Only Googlebot Reads This Blog

What I do

2012-02-16T16:03:00.002-05:00

Note: Shamelessly stolen from the social web. I didn't create this, and I don't know who did. But, it does explain some things, doesn't it?

Errant Thought Roundup Redux

2012-02-10T10:28:00.001-05:00

My friend Kendra has a blog called Southern Disposition, in which she posts thoughts, events, and details about her life. One of her running features is called the Errant Thought Roundup, in which she takes the poem:

I love, I love, I hate, I hate
I like, I wish, for goodness sake...
I hope, I hope, I pray, I pray
I will, I won't, and for today...

And fills in a thought for each section. It actually ends up being pretty neat. I wrote an ETR a while ago for her, and today she published my second attempt on her blog. So please check out: Errant Thought Roundup 53: Guest Post.

Enjoy!

Geocaching Adventures: Huntington Creek Railroad Bridge

2012-02-05T20:42:00.000-05:00

It is always interesting to explore places of historical interest in your own neighbourhood.

In this case the object of interest is the Huntington Creek Railroad Bridge in nearby Morganton NC.

This is actually a series of foot and rail bridges all running beside or underneath each other, some intact, some lying in ruins. I estimate from the evidence that four bridges existed here at one time or another.

I cannot find a great deal of historical information, but what I can determine is that the oldest bridge here was built in the 1870s, and the youngest in the 1910s

There are only two bridges still standing: a metal truss bridge, and a stone arch bridge. The stone bridge runs parallel to the truss bridge, but is about 15ft away, and 10ft lower. Some of the support structures remain for the other two bridges, but not enough to know what they looked like.

There is a geocache located at this bridge, and my goal is to get to the base of the bridges and locate the cache.

To get to GZ one needs to cross the creek. There are several approaches to the bridge available. One can walk across the stone bridge, or ford a rather wide creek. I'll leave the obvious third option of hoping aboard a train off the table as my hobo days are not quite upon me yet.

I first chose the dry option and walked across the stone bridge. It is a narrow bridge, perhaps 6ft wide, 100ft long. I do not know what its intended purpose was but it seemed inadequate for a rail bridge, and there was no evidence of train tracks.

There is a second issue with the bridge... namely there is no way to get down to the lower level from the other side. The bridge ends at the rail bed, which immediately drops off to a cliff. Unless I start to channel Spiderman (and who wants to do that, really?) There is no way I can get down to ground level to start my hunt from here.

So I execute a retrograde maneuver and head back across the stone bridge and re-evaluate my options.

The creek is about 20ft wide, and a foot deep at its deepest. I am wearing my hiking boots, and not really prepared for a creek fording. Also it is quite cold, being the beginning of February. This is North Carolina, but it still gets below freezing at night.

So with an inner-voice exclamation of "Meh, what the heck!", and "This will probably make a good blog post", I plunged (stepped gently) into the raging torrent (gently flowing) river (creek) and faced my death (mild yet chilly soaking of boots) in the name of exploration (yeah, exploration works).

A few long seconds later I was soggy but safely on the other side and began my trudge (when one has boots full of water one is left with few options but to trudge) to the base of the bridges. It was at this point that I began my (ultimately fruitless) search for the cache.

The cache description said that the truss bridge was "slightly used", so I was not expecting any traffic on the rails. I say this to explain the high pitched girly scream that escaped from Yours Truly when a train went by directly overhead about 5 minutes into my search.

As a word of excuse, I was standing directly under the rails, which were 30ft above my head. and standing under the bridge supports so I didn't hear the train until it was literally above me. I am not sure if you have ever stood directly underneath a moving train, but if you haven't, you are in for an interesting and noisy experience.

So after recovering from my sudden onset train induced mini heart attack, I kept searching for the next half hour or so. As it turned out I didn't find the container, but I did fine some stalactites in the rock that is used as bridge supports. This really underlines just how old these bridges are. The one pictured was about 6 inches long.

Eventually I gave up the search, waded back across the creek, and tried to press the water from my boots before getting back into my van and drove on back home.

This cache proves that it is not just about the numbers for me. I walked away without a smiley, but still had a great blog worthy adventure, and left with a smile on my face. When it comes down to it, isn't that really the whole point?

Scenes Of The Northland

2012-01-22T21:35:00.001-05:00

Over the Christmas holidays we spent 3 weeks in southern Ontario. I posted about my geocaching adventures, but I skipped over a lot of the non-geocaching events. (for the geocaching posts see the last 4 posts in December 2011, and the first 3 posts in January 2012 in the Older Stuff section on the right).

We spent a lot of time in Dunnville ON, and took several trips to the Golden Horseshoe (Greater Toronto area), and a couple trips, including taking in a free outdoor New Years Eve concert, in Niagara Falls.

The following are a collection of photos taken when we were not geocaching (it does happen!). Enjoy!

(oh, I tossed a few caching photos in as well... )

Geocaching Adventures: A Weekend In Cary

2012-01-16T22:25:00.001-05:00

Regular readers of this blog will know that we are in then process of completing the North Carolina Delorme Challenge. We have just 6 pages left to grab, and they are all in a line near Raleigh NC - the area goes from Greensboro NC to Rocky Mount NC, and everything to the northern state border. The closest part of this area to our house is a two hour drive away.

This past weekend we piled into the van and headed over to the area with the mission to grab the remaining pages. As it turns out we got more of an adventurous weekend than we expected.

We left our house around 8AM Saturday morning and headed northeast. By 5PM we had gathered all of the pages for the Delorme and were checked in at our hotel in Cary NC (a location picked because it is proximate to the target area). We're done. All that is left is to find the final cache... but that will have to wait for another weekend as its location is not proximate to Cary.

So this means that we had two days to kill.... what to do... what to do... hrm... go caching? Yes!

We decided to do a "best of" run of the area. This area happens to be the gravitational center of the geocaching universe in North Carolina - there are a lot of caches around here... more that could possibly be done in years, let alone a couple days. So I applied my method for finding the best caches in the area and spent two days hunting down the best caches in Cary NC, and the surrounding area.

So we spent two days exploring gnome holes, climbing on old abandoned tractors in a field, some amazing urban hides, a lot of ammo cans, signing baseballs, some impromptu airplane watching, and hanging out with Andy Griffith.

We did a virtual cache at a statue of Andy Griffith and Opie. When we pulled up in the parking lot we realized that the park that contained the statue also contained a small train and a carrousel. We decided that Zeke, our toddler who is obsessed with trains, would love a ride on both. We took a break from caching and took him on his very first train ride, and then his very first carrousel ride. He liked the carrousel so much he made us ride it again.
Later on that day we ended up at the RDU Airfield, where we watched airplanes take off - which is more toddler entertainment fodder.

Some other memorable hides included:

A cache located in a hole in a tree behind a fairy door. Zeke found that one.

A cache who's logbook was a baseball. Sign the ball to claim the cache.

One of the largest caches I've seen is a locker for the back of a pickup truck. It was sitting out in the middle of the woods.

One of the wettest caches I've done. It is a micro in a 4ft vertical PVC pipe. The pipe had 5 holes in the bottom. To claim the cache one needs to plug all of the holes, fill the pipe with water, which floats the cache to the surface where it can be grabbed and logged. My wife plugged the holes with her hands, and I filled the tube. I've heard of these caches before but this is the first time I got a chance to claim one. It was great fun. Zeke loved watching the water drain from the holes again.

It was a fantastic 3 days of caching and exploring.

I'll leave you with some more photos of our weekend. Cheers!

Geocaching Adventures: Blue Ghost Tunnel

2012-01-05T16:01:00.001-05:00

Canadians, it seems, like haunting tunnels. Today I went on an adventure to complete a multi-cache at the Blue Ghost tunnel in St. Catharines, ON.

This is actually my second attempt at this cache. We tried to get to the parking coords a couple days ago, but were thwarted by a big fence across the service road running to the cache that said, basically, go away. The road leads to a GM plant, and I guess they don't like visitors.

We were with a bunch of people, including a toddler, so we didn't want to spend a lot of time trying alternative access methods, so we decided to head off to do the Screaming Tunnel cache instead.

I really wanted to see this tunnel, so I did some map research online and made another attempt today.

One thing that makes this cache hard to access is that it is sandwiched between several canals (basically its on a mand-made uninhabited island), so there are only so many ways to access this cache. Having one way blocked off really complicates things.

According to the logs the tunnel can also be accessed by parking at the cemetary to the south, and hiking around a resevoir and crossing at a lock. So I started out using this as my starting plan. I got to the cemetary and hiked along the trails a mile to the lock.

Unfortunately I ran into a wall... literally. I needed to descend about 50ft along a pretty sheer rock wall. There was a path of stone steps, but since I was a) alone, and b) have weak knees, I decided that way was too risky, so I aborted that attempt. I scouted around the area, but I could find no other way to get down to the lock, so I executed a retro-grade maneuver, returned to my car, and headed over to where the road was blocked to see if I could find another way from there.

Luckly I found a way. The road I needed to access curves around and passes under a bridge, then heads a mile to the tunnel. Cars were not allowed on the road, but there were foot paths down the side of the bridge that gave access to the road. So I parked the car at a turnout on the main road, hiked down the side of the bridge, and a mile down the service road to the cache.

It seemed like I shouldn't be there, give that the road was blocked off so efficiently, however there were no No Tresspassing signs, and after being passed by several cars, including security, and getting nothing but friendly waves I figured I was good to go.

The tunnel goes under the service road I was walking on, so when I got to GZ I descended down a ravine and finally laid eyes on my goal: The Blue Ghost Tunnel.

The cache didn't require going into the tunnel, but I went in anyways. The tunnel is 667 feet long, with a soft gentle curve. About half way along the bottom drops off and is covered in what looks like deep water, so I only went that far. I can definitely see how folks would think that this place was scary. Water dripping from the ceiling, dark, rough floor, damp, cold... the perfect setting of a ghost story.

The tunnel was build in the 1870s as a train tunnel to aid in the moving of goods between the various canals in the area. Early in the 20th century, there was an accident in which two trains collided just outside the tunnel, and many people were killed. It is said that the ghosts of these people moved into the tunnel, and live there to this day.

After I returned to daylight I set about finding the first stage of the cache, and quickly came up with the container. The new coordinates sent me away from the tunnel and off into a field about 400ft away. So off I went up the side of the ravine, into the field, and found the final cache. Victory!

I spent a bit more time exploring a lock nearby, then made the hike back to my car and drove back home.

This was an absolutely amazing experience, and if you are in the area, I highly recommend the Haunted Blue Ghost Tunnel Cache.

I'll leave you with some more images from my adventure:

Geocaching Adventures: Screaming Tunnel

2012-01-03T22:47:00.000-05:00

Niagara-On-The-Lake, a small community in southern Ontario, is haunted. Well one tunnel is at any rate.

The legend holds that over a century ago there was a farmhouse in a nearby field that caught fire. "The air was shattered by a young girl's wretched screams as she emerged running from the fire's eerie glow. Her clothing engulfed in flames, she fled into a tunnel in a futile attempt to extinguish her burning garments. Collapsing to the floor, she died alone in its depths."

It is said that to this day, if you light a match in the tunnel you will hear the screams of the girl, and the match will immediately be blown out.

The tunnel is called the Screaming Tunnel, and with a name like that you end up begging for caches to be near by, and you would not be disappointed. There are several. Today I went with my wife and sister-in-law to attempt a multi-cache that took us through this tunnel.

The first stage of the multi is on the parking side of the cache. We quickly got our hands on the coordinates for stage two, and headed through the tunnel. The tunnel was full of water and ice, and we had to jump across the stream of water several times to make it through the tunnel. Amazingly, given we have one hair dresser, one pregnant lady, and, well, me, in our party, we made it across without getting wet.

We then hiked a quarter mile in the cold wintery weather (-11c - cold enough to freeze beard hairs) to the second stage. It was there that we ran into issues. It turns out stage 2 is missing - we could not find it after a good 20 minute search. A check of the logs confirmed that this stage was not found by countless others.

It was at this stage that we started heading back. As we did I checked my GPS and noted that we were only 300ft from another cache, so off we went and grabbed it. So we didn't get the cache we wanted, but since we planned on getting one cache, and we signed one log, we claimed victory and headed back through the tunnel to our cars.

We had survived the screaming tunnel unscathed. Another awesome caching experience in the books.

I'll leave you with some more photos from todays adventures:

Geocaching Adventures: Duff

2012-01-03T20:46:00.001-05:00

It is always good times to cache with old friends...

... especially if it involves a trudge through the snow.

I've known him (caching name: Tha Duh Feez) since before either of us got into caching, way back in 2006. He attended my wedding, and I was a groomsman in his. I moved away before I started caching, and ne has recently gotten into it. So I made an extra effort to ensure that we got a chance to cache together while I am in the Great White North for the holidays.

Yesterday was the day.

We started the day by going to the Ontario Science Center in Toronto and checking out the Groundspeak GPS/Geocaching exhibit: GPS Adventures. This exhibit is a GPS maze that teaches people all about geocaching. To get through the maze you need to solve 4 geocaching style puzzles. It was a surprisingly good exhibit, and I even learned some things (a surprise, since I have been caching so long). It is well worth checking out if the exhibit comes to a city near you (check www.gpsmaze.com for details).

The GPS Adventures exhibit is also a geocaching event, so once we signed the logbook we had our first cache of the day in the bag. However its not exactly geocaching as it was meant to be, and I still needed to get my boots into some deep snow, so we still had some more adventure ahead of us.

So in search of this adventure we headed northwest to Halton county, and headed out on a quest for a cache along the Bruce trail.

The weather was 22f, with a soft falling snow. About 3-5 inches on the ground. The trails were very rugged, with lots of puddles and ponds (mostly frozen over). Aka perfect Canadian weather.

There were a lot of rocks and fallen trees to climb over, which the snow made that much more treacherous to navigate.

But navigate we did, and after about 40 minutes on the trails we had the cache in hand. 20 more minutes and we were back in the car warming up.

All in all it was a fantastic day of caching with an old friend, and the snow hike did a lot to satisfy my cravings for communing with the Canadian winter.

I'll leave you with some more images from our hike:

A Hike In Haldimand County

2011-12-27T21:59:00.000-05:00

A couple days ago I went on a hike on an old railway that was converted to a hiking trail in Haldimand County, located on the northern coast of Lake Erie in Ontario, Canada. I started the hike just before 4PM, and was out until the sun set an hour later.

After the hike I toured an old cemetary, then spent some time by the Grand River just as the sun set.

The following are the photos that resulted from this trip.

Geocaching Adventures: 12 Mile Creek

2011-12-23T09:12:00.000-05:00

Today I explored parts of 12 Mile Creek, a river that flows through the Niagara Peninsula. It was an adventure that held a lot of surprises.

I started the day going for a cache with a lot of favourite points in the Short Hills Provincial Park. I pulled into the parking lot, and grabbed my gear and headed down the trail. I went about 100ft when I realized that I has forgotten something, so I headed back to the van. When I arrived the person who was parked beside me was getting out of his truck. As I was digging around my van he said "hey, are you a geocacher? I noticed the caching badge on your bag".

It turns out he was on the hunt for the same cache, so we decided to join forces and head out on the hike together. During the approx. 1 mile hike to ground zero we talked about all things caching, and he pointed out that this cache was Ontario's oldest active cache, which added some interesting colour to the cache.

We parted ways at GZ, and I continued on my way down the trails to complete a 3.4 mile loop. It was an interesting, but very muddy hike.

I then moved east a few miles and went on the hunt for a cache that looked interesting. When I got to GZ it turned out that the cache was way above my physical abilities, and rather than risk certain death I decided to settle for a couple of what appeared to be less interesting caches in that area (appearances are deceiving - these were awesome caches in their own right), so off I went down another muddy trail through the woods along the edge of 12 Mile Creek.

It turns out that area used to be a town here, long since abandoned (who knew?). There isn't much left but some old bridge abutments, and some support structures for a grist mill.

I walked for a couple miles along the creek, trying to get a cache at an abandoned bridge. It soon became apparent that the cache was not available from this side of the creek, and a pedestrian bridge does not exist. So I hiked back to the van and headed across the creek to my final destination: Morningstar Mill.

The mill is an access point to the Bruce Trail, a 560 mile trail that runs from (essentially) Niagara Falls north to Georgian Bay. So off I went down the (yep, muddy) Bruce Trail.

This section held a couple surprises for me. First off the Decew Falls. I had no idea that these falls existed. At 73ft high, and 20ft wide, they are one of the more significant waterfalls I've seen in Ontario (aside from Niagara Falls, of course). What make this more interesting is that my wife lived just a few miles from here before we were married. I have driven this road many many times, yet I had no idea this large waterfall existed just a few hundred feet from the road.

The second surprise was that hiking the Bruce Trail to the cache involved descending the Niagara Escarpment. The Escarpment is a very steep one-sided ridgeline that runs for many many miles. At this location it is 250ft high, and it drops that 250ft in about 75 linear feet. So, pretty darn steep. To make things more interesting, the mud (remember the mud?) made things a tad bit slippery. Luckily there are a lot of tree roots and rocks to act as stairs. A fair amount of billygoating later, I was at the bottom, and enjoyed the 1/2 mile hike along the creek's edge to the cache.

Getting back up the escarpment proved to be much easier (its always easier to climb up hills than down). Once I got to the top I had a sense of euphoria - I had tackled an amazing challenge and I came out victorious.

I hiked 7.5 miles today, most of it on muddy trails, and only found 5 caches, but it was completely worth it. The scenery was amazing, and the caches themselves were all top notch. Definitely a day well spent.

