There Be Dragons Here

There Be Dragons Here is a new series of caches recently placed by HeadHardHat.  The series is remarkable in two important ways.

First off the containers are well done.  Each container is decorated with a dragon figurine that is epoxied on to a plastic ammo can.  Second, the series is published on multiple listing services, which is unique, at least in my experience.

The series is made up of 4 dragon caches that are each listed on separate listing services (geocaching.com, opencaching.us, opencaching.com, and terracaching.com).

Each of these dragon caches contain clues that lead to a 5th dragon, which is a puzzle cache listed on opencaching.com, opencaching.us, and terracaching.com (Groundspeak doesn't play well with others, and didn't want the final cross-posted on geocaching.com).

As of this writing the terracaching.com dragon is not yet published.  However I did get the coordinates from HeadHardHat so I could beta test the puzzle for him (turns out there were some bugs, now fixed).

All of the dragons are 50-200ft off of a well maintained greenway system, and the small amount of bushwhacking is light and very kid friendly - my toddler, Tonka Tyke, found 2 of the dragons without any issues.

If you are in the Cary, NC area, I highly recommend checking out this series.  Here are a few more pics of some of the dragons, starting with a shot of one of the dragons on the ammo can:

Another plucky dragon.

Tonka Tyke almost squealed when he saw his first dragon cache. He then proceeded to try and feed it leaves. Cause: toddler.

You can get more information on this series at: geosnippits.com/dragons

Wordless Wednesday

The Chrysta Rae Photography Scavenger Hunt: March 2013 Edition

During the month of March I jumped once more unto the breach - and participated in the +Chrysta Rae's Photography Scavenger Hunt  on Google Plus.

The hunt works like this: we are given a list of 10 categories to shoot, and a set time to shoot them (normally 30 days, but this hunt was 60 days). One photo per category is submitted, and then they are judged by a panel of four expert photographers. The submissions are kept a secret until the judging takes place, then they are all released in what is known as the "reveal".  The reveal is where everyone seems each others work for the first time.  I got a fair number of fantastic comments on some of my photos, so I am really happy with that.

This hunt brings out some of the best photographers on Google Plus, and well, me, together for a jolly good time and some stiff camera competition.  I just shoot with a simple point and shoot camera (Canon S100), so sometimes I am simply out-classed by those with better hardware, but I think I manage to hold my own all things considered. It is always a growth experience, and this round was no exception.

 The following are my submissions for the March 2013 edition of the +Chrysta Rae's Photography Scavenger Hunt :

Category: Strawberry

I wracked my brain to get ideas for this shot, and one morning around 4am, while I was in a sleep induced haze the idea popped into my head.  After sending out my wife to the store for strawberries (twice!) I managed to grab this shot.

This is one of the shots that generated a lot of great comments from fellow scavengers.  Which, to me, is a reward in and of itself.

See the rest of the submissions for this category here.

Category: Regret

Another hard category to come up with ideas for.  I could think of lots of ways to show an unfortunate thing, but not regret.  This is what I came up with - a drinking and driving thing.  The blood is fake (corn syrup, water, flour, and chocolate syrup), but the rest is real.

Note: It is amazingly hard to purposefully break a champagne flute. I whacked at that thing a good half dozen times with a hammer and screwdriver before it finally broke.

See the rest of the submissions for this category here.

Category: Mouth 

My least favourite shot of this hunt.  Abigail decided she wanted to sit and cry at me one day, so I took a couple shots of her mouth.  By the end of the hunt I didn't have any other ideas for this category, so I added some blurring to emphasize the mouth and submitted it.

See the rest of the submissions for this category here.

Category: Texture

These are fuzzy dice that hang from the rear view mirror of my companies shuttle bus.  It was taken just before the radiator of the bus melted.  I captured the story here.  It ended up being a rather unique texture in the hunt, which was nice to see.

See the rest of the submissions for this category here.

Category: Freeze Motion 

I have recently become a Doctor Who fan, so the subject for this category immediately became obvious.  This is a Weeping Angel.  They look like stone statues.  They feed off their victims by removing them from space and time, and feeding on the energy the victims would have used.  They move only when not being seen. Don't blink!

