Geocaching Log - Sept. 14, 2007

Cache Overview
1) J-Hawk Hike or Bike Trail @ N 38° 56.401 W 095° 19.455
2) Overlook @ N 38° 54.590 W 095° 19.650
3) Friday the 13th 2 for 1 @ N 38° 54.575 W 095° 19.814

Acquired: Plastic pirate treasure coin, $1 bill
Left: Donald Duck figurine, Stork figurine, Toy car

Caylyn called me on her way home from work asking if I wanted to do some geocaching when she got home, so I was more than happy to look up a few caches for us to visit! These were all locations near the Clinton Lake dam.

J-Hawk Hike or Bike Trail @ N 38° 56.401 W 095° 19.455

Our first cache of the evening involved over a half mile hike along a very nice concrete hike/bike trail near Clinton Lake. We parked near the lake and set foot down the trail with our dog, Thumper, who later proved kind of a pain to go caching with! About a tenth of a mile down the trail, I realized I had forgotten the trinkets in the car, so after a quick sprint back and forth we were able to really get going. After meeting a few rollerbladers and bikers on the trail, we finally got to the point where we had to leave the trail. Leaving a short hike up a hill full of juniper/arborvitae.


Turns out a hike through juniper isn't all that fun, as those suckers poked the crap out of us, especially with a dog in tow (or rather the dog towing us). After a few spider webs to the face, we came across an area of taller evergreen trees with lots of dead branches on the bottom. Caylyn was able to spot the cache hidden under a couple rocks in the middle of all these trees, so we tied Thumper up and hiked through all the dead branches to the cache as Thumper squealed and barked at us, apparently thinking we were going to leave him for the coyotes.


I had expected to find a Kansas Sunflower geocoin inside, but it turned out someone had beaten us to the punch earlier in the day! There really wasn't anything interesting in the cache, so I decided to just log our visit and leave behind a little stork figurine that I had scored at a garage sale earlier in the day. Speaking of which, geocaching has really made my garage saling hobby a lot more fun, as I now enjoy finding crappy little 10 cent items to bring with me as geocaching trinkets! I used to wonder who the crap ever buys that stuff; but I guess that question is now answered.

After hiding the cache away, we returned to our dog which you'd have thought was dying judging from the sounds he was making and hoofed it back to the car.

Overlook @ N 38° 54.590 W 095° 19.650

After a quick mile drive past the dam, we took off for our second cache of the evening...

Hmm, I think I was wrong about wanting to blog all this crap. I hate typing all of this stuff out. It's a real pain in the butt. To me, the fun is in the caching; not writing about it. Maybe I'll just post pictures instead...















Oh those falls @ N 38° 56.571 W 094° 53.262

This cache was just on the opposite side of K-10 from rick's 52 making it another quick stop on my way to Kansas City. As I got out of my car, I could hear the faint rush of a waterfall. Judging from the name of the cache, I didn't even bother switching on my GPS unit and followed my ears and was fairly amazed to find a 20 foot high waterfall gushing over a limestone formation, right alongside a fairly busy street right between Lenexa and Olathe. Who'd a thunk? After spending 15 minutes or so checking out the falls, I decided to start looking for the cache.

Not really knowing where to look, I switched on my unit and was led to a fairly large pile of limestone rocks about 50 feet down the sidewalk from the falls. It took me way longer than it should have but I finally caught a glimpse of the box, which had been very well hidden in the rocks by the last cacher. After clearing out enough rocks to finally pull the box out, I opened the box to find it contained a Jayhawk travel bug that was designed to travel the KC metro area.

It was also interesting that this TB was part of a larger geocaching puzzle. There are some pretty complex geocaches out there that involve much more than simply finding a box in a single location. Attached to this Jayhawk TB was a dog tag with another set of coordinates (presumably for another cache, but possibly not). The trick is that this travel bug was part of a three part TB puzzle. There are two more travel bugs floating around out there with more clues as to the solution. The other clues might contain some sort of code that is required to modify the coordinates I found; they might contain a distance and bearing that I need to travel from my found coordinates; but the gist of it is that these coordinates would probably do me no good on their own. At any rate, I jotted down the coordinates just in case I have the opportunity to complete the puzzle some day.