I'll finish this post off with a slideshow of the rest of the sights of the day:

Geocaching Adventures: Millenium Cache

2011-12-20T22:07:00.001-05:00

Well, its official. I have found my 1,000th geocache.

Often cachers will pick a special cache for their milestones - often they are epic hikes, difficult finds, classic caches etc. So you may wonder what cache I picked to be my Millenium Cache, and you are right to ask.

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you will know that I am not exactly a traditionalist (also, I'm sorry for the pain I've inflicted on you through my writing).

So to answer your poignant question: instead of going epic or classic, I went sentimental.

The cache I picked, "Lake Erie at Esplanade Park", which is a micro in a small park. What makes it special is that it is the closest cache to Port Maitland Pier. In August 2006, at the end of that pier by the lighthouse, is the location where I proposed to my wife.

Since I popped that all important question we have shared a wonderful life together, explored Europe, moved to North Carolina, had one kid and have a second one due in April. We have also had a lot of awesome adventures together, many of which are documented elsewhere in this blog. It seemed fitting to head back to this place and sign a logbook to commemorate an activity that has helped shape many of those adventures.

Debaere and Wife. Note the lighthouse in the background.

I spent the morning finding the last few caches I needed to get to #999. Then after lunch I put on the t-shirt that my wife got for me to mark the occaision (isn't she awesome?), left the offspring with the in-laws, piled into the van and headed over to the cache, made a quick grab of it, signed the log, and took some photos. Millenium Cache accomplished.

We enjoyed being out caching so much that we spent the next couple of hours exploring my wifes home town (nearby Dunnville), and found 6 more caches together, before finally heading back to her parents place (where we are staying) and settled in for the night.

It has taken me 3.5 years to find 1,000 caches. It has taken me to many places I never imagined I would be, and many, many (many...) places I never knew existed, even ones in my own back yard. I am proud to have reached this milestone, and I can't wait to find the next 1,000 caches.... where is my GPS at?

Geocaching Adventures: Millenium Quest

2011-12-20T19:38:00.000-05:00

A often celebrated milestone in geocaching is getting 1000 finds. It is typical for a cacher to pick a special cache to count as their 1000th.

I realized a while ago that a confluence of events was transpiring which would allow me to reach my own 1000 find milestone, or what I have dubbed my Millenium Cache, in my homeland of Canada.

When we set off to Canada, a two day trip from our current home in North Carolina, I had 25 finds to go. We had 600+ miles to make up (with a toddler in the car no less).

This post documents in pictures my Millenium Quest to find enough caches so I can get my Millenium Cache.

Sadly this post does not include my actual Millenium Cache... that is deserving of a post all its own, but happily these events have brought me to a find count of 999:

So which cache will be my 1000th? Will it be an epic journey through the ice and snow of the Canadian frozen north? A grueling 10 part multi-cache through the streets of Toronto? A park and grab at the local Tim Hortons? Perhaps a scuba cache in chilly Lake Erie?

To find out, Tonka Tyke says:

"Stay tuned, eh?
It's gonna be a beauty."

Geocaching: The Beginning

2011-12-14T21:04:00.001-05:00

A TEDx talk from Jeremy Irish, one of the founders of Groundspeak, the company that runs geocaching.com. It covers the beginning of the obsession known as Geocaching (at least as it relates to geocaching.com)

Google Parties

2011-12-12T21:37:00.001-05:00

Some pics from the two Google parties I attended. One on the USS Hornet in Alameda CA, The other at Grove Park Inn in Asheville NC:

Geocaching Containers Ready For Placing

2011-12-11T20:56:00.001-05:00

One of the traditional geocaching containers are Lock & Lock containers. On October 22nd I purchased a set of 14 containers from woot.com.

<-- As can be seen in the pic on the left, the set came in a variety of shapes and sizes

Since then I have been working on giving these guys some camo paint jobs (I posted about my technique a while ago here).

Some got a cement-ish look for urban hides, but most got a variety of forrest camoflage.

I had a few extra tupperware containers lying around so I painted them as well. I also have a variety of bison tubes, match stick containers, and various other container types of my own devising. So watch out, ye cacher inhabitants of the foothills of North Carolina. These containers are coming soon to a GZ near you:

The Delorme Challenge: What is it?

2011-12-10T08:45:00.001-05:00

A snippet of atypical Delorme Atlas page

I have mentioned in several posts that I am attempting the North Carolina Delorme Challenge. Many of you have posed the question: "What the heck is that?". This post is intended to provide that answer.

Delorme is a map company. Among other things (GPSs etc) they publish paper atlases, including one per state in the US. The Delorme challenges require a cacher to claim finds for all pages in a given state. Once that happens, they are given access to the coordinates for the final cache. Once that log is signed, the challenge is completed.

To give you an idea of the scope of the challenge, here are some stats for the North Carolina challenge: Each full page covers 24.6 x 35.5 miles, tho some "pages" are smaller than that. There are 78 pages covering the state of North Carolina, 77 of which are required to complete the challenge (the other one doesn't have any caches in it, so its a freebie). To claim a page one needs to find any cache except event caches. Caches found previously to accepting the challenge also count towards pages, so odds are you already have some pages claimed and didn't even know it yet.

These caches are a great way to explore your own home state, and I highly recommend trying the challenge in your state. A complete list of challenges is here.

Go forth and explore!

Geocaching Adventures: Cache Run By Favourite Points

2011-12-05T10:02:00.001-05:00

Recently I was in a new area and I only had a few hours to do some caching. So I loaded up a pocket query for all caches with a 10 mile radius, sorted by favourite points, and started going down the list. The following slideshow is some of the best of that cache run. (note: If you didn't get any of that, just translate to: "Here is a bunch of caches other people liked a lot")

**SPOILER ALERTS** If you live in this area, or are planning to travel to this area, you may not want to view these. However since you don't know which area, and no one lives in this area (not to mention that if you were a cacher who did live in that area you'd have found them already), this shouldn't be a problem. At least for me. Maybe for you, but thats your problem, not mine. I am not your mother - go solve your own problems.

I present you, a few hours of caching in [UNDISCLOSED LOCATION]:

Geocaching Adventures: Redwoods

2011-12-05T09:58:00.001-05:00

One of the amazing natural features of northern California is the giant Redwood trees. These giant trees can grown over 300ft tall, and can be 30ft in diameter at their base. So, ya know, not your average pine tree.

One of my goals for my trip to California was to go hiking among the redwoods. On Sunday this is exactly what I did.

During the week I ran into a co-worker, who suggested that we (him, his wife, and baby daughter, and I) go on a hike this weekend. What is interesting about this for you, my ~~tortured~~loyal readers is that he is a cacher. More importantly he is the one that got me started in caching when we were both in Belgium in the summer of 2008. So you can blame my obsession on him.

I found my first cache with him, and the next 4 with him and his wife (we also accidentally ended up in France one time, but that is a story for another post).

I have not had a chance to cache with him since, so it was really awesome to close the loop and go caching again with the guy who showed me this awesome thing called geocaching.

Hiking among the redwoods is a fun experience. The majority of the foliage is well above you, so you spend a lot of time looking through a forest of tree trunks. You don't get a lot of magnificent vistas, but you do get the sense of walking among giants.

If you ever get the chance I highly reccomend giving it a go.

I didn't take a lot of pics on this hike, but I leave you with one last view of the giant redwoods of Big Basin State Park:

Hrm... I wonder where this path goes...

Geocaching Identification: Et Tu Muggle?

2011-12-03T23:36:00.001-05:00

When is a muggle not a muggle?

I am out in California for work. Now that the weekend is upon me I decided to go for a hike in the hills to the south west of San Francisco Bay. So I loaded up some caches into the GPSr and headed off to Castle Rock State Park.

The first cache of the day was a mile down the trail at an overlook with an amazing view of Monterey Bay and the hills surrounding it. I spent a decent amount of time enjoying the view, a celebration of a hard climb up the trails.

The first rule of muggles is that if you encounter any muggles on your caching hunt they will be at ground zero. Today was no exception. As soon as I finished taking in the view and was ready to start my hunt a young couple arrived at the overlook. Gah!

Determined to wait them out, I sat down on a nearby bench, drank some water, and tried to look awkward and creepy (with the theory that being awkward and creepy leads to people leaving early so they can get away from the awkward creepy guy - its a good trick, try it!). The gentleman was teaching the lady how to read maps with a compass, and they were there a good 15 minutes. The only thing I had to do today was go on a 3 hour hike... I don't have time for this!

Eventually they started to leave, but instead of taking the trail they started a bushwhack right over to GZ. This was unusual. I had been watching them, looking for the tell tale signs of a cacher, the biggest clue being the use of a GPS, but I didn't see anything. These guys screamed muggles. So I watched them a little while longer... they were definitely looking like cachers on the hunt - doing the bee dance, looking under and over every log they could find.

My curiosity piqued I finally asked "excuse me... are you by any chance geocachers?" His response "Why yes I am, are you?".

Bingo.

It turns out we both mistook each other as muggles and were playing the waiting game before hunting the cache. They were also new cachers, with only 8 finds, and they lacked a GPSr. He was trying to use a map and compass to find the caches (a method once perfected may serve him well).

We joined forces and used my GPSr to locate the cache, a nice ammo can under some logs.

They happened to be going on the same trail loops that I was so we headed off on the next leg of the hike together, me providing the coordinates, and them providing a lot of interesting information about the trails, and the park (both are locals and have been in the park many times). We ended the 5 mile hike with 5 caches under our belt, including 3 that they were going to skip due to the difficulties in getting bearings under heavy tree cover.

So when is a muggle not a muggle? When he's a cacher.

Cache-A-Maniacs Interview

2011-12-03T11:06:00.001-05:00

My interview with the cache-a-maniacs podcast has been published.

Cache-A-Maniacs is a podcast that interviews cachers from around the world. They asked for volunteers so I raised my hand.

So if you want to know more about Yours Truly as it related to my caching experience in audio format, check out the link below:
Cache-A-Maniacs Interviews debaere (click on the Pod)

When finished, if I haven't scared you off, subscribe to the podcast and listen to the other fantastic interviews from cachers around the world.

Geocaching Yanksgiving: Unusual Suspects

2011-12-01T06:00:00.000-05:00

The events of this post happened between 12:00AM and 11:59PM on November 27, 2011.

This is the last day on our family American Thanksgiving (aka Yanksgiving) weekend road trip to the Outer Banks of North Carolina, exploring Eastern North Carolina in the process. Today we drove from Greensboro NC to Charlotte NC. Each day has had its own flavour as we explore different regions of Eastern North Carolina. Today can best be summarized by the term "bizarre".

Many of the caches I found today ended up being unusual or odd in some way or another. What makes this more striking is that when I planned out these caches I picked them for their proximity to our route, and page location on the Delorme atlas (our trip is also doubling as a mission to gather pages for the North Carolina Delorme Challenge). Often this leads to a series of LPC and guard rail caches, with the occasional ammo can tossed in, but today was different.

We found 13 caches today on 5 Delorme pages. Of those 7 were things I have not seen before. Without giving away too much details, I'll list some of these unusual caches:

* We saw an amazing display of wind powered art by a nationally renowned artist Vollis Simpson.

* A cache that was a gallon milk jug full of cement, with just enough space at the top for a log sheet.

* A metal pot hanging from a tree. The hanging part isn't unusual, but the pot was. I have never seen that type of container anywhere, let alone in a state of arboreal suspense.

* A cache hidden as a power meter. It was right out in the open. It was magnetically attached to a utility box. Amazing camo job.

* A home owner had constructed a real train crossing as a gate for his driveway.

* The most unusual is a cache that was buried by ants. The container was a film canister that was stuck in the ground at the base of a sign post. Over time a colony of ants moved in, and as they pushed sand from their tunnels, their ant hill buried the cache. This one took a long time to find :)

And thus ends our caching adventure. This has been a productive trip. We found 59 geocaches, and claimed all the Delorme pages on the eastern side of North Carolina. We saw parts of the state that we now call home that we have never seen before. We also saw Zeke take some steps towards becoming an adventurer in his own right.

Thus this adventure ends. So now I will sign off this series, and await the start of the next adventure. I suspect I won't be waiting that long.

Geocaching Yanksgiving: Reflections

2011-11-30T06:00:00.000-05:00

The events of this post happened between 12:00AM and 11:59PM on November 26, 2011.

As a father of a 2 year old I often wonder what influence I am having on him. I want him to grow up with a sense of wonder and adventure. Always wanting to know what is behind the next hill. Always curious, and having the courage to explore his world and satisfy his curiosities.

These past few days I have been seeing signs of how I am influencing him.

We have been on a road trip for 4 days on a geocaching road trip to explore eastern North Carolina, and pick up some pages for the Delorme Challenge for North Carolina. We are a family of Canadians living in the US, and since this adventure is happening during Thanksgiving, and we celebrate ours in October, I have dubbed this trip: Geocaching Yanksgiving (it always helps to name your adventures - gives it a sense of purpose).

Todays adventure hass brought us back west. We started the day on the Outer Banks, and ended up a hundred miles west, squarely safe on the mainland. The landscape has changed from ocean beaches, to swamp land, and to rich farmland. We've seen a lot of history, and a lot of cool nature.

I've also seen Zeke take some more steps on his way to become an adventurer.

Since the first day we left on this trip, Zeke has started each day excited to go caching. He would sit in his car seat and say "cache!" over and over in his cute little toddler voice. This is completely unprompted. We didn't start the trip saying we were going caching. He just seemed to know, and he got excited about it all on his own.

Now when we pull up to a parking spot and tell him its time to go get a cache, he practically bounces in his seat. Today I had a couple of really cool experiences caching with Zeke.

The first experience was the first cache of the day. We parked the car, and had a 300ft walk across a field to get to GZ, which was in the woods on the far side. When we got to GZ I spotted the cache almost immediately - it was an ammo can sitting under a pine tree, but I waited to see if Zeke would spot it. We walked into the woods a bit more and sure enough he spotted it. Without hesitating (and just a little prompting from me) he walked the 6ft father into the bush, crawled under the pine tree, grabbed the ammo can (which is half his size) and pulled it out so we could open it. Not bad for a 2 year old.

Once retrieved, we helped him open it up and he looked through the trade items. I signed the log, and then he put it back (almost) perfectly. He handled the cache like he's been caching for years. It was a great proud daddy moment :)

I am really starting to look forward to the next few years as Zeke gets older and can handle more hikes and exploring further and farther. It is going to be a wild and fun ride.

Today we found 13 caches and claimed 7 Delorme Pages. We have one day left on our adventure. Stay tuned! In the mean time, let me leave you with these last pics of Zeke's great geocaching day, and another milestone in his development: Zeke signing his first cache log:

Geocaching Yanksgiving: Outer Banks

2011-11-29T09:00:00.000-05:00

The events of this post happened between 12:00AM and 11:59PM on November 25, 2011.

The sound of the pounding surf slowly invades your consciousness, bringing you gently from a deep sleep into the waking world. You keep your eyes closed, desperately clinging to the joy of a deep slumber. Other sounds begin to invade the peace and quiet of your mind: Your wife breathing deeply beside you. The stirring of your son in his crib across the room. The dog scratching in her kennel.

Finally succumbing to the unavoidable morning your eyes flicker open and you see the sun peaking through the curtains. It is morning outside. You are in a hotel room. The world is yours for the taking. Adventure awaits...

Over then past few days we have travelled to the eastern coast of North Carolina. Seeking fame and fortune and geocaches as we explore the eastern half of the state we now call home, and claim pages for the North Carolina Delorme Challenge.

Yesterday we made it to Kill Devil Hills, on the very eastern edge of North Carolina. We are in the middle of the Outer Banks, a thin strip of islands that stretch down the majority of the North Carolina coastline. Today we plan on exploring this thin sandy line, and see what interesting sights and sounds await us.

The first location of note is a field in Kitty Hawk NC, the very spot where mans first powered flight was flown. There sits a National Park that memorializes Orville and Wilbur Wrights epic accomplishment. It is quite amazing to stand in the spot that made all modern flight possible.

After Kitty Hawk, we drove south down the Outer Banks for a couple hours. Our strategy was to get to the end as quickly as possible to ensure we claimed the Delorme pages we needed, then cache our way back north to our hotel.

The Outer Banks are a series of towns separated by long thin strips of sand dunes, sparse grasslands, and a lot of water on both sides. The landscape is broken from time to time with lighthouses, including the Hatteras Light House, the tallest light house on the eastern seaboard.

Some facts about our day:

I managed to pick up 11 caches today, including a webcam cache.
We claimed 2 new Delorme pages. The pages are tall, and North Carolina is 4 pages tall. Since we are limited to a thin strip of land going north/south, we don't have a lot of pages. On the other hand, we have all of then Outer Bank pages claimed.
We completely avoided Black Friday.
Aside from filling the van with gas, we avoided purchasing anything.

After spending a day on the Outer Banks I am ready to leave. Oceans and sand dunes are a nice change of pace, but I am definitely a trees and mountains kind of guy. Luckily tomorrow we head back to the mainland.

... crawling back into bed exhausted, you let your head hit the pillow. Closing your eyes and taking a deep breath, settling in under the covers, relaxation sweeping over you. The sound of the pounding surf lulls you into dreamland, bringing all the possibilities of the adventures tomorrow will bring. Stay tuned.

Geocaching Yanksgiving: Where The Rivers Meet The Sea

2011-11-28T18:00:00.000-05:00

The events of this post happened between 12:00AM and 11:59PM on November 24, 2011.

