bill away from being on the street myself.  But I know there's an element of choice, too.  I know how to rescue myself, if need be.  And I have lots of friends.

Anyway, this is not the kind of ups and downs I was referring to in the title of this post.  I was actually going to complain about tree caches.  I hate them.  I cannot climb trees or fences or anything even remotely vertical.  I have a hard enough time staying vertical myself!  I went splat on the sidewalk just a few days ago, and have two nasty bruised knees to show for it.  I also wanted to complain about caches that make me have to sit on the ground to reach them, because getting back to my feet is also difficult, especially if I have to roll onto my knees.  Those were the ups and downs I originally intended to write about.  But, that wouldn't be my style.

A Year Gone By: There's Some "Caching" Up to Do.

Well, now that gas has hit $4.00 per gallon, I'm a lot more limited in my geocaching time. I've "cached out" my area, except for a few poison oak and tick filled hikes. I need to load up on the Tecnu, but it's easier just to avoid hiking those trails. I've solved some puzzles I may never fetch. But hey! I've lost 32 pounds since last year, and going for a five mile walk is no longer a major event. In fact, last week, I went on three hikes of three miles or more. I don't plan to back off on the exercise, but I'm financially forced to back off on the geocaching.

But, I have an iPad. Yes, it was another gift, since I could never afford to buy one. I've taken my iPad on hikes. I'm using a great geocaching app called "Geosphere." It's very functional and easy to use. I may write a full review on it at some point. Then again, I may have to sell my iPad to buy gas.

Caching Whether

"Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it." - attributed to Mark Twain

I'll admit I'm a fair weather cacher. I'm quite happy to be out from dawn until dark on a sunny day, geocaching with a friend. If I'm caching by myself, I'm more motivated to spend a fair amount of time geocaching in nice weather than I am to even leave my house on dark, dreary, cold, damp days. Heck, I don't even want to walk outside on days like that. Today is one of those unpleasant days, and the kind of day I might devote to puzzle solving, except I'm committed to a certain level of physical activity each day which isn't achieved by staring at the latest kablooey puzzle, or diverting myself playing Treasure Madness.

So, at some point, I'll get off this chair, grab my Garmin Map60 CSx and my trusty Palm, pray the old Chevy starts, and go find a cache or two. Walking and hiking in this ugly weather is not my idea of fun, but finding a cache takes my mind off the discomfort.

Are you a fair weather cacher? Are you the gung-ho cacher who defies the weather and will go caching whether or not there is weather to be weathered? What motivates you to brave your particular weather extreme, whether it's extreme sun and heat or extreme damp and cold? Do you have any weather related adventure caching stories? I'd love to hear about it!

TFTC

Happy Trails!

DNFs at Three Bucks a Gallon

So, here's the problem with DNFs. They're expensive.

When I first started geocaching, I told myself not to spend a lot of money that I didn't have or couldn't justify on this new hobby of mine. I was pretty good about that for a couple of years. Both of my Garmin units were gifts, as was my Palm Tungsten E2. I shelled out the money to be a premium member, but other than that, the only money I spent was on gas. Even then, I usually only stopped to grab caches along a route I was taking for work, anyway. I didn't go out of my way more than a half mile or so to grab a cache, so I wasn't using up a lot of excess gas driving around. So, when I had to log a DNF, there was a good chance I'd be back to try again without making a special trip.

After four years, I've pretty much found all the caches along the routes I routinely travel for my work. I've also learned to be picky about which caches I even want to bother with. I really, really, REALLY hate looking for caches in smelly bushes, especially when combined with a large amount of trash or in a "shady" part of town. Also, I've gotten so much better at hiking, and in most parks don't mind hiking alone, that my drive by caching was starting to become limited to solved puzzles and their nearby traditionals.

As always happens after the holiday season, a whole bunch of new cachers have emerged lately, and many of them have already gotten started at hiding caches of their own. This has increased the amount of urban caches in the area, some of them good quality hides, some not so much. For me, the one thing they all have in common is that I have to go out of my way to get them, and that means making a plan to go to a specific area and find several in that area in order to justify spending the gas to get there, and I do not always know what type of cache I may find or not find when I get there. I may regret going out of my way for one cache that I find if I waste too much time on a cache that I can't find, and run out of time to look for any more. To me, that's a waste of gas and a waste of my precious little cash!