Since I don't really travel around KC very much, I decided to leave the Jayhawk TB there and chose a toy mini-cooper instead, leaving a small stress relief football in return. After signing the log, I packed the cache back into the rock pile for the next lucky cacher to find and went on my way to Kansas City for some hot hot gaming action with the rest of the gamers at Tabletop Games.

Geocaching Log - Sept. 13, 2007 - Afternoon Trip

Cache Overview
1) rick's 52 @ N 38° 57.307 W 094° 52.552
2) Oh those falls @ N 38° 56.571 W 094° 53.262

Acquired: Toy Mini-Cooper
Left: John Deere Tractor TB, Stress Relief Football

I decided to check out second batch of caches today on my way to a gaming night in Kansas City. Both of these locations were very close to each other along K-10, so they were right on the way!

rick's 52 @ N 38° 57.307 W 094° 52.552

Rick's 52 had a neat little location off from a nature trail that ran a course along the edge of a small lake. It's amazing that I drive past these neat little places every week, totally unaware of their presence! I was able to park fairly near the trail and did the usual routine of following the trail toward the cache location. This time, the cache was only about 100 feet off the trail. Due to the margin of error when using a GPS unit, I had to do a little searching once I got to the supposed location. Turns out the cache was a good 50 feet away from where my unit told me it was, but I was able to find it with little problem. This one was an artillery box hung from a chain on the trunk of a tree.

After cracking the case open, I searched through it but didn't really find anything interesting. The one marginally interesting item was a small animal skull, but it had been broken into multiple pieces and was beginning to disintegrate, so I decided to leave it there. Since there were also a few crop fields somewhat near this cache location, it seemed a suitable place for the John Deere Tractor TB that I had found earlier in the day, so I left it in the box for someone else to discover and continue its journey. Checking out the TB's log in geocaching.com, the tractor has visited, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Kansas so far (no idea how it skipped from KY to KS). Where it goes next is anybody's guess!

Since the cache didn't take as long as I had expected, I took a few moments to park my butt on a bench along the pond and watched a few ducks for a bit before heading to the next cache.

Oh those falls @ N 38° 56.571 W 094° 53.262

This cache was just on the opposite side of K-10 from rick's 52 making it another quick stop on my way to Kansas City. As I got out of my car, I could hear the faint rush of a waterfall. Judging from the name of the cache, I didn't even bother switching on my GPS unit and followed my ears and was fairly amazed to find a 20 foot high waterfall gushing over a limestone formation, right alongside a fairly busy street right between Lenexa and Olathe. Who'd a thunk? After spending 15 minutes or so checking out the falls, I decided to start looking for the cache.

Not really knowing where to look, I switched on my unit and was led to a fairly large pile of limestone rocks about 50 feet down the sidewalk from the falls. It took me way longer than it should have but I finally caught a glimpse of the box, which had been very well hidden in the rocks by the last cacher. After clearing out enough rocks to finally pull the box out, I opened the box to find it contained a Jayhawk travel bug that was designed to travel the KC metro area.

It was also interesting that this TB was part of a larger geocaching puzzle. There are some pretty complex geocaches out there that involve much more than simply finding a box in a single location. Attached to this Jayhawk TB was a dog tag with another set of coordinates (presumably for another cache, but possibly not). The trick is that this travel bug was part of a three part TB puzzle. There are two more travel bugs floating around out there with more clues as to the solution. The other clues might contain some sort of code that is required to modify the coordinates I found; they might contain a distance and bearing that I need to travel from my found coordinates; but the gist of it is that these coordinates would probably do me no good on their own. At any rate, I jotted down the coordinates just in case I have the opportunity to complete the puzzle some day.

Since I don't really travel around KC very much, I decided to leave the Jayhawk TB there and chose a toy mini-cooper instead, leaving a small stress relief football in return. After signing the log, I packed the cache back into the rock pile for the next lucky cacher to find and went on my way to Kansas City for some hot hot gaming action with the rest of the gamers at Tabletop Games.