We are on a road trip to explore eastern North Carolina in celebration of Yanksgiving, a fresh Canadian take on the American Thanksgiving holiday. We are also grabbing pages for the North Carolina Delorme Challenge.

Last night we stayed in Morehead City, so it seems reasonable, baring some issue with the space-time continuum, that today would start in Morehead City, and you would be correct.

We spend the day winding out way north eastward, exploring the inlets and roadways of the eastern North Carolina inner coastal waterways. Literally where the rivers meet the sea.

Our first cache of the day was just outside of the town of Havelock, just off a little road, and 150ft into light woods. A perfect cache for the whole family. We parked about 400ft away and got Zeke and Bailey the wonder puppy out of the car. As soon as we started walking Zeke started excitedly saying "cache! cache!" over and over again.

We wandered into the woods hand-in-hand (in the the manner that only a father and toddler are apt to adopt) and worked our way through the brush to GZ, where we were pleasantly surprised to find a rather large ammo can.

Zeke loved exploring the contents of the cache. Like most kids the swag is his favourite part.

We then headed back to the car, stopping along the way to pick up stones and explore the train tracks... typical toddler stuff. We eventually made it back to the van and got everyone settled. It was a perfect little caching moment, and a great start to the day.

We turned the van northward and headed up to Washington NC, where we explored some cotton fields. Neither my wife nor I have ever actually been up close to a cotton plant so we took the opportunity to check them out first hand. Turns out a cotton plant feels exactly like... cotton. How predictable.

From there we headed eastward through the marshlands that make up the western edge of Croatan Sound. There we hit a wall of mosquitoes as thick as a wave of Tie Fighters in Return Of The Jedi, and about as effective (annoying, draws some blood, but easy to kill). I have never seen so many mosquitos in one place before, and it turns out they were hungry and ready to feed. Apparently I taste good.

We eventually got to the coast and crossed over Croatan Sound to Roanoke Island, and grabbed a nice cache by a light house. Zeke played at a nearby playground while I hunted down the cache at the end of a pier with the light house. Along the way I noticed a pelican swooping around, and diving into the bay to catch fish for food. I've always been fascinated with pelicans, probably because a rhyme my mom used to say:
Wonderful bird is the pelican
Its beak can hold more than its belly can.

I've often tried to get close enough to take a decent photo of them, and failed miserably, Today I got my best pics yet. Not outstanding, but not that bad either, if I do say so myself.

The light house was our last cache of the day, so we crossed the bridges over Roanoke Sound and arrived at our hotel in Kill Devil Hills NC. After check in we enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving buffet in the hotel restaurant, a nice treat after spending so many hours on the road.

Some more facts about the day include:

I found 12 caches, none were suspended from trees. Only One was suspended (from fishing line).
We claimed 8 Delorme pages
Zeke is really starting to get into caching, and was part of 3 finds, including this bison tube embedded in a stake
If there is a single person within 700ft of the cache, he will invariably be sitting at ground zero (happened twice today).

If you look on a map of North Carolina you will see a long thin series of islands that extends almost the entire length of the state of North Carolina, shaped almost like a shield separating the ocean from the mainland. The long islands iare called the Outer Banks, and it is where we will be exploring for the next couple of days.

Stay tuned!

Geocaching Yanksgiving: - An Introduction

2011-11-28T06:29:00.000-05:00

The events of this post happened between 12:00AM and 11:59PM on November 23, 2011.

A series of events have conspired to send me and my family on another geocaching road trip.

Event The First: A while ago I convinced the wife (really it didn't take long) that we should attempt to do the Delorme Challenge for North Carolina. It involves finding a cache in all 77 pages of the Delorme North Carolina Road Atlas. We have all of the western half of the state, but only have a few of the eastern pages.

Event The Second: Americans celebrate Thanksgiving at the end of November. We are Canadians who live in North Carolina, but we still hold onto some Canadian traditions, one of which being we celebrate our Thanksgiving in October. So when the end of November rolls around we essentially get 2 days free vacation to celebrate a holiday I refer to as Yanksgiving.

So putting the math together, and adding an additional vacation day to the mix, we decided to celebrate Yanksgiving with a 5 day road trip to the eastern half of North Carolina to fill out some more Delorme Pages.

We spend today driving across the southern half of the state to the coast, picking up 6 pages, and ending up spending the night in Morehead City NC.

Some highlights of the day:

Action shot

I found 9 caches today, including one of each of the traditional sizes: nano, micro, small, medium, large, jumbo.
I found all the traditional hides (guard rail, fire hydrant, in prickly bush, behind sign) except LPC.
Two of the containers were suspended in the air. I've only seen this 5 times, so its odd to see two in one day.
Milestone Alert: One of the ammo-cans-suspended-in-the-air caches was my 900th find.
One of the caches was at a winery. After singing the log we went in and got 6 bottles of wine for the pregnant lady...

(What?!?!?!)

... before you get all panicky about the dangers about alcohol and fetuses, relax. The wine is non-alcoholic, and will be used over the holidays by said pregnant lady to enjoy without causing my unborn child to grow an extra arm in-utero.

We actually ended up in Morehead City several hours ahead of schedule, so we decided to do a round trip to Cedar Island and grab the cache for that Delorme page. This page is tricky as there is only one cache on the mainland, and it is completely out of the way.

Grabbing this cache adds several hours to our journey, so getting it out of the way now saves us significant time tomorrow.

Not to mention that it allows is to end our day with this amazing view:

Stay tunes for more adventures as a family of Canadians celebrate the latest holiday craze.

Oh, one more anecdote about the day. When we packed Zeke up in the car this morning the first thing he said was, with an excited voice, "cache!". I think I am raising my boy right :)

Geoaching Adventures: The Toddler Videos

2011-11-24T21:31:00.001-05:00

A couple videos taken today of Zeke while geocaching. The first is just after we got out of the car...

Next at ground zero when Zeke locates the cache container...

slightly off camera: proud daddy.

Geocaching Adventues: Lazy Sunday Edition

2011-11-21T18:03:00.001-05:00

What did you do on your lazy Sunday afternoons? As for me and my house, we chose to have an adventure.

I have had my eye on some tricker caches in the area for a while, one being a tricky puzzle cache. On Thursday night I had solved the puzzle with help from fellow cachers weightman and idajo2. So with coordinates in hand I was anxious to get out on the trails and find the container.

On Sunday, like all good Presbyterians, we head to church for some preachin', teachin', and some good ol' rock'n'roll (you do have a rock band in your church, right?)

We get out of church at 11, and normally we head home for some lunch and napping. This past Sunday I talked my wife into going geocaching instead.

So off we went to some parks in Hickory NC to tackle some caches.

The first couple caches were along the Geitner trail, a paved path that weaves through a wilderness area The first cache on this trail was the puzzle cache mentioned above. It involved some bushwhacking, but luckily the coords were spot on.

The second cache was further down the trail, and even more further down into a valley, 150 of bushwhacking on a slope. The cache was 45ft away from GZ so it involved some hunting around, but I eventually came up with the grab. Debbie and Zeke stayed up on the path and played. On the way back to the car, Zeke, ever looking for new sticks to play with, discovered the joy of Daddy's trekking pole (good thing I bought two of them! :). He actually got pretty good at using it correctly.

The next cache was at Hilton Park, just a mile or so down the road. I have had my eye on this cache for a couple years now. I tried to grab it once before but I was unprepared for the terrain. The cache is called Hilton Wet Or Dry, because it offers you a choice: you can bushwhack to the cache over a half mile of bush (and this is North Carolina bush - chock full of thorny vines that would scare the devil himself), or ford a river that is 30 ft wide. Which would you choose?

Myself I am picking the water. So with trekking pole in hand, and wearing freshly waterproofed hiking boots, I headed to the rivers edge and prepared to face my water nemesis.

The river is not actually that deep, perhaps a foot and a half at its deepest, so simply wading across is an option - but to my mind that approach lacks finesse. So I slowly picked my way from river rock to river rock, and eventually made my way to the far bank and clambered up the sleep slope on the other side. The cache was about 150ft through the fine North Carolina bush, and quickly made the grab.

Getting back was a bit trickier. For one I had to slide down the steep bank to get to the waters edge, and the rocks were spread wider apart. So it was touch and go for a bit, but with clever application of a trekking pole, utilization of low hanging tree branches as support from the banks, and some good old fashioned determination to not slip, I made it back across with out much incident. The toes of my boots got wet, but my feet inside remained nice and dry - not to bad if I do say so myself.

I finished off the day finding the one other traditional cache in the park, then we headed home just in time for our afternoon naps.

Tools Of The Geocacher

2011-11-14T20:23:00.001-05:00

The Boy Scout motto is: Be Prepared. I was never a boyscout, but as a system administrator and geocacher I take that motto to heart. In my experience one is well served to put this to practice when one is on the hunt for a geocache. You never know what situation you find yourself in, so it really does help to Be Prepared.

So as a service to any geocachers out there who may not find themselves entirely prepared, this post will outline the things I do to be prepared for any situation I may find myself in while out on the hunt for tupperware in the woods.

== On My Person ==

I carry the following things wherever I go: hiking, walking, work, church, sitting on the couch watching TV...

Leatherman Wave multi-tool - I have built entire datacenters with little else than this tool. If you don't have one, stop reading and go get one now.
cell phone
pen
car keys
wallet
doggie bags (never know when the hound is gonna squat!)
Outback hat by Tilley Endurables

== My Geobag ==

My geobag with badges from my various travels.

I have a green canvas messenger bag that I carry with me whenever I go geocaching. It contains pretty much everything I need on a hunt in either the woods or urban settings:

Mechanix gloves - you never know what you are going to touch - these protect without being bulky
tweezers - for getting those pesky logs out of nano containers
compass with safety whistle built in
two flashlights for this pesky night hides, or when looking in dark crevices
notepad - for writing down notes during puzzle caches
camera with extra batteries & memory cards
GPS
Box of extra AA and AAA batteries (normally 8 of each)
sun block
bug spray
extra pair of socks
first aid kit
USB cables to connect all my electronics to a computer
a bunch of pens of all types, including pencils and sharpies
A bag of ziploc bags - for replacing those ripped ones in cache containers that protect the logs.

A multitude of pens. I never have the excuse of
"I didn't sign the log because I forgot a pen"

== On The Trail ==

When I am going on a longer hike I also carry the following:

Water bottles
snacks
hiking stick

== Geo Car ==

These items travel with me in my car:

Water bottles
car GPS
Hiking sticks
flashlights
wipes - for cleaning off stuff (also because I have a toddler who isn't toilet trained yet :)

So that is how I stay prepared. Did I leave anything out that you would carry on a geocaching hunt? Leave your suggestions in the comment section below.

As an aside my geobag is also trackable on geocaching.com. If you are so inclined, feel free to log 'debaere's geobag' at geocaching.com.

Cheers, and happy hunting!

Geocaching Adventures: Band Of Cachers Edition

2011-11-12T21:27:00.001-05:00

There are many great things about being a geocacher: The thrill of the hunt, the adventure, exploration, being "in" on a secret... and sometimes it is the people.

Over the past few months I have been interacting with several geocachers from South Carolina on Google Plus. They call their group the Band Of Cachers, or the BoC.

I found out that they were holding a 11-11-11 event, so I quickly made plans to attend. Orignally I was going to go myself, but in the end the entire family made the 2 hour trek to Lancaster SC to attend the event.

If you have ever met anyone who you've previously only known online you know that it is always a little surreal. To be in the presence of people who you know things about, but have not seen before takes some getting used to. However they did an amazing job of making us feel welcome, and it soon felt like we were among friends. The BoC are a great group of down to earth, decent folk with a great sense of humour. We spent the evening basking in the warmth of southern hospitality and geocaching bonding.

Along the way I was initiated into the BoC by wearing a sombrero and having Happy Birthday sung to me by the mexican staff (did I mention that the event was held at a mexican restaraunt - if not go back and mentally read that in to the third paragraph - I'll wait).

I hope to attend more events with these folks, and someday to go caching with them.

All good things must come to an end, and this was no exception, so after the event we put an exhausted (1.5 hours past his bedtime, yet still amazingly well behaved) Zekey in the van and headed to the hotel to get some rest.

The next morning we headed to Rock Hill SC to do some caching. It was actually a more interesting caching day than I expected as Rock Hill has a refreshingly interesting mix of hides for being in an urban setting. Some of the highlights are:

* There was one cache that was hidden in a tree. The hider encouraged people to leave their personal marks by hanging their personal tokens on the tree. Its kinda like a shoe tree, but with previous finders trademark items.

* Zeke found his first cache. He has cached with us many times, but this time he actually discovered and pulled the cache container from its hiding place. We are still working on "putting it back, hidden as well or better than found" :)

* I found 21 caches, a personal best.

* Due to certain logistical issues brought up by caching with pregnant ladies and the resulting tiny bladder syndrome, I got to cache solo with Zeke for a couple finds. He enjoyed looking in the caches to see what trade items they contain, and wanted to trade for a plastic ruby necklace. I was a bit worried about that (as you can imagine) but my concerns were allayed when he spent the rest of that particular walk dragging the necklace beside him, kicking up dirt.

Thanks to my wife's efforts we came away from the day with more pics of myself and Zeke caching than I have ever had before. So to end this post I leave you with a slideshow of the sights and sounds of our wonderful day of caching in Rock Hill SC

Renaissance Festival

2011-10-30T21:16:00.000-04:00

The parents-in-laws have been in town for the last few days. On Saturday we went to the Renaissance Festival in Huntersville NC. None of us had been to a Renaissance Festival before so we didn't really know what to expect. It turns out is is like a state fair but with fewer carnies and much more fun.

The rest of this post will mainly be in pictures, but first I'll highlight a couple things that made this day extra special:

It was Halloween weekend so all of the booths had candy to give to the kids. Once Zeke clued into this delicious fact he spent a good amount of time walking into the booths and yelling "treat!" until he got some candy. He ended up with quite the haul.
I was wearing a geocaching shirt, and because of it I met several other geocachers, including the Blacksmith, and the dude that sold me my lunch.
Any "meat on a stick" is tasty.

Now, on to the photos....

Turkey legs qualify as Meat On A Stick.

Zeke smelling the rose I bought for my wife.

The "hero" for the joust.

Minstrels

Geocaching Adventures: The Furnace

2011-10-30T20:40:00.000-04:00

My in-laws were in town last week and we had Saturday plans to drive 1.5 hours east to Huntersville NC to check out the Renaissance Festival. Me being me, I decided to drive by myself, leave early, and grab a few caches along the way. I'd meet everyone else in the festival parking lot.

I didn't have a great deal of extra time so I looked for quick and easy "park'n'grabs" to find. However there was one cache that kept catching my eye and getting my geosenses tingling. It was called The Furnace. However it has a high difficulty and terrain rating, and the description spoke of "trailblazing through the woods", so my first inclination was to skip it in favour of easier hunting grounds.

Since this cache was just 500ft off my route, and the first one on my list, I decided to drive by and check it out first hand before rejecting it outright. I could always keep on driving if it looked like it will take too much time. Once I got to the parking coords I immediately decided to give it a go. I am glad I did. This turned out to be the quintessential geocache experience.

From the parking area you can immediately see why the cache is called The Furnace. 300ft away in the woods, down a steep embankment, you could just make out the remnants of a really old large stone furnace. The ground was slippery from heavy rains the night before but I managed to climb down without insult or injury (thank you trusty hiking boots and trekking pole). From there it was just a few yards of flat wooded terrain to navigate before I got to the furnace.

This sucker is big. It is at least 50ft high, and just as wide. It is made of many many stones laid on top of each other, without the use of motar. When you walk around it you can see several inset areas which I assume were workspace areas when the furnace was operational.

The GPS said I was 120ft away from GZ, but since I clearly know more than satellite technology in geosynchronous orbit, I decided that the cache container must be on the furnace somewhere. I began my hunt, looking under rocks, and moving loose looking stones and bricks.

After a while I started to doubt myself and trust the technology. I am glad I did, as it lead me to another pile of rocks 100ft in the woods. There I quickly found the cache container - a pelican case - and signed the log.

I spent a few more minutes checking out the area before I climbed back up the embankment. I got into the car and drove off to the festival with all the confidence of knowing that whatever else happened that day, I had already had the perfect caching experience.

(As it turns out, the rest of the day was awesome too, but that is another story for another post... stay tuned)

Geocaching Adventures: The 10 Mile Milestone

2011-10-28T16:45:00.000-04:00

Yours Truly and the 10 mile milestone cache.

Just a short note to say that I have reached a mini-milestone of sorts. All caches within a 10 mile radius of my house, aka, my home turf, now has a signature on their logs.

It has been my goal to do this for a while now, and for the last two months or so there was only one cache left - a night cache which I finally grabbed yesterday (documented here).

Just before I had a chance to do the night cache another cacher in the area published two new caches, delaying my milestone by one more day. I headed out and grabbed the smiley on those today, so now my geocaching map is clear for 10 whole miles (16 KM for you metric orientated folks out in the blogosphere).

The best part is that the final cache on this quest (amusingly hidden at the church where my wife has her Quilting Guild meetings), is an ammo can in the woods. A classic geocaching experience if ever there was one.

Geocaching Adventures: Night Cache

2011-10-26T22:30:00.000-04:00

clevernickname in the spooky darkness

Tonight I went on one of the more interesting geocaching experiences I have ever been on, for tonight I tackled my very first night cache.