See the rest of the submissions for this category here.

Category: Landscape 

This is a shot of the Blue Ridge Mountains at sunrise.  I went up the mountains to wait for the sun to come up. It was below freezing up there.  The cold was playing havoc with my batteries and they were dying much quicker than I expected.  This shot was the last shot I took before my last battery died.  I was lucky to get it.  I also learned that sometimes the best sunrise shots are not right at sunrise, but just a few moments later when the light is more diffused.

See the rest of the submissions for this category here.

Category: Brown

Maple Syrup is the theme.  I tossed in some lego mini-figs for character.

See the rest of the submissions for this category here.

Category: Bubbles 

Champagne and bubbles go hand in hand.

See the rest of the submissions for this category here.

Category: Ants Eye View 

This is actually the reflection from a curved glass from a radar sensor on an F14 Tomcat that is on display at the airport in Hickory NC.  I was not planning on making this a hunt shot, but the reflection seemed to work out perfectly.  I had to clean up a *lot* of dirt (cause the plane was dirty), and I added some effects to emphasize the camera.  I think what I ended up with is kinda funky and unique.

See the rest of the submissions for this category here.

Category: Spill 

Someone learned to "go" outside.

See the rest of the submissions for this category here.

Downpour!

I received this note from the cache owner after posting my online log for the cache I did today:

"I am glad you found it.... 

 I am also glad that you didn't get swept away on your way back! 

 I was out with the family shopping while the skies opened up. Little did I know that some poor cacher was out in the middle of the woods (on the wrong side of a creek) at that very moment! 

 I guess you earned your 4.5/4.5! 

Congrats!!!!!!!"

This is the story of what lead to the above note.  I call it "The soggiest geocache adventure ever".

It went down like this: I was out in Idlewild Park near Charlotte NC.  The cache is roughly a third of a mile from the closest parking spot, and requires crossing a small creek.  Normally not a major concern for an experienced cacher such as myself, so with confidence I headed off down the path to claim the prize.

As instructed in the cache description, I crossed the creek at the provided waypoint, which was relatively uneventful (any river crossing in which my toes stay dry is a good one in my books). Climbing the bank on the other side proved a litte tricky as it has been raining and things were slick.

On my first attempt up the embankment I lost my footing and banged up my knee.  After a quick look around it was clear that this was the only way up, so I brushed myself off, and with more determination and care climbed up the embankment. Once at the top, a mere 500ft of bushwhack was all that stood between me and my quest.

I began picking my way through the dense woods.  The going was relatively easy until Mother Nature decided to add an interesting twist to the adventure.  About 200ft from ground zero  the skies opened up, and torrential rains fell from the sky. It went from dry to Noahs Flood in seconds, and I was immediately drenched to the skin.

Since I was so close to my goal, and wasn't going to get any wetter than I was now, I pressed on. Mercifully I quickly spotted the container and sign the log.

All that remained now was getting back to the van without further incidents.  The first obstacle being that slippery creek embankment that was now even more treacherous with fresh falling rain.

I grabbed some tree branches for support, and slid (un)gracefully on my backside down the embankment until my boots were securely implanted on solid ground at the bottom. I then waded directly across the creek (already soaked,  getting creek water in my boots was a minor inconvenience, and the water level had risen a bit so the dry rocks I crossed on were now under water anyway).

All that was left was a lonely soggy trudge back to the van. Or so I thought.

About mid-trudge I noticed a creek I didn't see on the way in.  I soon realized that the "creek" was a torrent of water flowing down the very same path I had walked down just 15 minutes earlier. I had never seen rain do that to a path before. It was rather intense and a shocking sight.  (I would have taken a photo of it, but when I tried I discovered my camera had become water logged and no longer functioned as a camera). The flooded paths forced me to bushwhack the entire way back to the parking area.

Once I made it back to the Geo-van of Destiny, and did my best to dry off (luckily I had some towels and a fresh t-shirt in the van),  I drove home.  I was still soggy when I walked into the house 1.5 hours later.