Geocaching Log - Sept. 13, 2007 - Morning Trip

Cache Overview
1) Rusting Buddies @ N 38° 57.254 W 095° 16.425
2) Tsar Nicholas' McToy Gulag @ N 38° 57.074 W 095° 16.065
3) This cache is the BOMB!!! @ N 38° 58.221 W 095° 15.872
4) Logan's Run @ N 38° 59.408 W 095° 17.812

Acquired: Knight figurine, John Deere TB, Carabeener
Left: Stuffed Spongebob, Goofy bobblehead

Forgive me for the lack of photos on my first day of geocaching! The thought of blogging my adventures was just a flicker in my mind yesterday and in my excitement to get out and find some caches, I neglected to bring my camera. Nevertheless, here's what happened on my inaugural caching trip.

Rusting Buddies @ N 38° 57.254 W 095° 16.425

Rusting buddies was my first stop of four planned caches for the day. After scouting out the location on Google Earth (something I do for all caches that I plan to search for) I ended up parking in a KU parking lot (no permit required, phew!) as my starting point. After firing up the GPS, I started heading toward the cache (which, according to the GPS unit, was only about 350 feet away) into a pocket of woods which lined the parking lot. It was obvious that the wooded area wasn't very deep, as I could see open skies on the far side of it.

About 20 feet in, however, I realized why this area was left wooded. It was veiling a big friggin' drainage ditch. Furthermore, the ditch was so eroded that I was faced with a 1o' vertical descent down into the little valley. What I thought was just going to be a quick hack through some trees was now made a little more tricky. Not wanting to jump and risk, you know, falling into the water at the bottom, I was able to locate some tree roots and use them as a rope to let myself down.

Luckily, once I was down, I found a spot that I could cross using my mad white man jumping skillz, and the ascent back up this side was not nearly as steep. After watching a school of minnows run away from my shadow in the water for a bit, I made my way up the slope. From the top of the slope I made way through a few more trees and some underbrush into an open field. Following my GPS signals, I made my way along the edge of the field until coming across two rusted out old cars.

"Aha! So these are the Rusting Buddies!", I thought as the GPS beeped at me, telling me I was arriving at my destination. I proceeded to inspect the cars for the cache. These cars were not going to be cruising down the road any time soon. In fact, they were much more suited to a future as a critter hotel judging from the look and smell of the place. After a little more searching, I found the cache, an ammo box tucked into the rear driver side of one of the buddies.

After searching through the contents of the cache, I decided to take with me a little knight figurine dude that had been left my another cacher, and in return I left a little stuffed Spongebob. After signing the logbook and hiding the cache back away, I bid the rusting buddies goodbye. A few more of the required acrobatics later, I was back to my car and on my way to the next cache!

Tsar Nicholas' McToy Gulag @ N 38° 57.074 W 095° 16.065

This cache was just a hop, skip, and a jump away from my parking spot for the Rusting Buddies, and once again I found myself parked in a KU lot, only this time parked illegally due to a lack of the necessary permitage. Oh well. While firing up the GPS, I noticed a grassy mowed trail leading into the woods where I knew the cache was located, so off I went.

While I was on the trail, I noticed a funny thing about the spiders on this trail: they love catching humans. I must have taken about 5 spider webs to the face in a tenth of a mile. Luckily, I was able to use my super-human strength to narrowly escape certain death at the hands of my 8-legged adversaries, and continued down the path until I noticed that I had somehow walked past the cache location while trying to wipe the webs off my face. Upon backtracking, I found that the closest I could get to the cache using the marked trail was 300', so off into the woods I went!

After following my through the woods GPS to the supposed cache location, I walked in circles for a good 15 minutes. I kicked every log I could find, flipped every rock, inspected every tree trunk until voila! I kicked an old rotting log, causing it to split in half to reveal the ammo box that had been placed inside of it.

Upon opening the cache, I found why it was named "McToy Goulag"; it was full of McDonald's Toys! It also contained two TB's (short for travel bug). For those of you that aren't into caching, a travel bug is a trackable object that is placed in a cache, usually having some sort of goal in mind (such as travelling to California for instance). The TB's can be anything, and in this case were a Mr. Potato Head and a small replica John Deere Tractor. Accompanying these objects are the travel bug tags with the bug's ID number so it can be tracked it online. They are also accompanied by an info sheet explaining what goal the bug is trying to accomplish.

