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!

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.