A perfect weekend for camping!

10-11-08 We were blessed to be outdoors all weekend. The fall weather was perfect-warm sunshine with a chill in the air by night. We just love Lincoln State Park! Between bouts of being lazy sitting around the campfire, we took a hike, rowed the canoe around the perimeter of the lake, and played a little whiffle ball. We snuck in a little caching, of course, and though we didn't know it until we got home to log the finds, we weren't alone. Two other teams were caching, too. Our favorite of the three caches we found was Towering Inferno (GC1DTZX). This cache was at the fire tower. Revision: This cache was at the TOP of the fire tower. Whoa! For me, the one afraid of heights, this was a challenge. First, J and the kids went to the top without me and came down empty-handed (at that point we didn't know it was at the top-we suspected it was at the base). After decrypting the hint, I headed for the summit. I think it was actually the fastest I've ever made it to the top, but then again, this is the best motivation I've had to climb the frighteningly high chamber. I. and I searched as best we could between the wasps and fear, but descended without a find. J. decided to give it a second go and we heard him holler, "Huckle Buckle Beanstalk" after about 10 minutes of silent searching. Woo hoo! Unfortunately, we didn't have a pen with us so we took photos of the cache to confirm the find. The hike was a good one. Post Script note-One of I's highs from the weekend was waking up to find deer just a few feet from our campsite. He got to take a few photos of them, too.

The sun peeks through and then it pours rain!

9-20-08 I had to be in O'boro by 8am this morning so that meant waking up to a 5:50 AM alarm...ugh! It takes me like 20 minutes to set my alarm clock because it's insanely complicated with options and I only mess with it about twice a year. After finally feeling like I could relax that it was done correctly last night, I went to sleep. Sometime near midnight, I hear it beeping, louder and louder. ARGH...don't you know I HAVE to get a good night's sleep so I can cope with the chaos that will ensue tomorrow morning???!!!! I hit every button I can reach while straddling over Grace who is asleep next to me. Nothing works. I finally realize, it's not my alarm clock after all, it's Isaac's alarm clock upstairs. WHY THAT LITTLE...boy scout, out in the woods hundreds of miles from home. URRRR! I race up the stairs and unplug both of his blasted clocks just to be sure I get the right one. If I could have gotten the window open, they might have taken flight. I get back to bed, but never really back to sleep since I know I've screwed up my alarm now and I cannot oversleep!!

When morning came, Grace and I got ready and headed across the bridge. I just kept focusing on the mantra, "Caching after the walk, caching after the walk". Caching is seriously such a stress reliever and source of fun for me. It's outdoors, it's exciting...I just really enjoy it. Well, Grace and I compromised, I'd take her to the mall (her favorite place in the world) and she'd cache in O'boro with me. We ended up finding five caches, one of which was a new type for us. (Big Bugs GC1EJYA) It was awesome! I got home to log them and then down came the rain!
I had an e-mail message waiting that some jerk found GeoGazebo, our cache that was moved during the hurricane-like wind storm last week, and apparently put porn-like drawings and references all over it. How ignorant, how freakin sickening! (Jim Morrison, right again. People are strange. FYI "T", people still put their trash outside their door and wonder why the world is such a mess. How do you change that? I am so tired of fighting, so tired of trying. Social work, yeah, right.)

I better get back to counting my blessings because if I don't, I'll be awful sour about the world.

Loon Pit aka "Canoe to Cache"

9-16-08 This cache has been calling my name since I first read about it months ago. What a great idea...an island-bound cache in Bluegrass. Jim was finally able to buy a canoe so we took it our for its maiden voyage on Loon Pit. This evening was Jim's valiant effort to help me out of a black hole I seem to be sinking in this week. His efforts weren't in vain-the fresh air, the perfect warmth of sunshine through cool winds, the beauty of a herron's flight, the glide of the canoe over still waters. God is good. I'd have liked to pack in a month's worth of food and a sleeping bag to hide out there until the dark clouds pass, but I guess that's not possible in "the real world". Anyway, back to the cache...the journey was good, the cache was trashed. It hadn't been found for many months (9 maybe?) and it was unsealed so water had staled in the ammo container and ants had invaded everything. We hated to leave it unrepaired, but we had no sack to haul it out and the ants were unbearable canoemates. Hopefully the cache owners will provide some maintenance and reset this one for others in need of a little respite from the world.