Now when I say "night cache" I don't mean just finding a normal cache after the sun goes down. This is a cache that is specifically designed to be only found in the darkness, when scary creatures roam the earth in search of food, and good children are tucked safely in their beds. This is a cache that screams adventure.

I picked up my caching buddy, clevernickname, at 8 PM, a half hour after sunset, and armed with flashlights, GPSs, and hiking sticks, we drove off into the night in search of adventure.

With a normal cache you arrive at the end of your journey at specified coordinates, and within 10-15ft (usually) there is a container with a log book to be signed.

With a night cache when you arrive at the coordinates and you need to find the start of a trail.

So we were at ground zero and we shined our flashlights around to look for trail markers. Suddenly something in the corner of my eye catches my attention.... off in the distance there is a reflective dot on a tree, ... how odd.

We walk over to the dot to check it out and as we get close we notice another dot further down the trail.... then another... and another...

Those dots are called fire tacks, basically thumb tacks with reflective material on them, which means they can really only be seen when a light is flashed on them, and this essentially only works at night when the contrast is high enough.

So we follow fire tack after fire tack and soon we are a half mile deeper into the woods. Eventually we ended up at a place that has a lot of tacks clustered in one spot on a log on the ground. We took a closer look and found the treasure that we were seeking for A nice shiny cache container with a crisp log inside just waiting to be signed.

With log signed and container replaced to its hiding place, we then followed the long line of fire tacks back to where we started, got into the van and drove back to civilization.

That, my friends, is one awesome way to go on a geocaching hunt.

A Father Son Weekend.

2011-10-22T21:54:00.000-04:00

My wife has left me.

Don't worry. She will be back :) She has gone on a womens retreat and has left Zeke and I back at home from Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon. Since this is, by far, the longest I have been left alone with Zeke - Mommy has ever spent the night away from us before - I decided to record the event in pictures...

... unfortunately I decided this after Zeke went to bed Friday night, so I didn't document the first part of our weekend, which was a trip to Lowes Hardware store. At first he didn't want to go inside, but after a bit of explaining, and bribing with a magnet, he got into the swing of things and enjoyed walking around the place, especially playing with the pipe connectors in the plumbing section. He was very well behaved, and even went and sat by himself on a bench while Daddy was paying for our new found goods (parts for a new cache).

The rest of the evening went by without any significant incidents, so we start our photography journey first thing Saturday morning...

It was cold when we woke up - 32f - so I wasn't overly concerned about getting an early start on our outdoor adventures so we spent some time playing with puzzles and watching Youtube videos.

At 10 am I decided it had warmed up enough that we could start heading out on an adventure. When it was time to go, Zeke helped by fetching his own socks. Our goal was to explore a kids park in Valdese NC that has both a geocache AND playground equipment.

When we got to the park we got out of the van and headed down the path to find the geocache (its easier to cache before play than play before cache, especially with a Zekey in tow)

Zeke wanted to hold the GPS so he led us across a baseball field and into the woods behind the scoreboard at the edge of left field.

The cache container was a large one, and full of items specifically designed for kids.

Zeke selected a rubber ball to take with him. We then replaced the cache in its hiding place. Then we headed back across the field to the playground where much swinging and climbing fun was to be had.

Bailey stood guard as we swung on the swingset and climbed on the playground equipment. There were many other kids around and Zeke had a good time watching and playing with them as well.

We left the park after an hour of playtime. I was planning on grabbing some more caches, but Zekey was to thwart those plans.

Almost before we left the parking lot Zeke fell asleep - a full two hours before his normal nap time. I drove around for a couple hours listening to NPR and waiting for him to wake up. I ended up driving around Lenoir and exploring some places I have not seen yet (and found some interesting places for some cache hides)

When he finally woke up we went shopping for some cache trade items, and a happy face balloon (cause why not?).

We then went home and grabbed some lunch. Nap time is normally at 1:30 but Zeke was well off his normal schedule at this point so I let him play until 3:00 when I finally put him in his crib so daddy could take a much needed nap :)

An hour later Daddy finally woke up and we went off for a bike ride alone the Greenway.

We got home and had some Kraft Dinner for supper around 6pm.

We then played until 7:15 when I put Zeke down. He had a fussy moment when I tried to put on his PJs... he refused to put on his shirt, something he has never done before, and kept pointing to his wardrobe. I finally took him over to his wardrobe to see what he was fussy about. It turns out he saw the Elmo PJs that mommy bought for him, and he was insistent that he wore them. So a quick dressing and he was rocking his new Elmo PJs to bed.

Tomorrow we head to church, so I don't expect anything new or unusual to report. So I will end this here.

It has been a good weekend. Turns out the men of our family get along just fine when left to our own devices... but it will still be very good when Mommy returns tomorrow afternoon :)

Geoaching Adventures: Leaf Peeping

2011-10-16T20:59:00.000-04:00

My parents have come to town to help celebrate my sons 2nd birthday. We spent yesterday on a whirl wind birthday party extravaganza.

Today was a more relaxed day.

Given the time of year and the proximity to the mountains, we decided to spend the afternoon touring the mountains, checking out the sights, and doing some leaf peeping. We also did some geocaching.

In case you didn't know, leaf peeing is an autumn activity in areas where foliage changes colors. Leaf peepers are those who participate in photographing and viewing the fall foliage.

Since this area is familiar turf for me, and our goal was sight seeing and not caching, we spent most of our time driving the Blue Ridge Parkway. However caching came in handy once again. A quick examination of the caches I hadn't found yet revealed State View, a cache that promised amazing views of North Carolina. It was also out of the way of the incredibly busy overlooks that the tourists frequent.

So off we went to find the cache. When we got to the coords we found ourselves at a park. As promised we were treated to amazing views, and as expected there was no one else around (or so we thought).

As we started the hunt a woman came up to us to warn us about some unmarked metal stakes in the area, and to ask what we were up to. We started talking to her and explained what geocaching is, and we found out that what we thought was a park was in fact a privately owned lot, and the owners were planning on building a house in the spring.

It became clear based on how the conversation went that the owner did not know about, or give prior permission for, the cache. I started going into diplomatic mode and started to explain that I would contact the owner to get permission, and the cache could be removed. It quickly became apparent that the owners were completely cool with the cache being on their property, and were rather put out at the suggestion that it could be removed. Cool muggles - awesome :)

The husband then came up and I showed him where the cache was located, and showed him the log sheet, and he was very interested in the whole thing. Then he took his turn at "Show And Tell" and started pointing out features of the landscape we were standing on, and overlooking. Some of the features are:

* The continental divide went right through the middle of his property. Depending on where he puts his drain pipe for his house, he will drain into either the Atlantic or the Gulf Of Mexico.

* We could see the skyline of Charlotte NC from this location on the horizon. Using my GPS we determined that that the distance to Charlotte was approximately 76 miles.

* We could not see Winston-Salem NC due to the way the Appalachian foothills lie, but at dusk one can see the reflection of the sun off the windows of the buildings.

* We could see both Virginia and South Carolina at the same time.

We spent a solid 30 minutes talking to the couple before we moved on. It was, hands down, one of the more fascinating conversations I've had with someone while geocaching.

We spent the rest of the afternoon driving the Blue Ridge Parkway and checking out the fall colours, and dodging the tourists. I'll end this blog with some more pictures I took on the drive, but before I go I want to leave cachers with two thoughts. 1) Always get adequate permission from the land owners before placing your caches, and 2) Don't be afraid to talk to muggles and let them know what you are doing - it may just lead to an amazing educational experience.

The Linn Cove Viaduct

The Blue Ridge Moutnains

Trees found on the Blue Ridge Parkway

Sims Lake

Tree outside a house in Blowing Rock NC

Geocaching Adventures: Myrtle Beach

2011-10-03T21:58:00.000-04:00

Since before I can remember, probably since before I was born, my parents have been vacationing in Myrtle Beach SC. (non-interesting aside - they are not alone, Myrtle Beach is lousy with Canadians in October).

True to form my parents are spending a couple weeks in MB, so we decided to take a four day weekend and hit the coast. A day of caching eastward. Two days on the beach, and a day caching westward. Sounds like a great plan to me!

The following are the highlights of the trip:

On the way east we found a cache that was suspended from a tree about 30ft up in the air. It is retrieved via a pulley system attached to a nearby tree.

I originally went out to hunt this one solo, and my wife stayed in the van with sleeping Zeke. Once I saw how the cache was hidden I rushed back to the van to grab my wife. This one was too cool not to share.

On Saturday I went caching with my father. We hiked the Heritage Shores National Preserve, an area we've never been too, despite coming here almost every year for decades. We found some really interesting caches, including one cleverly camo'd into the boardwalk.

Right behind Restaurant Row, which is tucked between Myrtle Beach and North Myrtle Beach, is the intercoastal waterway. This waterway mixes fresh and salt water, and rises with the tides, tho 3 hours delayed. On Sunday morning I headed out to grab a cache that is hid on the banks of the waterway, and is only available during low tide.

On the way home we stopped by Clinton NC to visit the largest Flowering Dogwood in North Carolina. It is the highlight of a really nice (if such things can be "nice") cemetery. If you look closely at the tombstone to the right of the tree you will see the stuffed monkey that we took on tour with us.

Along the way I found caches for 18 pages for the NC Delorme Challenge, and I found my 800th cache. It was a long 2 days in the van, and a short two days at the beach, but all in all a fantastic trip.

Geocaching Adventures: Beech Mountain

2011-09-24T16:18:00.000-04:00

- or -

How I Lost My Trusty Hiking Stick, But Still Found A Cache

It is Saturday, and I am both a) not on call for work, and b) not on the hook for babysitting a toddler. So... what is one to when faced with such a predicament? Yep, time to go caching!

Todays adventure brought me to the town at the highest elevation east of the Mississippi: Beech Mountain North Carolina. Near the town is the Creek Pond Trail. My mission for the day was to hike that trail and find all the caches today.

I don't want to ruin the suspense, but let me start by saying that I did find 10 caches today. However the most interesting one was the second one, and is the focus of this blog post.

The cache is located 528 feet down the Creek Pond Lower Trail, a very rough and rugged trail that follows the creek through a series of small waterfalls. It had rained the night before so the trail was muddy, wet, and slippery. Armed with my geo-bag, my GPSr, and my trusty hiking stick I started down the path, not knowing what adventure awaited me down that trail.

I knew from the cache description that the cache was in "something resembling a cave". When I got semi-close to GZ (ground zero) I did indeed notice a rocky structure that resembled a cave. However I was still 40 feet away from GZ so I kept going. A bit further down the trail, real close to where my GPS said was GZ was another cave like structure down near the creek, about 10 feet below where I was standing.

This second cave like structure looked promising, so I diligently started working my way down the bank and got to a point where I was standing on some wet rocks close to the creek... Oh, remember when I said it was slippery? I wish I had.

Picture in your mind a dancer who gracefully pirouettes and spins around as if touched by angels. With precise fluid movements she moves around her environment with poise and ease. Can you picture it? Well if you can, you have got the exact opposite image of what happened next.

My legs slipped out from underneath me and I hit the rocks on my butt. As luck would have it I kept sliding right into the creek with a thundering splash. I ended up thigh deep in the clearest mountain water one could ever hope for.

If you are wondering (and I am sure you are) It was at this time that I lost my trusty hiking stick. As I fell I tossed the stick away so I wouldn't land on it, and it went flying down the next waterfall, never to be seen again. I liked that stick. It has been my trust companion on many a hike. It will be missed. Someday it may float into the Gulf Of Mexico, so if you see a stick headed south in a river that looks like it was owned by a Canadian, let me know.

After splashdown, I quickly regained my composure and thankfully nothing was hurt but my pride. I slowly got up and sloshed back onto the bank, sans stick, and went to investigate that cave. Since I was already wet and dirty I slithered under the rocks without hesitation to check it out. But alas I was foiled. No cache. Hrm... nuts.

I clambered back up the bank to where the trail was, and figured I'd go check out that first rock structure that resembled a cave. I crawled into the cave mouth, spelunked my way deeper (I'm a big boy, slithering into small cave mouths isn't exactly what the Good Lord was thinking of when he designed me) and found the more glorious of sights. An ammo can.

So with a sigh of relief I signed the log, put it back, spelunked my way out, and sloshed back up the trail, soaked to the skin from the waist down, and dirtier than I have ever been. When I got to the trailhead I raised my hands in victory for I knew I had just conquered the most challenging caches of my career.

However my day was not yet complete. This was only my second cache! I had 8 more to go. So I headed up the Pond Creek Upper Trail and continued on with the days adventures.

I learned several things today:

1) rocks are slippery after a rain fall
2) Hiking boots help, but are not to be completely trusted for traction
3) Mountain streams are cold
4) Sometimes it pays to go with your gut
5) To paraphrase Bilbo Baggins: "It's a dangerous business, going out your door to cache. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to." - a very wise Hobbit.

I was also reminded of the thing I like most about being a geocacher: going on an adventure that you would have never done otherwise. This adventure definitely qualifies as one of those adventures that stretched my abilities, gave me new experiences, and memories that will last a long long time.

There were benefits of getting soaked: my third cache of the day was called "Will You Cross The Stream?" and it involved crossing the very same creek about a mile up stream. Since I was already soaked to the bone it was an easy decision. A quick trudge through the creek bed and I had my third cache of the day in hand.

As I headed back down the mountain on my way home I was treated to this lovely vista. Isn't geocaching grand?

CacheCrazy Interview

2011-09-19T08:19:00.003-04:00

As you may be aware, the folks over at CacheCrazy.com have republished my Bears Across America series on their blog over the last few months. Yesterday they posted an interview they did with Yours Truly. Go check it out!

Geocache Camo 101: Lock & Locks

2011-09-17T22:41:00.000-04:00

There are many geocache containers, and many more ways to hide them. Depending on the local terrain features, the caching containers may require some custom camouflage to protect them from being seen by muggles, or simply to increase the difficulty for the finder.

This post is a tutorial on how I give my containers some spit and polish so they blend into their non-native environments. There are many ways to paint up these things, some better than others. Some of my containers have been in the field for well over a year and their paint job still looks good.

My most common container is plastic "tupperware"-like containers (tho I never use the actual Tupperware brand). I recently acquired a set of Lock & Lock brand plastic containers. They are rugged, waterproof, and last a long time in the field. I am going to use one of these as a base.

So start with picking up a plastic container from the local container store (Walmart, Target etc.). Try to get quality containers as the cheap ones (think Dollar Store quality) will break and crack quickly in the field. The temp ranges from 100f to 4f that I've seen in my 3 years in North Carolina is really hard on plastic.

Step 1: Rough up the outside.

As I am sure you are aware, paint comes in literally every colour. This gives a hider infinite possibilities to tailor make the camo to fit the environment as perfectly as possible. So select the paint colours that make sense for the area you are placing the cache. For the purposes of this post I am going to assume that this cache will be placed in a forest, so I will go for a standard green camo job.

The techniques should work for any (as an example, I have used greys and browns to simulate a cache that looks like its made from cement). For all paints here, get ones with flat finishes, and except for the spray paint, I use exterior latex for the various colours and apply it with a brush. The reason is that the can paint can be mixed to any colour, and using the brush allows finer control over where the colours go.

Step 2: Spray paint base coat.

My camo job will use 3 colours, dark green, lighter green, and brown.

The first step is to rough up the outside of the container. This gives more surface area that gives the paint something stronger to hold on to. It also adds some texture to the smooth plastic which often helps with the camo.

The second step is to apply a base coat of paint. I use Krylon brand spray paint as it sticks really well to plastic containers. You only need to spray the outside of the container, and really only the parts that are visible when the cache is closed. So don't worry about painting the underside of the lid flaps.

Step 3: Add a base colour over the entire cache.

This coat is really just a primer so you don't need to be picky with the colour. The choices of colours in spray paint are limited, and it will be covered up with the proper camo colours anyway. I tend to pick black or dark green, but any will do.

Also take care with any of the paint to ensure you don't add too much paint around the connectors. If they get too thick with layers of paint they may not close properly. Use your best judgement here as it will vary from container to container. Let this coat dry completely before going on to the next steps.

Next add a base coat. I use exterior latex and apply it with a brush. It doesn't really matter which colour is used, but I tend to start with the darkest colour and work my way to the lighter ones. So I paint the entire outside of the container with dark green.

Step 4: Add sand to add texture.

The nice thing about camo painting is that you don't need to worry about an even coat. Actually you probably want an uneven coat for additional texture. Just be careful to keep the areas that snap together clear of paint.

Once the dark green is everywhere, I sprinkle on some sand from my back yard into the wet paint. This adds some extra texture which helps break up the light and makes the camo that much more effective.

Let this layer dry. I use a hair dryer on the container to get the paint to dry faster.

I dab some paint over top of the sand to help adhere it to the container. I don't worry about covering all the sand with paint as having some exposed adds to the realism.

Step 5: Selectively add layers of colours.

The next step is to start dabbing on the other colours. Start with the light green, and dab it around the container so every side has some light green spots on it. Be random with your strokes, and don't cover up all the dark green.

Once you are done with the greens, do the same with the brown. Dab some colour all around being sure to be random, and to not cover up the other colours.

I don't clean my brush between these steps. This allows the colours to run together, which adds additional colour tones, and helps blur harder edges. You are going for a muddled, random look. Let your inner child be free and go nuts.

Step 6: Black on the bottom for visible labels.

Another tip, once all the colours are applied I take the original colour (dark green in this case), and apply a very small amount to the brush and dab it out on a peice of paper, so there is barely any paint on the brush. I then brush down the container, leaving a hint of the dark green. This tends to smooth out any areas that are heavy with light greens or browns.