I only found two caches today, despite having six on my target list.  However I did have an adventure I won't soon forget, and really, isn't that the point of geocaching?

REAMDE: Geocaching Meets Literature

Seeing your favourite semi-obscure hobby mentioned nonchalantly in media is kind of awesome.  Here is my favourite mention by one of my favourite authors.  The story has absolutely nothing to do with geocaching in the slightest, but it came up anyway, seemingly at random.

The scene opens with one of the main characters rushing up the mountain to a ski lodge he owns deep in the mountains of British Columbia...

“So it was inevitable that he would close in on the tail of a gigantic RV no more than thirty seconds after he’d reached the part of the road where passing was completely out of the question.  It was not quite the size of a semi.  It had Utah plates. It needed a trip through an RV carwash.  Its back end was freckled with the usual bumper-stickers about spending the grandchildrens inheritance.  And it was going all of about thirty miles an hour.  Richard slammed on the brakes, turned on his headlights just to make it obvious he was there, and backed off to the point where he could see the rearview mirrors.  Then he cursed the Internet.  This sort of thing never used to happen, because the road didn’t really lead anywhere; beyond the Schloss, it reverted to gravel and struggled around a few more bends to an abandoned mining camp a couple of miles beyond, where the only thing motorists could do was turn around in a wide spot and come back out again.  But geocachers had been at work planting Tupperware containers and ammo boxes of random knick-knacks in tree forks and under rocks in the vicinity of that turnaround, and people keep visiting these sites and leaving their droppings on the Internet, making cheerful remarks about the nice view, the lack of crowds, and the availability of huckleberries.  Normally Richard and the Schloss’s other habitue’s would have at least another month of clear driving before those people began to show up, but these RVers had apparently decided to get a jump on the tourist season and be the first geocachers of the year to make it to the sites in question.”  - Neal Stephenson, REAMDE

The first time I read the above passage I was reading in bed late at night.  I laughed out loud, and forced my wife to listen to me read it to her.  I was giddy for days afterwards (cause, yes, I am an obsessive geek).

Have you seen geocaching mentioned in books or other writings that were not specifically about geocaching? If so hit me with the info by dropping a comment. Inquiring minds want to know.

Wordless Wednesday

Tonka Tykes Century Cache

Today I got to help a toddler celebrate a geocaching milestone.  His 100th cache find.

My son, Tonka Tyke,  has been begging me to take him caching all weekend, but we had a fairly full schedule, so today, right after nap time, we finally had a bit of free time so we headed out to our downtown to hunt down some caches.

He has actually been a fairly active and well rounded cacher over his short career.  He has finds in 10 states and 1 province.  He has a mega, two flash mobs, a CITO, and many regular events under his belt.  He also has an International Geocaching Day, and a 12-12-12 event.  Not to shabby for someone who fits in some caches as swag.

The following is the story of Zekes 100th find in pictures.

He needed just two caches to get to his milestone, so we hit up one of my caches I hid at the church we attend.  He wasn't there when I hid the cache so its fair game for him to find it.  It didn't take him long to locate the cache and I helped him sign the log.

He insisted we take the Gatorade.  Last night I took him shopping to get some flowers for his mother for Mothers Day, and while I was out I bought a few cases of water and Gatorade.  I mentioned how important it was to carry some water or Gatorade while caching, so he was absolutely insistent on bringing a bottle with us.  He learns quick, this boy does.

We then walked over to J.E. Broyhill park. It is a cute little park built in a valley, so there are lots of hills, raised pathways, and various levels of play grounds and picnic shelters.  The cache in question was near this bridge:

He quickly found the cache, and opened it like a boss, looking at the swag.

He decided to trade for three swag items (luckily I had enough trade items in my pack!).  A car for him, and a puzzle each for Daddy and his sister.

He then opened up the ziploc baggie containing the log, and I helped him sign it.  He is officially a century cacher.

Afterwards we hit up the playground for some much needed play time.

Once we finished on the playground we walked around downtown Lenoir and found a couple more caches before heading home. Another great day of geocaching in the bag.