Happy Labor Day Weekend

8-31-08 We had a really, really busy week leading up to this holiday weekend so we decided to pass on invitations to go camping and boating. We pretty much let our lazy sides rule-watched a couple movies, played the PS2, ate a bunch of junk, and slept in late. The only exercise we got was finding some caches...9 for the weekend, most of them downtown. The one DNF we searched and searched for was "Vertigo Cache" on the old Pittsburgh bridge. I think J. tired of hearing K. say, "Be careful...watch where you're going...look out for that hole..." A little acrophobia didn't mix well with this cache site. J will be back, without the other 3 in the pack.

Our favorite find for the weekend was "Play Ball" at Garvin Park/Bosse Field area. Talk about a clever hide. We were impressed! We also had fun kicking the soccer ball around The Old Library. We were entertainment for an old man who was lounging in the grass field there. I only wish we had bought him some lunch.

We planted two caches this weekend, "Whoa! GeoGazebo!" in the Lakeside Manor retirement complex and "Dead-end Hike" on the trails that are at the end of Ward Road. That used to be a great "lover's lookout", but now it's been converted to a commercial area with very little lookout. C'est la vie! At least the trails have been developed a bit.

Soccer practice=caching opportunity

8-23-08 What do you do when you find yourself sitting on the sidelines at another soccer practice? Well, you get your GPS unit out and make the most of it. Okay, okay. So we're a little obsessed with our family hobby. So! We did wait until AFTER practice to go searching. And we did find it. Isaac was glad to get a lego man, compliments of Turtle 362.

On this same day, we also made a quick stop at The Old State Hospital. As many times as I have been to this park, I had never seen this particular area. There's an old time capsule buried there. How cool is that?

Another reason to visit B & N

8-20-08 Just what I needed, another excuse to visit Barnes and Nobles. I had been by here once on my own looking for "Ballet Dancer Goes to the Book Store", but I scraped my leg all up and had to explain that one to the boss when I returned to the office. (I was also too chicken to go alone into the creepy woods near the apartments.) Anyway, on this day Isaac and Grace were the ones to come up with the cache. It wasn't in the creepy woods afterall.

8-19-08 We happened to log on to the geocaching website and noticed a new cache on this side of town. I was "hurrying and scurrying" the kids to "get some shoes on, grab some cache, let's go...let's see if we can be the FTF". We're so crazy, we even jetted by Schnuck's so Jim could go along for the ride. He had to grab the door while the van was moving so he wouldn't miss his ride. Hee hee. We almost made it, too, but almost isn't FTF. Dusty and Kate beat us to this one, "Can someone get the phone please?" Better luck next time JK4PACK.

What do you want to do? Cache, of course!

8-16-08 Today was a family day to cache the west side. We stopped first at the old VFW Post 1114, a sentimental stop for us. I made that find first and the fire was lit. We moved on to "River of Light" which was an overpass near Bristol-Myers. The most interesting thing about that find was that on our way back to the van I stopped to take a photo of an interesting metal plate in the ground. J approached and realized that it was a geodetic waypoint marker. Well, how about that! I just stopped because I thought it was cool looking and I wanted to remember its' design for making a personal stamp (think letterboxing, oh no!). How perfect was that?! Heading west from there, we found several others before heading to G's first soccer game. I. had a back to school extravaganza that evening so the rest of us went to Olive Garden and the mall. The moon shone full tonight, a beautiful ending to a great day.

Moments of peace

8-15-08 I had the day off today and I had a list of things to do, but the weather was just too beautiful to spoil with chores. I headed out with the GPS and my camera to make a few finds near home. I took my time and enjoyed being outdoors at "Blue Grass Cemetery" and "Road to Nowhere". The latter cache was right along the interstate, but on the edge of a farm which allowed for that reassurance of open land I find so hopeful. There were some butterflies flitting around the crops and the vines intertwining the barbed wire fence provided a few moments of peace.
I had a couple DNF's that afternoon even on second trips with the kids and J. We'll have to revist "Tee Up Time" and "Old Culs-de-Sac" some other day. We were on our way to have dinner with J's parents. We also visited St. John's and Rose Hill Cemeteries to see where all the family gravestones were located. We did make our second hide in the cache "ENTER for the PRISE" in an industrial area just off of Oak Grove. It wasn't all that exciting of a spot, but convenient to check on and to find. The action began quickly, too!