Once this is all dry, flip over the container and paint the bottom with a thick layer of black paint. This gives an area to write on some information on the outside of the container to label it as a geocache. I use a silver Sharpie to do the writing.

Once all that is done, let it dry for a couple days before placing it out in the field. The finished product will look something like this:

GeoSnippits - A Geocaching Video Tutorial Series

2011-09-09T21:17:00.002-04:00

Are you looking to start out in the game, the sport, the obsession, known as Geocaching? Been doing it a while and looking for some tips on your first hides?

I have been thinking of doing an "Introduction to Geocaching" series on my blog when I realized that it has already been done, and much better than I could probably do.

HeadHardHat is a cacher from North Carolina who has produced a really nice series of videos to help you with all your geocaching questions. So if you a new, or new at heart, to geocaching you may wish to check out HeadHardHats GeoSnippits videos.

If you don't want to, well that is your choice I guess. It is a free country (I am assuming you are in a free country - if not you should try it - its nice). However you are missing out on some excellent geocaching information! So what are you waiting for?

Guess What Happened

2011-09-08T20:45:00.000-04:00

Debbies post here.

Geocaching Adventures: Western North Carolina

2011-09-05T22:53:00.001-04:00

We have spent this Labour Day weekend (well, most of it) exploring the western half of North Carolina.

Why go west? I give you two reasons. First is the standard: eh, why not? The second requires some explanation. I am currently doing the North Carolina Delorme Challenge. This challenge requires one to find a cache on each of the 77 pages of the Delorme North Carolina Atlas. Once all of the pages are found, the cache owner will send you the coordinates to one final victory cache.

Before this weekend I have found qualifying caches for 23 pages. West of me were 4 unclaimed pages strewn about the western half of the state. This weekend was to correct that and fill in all the bits.

After church on Sunday we piled into the van and headed north to the Blue Ridge Parkway. Our destination for the day was a hotel just south of Asheville NC, near the Biltmore area. Along the way we stopped off at Mount Mitchell, which is the highest peak east of the Mississippi. The best thing: you can drive within 500ft of the summit.

One would think that this would lead to an awesome post of amazing views of mountain ranges, and stunning vistas of things seen for miles and miles. Sadly this is not the case. You see the remnants of Tropical Storm Lee had moved inland from Louisiana to North Carolina, and brought with it an amazing amount of rain and fog. So most of our views were less than stellar.

We did get to see why the area is known as the Smokey Mountains tho. The views reminded me of the Misty Mountains from The Hobbit fame.

So once we finished Mount Mitchell, and claimed the virtual AND earthcache on its summit, we headed strait to the hotel. Once checked in we spent the rest of the afternoon caching in the general area, and claiming the first of 4 Delorme pages in the process. We then did some shopping for me (REI - hello!) , and for Zeke (Toy Store - yeah baby).

Since our adventure reached an intermission, it seems only fitting to add one in my post. So I give you...

<----

Things
That
Cause
Zeke
To
Go
Wow!

--->

The next day we headed north to the Smokey Mountain National Park and did the only easily accessible cache on that Delorme page at the Mingus Mill. Along the way we grabbed another cache to claim another Delorme Page.

At this point there is only one page left to claim for this trip, and it was the page on the western most point of the state. So off we raced to the western-most points of North Carolina and made the grab. Our mission complete there was only one thing left to do: Cache our way home.

One of the features of our drive west was the Nantahala River, which is a windy fast flowing river used by white water rafters. Due to all the rain the area received in the last two days, the river was full and fast flowing. We stopped to check it out on the way back.

We arrived home at 8:30PM soggy after braving the wind, rains, and mountain passes of North Carolina.

What a great way to spend a labour day.

Jim Gaffigan on Cake

2011-09-03T22:14:00.000-04:00

I have a new favourite comedian. His name is Jim Gaffigan. His performance is a mix of his own observations mixed in with his impression of what the skeptic members of his audience is thinking. It is, in my opinion (tho really, given it is my blog, who's opinion would you expect it to be?) some hillarious stuff.

Here is Jim doing 5 minutes on one of my favourite topics: cake.

Hollywood Computer Literacy

2011-09-02T22:02:00.003-04:00

There was an interesting discussion at work about how Hollywood is awesome at getting technology so so very very wrong. Since it was all public information I decided to share the essence of that discussion with you all, my loyal reader. If you are a geek, prepare to cringe. If you are not, prepared to say "what is wrong with that?"

First some double typing in NCIS to avoid a "hack".

CSI:NY provides us with the awesome "I'll create a GUI interface using Visual Basic, see if I can track an IP address"... or, you know, use the existing traceroute, or tracert in Windows, or the hundreds of existing free apps to do the same thing.

Then there is Numb3rs rather bizarre description of IRC. Luckily she speeks leet.

So there you having. Three stunning examples of Hollywood's amazing grasp of technology. I do like the theory that maybe they are just trolling us geeks :)

Misunderstood Lyrics

2011-09-01T16:47:00.003-04:00

Ever wonder what those words to that song really are? Too bad.

These are not correct either.

Geocaching Adventures: The Day Of Rest

2011-08-28T17:15:00.000-04:00

Saturday is known as the Sabbath. The day of rest for practicing jews around the world. It is a time to renew strength and spend time with their creator.

I, however, am not Jewish. So what is a non-jew supposed to do on the Sabbath?

Whatever he wants.

This gentile decided to spend his day up in the mountains. So I packed up the family into the "Van Of Destiny" and took a right hand turn into the Blue Ridge Mountains for some geocaching adventures.

We turned our eyes northeast on this trip and explored the North Carolina counties of Watuga, Ashe, and Wilkes with a list of geocaches as our guide. As always we were not disappointed

We were treated to some spectacular views of mountain scapes, rolling high meadows, meandering mountain streams, cows, horses, craftsman, mountain folk, Christmas tree nurseries, and a series of old silos

Time for the Intermission: I present to you a one act play featuring Yours Truly and the Tonka Tyke, with special guest star, Bailey The Wonder Puppy.

=== ACT 1 Scene 1 ===

The scene: A tree nursery overlooking a wonderful mountain vista in North Carolina.

"Where is the cache, Daddy?"

"I think its over there..."

"Come on, Daddy! Lets go get it!"

=== THE END ===

Our morning was going so well that we actually had time to fit in a few more caches than we had originally planned on, so we got to act out this scene a whole heck of a lot.

We slowly worked our way down to Wilkesboro NC where we checked out the remains of an old NASCAR track. We have seen signs for the track ever since we moved to the area 3 years ago, and even saw it featured on Top Gear (UK) (as an side, if you are babysitting a toddler and don't want to watch Yo Gabba Gabba over and over, and want to murder Elmo in his sleep - Top Gear (UK) is a great show to watch with kids). It was nice to finally get around to checking out the track, at least the outside of it.

We then went from old to new and checked out
the brand new rest stop just of highway 421 (it even has that new Rest Stop smell!).

The rest stop is actually kinda cool and well worth resting at (there I go, tying in the "Day Of Rest" theme - see how clever that was?). They have engineered the surrounding landscape to be eco-friendly. One example of which is designing the landscape so water run-off flows into a series of low lands containing plants that filter the water before allowing it to flow into the local water ways. Interesting stuff.

It also features a really nice nature walk (and a really nice blue ammo can - wink wink) that would be awesome if one needed to stretch their legs after a long drive.

We had lunch at Chick-Fil-A in Wilkesboro and found a few more caches on the way back home. Zeke enjoyed playing in one of the parks I cached at. We then finally started the 30 minute drive home in time for Zeke's nap (more resting!). It sounded like a great idea so I took a nap myself (oops, I did it again!).

After we awokened we went to a local park for a church picnic, and ended the day on a date with the wife to see Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes.

We came home exhausted. Which is the exactly what one expects to do on a day of rest, right? :)

International Geocaching Day in the Blue Ridge Mountains

2011-08-22T08:36:00.000-04:00

August 20th, 2011 was designated as International Geocaching day. When faced with such a thing, what is a cacher to do? hrm... there are some mountains over there... hrm...

We already had a full schedule planned that day, so I woke up early and hit the road. My destination? The Blue Ridge Mountains, part of the Appalachians, 20 minutes over and 2500ft up from my front door.

Let me tell ya, it was a great day to be up in the mountains. The morning are was crisp and cool, the cloudy sky had the promise of blue skies peaking through. Perfection.

I only had a few hours to cache but I made the most of it. I started with a series of caches on Blackberry Road, a really windy road that works its way up the mountain. Once I hit the parkway it was time to drive one of the best driving roads I have been on: The Blue Ridge Parkway. Along the way I managed to do a small series of caches displaying some of the more picturesque and interesting silos in the area.

After that it was time to start heading back down to home to pick up the wife and Tonka Tyke for a late breakfast and start our planned adventures for the day... but before I left I stopped by an overlook to take in some mountain view goodness.

It turned out to be a great way to celebrate International Geocaching Day.

Woot.

Geocaching Adventures: Ebey Bluffs

2011-08-01T00:01:00.002-04:00

Today is my last day in the Pacific Norhwest and I need to get 200 miles south to Portland to catch my flight tomorrow morning. Just going south is too easy, so I took a trip an hour north to Whidbey Island to check out the bluffs at Ebey's Landing State Park first.

The bluffs overlook Pugent Sound, the Olympic Mountains, the Straits of Juan de Fuca, and on a clear day, Victoria BC. The bluffs are also home to several geocaches.

To get to the caches on the bluff one has to walk a very narrow path that snakes along the edge of the bluffs. In places the bluffs are 200-300 ft high. It is definitely not a trail for the timid, or the acrophobic. I actually know a cacher who is acrophobic who did the cache at the top of the bluffs - it took her a while, and she's sworn to never do it again, but she did it. After hiking this trail I can see why it would cause some concern. At spots there is only a few feet of grass between you and certain death.

It is a 2.5 mile round trip hike to the Ebey Bluffs cache, and two others along the way. Once I grabbed those I hiked an additional 1.4 miles along the beach at the base of the cliff to grab the Hula Cache, where one is supposed to post pictures of the finder doing a hula dance. I did a little hula, but I didn't have anyone to take my picture so I can't prove it. I did confuse a flock of sea gulls tho.

After the bluffs I drove the 4 hours to Portland and checked into my hotel. When I did I found out that there was a power trail (a long series of caches placed as close together as the guidelines allow - in this case 32 caches were placed) that was recently released along a walking trail by the river running beside the airport. I needed to kill some time and wanted to go for a walk, so I finished my day by doing 11 caches along the trail. Along the way I was treated to a nice view of Mount Hood.

The flight path for PDX goes right along the river so I also snapped some pics of some planes close up in the air:

To finish off this blog, I leave you with this photo I took of my footprints on the Ebey Bluffs trail. It seemed the most appropriate way to sum up the unofficial theme of this trip: Life is a journey, not a destination.

Farewell from the Pacific Northwest. See you on the trails in North Carolina!

Geocaching Adventures: Tunnel Of Light

2011-07-31T00:48:00.000-04:00

Today was a good day to be a geocacher.

In May 2001 Paramount Pictures released a series of 12 caches to promote their latest movie: Planet Of The Apes. The caches contained movie artifacts, and was known as Project A.P.E - Advanced Primate Evolution.

Cachers around the world know them simply as the APE caches. They are part of the holy trinity of caching known as the Triad, which included the original stash, Groundspeak HQ, and one of the APE caches (typically the Seattle one). I found Groundspeak HQ and The Original Stash on previous trips. I was looking forward to completing the triad on this trip.

Two months ago there were only two APE caches left, one near Seattle WA, and the other in Brazil. A couple months ago the Seattle APE, known as "Mission 9: Tunnel Of Light went missing and was archived. Since a trip to the Brazilian rain forrest was practically out of the question it looked like I would never get the chance to complete the triad. Luckily for me a week ago a cacher released a new cache in the same spot as the APE. Same experience, just a different cache ID. The APE was back, and today I completed the triad.

I met up with a fellow cacher I met on IRC by the name of WeightMan, and together we hiked the 6.75 miles worth of trails through the amazingly beautiful Cascade mountains. There are two trails that lead to the APE... a walk through cedar woods called Annette Lake Trail, and the Iron Horse Trail. We left one car at the Annette Lake trailhead, and drove to the Iron Horse trailhead and did a one way hike.

Now the astute readers among you may have noticed that I didn't describe what the Iron Horse trail is like... you may also have wondered why this APE is called Tunnel Of Light.

Still wondering? Let me enlighten... sort of.

Tunnel Of Light

So to get from the Iron Horse Trailhead you have to walk about 3 miles... most of it underground. Most of that path is done by walking through an old train tunnel called the Snoqualmie Tunnel. It is 2.25 miles long, and (mostly) straight as an arrow. As you enter one end you can see a small speck of light at the other. That spot of light is the exit.

The coolest part of the tunnel was that there is a cache half way down it. I've never done a cache where GPS signals were not available. Very cool :)

Once we escaped the tunnel we still had about a mile to hike to get to the APE. The trail was very smooth, and snaked along a ridge line overlooking a valley. The sky was clear, the air nice and cool. Couldn't ask for a more perfect day for hiking and caching. Along the way we grabbed a few more caches.

The APE cache itself is a large ammo can, and to this point is the largest ammo can I've seen. I'll spare any more details of the cache itself to avoid spoilers (cachers from around the world come to do the APE, so its quite possible they may read this blog before attempting the APE), except to say that the view from the cache is simply amazing, and the hike is worth it for that alone. The cache is really just icing on a really delicious cake.

The cache was also WeightMans 1900th find. Congrats man! I also released my first travel bug, Alberta The Uber-Moose Of Science, to the public at large. Travel, little moose, explore the world!

After the APE we continued down the Iron Horse Trail, and took a right turn onto the Annette Lake Trail. About half way down this trail is another cache called The Rocket Cache, which contained, what I assume, is an ammo can that used to house rockets, making this one the largest ammo can I have seen to date :)

We eventually made our way back to the cars and WeightMan and I parted ways. I headed back to Renton WA and attended the Washington State Geocaching Associations (WSGA) Summer Picnic event. I spent the afternoon eating hot dogs, meeting new cachers, and doing group hunts for the caches in the area. I also met TotemLake, another cacher I met online. It was a heck of a way to end a perfect day of caching in Washington.

Grand total: 12 caches, 0 DNFs :)

All in all, it was a great day to be a geocacher.

Geocaching Adventures: The Mosier Tunnels

2011-07-27T02:01:00.001-04:00

As you may recall I have travelled to the Columbia River Gorge in Oregon for work.

During the day I am working for the man. In the evenings I am spending my time exploring the amazing natural beauty of the gorge, and finding some geocaches.

This evenings adventure was to explore the Mosier Tunnels. They are part of the Columbia River Highway, which was build between 1913 - 1922, and in service until 1954 when the nearby Interstate 84 highway was built. These tunnels were then filled in with rock and stone for safety reasons. In 1998 the tunnels were cleared out, and the old highway between Hood River and Mosier was turned into a paved walking and biking path.

The trail is also host to several caches, some of which have a very high terrain rating. I parked at the Mosier end of the trail and hiked a couple miles down then trail. The first cache is actually on top of the tunnels, but to get there I would have had to climb a sheer rock wall, which I determined upon inspection, was beyond my abilities. After admiring the tunnel I moved on to the next cache. With caching, as with many other things in life, it is important to know your limits.

The next cache was a difficulty of 4, terrain of 4 (ratings go from 1-5). I normally limit myself to terrains of 3, so this was going to be a stretch for me. When I got closer to GZ it quickly became apparent that I would need to climb up a steep rock pile. It would be tough, but I figured I could do it, because with caching, as with many other things in life, it is important to keep challenging yourself.

So I started clambering and billy goating myself up 50 or so feet of a loosely packed rock pile. It was a struggle, but I finally managed to get to the top, and saw the sweet, sweet sight of...

<-- Look! An ammo can! Ain't it sweet?

... the cache. After signing the log I billy goated back down to the bottom of the pile, and with a rather proud feeling about myself, I kept moving down the trail.

I had time for one more cache, which was just a bit further down the the trail. Then with the sun setting behind me I executed a retrograde maneuver and returned to my car, and drove back to the hotel.

There are a couple more caches on the Hood River side of the trail that I did not have a change to get this evening. Hopefully I'll be able to snag them before going home. This is one interesting trail.

Columbia River Gorge - I love this place!

Geocaching Adventures: Catherine Creek

2011-07-26T01:32:00.002-04:00

Occasionally I need to travel for work. This week is such an occasion. So where had work sent the bear this week?

Oregon.

Specifically the Columbia River Gorge on the Washington/Oregon borderIf you have never been, the Columbia River Gorge is a mix of a wide, active river, surrounded on both sides by tall hills, water falls, forests, grasslands, and rocky outcrops. It is a landscape that I do not think exists on the east coast.

The temperature is a refreshing 78f and partly cloudy. Perfect caching weather in a perfect caching landscape.

All afternoon I was sitting in a conference room in our office, looking out the windows, and taking in wonderful views of the gorge. It beckoned me. It called to me with its siren songs... explore me... cache me... dude, seriously, get it in gear!

So what is a cacher to do? I am glad you asked. As soon as I got off work I grabbed my gear and hit the trails. Destination: Catherine Creek.