Anyways, seeing that neither bug really had a goal in mind (the creators must just enjoy seeing where their objects are travelling), I settled on picking up the John Deere tractor, signed the log, and proceeded to head back to my car. It was at this point I learned my first lesson of geocaching: when leaving a marked trail, make sure to record that point on your GPS so you can find your way back. You wouldn't think it would be too tough to remember your way out only 300 feet into the woods, but after running in circles looking for the cache, it is! Luckily, I remembered that my GPS model has a feature where it tracks all of your travels with what is effectively an electronic bread crumb trail (which is awesome, since the animals won't eat electronic crumbs) and I was able to turn that feature on and follow the little pixels back to the trail. Phew!

This cache is the BOMB!!! @ N 38° 58.221 W 095° 15.872

This cache was by far the easiest of the day, located at Centennial Park where I frequently disc golf. After scouting the location on Google Earth, I knew exactly where this cache was so no GPS wizardry was needed for this location.

The location of this cache is a landmark that most people that live in Lawrence know about. For some reason, there is an old submarine missile casing permanently residing in the parking lot of Centennial park. The casing is mounted vertically, resembling some sort of space ship, and is mounted about 5 feet off the ground. Since the casing is hollow (guess it might be a little dangerous if it was still live), you can reach up inside of the missile. I knew ahead of time that this cache was a microcache (a cache with only room for a tiny logbook for you to sign), and was probably some sort of magnetic case stuck inside the missile. So, I reached inside. It was at this point I learned lesson #2 of the day: look before sticking your hand somewhere. For most people, this is just common sense; apparently not so for me.

As I was feeling around, I sense something kinda papery feeling protruding from the inside of the missile. Wondering what the crap I had just felt, I looked inside to find a hornets' nest! After nearly crapping my pants, I realized the nest had long been abandoned. So, I stuck my head into the missile again and saw my target, a little black box. After signing the logbook, I stuck it back in the missile just above the hornets' nest just to be a turd and took off.

Logan's Run @ N 38° 59.408 W 095° 17.812

I now made my way across town up to Martin Park, which is basically just a fairly large wooded area in north-western Lawrence. I was easily able to park my car at the trail head and take off on the wooded trail which I followed about a half mile to about 150 feet of the cache location.

Remembering lesson #1 learned earlier in the day, I marked my location as a waypoint on the GPS before proceeding to trample into the woods. However, unlike my last trek into the woods, this find was really quite uneventful as I was able to find the cache right away, another ammo box hidden under a fallen tree and covered with some tree bark for extra camouflage effect. I did learn another lesson on this find however. Don't wear shorts for geocaching! This forest had a heck of a lot of thorny crap in it, causing my legs to bleed in a few locations. For those of you counting, that's lesson #3 for the day.

Anyways, after searching through the loot, I decided on a bright blue carabeener and left behind a plastic Goofy bobblehead doll that I most likely pillaged from a Rice Crispies box at my college cafeteria a few years ago. I was always a big fan of searching through all the cereal boxes in pursuit of the fame and fortune that comes with a cereal box treasure. Perhaps cereal-caching was an ominous sign of this current hobby of mine? At any rate, I locked Goofy in his new less cereal-y but more musty smelling cell and hoofed it back to the car, ending my first morning of hot hot caching action.

A New Hobby!

A had heard of geocaching many times, but had never really thought much of it until coming across a thread about it at my semi-permanent home, www.boardgamegeek.com. As I read more and more about it, I realized a few things:

1) I like adventure.
2) I like playing hide-and-seek.
3) I like wasting time.
4) Geocaching involves both of these things.

So what the crap, why not try it out! Well, $150 for a Garmin GPSMap 60CS and a few caches later, I must say I'm hooked. So hooked that I feel compelled to write and record my geocaching exploits in a blog, even though I really don't like writing!

Maybe it will inspire a few folks to join along in this incredibly fun hobby. Maybe it will just encourage you to sit back and lazily live vicariously through my unbelievably exciting experiences caching geos. Either way, I hope you enjoy my adventures!