Last day of summer break

How did we spend the last day of summer break? Well, we started by going to mass and thanking God for the many blessing bestowed upon us this summer. From there, I. got to set up his locker and G. got to go play with a friend. After that, IJK went caching, of course. We found a few on our own and then we met up with Turtle362 at The Old Tunnel. It was so great to see so many people coming and going from the zoo. Amazonia opened this last week and the gatekeeper told us there were nearly 4,000 visitors yesterday alone.
We visited "Reitz Right 1" today at St. Joe Cemetery so we stopped by papaw's grave for a few minutes. Don't you know that he was watching over us and tagging along for the find! I remember him going out with his metal detector in hopes of finding treasure so caching would have been right up his alley!! : )
It took us a few minutes to find "Honored Dead" at Locust Hill-it was a good hide. J. found this stop interesting because the grave of Col. James Bethel Gresham is here. He was amoung the first casualties of WWI. J's been reading a lot of Shaara's books about the wars. I. recently found a cache "The Old Soldier" relating to this man, too.
"The Old Zoo" was another micro that I. zoomed in on after getting a hint from Turtle362. I sure thought it was going to be in the drain cover. Shows you what I know. : )
"Monkeying Around" was a huge cache in some woods that were pretty thick with poison ivy. Great trade items were on board, too bad G. wasn't here to enjoy that part. The owner had a camera on board which is a cool idea I hope to use sometime in a cache that we hide.
Made a quick grab of "The Eyes Have It" on the way to pick G. up from her friend's house.
We had a great time today. The weather is ideal. Back to school tomorrow.

A cool date for caching 8-8-08

Grant spent the night with us and it was a beautiful day so we set out for a picnic at the Fortress of Fun in NB. We enjoyed our time at the park even if we couldn't find the "NB Community Park" cache. This one is really driving us crazy...we're coming back to try again! After awhile we set out to find a couple other caches in downtown NB. We were stumped by "Rockin' at Jennings Station " even though we had to have been within inches of it. Between the heat off the pavement, the scattered muggles, the bouncing GPS, and the three kids in tow, we couldn't find it, but having now seen the hint, we had to have been right there. We did find our first nano, "Marcia Yockey's Bench"; I had no idea you could find such a small cache. Incredible! I. found "Ballet Dancer goes to the Library" which was a fun hide and Gr. found "Troop 373 Lehi's Dream". A good day of cousin fun.

Hooking our friends

8-6-08 We were meeting our friends at Walther's to squeeze in some putt-putt & laser tag before summer break ends and we arrived just a little early to find a nearby cache; did we plan that just right, or what?! Amazing how that happens! Jim had just finished a class nearby so he met us and we found "Four Cache", a really cool cache. After having some fun at Walther's, our friends joined us in finding another nearby cache, "Goldilocks...Too Low". Grace and I had to leave for soccer practice, but S. took I. and the GPS and went to find a few more on the way home. Look out, she's hooked!

Caching=stress relief

8-4-08 That's right. I was all stressed out before I ever hit the door to work this morning so I decided to give myself 15 minutes to find "just one" cache that I knew was near my office. I'm telling you what that 30 minutes was SO WORTH IT. (15, 30 minutes late...what's the difference, if only we lived in Europe.) I found the first one and was so exhilirated that I had to get the second one that was halfway back to my office. I did and by then I had changed my frame of mind. It was great.

Caching with friends

8-1-08 The Turtle362 team joined us for some caching tonight. It was a lot of fun! We found one at the 4-H center that had hidden from T362 on a previous visit. After that, we went to find The Old Mill, which was a good find overlooking Pigeon Creek. Now we want to Canoe Evansville and check this area out in more detail. Our last stop was in Diamond Valley Park. We did find the cache, but even more interesting was the unmentionable hanging on a nearby fence (Really, people do that here?!) and the floating scarecrow parts. We'll come back some other day to find the letterbox.

Rose Hill

8-1-08 We were a few minutes early getting to NB for I's dr's appt. so we made good use of our time by finding a cache in Rose Hill Cemetary. I know some of the Martin family is buried here, but we're going to have to set a date with G-pa Martin to come back and show us the gravesites. He's on the cemetery board for St. John's/Rose Hill.
This ended up being a good chance for me to show the kids the memorial to unborn children located near the exit of the cemetery. Pat and Paul dedicated a memory stone to the children that Jim and I lost through miscarriage here. (Really, it was placed after our first miscarriage, but it has come to represent all of them to me.) The kids didn't really remember that I had miscarried, of course, so it was a good way to share with them this part of our family history. I certainly wouldn't want to dwell on it, but I also think it's important for them to know that there is pain in life, but God gives us the strength to endure and the hope that it takes to embrace life.