Catherine Creek is on the Washington side, and has two separate areas: A one mile paved trail that winds through the lower parts close to the Columbia river (close being approximate as it is still 50ft above the water), and a much more rugged section that has dirt and stone pathways that snaked through the tall hills that make up the gorge. I started by walking the paved path, and grabbed 3 caches. The views of the river were astounding.
Once I did the paved pathway I decided to see if I could get a cache on the rugged trails going up the hills. So I put a cache in the GPS and started the climb up. The trail was a dirt path with a lot of loose stone strewn all over. The landscape of the gorge is different than I am used to. In the east most rock is solid granite. In the gorge it tends to be piles of smaller rocks. It gives the area the feeling that its older and more worn.

After I found the first cache I decided to go for another one further up the trail. The name of the next cache was Canadian American Trading Association. Being a Canadian in America I figured I had to find that cache. Pretty soon I was billy goating up some steep trails (don't worry, its not *that* bad - geriatric billy goating at best).

Interesting rock formation.

Before I knew it I was 3 caches (all ammo cans too!), a mile down the trail, walking a ridgeline, and the sun was starting to set. I decided to head back before dark set in. The terrain is very navigable in the light, but all the small rocks strewn about would make hiking them at night difficult at best.

On the way back I decided to take a detour for one last cache that overlooked an interesting rock formation, so once more I billy goated up some steep, rocky trails and pathways to get a view of this -->

Totally worth it. After that I headed back down the trails to the car before the sun went down completely.It was a great hike.

There are more trails in the area, and more caches. I may have to come back here before I head home again. But if not at least I have excellent memories of that one time I cached Catherine Creek overlooking the Columbia River Gorge on an amazingly beautiful cool summers day.... outstanding.

Syndication: The cachecrazy.com Connection.

2011-07-22T22:09:00.004-04:00

My series "Bears Across America" is being re-posted on another caching blog, cachecrazy.com.

A couple weeks ago I was contacted by a geocacher by the name of BLOODHOUNDED, one of the admins at cachecrazy.com. He said he liked my stuff and wanted to know if I would let him put some of my blog posts on his site. I agreed, and became an officially syndicated author. How cool is that?

They are going to post the series starting tomorrow, and every Saturday and Sunday until Sept 18. So be sure to check it out for my series, and many other excellent articles on the topic of caching.

Check out the introduction to the series here.

Science Fiction Is Now

2011-07-18T21:35:00.001-04:00

3D Printing has come a long way:

Absolutely amazing.

Geocaching Adventures: My Hometown

2011-07-16T22:38:00.000-04:00

Today I met a mini milestone of sorts in my geocaching adventures.

Park in Mons Belgium where I found my first cache.

To give a little scope to this let me step back and tell you how I started caching. It was July 25, 2008. I was in Belgium on a 4.5 month work assignment, and my wife came along (cause its summer in Europe, why the heck not? :) I met another co-worker from the US there, and we needed something to do on the weekend. He suggested we try caching. I had never done it before but his description sounded cool so we went along. Our first cache was a small park in Mons, Belgium. On our second hunt that day we accidently ended up in France. That hooked me. Before he left a week later we had found our first 5 caches.

Found, accidentally, in France.

When we returned back to Canada we immediately relocated to Lenoir NC for work. It took about 8 months before I cached again, and made a find at a grocery store parking lot near my house. That cache was my 6th find, my first North American find, and the first find in my new home town. Ever since that find I have been caching like a mad man.

Over the last 2.5 years that I have been into caching my tastes in caches has changed. I started out only preferring larger caches that were easier to find, and enjoyed the adventure getting to ground zero more than making the find itself. Since then, as I gained experience, my tastes have changed slightly and I now am starting to enjoy finding some of the smaller urban caches as well. Lenoir is almost exclusively smaller urban caches, which is why it has taken me a while to get to this little milestone.

So what is this milestone? I am glad you asked.

I have now found every active cache in Lenoir. Despite only being 44 caches in town (8 of which I have hidden), and my having 618 finds in total, it took me a while. Mainly because I wasn't trying to hit it. Now that I have it feels like an accomplishment, and you all, my faithful readers, get to celebrate with me. I suggest cake. I like chocolate. Thanks!

So the only question now is: Who's gonna place the next cache in Lenoir? :)

My geocaching map for Lenoir now looks like this... cool eh?

First World Problems

2011-07-14T16:00:00.000-04:00

Ever wonder why your having such a bad day? Its probably due to all of the problems we face on a daily basis here in the first world.

Missives On The Current Heatwave

2011-07-13T21:06:00.004-04:00

It has been rather hot around here as of late. - approaching 99F before humidex (yeah I know, it can get hotter in places, but I am a northern bear - 99F is for cooking, not living in) This here (shamelessly borrowed from Penny Arcade) is my thoughts on the recent weather:

Another thought that has occurred to me recently (at Geowoodstock IX to be precise), is that I am getting acclimated to the weather. I biked home in the 99F weather yesterday and it really didn't bother me.

It used to be, back in the northlands of Canada, that 88F would be an unbearable heat. There would be heat advisory warnings, people would claim the apocalypse is upon them, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria.

Now having been through 3 North Carolina summers, 88F feels... refreshing. Craziness.

Yeah, we are definitely getting used to the southern climate :)

Geowoodstock IX Followup: Where's Waldo Edition

2011-07-06T21:35:00.004-04:00

Just a few notes to follow up on my trip to Geowoodstock IX:

First, my wife posted a blog about the trip.

Second, a group photo was taken of all attendees of Geowoodstock IX:

We are in the middle left, right in front of the German flag. I am in an orange shirt with a brown hat. My wife is in a pink tank top and a white hat.

Finally, here is a slideshow of all the photos I took on my trip:

Geowoodstock IX

2011-07-05T20:55:00.003-04:00

Once a year geocachers from around the world (literally!) get together at the same place at the same time to discuss ammo can location techniques, hiking in the woods with a purpose, and satellite based technology and how it relates to tupperware geolocation in the woods. This event is called Geowoodstock. The place: Warren Pennsylvania. The date: July 2nd, 2011.

This is an (un)official historical account of one family of bears journey to the event, and how it affected their lives for the better, for the worse, and for the surreal.

Join us in song (not really) and in prose (sorta)... for the retelling begins... now.

July 1st 2011 We packed up the family, including the 20 month old Tonka Tyke and Bailey the Wonder Puppy and headed north to Warren Pennsylvania at 4:30am. We drove straight there, stopping only for food and gas. It took 10.5 hours. When we got there, two things happened: I said hello to Zemmy, a fellow cacher I've known from chatting online in a geocaching chat channel, and I said hello to my parents-in-law, cause we arranged it for them to be there.

Oh, now may be a good time to inform you that the event was on Saturday, and we had a family reunion of sorts on Sunday... so my family from Canada was around :) (also functioned as built in Zeke babysitters).

On Saturday we headed out at 8am to the Warren County Fairgrounds. On the way we stopped by Tim Hortons (cause we are Canadian, and dang it Tims is *delicious*), then we continued to the fair grounds.

We have never been to a geocaching event of this magnitude before so we really had no idea what to expect. So the following is a quick summarization of our day. It helps to have a mental picture in your mind (where else would you have one?) of a country fair without the rides, clowns, or games (basically keeping the good parts) when you imagine the following:

We arrived around 9:30am to register, pick up our name tags and swag, and wandered around the fairgrounds a bit.
Opening Ceremonies at 10, signed the event log (which was literally a log)
Meet The Reviewer panel at 11. This is also where I met up with another cacher friend from online, leftyfb, and his entourage of wife, family, and friends. We hung out with them, and some other friends from online, off and on for the rest of the day.
12(ish). Lunch
1(ish). Met another online cacher, Luuluu, and her entourage.
1(slightly-later-ish) GPS accuracy course, then off to find a cache.
We spent some time walking around, checking out vendors and things.
3(ish): hugged by a hippie.

3:30 - met a fellow Googler cacher.
4(ish) recording of Cachers Of The Round Table podcast.

5:30(ish) Group photo and announcement of next years Geowoodstock (in Indiana)

6(ish) Headed back to the campground.
6:30(ish)Tim Hortons (naturally).
6:45(ish) webcam cache with some friendly Germans.

7:20(ish) Arrived back at the campground.

It is common for people to release travel bugs to caches which are carried from cache to cache by other cachers, and their location is tracked online. At the event pretty much everything was trackable, including: tattooed arms, babies, cars, hats, t-shirts, dogs, Signal the geocaching Mascot, my geo-bag, and even our name tags.

There were well over 5000 cachers at the event. It is a great vibe to be around so many like-minded individuals. Kinda like being at a sci-fi convention but fewer aliens and more ammo cans.

The next day I did some hiking and caching in the Alleghany National Forest in the morning, and hung out with my family in the afternoon.

On Monday we started our drive home, taking our time and caching as we go, stopping at Tim Hortons in Warren for fuel... :) We've driven the stretch from Pittsburgh PA to Lenoir NC many times, but never stopped to explore that world beyond the borders of the Interstate.

On Monday we saw covered bridges, dams, insane asylums and a radiation dump in Canonsburg PA (no foolin!). The radiation dump was the result of radium extraction processes (more radium was refined there than anywhere else in the world). This cache, an earthcache, was my 600th find. Not to shabby :) For those keeping track at home this was the surreal portion of our trip.

On Tuesday we drove and cached some more, exploring some of the mountains of Virginia, and the town where Andy Griffith was born, and the Andy Griffith show based on: Mount Airy PA. We arrived home at 4pm, and have been relaxing ever since.

... And thusly the tale ends. Farewell.

Geocaching Adventures: Return to Hibriten Mountain

2011-06-26T17:40:00.000-04:00

My caching/hiking gear enjoying the view of Lenoir
from the top of hibriten Mountain

Back in December I went caching up Hibriten Mountain, the largest peak in the area. I escaped from Hibriten Mountain, but I didn't find the cache.

Today, 6 months since the last hunt and 7 months since it was last found, I returned to the mountain to hunt for the cache again. I was determined to get this sucker, called Dreams Of Flight, off my todo list.

It is a 2.5 mile hike to the top of the mountain, 2.5 miles back, and I spent a good mile getting to ground zero and hunting around.

The top of the mountain is mostly rugged terrain, with lots of fallen logs, dead leaves, and a lot of rocks to climb over. It took me a good 45 minutes of clambering and sliding around, but I finally found the cache and with a great sense of victory I signed that log.

On the way back down I ran into a friend and cacher who goes by the cacher name clevernickname. I gave him some tips on the find, and he managed to make the find as well.

I am really proud of myself for finding this cache. It was by far the most physically demanding cache I have done. Two years ago I would have never had the energy to accomplish this. It appears my hiking and biking to work is starting to pay off :)

Geocaching Adventures: Indian Fokelore Edition

2011-06-25T20:38:00.002-04:00

I had a few hours this morning to kill so I decided to snag a couple caches that have been sitting in my todo queue for quite some time. Both are a bit out of the way, and have a higher terrain difficulty.

As it happens both also have an indian theme to them (feather not dot).

The first cache, Light Of Indian Grave Mountain, is near an old indian burial site. Apparently the bodies were dug up in the 50s and sent to Washington, DC. The cache is located 200 ft up a waterfall, over which a small creek flows. It was difficult in spots getting a foothold on the wet stones, loose wet earth, and rotting vegetation. More than one tree was knocked over as I vainly grabbed for handholds :) After a bit of clambering I made it to ground zero and located the cache after a few minutes hunting.

On the way down I met a husband and wife caching team, some of whose caches I have found in previous adventures. It is always cool meeting other cachers on the trail.

The second cache, called Twin Poplars, is a monument to peace. The story goes that back in 1737 two Indian tribes, Cherokee and Catawba, had a territorial dispute which led to an epic week long battle. At the end both sides got tired of fighting, so they declared peace. To mark the occasion they tied two poplars together, which have since grown together into a rather cool looking arch. For more information on the story check out this article from the Caldwell Heritage Museum: Twin Poplars.

The cache hunt itself starts at a parking space located at the end of a narrow bumpy country lane. A path 0.2 miles long winds through the woods to the bottom of the hill where the twins are located. From there it is a slippery climb as the hill is fairly bare, and muddy. Once you are up to the twins you can proceed 30 feet farther and snag the cache.

Even if you are not a cacher I recommend checking out these areas as they are worth the hike by themselves, especially the twins.

Fathers Day: Lets Go Caching!

2011-06-19T21:30:00.001-04:00

It is Fathers Day today, and against all odds, I happen to be a father. As a present I got two things: A geocaching shirt, and a geocaching adventure up in the mountains of North Carolina.

The t-shirt, viewable <-- there, has a version of the classic geocaching slogan "I use multi-million dollar satellite equipment to find tupperware in the woods". I received it at breakfast, so I wore it to church (cause thats how I roll), and afterwards we headed up to the mountains.

You can see me in the middle - look for the
orange shirt ;)

It was raining for most of the two hour drive to the first cache, and was still raining quite heavily when I started the hunt. I rarely let weather stop me, especially after travelling so far. The tricky part was that this cache involved climbing up a steep dirt slope, which was now slick with rain. Determined, I made the ascent, found the cache, and made it back down to the car without wiping out.

The second cache presented its own problems. The terrain was relatively flat woods, but my GPS reception sucked due to the rain so I had a 100ft search radius (normally its 14ft or so). It took me about 20 minutes of searching, but I finally managed to come up with the find.

Luckily the rain stopped before the third cache, so Zeke and Debbie were able to join me on the remaining hunts, as can be seen in these next few pics.

Zeke loved walking in the woods, and spent a goodly amount of time hunting his favourite prey: sticks.

All in all we hunted for, and found, seven caches in total. Not to bad given we only had a single afternoon, and spent 4 hours of it driving.

It was a fantastic good time, and an awesome way to spend a Fathers Day.

Oh... Before I let you go... here is a WTF? pic my wife took while on the hunt for cache #6... it is a doorway... and nothing else. It backs onto what appears to be a parking lot. Why? Who knows :)

Until next time, this was this time, on Caching With Dave.

Cheers!

DYI: PVC Bike Rack

2011-06-06T21:35:00.038-04:00

I used to be a one bike family, so finding a place to store it in the basement was easy - just pick a free wall and lean the bike against it. I recently purchased a bike for my wife, and a kids bike trailer for the offspring. The biking is great, but it leaves me with a minor dilema... namely I really only have one free wall in my basement, so where do I put the other bike?

The obvious answer is to acquire a bike rack. One issue, they are either a) expensive, or b) poor quality, and in either case they are c) no where near large enough. The bikes are put so close together they want to occupy the same physical space and one has to fight with them to get one bike out. I don't know who actually designs multi bike racks, but they obviously never had two bikes in the same room at the same time before. (To be fair I only looked at the local WalMart and the local hardware store so there may be brilliantly designed bike racks out there, but in my small town I didn't find any good ones).

It was clear that I had to build my own rack, so I headed off to the local hardware store and purchased some 3/4" PVC pipe, a bunch of connectors, and locked myself into my shop and started building my own rack. The following are the results of my exploits.

The rack before painting. It holds two bikes, far enough apart that the handlebars don't touch each other, but close enough that it fits into my basement properly. This is basically the original design I mentally came up with before I started assembling pieces. The two things I did differently was to narrow the slot where the bike tires go, and to angle the back braces to save floor space. Before I angled the braces the bike tire was 14" away from the wall. With the angle it is 6".

A paint job later and it is looking pretty spiffy, if I do say so myself.

The rack in its final spot. Looks like it will serve our needs perfectly.

Some things I learned:

You need more PVC than you think. I ended up using about 34' of the stuff.
The slot where the tires go really must be the right size - too big and the bike just flops around. This was the main mistake I made with my original design.
Spray paint is annoying.
If you don't ventilate your work space properly, the PVC glue fumes makes your wife angry, and requires one to make it up by providing snacks.
PVC glue is unforgiving. You have 3-4 seconds max before it sets, and it won't move again. Be quick and accurate.

So that is my bike rack. It was easy to make, and hopefully will last me for years to come.

Keeping Your Google Passwords Safe

2011-06-01T16:06:00.005-04:00

Take steps to ensure the safety of your Google accounts by turning on 2-factor authentication. More details at the Official Google Blog:

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/06/ensuring-your-information-is-safe.html

Berm

2011-05-30T21:39:00.041-04:00

Before Photo

It is Memorial Day here in the US. For the Canadians reading this think May 24 but a week later.

Since I had a 3 day weekend I decided to take on a project that has been needing to be done since I moved in. Specifically I needed to find a way to stop the erosion along my back fence line. I have a creek in my back yard that occasionally floods. I also get a lot of water flow through my backyard when it rains, and it is chipping away at the bank.

A landscaper who goes to my church suggested that we build a berm to slow down the water, and an armored channel (made of rock) to drain the excess water into the creek. This weekend my wife, Zeke and I built such a berm, and to make it less of an eyesore, we made it into a raised garden.

It is a surprisingly large amount of work to build a berm. I moved 1.3 tons of rock, and 6(ish) cubic yards of soil into place, not to mention the mulch. It took us part of Friday, all day Saturday and all Monday afternoon to complete the project. We took Sunday off, not cause of the Sabbath (cause a) Sabbath is on Saturday, b) I'm not Jewish and c) New Covenent - woohoo!), but because we ran out of dirt :) (We spent Sunday afternoon caching and listening to music in Banner Elk NC, up in the mountains - my wife's blog has more information)

So right now we are incredibly tired, very sore, but in our back yard is the results of a long weekends labour. I present to you, the BearBerm(tm)

After Photo

Errant Thought Roundup Guest Post

2011-05-27T07:09:00.021-04:00

I love, I love, I hate, I hate

I like, I wish, for goodness sake...

I hope, I hope, I pray, I pray

I will, I won't, and for today...