So, for all the newer cachers out there who want to hide clever caches in a tough location, do me a favor. Post a hint. Your cache is too far from my home to get to on foot.

TFTC

Happy Trails!

A Million Geocaches and Only One of Me

Geocaching.com, the World's #1 Location-Based Recreation Portal, Publishes One-Millionth Active Hidden Treasure

Uh, anyone busy this month?

Are You "Smart" Enough for FTF?

With the release of geocaching applications for the iPhone and Droid, the race for First to Find has changed since I began caching. I'm not "smart" enough, anymore. I still have to be home, near my computer, with the DSL actually working in order to receive notification of new caches.

Just a couple of years ago, there was a more level playing field. Everyone needed to be near a computer with internet access if they wanted to have a chance at an FTF. Being "FIRST!" has always carried its own special importance, and it was not unusual to find yourself in an impromptu flash mob of geocachers at the location of the newest cache. I remember sitting quietly at my computer, in my jammies, drinking my coffee, getting a notification and having to make that decision of whether or not to actually put on my jeans and shoes before flying out the door. Getting there before Winini was a big deal, although there was some status in being "First to Find After Winini."

Then came the iPhone and since a noted geocacher just happens to write applications for the thing, soon afterward came the geocaching application for the iPhone. That changed the game. Now, a cacher could be out running errands, receive a notification from the iPhone, pull it up on the website, select it and without even consulting his trusty Garmin handheld, be off to the location within a minute or two of publication. It hasn't taken long for other "smartphones" to join the rush for FTF. But I am not a member of the smartphone crowd. My $20 phone does phone calls and texting of a slow and painful type. Since I'm not "smart" enough, I've changed my email notifications to include only puzzle caches. There's another element to them that create more parity among FTF hunters. Of course, that's a different kind of "smart," and I usually fall short there, too! But once in a while, I get the answer quickly and get the FTF.

Oh, that feels good!

So, How'd You Do This Weekend?

One of my favorite threads on the GBA forum is the "How'd you do this weekend?" thread. I enjoy reading about all the hikes, wildflower sightings, off-roading adventures, out of the country trips, caching vacations, etc., that the local geocachers report about, often with many excellent photographs to document the experience.

I live vicariously through this thread, because I work every weekend, as weather allows, and when the weather doesn't allow, not a lot of people do much geocaching.

So, about a year and a half ago, I announced to the group that I would be going hiking every Monday morning and was looking for fellow hikers to accompany me. I wanted these hikes to include geocaching as much as possible. Also, I intended to make the hikes fairly short, three miles or less, not only to encourage people to come out who don't do a lot of hiking, but because I was sure I was too out of shape to do any better. I called them, "Monday Morning Wimp Hikes," as a way to differentiate them from the ever popular, hard-core hikers' "Death Marches."

The Monday morning hikes caught on rapidly and it wasn't long before the "wimp" element got left behind. I had no idea I could hike seven miles! On hills! Don't get me wrong, those hikes weren't easy. But I believe it was only the support and encouragement of the people who shared them with me that made it possible for me to do them. Because of them, I actually got some confidence to attempt a few two to four mile solo hikes. But hiking solo just isn't as much fun for me, and when the popularity of the hikes waned as people got new jobs or too busy or the weather got too extreme, I began to lose the incentive to get up early on a Monday morning after spending the weekend working.

Then, last fall, I got my Fitbit. There were two things I didn't realize until the day I got it. The first thing I realized was just how much weight I'd gained during the previous year. The second thing I realized was that a gadget could have just as much incentive as a human companion, even though it's still sadly lacking in fun conversation and help in spotting tough hides. The Fitbit got me back to walking and hiking more. Without doing anything different in my life other than making sure I fulfill my 10,000 steps per day, I've now lost nearly ten pounds since adding that gadget to my life. Now, when I think about how I did this weekend, I think about how many steps I walked, not how many other adventures I missed out on, or how many caches I did not get a chance to log. Better still, I'm beginning to look forward to getting up early on Monday mornings again.