Date Night

7-31-08 Sixteen years ago when we were dating, Jim and I would go walk the riverfront, see a movie, maybe even go ice skating. Tonight when we got the chance to go on a date it was all about geocaching. What else would we do?! : ) Okay, we ate at Max and Erma's first and we still walked the riverfront, we just had a goal-find the caches along the way.

DNF - Pbltt!

Darn, our first "Did Not Find" and a creepy scene at that. This cache was (supposedly) at the Howell Wetlands on the west side. I had never been to the wetlands so I was kind of looking forward to seeing what it was all about. It always just looked like a bigwildmudpit pond in passing. As it turns out, that wasn't too far off. (I know, I know, I should appreciate what it has to offer; I just can't get into it.) We approached the wooden bridge trail and began to cross the wetlands; there was a single shoe upside down in the murky waters. "I hope there's not a body attached to it," Jim said. I was thinking the same thing...what a creepy grave that would be! Then we start getting into the wild grasses which were nice in that they were home to several varieties of butterflies and moths. Still, I couldn't help but think about the log entries about "remnants of meth labs" and imagine how easy it would be for some creep to hide in the overgrowth waiting for victims to arrive. EEK! We got to the area where the first stage of this multi-cache was supposed to be and searched high and low without any luck. We were about to give up when I saw a film canister. A note inside indicated new coordinates for the original cache. We moved on to the second stage of the cache using those coordinates, but the terrain was awful. There were sticker bushes and poison ivy everywhere. The woods were pretty torn up in this area making it difficult to pass. We were pretty far off the beaten path and not having a bit of luck so we decided to abandon the search. On the way out, we passed someone toothless and barefoot, definately looking like a drug deal gone bad. Then on reaching the same pond we saw coming in, we saw the other shoe in the same waterbed but in a different area. Makes you want to go pull some missing persons' records and see if any MIAs had a nice new pair of white Nikes with red stripes. Creepy!

Going for the Goal scores!

7-31-08 Gracie's dog scores big today...picked up by a geocacher today. Game on!

Guitar Hero Rocks!

7-29-08 You can only imagine I's excitement when we got an e-mail notifying us that "Guitar Hero" had been found and logged out of our cache. He's on the road now!

Travel Bug Fever!

7-28-08 We're getting more and more hooked on geocaching! We're learning the language and joining in the "hide side" of things now. We placed our first cache today and we're not posting where so you'll have to go caching to find out. (Reference waypoint GC1ENAD) Not only that, but we put FOUR TB's in the cache. We've launched a family race to see whose TB can travel the farthest from home. Six months from now, the winner gets to order a t-shirt/hat from the geocaching website. We all picked a TB figure that we thought might take us far and fast. Isaac chose "Guitar Hero," a Webkinz beagle figurine. Grace chose "Going for the Goal", a soccer-playing Webkinz dog figurine, Jim chose "Monkey Business", a really cute monkey with spikes, and I chose the monkey's friend Zebra, "Racing Stripes". We found a great spot to launch these guys and we can't wait to travel vicariously through them. We hope to get photos along their journeys!

Geo-rassic Park...Pamela the Camela finds a new home

7-27-08 I had to travel to Louisville for business, but I was not going to pass up the chance to drop Pamela the Camela all these miles from where we picked her up. Mind you, my co-workers thought I was crazy, but they allowed me to drive them around several city blocks until we got close enough to the coordinates to walk. We set out in some fairly easy terrain, but soon found that we needed to enter some very overgrown trees/bushes/weeds. They decided they'd come close enough so they stayed on the treeline while I bushwacked my way into a semi-open, but very challenging area where the coordinates seemed to indicate. I searched and I searched and I searched some more. My co-workers were hollering at me from the outside and I really thought I was going to have to come out empty-handed. Oh, was I dreading that; I took a deep breath and thought, "Where would I hide a cache in this mess of branches, limbs, rocks, and weeds?" About that time, I saw a suspicious looking area and VOILA! I found it! I was never so happy to find a cache. My co-workers got all excited then and wanted to see it, but not bad enough to come in so I made my way out to share in the fun of opening the box. We made some trades and placed Camela in her new hotel. I got to thinking, how perfect is this? Pamela wanted to be near other camels and this cache is just outside the Louisville Zoo. That's great stuff there. I find ONE cache in this big metro area with no idea where I am going and I end up here. Ha! Happy travels my friend, happy travels.