And fills in a thought for each section. It actually ends up being pretty neat. I recently tried my hand at an ETR, and she was gracious enough to post it on her blog. So please check out: Errant Thought Roundup 31: Guest Post.

Enjoy!

Tying Your Shoes: You are doing it wrong.

2011-05-24T15:27:00.001-04:00

3 Minute TED talk on how you are (probably) tying your shoes wrong:

Bears Across America: Homecoming

2011-05-23T18:00:00.018-04:00

May 6th was our final day on our epic journey to explore the wild west of America. It was the longest road trip any of us had ever been on, and today it ends.

We spent last night in Lexington Kentucky, and today we would drive through Kentucky, across Tennessee and finally arrive in North Carolina.

Since we are so close to home, our route mostly took us through territory we've been in before. Despite this we still managed to get some adventures out of it.

When you think of Kentucky you may think of the Kentucky Derby. The thrill of the horse race, the shortness of the jockeys, the prissiness of the spectators, the stupidity of the gambling. The Derby has it all, and lucky for us we missed it completely.

What we did see was the only other thing Kentucky is famous for... KFC. In Corbin KY is the very first Kentucky Fried Chicken that Harlan Sanders ever opened. It is still a functioning KFC restaurant, with a museum bolted onto it.

After reveling in the history that is KFC we raced across Tennessee as quickly as possible.

Our last adventure occurred just outside of Asheville NC at an abandoned water pump station. We pulled off the road and hiked 500ft into the woods to check it out. There is, of course, a geocache there as well (which is how we discovered it). There are several old buildings that still have the pump equipment in them, overlooking a really nice mountain river.

After spending a few minutes exploring the buildings we got in the car and arrived home at 6PM.

Some (hopefully) interesting facts about our trip:

21 days on the road
6100 (approx) miles driven
168 caches found, averaging 8 per day.
18 different states, including 11 that none of us had ever been in, and 15 that I had never cached in.
4 free nights at hotels from "frequent traveller" points

Zeke was a great traveller, and seemed to love being in the car more and more each day. We are glad to be home, but we had a blast on our trip. I would definitely do it again.

To finish off this series of posts is the photo gallery from our trip:

Cheers!

Bears Across America: 100th Meridian

2011-05-22T18:00:00.077-04:00

"Me debunk an american myth?
And take my life in my hands?
Where the great plains begin
At the hundredth meridian
At the hundredth meridian
Where the great plains begin

Driving down a corduroy road
Weeds standing shoulder high
Ferris wheel is rusting off in the distance
At the hundredth meridian
Where the great plains begin"
-- Tragically Hip - At The Hundredth Meridian"
(lyrics posted for Cian)

May 4th and 5th. We, my wife, kid, dog, and myself, are on the return leg of an epic adventure. We have explored the wild west of America, and now we are on our way home.

The last two days brought us from the middle of Kansas, across 3 state lines, one 4 times. We also, at some point in time, crossed the 100th meridian, where the great plains begin (well in our case, stop)

We started this leg in Salina Kansas and headed east. Along the way we pulled off the interstate and drove by the Dwight D Eisenhower Presidential Library (our second Presidential library of the trip). We then decided to check out the country side, so we headed out on some dusty dirt roads to check out the farmland (and to grab some caches). I got Kansas all over my car (its still there!)

We ate lunch in Kansas City, and then drove most of the way across Missouri, and stayed in O'Fallon MO, just to the west of St. Louis. This stretch was one of the least interesting stretches of our trip.

The next day we headed into St. Louis to check out the infamous St. Louis Arch. It is exactly what it pretends to be - a giant arch. It is supposed to symbolize the expansion of America to the west (think Louis & Clark etc.) but I think it means that St. Louis is trying to compensate for something.

After the arch we went to find the first cache of the day, which was at a really interesting metal sculpture of a jazz band.

After St. Louis we crossed then Missouri River and headed across Illinois, then into Indiana. We barely grazed the southern half of these states so there isn't a lot to say about them. We didn't really stop except to get caches so I can check the states off my list.

We did get to see a lot of the flooding that has been happening in that part of the world. Mile after mile of farmers fields covered in 4-6ft of water. It was rather dramatic, and mildly depressing.

Indiana had an interesting cache that I wanted to get. It is called "Kentuckiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom"... try being a cacher, read that title, and NOT want to get it... go ahead... try.

Done trying? Yeah, me to. It is hunt time. The issue was that to get to the cache I had to cross the Ohio river into Kentucky at Louisville KY, then cross back into Indiana - the cache is on the Indiana bank of the Ohio river. The problem is that yours truly is, surprisingly (hopefully), bad at navigating city streets. When we got of the bridge from KY to IN I took a wrong turn and accidentally ended up on the bridge back to KY. A turn around later and I re-crossed then river and ended up at the cache. I crossed a timezone boundary with each crossing, so I am pretty sure, due to the paradoxes of time travel, that I aged 3 hours in those 15 minutes.

The cache itself was at an abandoned building that made up the support structure for a large train bridge that crossed the Ohio River. If you are in the area I highly recommend doing this one. One interesting thing that made it extra special was while I was hunting the cache I was up near the tracks as a train was going by. One of the engineers on the train was leaning out the window and gave me a nod as he drove by - it was rather cool little scene.

After the cache we headed to Lexington KY to spend the night. The end.

Tomorrow is our last day on the road. What adventures will it bring? Will we make it home? Will we break down on the side of the road, give up on our current life and become a band of roaming gypsies with a music playing monkey? Will I finally stop posting such long posts about things that happened 3 weeks ago? Will I stop asking rhetorical and silly questions? yes.

Bears Across America: Go East Young Man

2011-05-21T18:00:00.059-04:00

May 3, 2011. Our family adventure to explore the wild west of America was rapidly coming to an end. Since we went north to get to Colorado Springs Colorado, todays adventure would lead us to the corn fields of Kansas.

I expected todays trip to be fairly boring because, well, Kansas doesn't exactly have a reputation as a party state. Normally when people think of Kansas they think of two things: Flat farmers fields, and the Wizard Of Oz. I never saw a wizard (or the tornado that provides a gateway to Oz) but I did see a lot of farmers fields. They were not that flat tho.

The trip did turn out to hold some interesting points of interest tho, and lucky for you I will tell the tale... wait, come back!

The first point of interest was in Goodland KS. They have what is possibly the worlds largest Van Gogh painting on record. The "canvas" is 30' x 20', and the easel is bigger than that.

We ate lunch basking in the glory that is the Kansas art scene, and then hit the road once more.

Our next stop led us into history. Recent history for most of us, but ancient history for this geocacher, for lurking at this destination is the worlds oldest active geocache, called Mingo.

The cache was hidden on May 11, 2000, only 8 days after the very first cache ever placed. The cache is on its 4th log book - and I mean book. Most caches has a small piece of paper or a small spiral notepad as a logbook. Mingo had a 100 page hard cover notebook as a logbook, and its on its 4th book. Over 2000 logged visits to this location. Lots of history here.

Our next stop brings us to Victoria Kansas, and the Cathederal Of The Plains, which is exactly what it sounds like, a large cathederal on the plains of Kansas. This cathederal is huge, and reminded me a great deal of the cathederals in Europe (aside from being built out of brick, and not stone like the European ones).

Salina KS has a burger joint called Cozy Inn, which has some amazingly tasty sliders (think White Castle, but with flavour). After downing a couple sacks of burgers we bedded down for the night in an Econolodge, and stored up energy for the next days adventure.

Bears Across America: Garden Of The Gods

2011-05-20T18:00:00.045-04:00

April 30th to May 2nd. Our epic road trip adventure to explore the wild west of America has brought us to Colorado Springs Colorado. We are here to visit some friends that we met in Belgium when we were on assignment from work there in the summer of 2008 from Canada who now live in the US (cause who doesn't have friends they met in a foreign country while on work assignment from their home country, who they visit while living in another foreign country in which they currently inhabit? :)

We have spent the last few days basically hanging out with our friends. Zeke has been playing with their kids, Debbie has been playing with the wife, and I have been hanging out (Mr. Friend is on assignment with the Air Force so male bonding time has been absent).

Colorado Springs is nestled on the eastern side of the Rockies, so it quickly becomes a remote region with really beautiful landscape. The peaks of the Rockies dominate the skyline to the west. One of the most spectacular landmarks is a park called the Garden Of The Gods.

The Garden Of The Gods is a series of rock formations left over after soil and lighter rock have eroded and leaving behind denser rock, some of which is in spectacular spires.

The most striking example of this is Balance Rock, where the rocks have eroded such that a large rock is left balancing on other rocks. I tried to push it over, but was unsuccessful.

I have also been doing some geocaching around the area. There is one interesting type of hide that I have not seen before. The cache container is a metal cover plate (like from a light switch or power outlet but without the holes). On the back of the plate is attached a ziplock bag to contain the log. Magnets are glued onto the back of the plate, and the whole thing is left on a metal electrical box on the side of the road. It looks amazingly official until its picked up. I grabbed 7 caches in the rather long series (at least one per letter of the alphabet) before I ran out of time. Awesome good times.

We will have spent 3 days in Colorado, and then we are turning the car eastward tomorrow to check out the great American plain states.

Bears Across America: Race To Colorado

2011-05-19T18:00:00.025-04:00

April 28 & 29, 2011. The continued adventures of a family of bears on an epic road trip to explore the wild American west.

The last couple days were mainly travel days. We needed to get from Las Vegas Nevada to Colorado Springs Colorado in two days. We basically spent two days in the car with a stop in Albuquerque, so there isn't a lot interesting to talk about.

There were road signs, rest stops, and occasional hamburgers. At one point in time we may have broken out into song, cause ya know, who doesn't like a good musical?

The high plains of northern New Mexico and southern Colorado are pretty bland, but incredibly windy. Zeke was literally blown over during a pit stop at the Colorado visitor center.

We did run across this sign in Albuquerque:

I don't think I'll be seeing that dentist.

Bears Across America: Viva Rock Vegas

2011-05-18T18:00:00.073-04:00

April 27, 2011. The Bears Across America whirlwind tour out west has brought us to our most western point: Las Vegas Nevada.

Las Vegas is too large to be explored just passing by, so we spent an entire day exploring the Las Vegas Strip, where all the famous casinos and famous landmarks are located.

Our first stop in Vegas was the famous Las Vegas sign which anchors the southern end of the strip (it also doubles as a virtual cache).

We walked the strip in the morning, checking out some of the casinos and the other sights. There is a lot of cool things on the strip - way to many things to comment on in a blog post, so I'll hit some of the highlights:

There is a lot of shopping on the strip. One of the best stores we visited was the M&M Store - 4 floors of all things M&Ms... a tower of deliciousness that melts in your mouth, not in your hands.

I have been doing more caching on this trip than I expected, so I was able to hit a milestone on the Las Vegas strip. I picked the virtual at the M&M shop as my 500th find. It was great deal of fun, and a sweet (literally, figuratively) way to celebrate this milestone.

We stayed at the Flamingo Hotel and Casino, mainly due to it being dog friendly, on the strip, and cheap. It was still a very nice hotel, one of the nicer ones we've stayed at this trip, and it is truly dog friendly.

I was not prepared for the size of the place. According to the clerk at the check-in counter there are 3600+ rooms in the hotel. The bottom two floors contain a casino, food courts, and many shops.

The hotel also has a really nice courtyard with live flamingos and other birds, pools, fountains, and outdoor patios.

The strip at night is much more impressive than during the day. The number of lights is astounding. No wonder they build Hoover Dam so close :)

Every casino has its own theme and style, and all are unique. Some are fancier, some are not. Almost all have some sort of fountain, some sort of food, shopping, and a built in hotel.

You may ask if we gambled, and the answer is yes. Both Debbie and I put a US dollar (98 cents Canadian) into a slot machine. We didn't win.

The Bellagio, a casino in the middle of the strip, has an impressive fountain display every 15 minutes during the evening. It is synchronized to music, and well worth checking out.

Zeke loved the fountains. He was mesmerized during both shows that we saw. He really enjoyed most of the sights and sounds of the strip.

There is a seedy underbelly to Vegas which we didn't explore. It doesn't take a lot of looking to see evidence of it, however it doesn't take a lot of effort to ignore it either- just don't accept handouts from people on the strip :)

It is now time to head east again, but where are we going? What is next for the Bears? Stay tuned!

Bears Across America: The Hoover Maneuver

2011-05-17T18:00:00.008-04:00

April 26, 2011 saw the continuing adventures of a bunch of bears on their journey to the wild west of America. Todays journey brought us from Flagstaff Arizona to Las Vegas Nevada.

In between is a little engineering project called the Hoover Dam.

Visiting the Hoover Dam proved to be the most annoying experience I've had this trip. The issue is that for some bizarre reason I could not have a dog in my car and park it in the parking lots close to the dam. I can understand not having a dog walk around the dam, but why the restriction with them being in a parked car? Government Restrictions I was told. bah. So we parked in the far lots, and walked down to check out the dam. The fact that you can walk over the dam and look down, way way down, to the bottom is cool. Otherwise its a huge chunk of concrete in the middle of a desert.

The dam itself is a pretty impressive piece of engineering, and beautiful in its own way. It is not a surprise that this is where they kept the All-Spark, and Megatron.

Lake Mead, the lake created by the dam, is also beautiful, tho not as big as I expected. The drop in water levels as the Colorado River is drained for use in Las Vegas and LA is remarkable (thats the white band you see in the photos). Just goes to show the hubris of Man to build major cities out in the desert.

After we spent 20 minutes at the dam we headed west again and arrived in Las Vegas in time to put Zeke down for bed. Las Vegas itself is an amazing place to drive into. Desert, desert, desert, middle of city. There is no middle ground :)

Stay tuned for more from our adventures in Las Vegas.

Bears Across America: Phoenix

2011-05-16T18:00:00.044-04:00

April 25, 2011. My wife has a favourite website to buy "cool" baby stuff called Baby Half Off (babyhalfoff.com). When she realized how close our trip would take us to their physical store we immediately added Phoenix to our list of places to visit.

I always wanted to see the giant Saguaro cactus in the wild, and the Phoenix area has them in spades. I was always under the impression that such cacti were rare, so we were taken aback to find out that they grow in forests like pine trees grow in the east (for loose definitions of forests in deserts).

We spent the morning shopping for baby stuff, and for quilting stuff. It was exactly as exciting as it sounds. Whoo. uh. Hoo?

Afterwards we went geocaching... woohoo!

We only had time to find 5 caches, but they were all awesome. The first was a large 50 gallon container on the front porch of a house. The second was at a waterfall by the water distribution plant. The third was a key lock box in the back of an office building. The fourth was at a view of a Medieval style castle in the hills overlooking Phoenix.

When we pulled up to the castle cache, an older gentleman pulled up behind us, and before we could say anything he mentioned in a gruff voice: "So you came all the way from North Carolina to block my driveway"... um... :) Before too long we realized he was having fun with us and talked a bit about the castle. Apparently for $900K I can make it my summer home... my wife sadly said no. boo!

The last cache was the most spectacular cache I have ever seen. The cache description simply mentioned that the cache is in an ecologically sensitive area, and care should be made. Also that the geocaching logo is on the cache container, and finding that logo would make opening the cache obvious.

When I got to the cache coordinates I found a dead cactus, about 8 feet high, still standing. I saw the small geocaching logo, and took a closer look. I saw an eye-hook, which I opened, and the entire front of the cactus trunk opened up to reveal the cache container. Yeah, its a cache container built out of a cactus. Friggin' awesome! This, my friends, is what caching is all about.

An added bonus to the cactus cache was that it was in a field full of the seguaro cactus I wanted to see, so I was able to get some awesome photos.

After finding this cache we took the 1.5 hour drive back to Flagstaff. We treated Bailey, our dog, to a trip to a local dog park to get some puppy-playing in. Afterwards we hit the hotel and started getting ready for the next stage of our westward adventure.

What will tomorrow bring? Stay tuned!

Bears Across America: Ain't It Grand?

2011-05-15T15:50:00.003-04:00

It is hard to believe that it only took 18 years for
Teddy Roosevelt to dig this out!

April 24, 2011 was the day we achieved the original goal of our road trip: Visiting the Grand Canyon.

This was the day after our sick day so we were not feeling our best, but we piled ourselves into the van and drove the 80 miles to the eastern gate of Grand Canyon National Park.

They say that the Grand Canyon is one of the few things that you see that doesn't disappoint, and once I got my first view of the canyon I have to agree with them. The Grand Canyon is absolutely awesome in terms of scale and beauty.

We spent the morning driving the southern rim to the Grand Canyon village, where we had lunch. After lunch we hiked two miles along the rim trail. We got rained on, and the canyon has some cold rain with hard winds, but we persevered, and enjoyed some stunning views. Zeke enjoyed some stunning nap time.

There is not a lot to expand on here. It is just a series of amazing views. so I will not express every thought or detail about this trip, except to say that if you have been here you know what I am talking about. If you have not, and have any appreciation for the beauty and awesomeness of nature, you must visit this place.

After our hike, we took a shuttle bus back to the parking lot and headed back home in time for supper.

Considering the state Zeke and I were in yesterday, we managed to turn out a really great day of adventuring.

Bears Across America: Illness and Fatigue

2011-05-14T18:00:00.013-04:00

April 23, 2011 is the day we got sick.

A couple days ago Zeke started throwing up after eating. We kept going as he seemed to be maintaining, but as we arrive in Flagstaff AZ we realized he needed a break.

Luckily we had an extra day built into our Flagstaff plans, so we spend Saturday taking care of Zeke.

