Hodgepodge 325/365 - Geocaching

Nuttin' to say today, so here's some more photos, quite random, of geocaches we've found (and happened to take pictures of). You can see that some people are crazy into this silly sport. And I do not count myself in that "crazy" category: I have found 2,454 caches over the last ten years (my first find was February 13, 2007), which seems quite reasonable. My biggest caching day was 41 finds; my best month was 144 (in New Zealand a few years ago); my longest streak of caching every day was 32. See? reasonable. There's one fellow, "Alamogul," who has—theoretically (because actually? this number is physically impossible)—found 147,128 caches, over the course of fifteen years. 15 x 365 = 5,475. So that makes 27 caches a day, every day, for fifteen years (and he joined in October 2002, so he hasn't even reached fifteen). See? Impossible! And it puts my meager 2,454 caches in perspective, so far as crazy goes. Right? Right.

Anyway, here's some photos of a few of the more interesting caches we've found. Or their context. Or something associated.

PDH (4.5 terrain difficulty)

Union Square, NYC (it's magnetic, on the hydrant)

Caches can be super tiny—and even smaller
(I am not a big fan of the "nanos"—more on which below)

I love ammo cans, which is how the sport started out,
but you don't find them so much anymore

Sometimes caches are cleverly disguised

Sometimes the cat finds it (okay, not really; but she helped!)

COs (cache owners) often go to great lengths to "camo" their hides

This was an ammo can in a bus shelter on the Shetland Islands
(it is—last found 8/26!—under the bench that my friend is sitting on)

This is part of a series, Peace Love Happiness,
with all of the containers in different languages

X marks the spot

POP! goes the weasel!
(sometimes geocaching can be terrifying)

At my sister-in-law's home place in Norway:
yep, that's David signing the log

A twisty find

A puzzling clue

Geo-swag

A "travelbug" (not Pooh—don't know how
the TB ended up with Pooh . . . and sadly,
I was the last person to drop this bug in a cache
. . . I hope whoever picked this up enjoyed it)

The "lock" is the cache

My first attempt at owning a cache,
on the island of Kauai: but this one got to be
too problematic, so I archived it.
It was a beautiful spot, though!

A friend of ours does some pretty interesting electronic caches.

Ha!

Do pigs fly?

The CO here has become a good friend of ours.
He is a master puzzle-maker. (This one was based on SETI.
It is, appropriately enough, called The Wow! Signal!)

A cache in West Virginia.

This one, called Nano Training 101 (there's also a 201 and a 301),
had an elaborate description:

Do you hate nanos? I hate them too, but just like puzzles,
there are so many of them, you have to find them.
Well, if you would like a new outlook on finding nanos, read on!

I have painstakingly developed a special program that will
improve your desire to hunt for and improve your success rate
at finding nanos. I am even offering a money back guarantee.
If you have never been properly trained in finding nanos,
then this course is just what you need. The course consists
of 3 training classes (caches) plus a bonus for
those that just can't get enough nano training. Just like
any class, we must lay the ground rules first.

- All the nanos have magnetics that are used to hold them to another metal object
- All the nanos are black in color
- All the nanos have a log sheet rolled up inside of them
(Don't you hate rolling it back up?)
- All the nanos have no pencil or pen, so bring your own
- All the nanos . . . that is enough rules, just take the class!

[Me again:] The best part of this nano was: it wasn't a nano!
It was huge! Totally cracked us up!

That box is host to a geocache.

David's butt

David victorious!

A bookstore cache, in Florence, Oregon

Ole One Eye, whom I dropped Down the Rabbit Hole in NYC,
June 2007

Dogs of Dow: a puzzle cache involving stock data
and prime numbers, with a Dow piggy at the end of the trail

A travelbug launched by a child: it wanted to be on water

We liberated Minnie from PDH! And so we come full circle.