7-23-08 At the end of a disappointing night at the Chandler ball diamond, we stopped to find a few caches in an attempt to lift Isaac's spirits. The countryside was so pretty that we soon forgot our troubles and reveled in God's nature...the sunset, the trees, the flowers in bloom, a deer, a few bunnies, the birds of the sky...even a few muggles who were out walking their dog.

Jim makes his first find-yea!

7-21-08 Jim, Isaac, and Tyler made a few stops in the Chandler-Boonville area on the way back from a baseball tournament. Jim made his first find at one of these stops. He also retrieved a TB called "The Knee'd to Travel" which looked like a knee bone.

Caan you find this caache?

7-21-08 I love this one for its name alone. How clever! The kids I found this one while visiting Jim who was working security at the gate of the 4-H fair. Since set-up was going on, we had to be patient so we didn't get muggled while on the search. We had lots of animal muggle eyes on us when we came up with the treasure. Here's one such muggle in a photo that Isaac took.

He seems to be wondering what in the world we're up to around the barn.

End of the Line

While we like that caches that have swag on board the best, we have had fun logging a few log only caches like this one at the end of the line. The challenge here is in avoiding muggles (people who are in the area, but not geocaching) or at least tricking them by any means you can. Isaac likes to pull the old "my GPS is a phone" routine while I like the "pretend I am taking your photo while we're really scoping the place for a cache" approach. Grace has been asked to "bend down and tie your shoe" while we search with muggles around. Jim already has an advantage at undercover work. Here's an example of my "just act like your taking our photo so the cars behind us won't know what we're up to" routine. Good job Isaac!

Sin Nombre...& TB Pamela the Camela

7-19-08 As we were leaving the Martin Family Reunion in Cambridge City, IN we decided to make one stop for a cache. We chose Sin Nombre in Milton in hopes that this cache still had a travel bug (TB) in it as listed on the web. We were not disappointed; Pamela the Camela came on board for the road trip back home. It was fun to log on and see that she had originated in Colorado and traveled pretty extensively across the country's east coast then returned to the midwest. Since her tag indicated she hoped to meet up with other camels, we carried her to Mesker Zoo and talked the gatekeeper into allowing us in to snap a few photos. A few days later, Pamela traveled with me to Louisville on a business trip. To be continued...

USS Monitor

Game on! After finding that first cache, we were ready to search out another in the area. We got some more coordinates from http://www.geocaching.com/ and set our for another nearby cache. This time it was Grace who spotted the camoflaged container. The kids love making swag trades so this was a good cache to find.

Note: Photo is from our first find. No good photos from the USS Monitor available.

Where Kids & Buffalo Roam

Our first cache in Traverse City, Michigan. It was just outside the Great Wolf Lodge where we were staying. Being new, we entered the cache coordinates (inadvertantly disregarding the parking coordinates) and headed out full steam ahead. Up and over the hill was no problem, but we very quickly found ourselves getting in to weeds that were knee high... then before you know it we were up to our waist in weeds. Hmmm...this can't be right...can it? I sure hope we don't step on any critters! Grace takes her perch on Karen's back then Jim's shoulders while Isaac trails behind after we bushwack our way through yet more weeds. Ah ha! Signs that someone else has been through this field recently, maybe this is what geocaching is all about. : ) The GPS coordinates narrow in and we spot a real trail just off to our left. When we reach the path, we see there is a raised, wooden walkway. So this is where we're supposed to be. We begin to explore the trusses, some nearby logs, trees...just where could this cache be? We break up into different areas to see who might be the first to find the treasure. After a good fifteen or twenty minutes of searching, we're beginning to think this might not be as easy or as fun as it sounds. Isaac and I walk down the wooden trail about 15 or 20 feet and he makes the comment, "I bet we're right on top of it. It's got to be right around here somewhere." At the same time, he hops off the raised trail onto an open area in the trees and immediately spots the cache. "It is right here, I found it! You are right on top of it mommy!" We were thrilled. Our first find.

We're geocaching freaks!

About two years ago, we bought an inexpensive GPS unit after hearing about this thing called "geocaching", but we couldn't figure out how to use the eTrex so it got buried in the back of the closet. Well, it resurfaced in early July this year so we took it with us on a vacation to Michigan. We set out to find our first geocache on the day before we headed back home and we've quickly become addicted to the search.