Later in the day we took Zeke to the emergency room to ensure he wasn't dehydrated. Turns out he was still doing pretty good. So we took him home, gave him some anti-nausea meds, and let him sleep it off.

While we were in the ER, I got sick myself and spent the night at the hotel sick to my stomach. Luckily my issue only lasted the night, and Zeke was perking up, and we were able to continue our adventures (What those adventures are will have to wait until tomorrows post). Only losing a day for such serious issues was a blessing.

We'll get back to the fun adventuring stuff tomorrow, promise!

Bears Across America: Desert Rocks

2011-05-13T18:00:00.011-04:00

Friday April 22nd. Our travels westward took us from Albuquerque New Mexico to Flagstaff Arizona.

We expected it to be a fairly low-interest day, but it turned out to be much better than I expected.

We started the day by visiting two National Parks: The Painted Desert, and Petrified Forest. When you pull up to the park all you see is incredibly boring old featureless desert, however a mile into the park the land suddenly drops and some of the most magnificent desert landscape I have ever seen exposes itself in front of you. The colours - reds and browns, are amazing.

The petrified forests are also cool. Miles and miles of stone that looks like wood. I am positive that some of the wood is still actually wood.

Some of the best bits abouts the petrified wood is the extensive amount of crystals that have formed inside the logs.

After the parks, we headed further west and did some caching. One of the first caches was at the Wig Wam Inn in Holbrook AZ, which was the inspiration for the hotel in Cars.

We then headed to Winslow Arizona and stood on the corner. It was made famous by the Eagles song "Takin It Easy"

"Well, I'm a standing on a corner
in Winslow Arizona
It's such a fine sight to see
It's a girl, my Lord,
in a flatbed Ford
slowin' down to take a look at me
Come on, baby, don't say maybe
I gotta know if your sweet love is
gonna save me
We may lose and we may win though
we will never be here again
so open up, I'm climbin' in,
so take it easy..."

We finished our day by visiting the largest meteor impact crater in the world. Miles across, and 450ft deep. It is definitely a big hole.

Oh, and somewhere along the way I ended up riding a giant bunny... because why not?

Angry Birds On The Web

2011-05-13T15:36:00.009-04:00

As announced at Google I.O you can now play Angry Birds on the web: http://chrome.angrybirds.com/

While we're on the subject, here is a live action video of the group Pomplamoose playing the Angry Birds theme song.

We apologize for any inconvenience to your productivity this post may cause.

Bears Across America: Left Turn At Albuquerque

2011-05-12T18:00:00.049-04:00

The Date: April 21st, 2011. The Place, New Mexico. The reason: eh, why not?

New Mexico is rich in history. It has everything from ancient cultures to modern scientific endeavors. Billy The Kid lived here, and before that Billy the Infant.

Today we took a drive into the New Mexico country side to check out one of the more modern marvels the state has to offer: The Very Large Array radio telescope.

The telescope is a series of satellite dishes arranged in 3 lines. They all work together to explore the far reaches of space by detecting radio waves with amazing fidelity and accuracy. Its also where parts of the movie Contact were filmed, as well as a Bon Jovi video. Tho I have it on good authority that Jon Bon Jovi had no influence on the science.

The VLA is out in what Websters would define as a textbook definition of "the middle of nowhere". It is 2 hours outside of Albuquerque, and 60 miles from any form of civilization. Its also at 7000ft elevation, which makes it the highest place I have ever stood on earth. It does offer some amazing views of the mountains and high country of New Mexico.

After the VLA we headed back to Albuquerque to check out Petroglyphs National Monument, which is really just a state park. The Petroglyphs are a form of Pueblo Graffiti - images and artwork carved into the rock by ancient North American civilizations, most like the Pueblo indians.

There are over 25,000 'glyphs in the park, and we saw only a small handfull of them before we moved on to exploring the old downtown area of Albuquerque called Old Town.

Tomorrow we will continue our adventures west and drive to Flagstaff AZ, where we will spend the next 3 days exploring, adventuring, vacationing, relaxing, and eating. Stay tuned.

Oh, before I go, I gotta say that the best thing about the day was that I finally got to take that left turn that Bugs Bunny never did:

Bears Across America: Route 66

2011-05-10T17:00:00.000-04:00

April 20th saw the fifth, and so far the most interesting day of our family adventure to head west for fame, fortune, and vacation.

We spent the night in Shamrock, Texas in an Econolodge located right on the famous Route 66.

Our first stop of the day was Conoco Towers, an old gas station. If it looks familiar to you, you shouldn't be surprised. It served as the inspiration for Ramones Body Shop in Radiator Springs... still confused? It was the town in the movie Cars.

We drove along the original Route 66 for a while, checking out some of the history surrounding the Mother Road: old cafes, interesting milestones (like the half way point between LA and Chicago), scary nutball religious iconery, and eventually visited two car ranches.

"Two what ranches?"

Car ranches. Ya know, ranches for cars. Places where cars are born and bred (where do you think they come from anyway?). Specifically Volkswagen Beatles, and Cadillacs.

What is a car ranch? Well, its where a series of cars are half buried hood down in a row. People are encouraged to spray paint the cars when they come visit. The Bug Ranch had 4 cars, and Cadillac Ranch, never to be outdone by lesser vehicles, had 10. I signed my name on cars in both places.

After the ranches (and subsequently after lunch) we headed towards (and eventually crossed) the New Mexico state line. I found several caches right at the state line. There wasn't anything overly remarkable about the caches itself (aside from my first experience with desert conditions), however after I logged the find I was emailed by the cache owner who informed me that he was pretty sure that he saw me hunting for one of his caches as he drove by. Small world :)

Further on into New Mexico we took another caching detour and ended up in a small ghost town - a total of 3 houses, and a couple run down foundations.

It is really remarkable how fast the landscape changes. It seems like it takes only minutes to go from the flat plains of west Texas and eastern New Mexico to mountains and high hills. It really is beautiful country.

Zeke is starting to catch a cold, but otherwise he has been an absolute trooper, and has learned to entertain himself in his car seat.

Tomorrow we are sticking around New Mexico, tho our exact plans remain undecided. Tune in next time to hear me say "hey, stop following me!"... Same bear time, same bear channel.

Creepy image for the day: New Mexicow is watching you!

Bears Across America: Oklahoma, OK!

2011-05-09T06:00:00.001-04:00

Tuesday April 19: Day 4 of the trip to the American wild west. I have packed up a wife, 18 month old, a puppy, and my geocaching gear into our mini-van and am heading westward. Ultimate destination? The Grand Canyon. Todays goal? Conquer Oklahoma, finding some geocaches along the way

We started the day in Russellville Arkansas where we grabbed a few geocaches before skipping town. The notable one being a cache where the container is magentically attached to the bottom of a water main lid. When the lid is lifted, the cache comes up, along with a rubber spider attached via fishing line. Spooky.

We ate lunch in Shawnee OK, and then headed to Oklahoma City to check out the Oklahoma City Bombing Memorial. After than we headed for the Texas border.

Along the way we took a detour to snag a cache at an old gas station on Route 66 that was run by a woman who used to let people stay with her that had no money, or who's car broke down. She was known as the mother of the Mother Road. Her legacy still stands here.

We spent the night in Shamrock TX. Tomorrow looks promising as we explore some more of Route 66 and all it has to offer. Stay tuned to see how we get our kicks on Route 66.

Bears Across America: Clinton WIth A Suess On Top

2011-05-08T17:00:00.001-04:00

Monday, April 18th is the third day of our family road trip to the wild west of America. So far we have driven through 6 states, and today we added two more to our list: Louisiana and Arkansas

After getting a hearty breakfast we left Vicksburg MS and headed across the Mississippi River to Delta Louisiana to do some driving and some caching.

One of the first geocaches we found was at a small airport in Delta that was the birthplace of a major airline... guess which one? :)

We didn't spend a lot of time in Louisiana, but our route took us along the Mississippi River for a couple hours of amazing scenery.

Once we crossed the Arkansas line we went immediately from river to farm land. After a quick pull-off into the edge of a farmers field to make some lunch, we continued on our way to Little Rock Arkansas. Our destination? The Clinton Presidential Library.

I always thought a presidential library was more of an honorary type of thing. One thing I was not aware of is that every document a presidency generates belongs to the citizens of the United States, and after a president leaves office all those documents are stored in the presidents library. So this means the Clinton library contains a copy of every document he generated, all 80 million of them.

Crazy.

The library also contains a private residency on the top floor where President Clinton and his Secret Service entourage can stay whenever he is in town, which apparently is quite often.

The library also contains a lot of Clinton stuff: presents he received, clothes he wore, the car he was driven in, and a replica of the Oval Office laid out exactly as he had it.

While we were there the library was hosting an exhibit of Dr. Suess artwork. Suess is an amazing artist, and one of my favourite poets, so it was cool to be immersed in the crazy genius that is Dr. Suess. When I inevitably go crazy (I'm saving up to become eccentric!) I want to slip into a Suess themed delusion - it will be a lot of fun.

After the library (and grabbing the cache in the gardens behind the library) we continued on and spent the night in Russellville AR.

Some of you may be wondering how Zeke is holding up after 3 days on the road. He has been fantastic. He tends to get a bit cranky at the end of the day, but who doesn't? :)

He loves watching the traffic and scenery go by the car window, and sings along with the radio (he's off key - gets that from daddy). Last night he spent some time practicing for when it is his turn to drive:

Bears Across America: The Mighty Mississippi

2011-05-07T15:01:00.002-04:00

Sunday, April 17th was the second day of our epic adventure across America to check out the west. We will eventually explore the Grand Canyon, Las Vegas and parts of Colorado, but first we need to get there.

Todays adventure got us a little closer as we headed from Birmingham Alabama to Vicksburg Mississippi. This is one of the shortest travel days we have planned, 4.5 hours in total, so we took some extra time to do some geocaching.

We started the day finding a few caches in Birmingham, then we pointed the car westward. A couple hours later we stopped off at Bonita Lake Park to eat lunch.

We of course found some caches there too. This was my first cache in Mississippi, and it completed a personal goal of finding a caching in 50% of the lower 48 states while I am living in the US. I've since amended my goal to include all 48 states, many of which I will complete during the remainder of this adventure.

After lunch we continued west and cached at the Clinton Community Nature Center where we found a tree that resembles an elephants head. I also found a cache that was built into a bird decoy shaped like a dove. It was simply resting in a tree.

We also did a cache at the Woodrow Wilson bridge in Jackson MS. I am a distant relative of his so I tend to be interested in all things Woodrow.

We eventually made our way to our destination of Vicksburg Mississippi, which is located right on the edge of the Mississippi River, and the border to Louisiana.

We ate supper at a park overlooking the river, and did some site seeing. Vicksburg is a really pretty town.

We ended our day by viewing the sunset over the river, and finally heading back to the hotel to bunk down for the night.

Day two was another excellent day of exploration, and the kid is still hanging in there, and travels very well.

It is time to sign off for this post, but come back tomorrow to hear about the next leg of our adventure, which will take us to Arkansas.

Bears Across America: Sweet Home Alabama

2011-05-05T18:00:00.001-04:00

Sit right there and I'll tell a tale.
A tale of a fun filled trip.
It started in the April month.
And crossed the Mississip.
(sing to the Gilligan's Island tune)

On April 16 I packed up the wife, kid, dog, and geocaching accessories into the minivan and we headed out of the driveway. Our destination? Adventure!

Oh, what was our actual destination? To head west to seek our fame, fortune, and glory (or just to get out sight seeing kicks on Route 66) and visit the Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, and Colorado.

You may notice a small issue in our adventure plans, which is namely this: we have an 18 month old in our car, and 18 month olds typically don't have the patience to survive a cross country journey. You are probably thinking that this trip is insanity in itself. To travel across America with a toddler is crazy. Doomed to failure we are.

Well I say to you naysayers, nay! For I have a solution to this crisis of faith you are having, and that solution is this: We shall limit our car time each day to the patience threshold of a toddler, which from experimentation is approximately 7 hours. The rest of the time we will make frequent stops to explore and geocache.

It will take 6 days to get across the country to the Grand Canyon at this rate, but we will see more of the middle parts of America than we would if we drove straight there.

So at 5:30 am on April 16th we headed our our driveway and headed southwest. Our final destination for the day: Birmingham Alabama.

Along the way we got to drive through the amazingly beautiful Appalachian mountains, and checked out a natural spring, and the remnants of an old copper mine.

We then drove through Chattanooga Tennessee and saw the famous choo choo (now a hotel). We also stopped by Look Out Mountain, and the Incline Railway. The incline railway is the steepest passenger rail system in the world, and goes up a mile to Point Park, a National Military Park. We ate lunch up there and enjoyed the amazing scenery.

After consuming large quantities of sandwiches, we started down the trail again. Our next stop was Noccalula Falls in Alabama. These are very impressive falls, 90' high. The name of the falls comes from an indian maiden who jumped to her death at these falls to avoid marrying a rich white ugly dude. I think she made the right choice.

We arrived at the hotel around supper time and got settled in. All in all it was a fun first day of our trip. I can't want to see what tomorrow brings.

Time Lapse Photography

2011-05-05T08:32:00.002-04:00

Simply Amazing:

El Cielo de Canarias / Canary sky - Tenerife from Daniel López on Vimeo.

Petra: The Concert Video

2011-05-02T22:52:00.000-04:00

If you recall, I went to a Petra concert last November that was recorded. Here is a snippet of the concert. You can see me (blurry) on the left hand side of the band (from the audience perspective) about 10 rows back - I'm wearing a red shirt.

Security in Google Datacenters.

2011-04-23T10:27:00.000-04:00

The Google Apps team has released a video about security measures in Google Datacenters:

San Francisco To Paris In 120 Seconds

2011-04-09T12:20:00.000-04:00

This is a video of time lapse photography of a flight from San Francisco to Paris France. It is roughly one photo ever 2 miles of the journey. Note the awesome view of the Northern Lights :)

SF to Paris in Two Minutes from Beep Show on Vimeo.

Internet Classics IV: The Cake Is A Lie

2011-04-09T06:30:00.000-04:00

The ending theme to the game Portal... its awesome, watch it, know it, love it.

The Texas Pierre

2011-04-08T13:36:00.000-04:00

Today was chicken wings and pizza day at the office. Normally this sounds right up this bears culinary alley, but alas disappointment was to be had. The pizza was a fancy foo-foo pie with no sauce and little cheese that was an embarrassment to real pizza. The wings were dry and uninspired (you may ask yourself how a wing can be "inspired", and the answer is, well, complicated but delicious).

So what are we to do with such a situation? Experiment! My coworker Michael went to the fridge and pulled out some condiments and other containers and we ended up with the following:

Texas Pete hot sauce
duck sauce
various hot mustards
organic Maple Syrup (yeah, I know, what maple syrup *isn't* organic? silly marketers)

My first experiment was to go whole hog and mix maple syrup, duck sauce, hot mustard and Texas Pete together, then spread it on a wing. It was definitely flavourful, but it was too many competing flavours all at once. Mainly the duck sauce overpowered everything else.

Experiment two proved to be a winner: equal parts maple syrup and Texas Pete. It was wonderful - a heavenly blend of sweet and heat. All it really needed was a thickening agent (perhaps butter). Otherwise it was about as awesome as awesome gets, which is good as I only had 5 chicken wings and was running out things to experiment with.

Since the maple syrup was imported from Canada, which means odds are it is from Quebec (they make 75% of the worlds maple syrup supply) I dubbed this delicious concoction the "Texas Pierre", tho Michael preferred "Maple Pete".

I highly recommended you try it on your next chicken wing.

Google I/O From Your Living Room

2011-04-07T13:37:00.001-04:00

Google I/O is Googles yearly developer conference, and a place where they have made some large product announcements. Since tickets are sold out, and its likely most of my readers are not local to San Francisco anyway, but are all Google Fans (you *are* fans, right? :), that you might want to check out the conference over streaming video. The conference begins May 10th.

For more information, check out this blog post: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/bringing-google-io-direct-to-you-with.html and the Google IO website: http://www.google.com/events/io/2011/ to enjoy all the Google I/O goodness.

Batbaby

2011-04-06T21:42:00.002-04:00

Ever wonder who will replace Bruce Wayne as Batman? Well, wonder no more!

... just don't tell Joker-baby.

Every OS Sucks

2011-04-06T12:11:00.001-04:00

A classic from Three Dead Trolls In A Baggie:

Return From The Space Coast

2011-04-05T08:00:00.002-04:00

This is my final post on our trip to Florida. It was only a few short adventure packed days, but it was a great time. See these posts for more info:

Journey To Space Coast [link]
Space Coast Adventures: Here Be Manatees [link]
Space Coast: The Final Frontier [link]

On Saturday we drove a couple hours north to Jacksonville FL and spent the night there. The next day we drove the remaining 8 hours home. Zeke proved to be a great traveller, which made things a lot easier. Debbie was a pretty good traveller too :)

To break up the time we spent some time caching. The most remarkable of which was a visit to the Butler Island Rice Plantation off I95 in Georgia.

We arrived home just before supper time, and spend the evening relaxing before work started again on Monday.

Now that you've read about our adventure to the Space Coast, you may be interested in seeing some more of the pictures that I took, including more manatees, rockets, Zekes, and the occasional geocache.

This was a great trip, and although it was short, it was thoroughly enjoyable. It also taught us several lessons about travelling with an infant that will come handy when we go on a larger adventure later this year... but that is a story for another time. Until then, keep on caching, and thanks for reading.