Geocaching with "thepaytons"

On our way back from our vacation in NY, one of my daughters was returning from Canada with a Bible Quiz team to the coach’s house near Greenville, SC.  We got there early, and they were late anyway, so we spent some time doing some caching near the exit we had a nice leisurely dinner.

We found a concentration of caches near a mall and started looking.  One was around the nearby movie theater and we found it pretty quickly.  This time, I was the one that found it.

The second attempted one was on a side road near the highway.  It’s name, “Behind the Holly” was clearly a clue to where it was, but that holly is pretty darn prickly, so after a few attempts at a quick find, we decided to bail out.  If this was truly behind the holly, we weren’t dressed for that.

Our last stop was at a cache called “Four-Get-Me-Knots”.  This is hidden in a very clever fashion, and we’d almost given up on it until we realized that the title of the cache was indeed a clue.

But indeed we finally found it, and signed the log.

Along the way, we found a muggle.

With that, it was getting too dark, so we headed out to pick up the daughter and head on home.

We went to upstate NY for a week of a vacation with my family.  My folks big 50th anniversary was during the weekend, and before the boys started at a music conservatory for the week, one of them and I went caching.  I’d scanned the web site for potential finds nearby before we travelled up there, but our searching was rather fruitless.

The first one we went looking for boasted a scenic view of Ithaca and Cayuga Lake.  We found the view but not the cache.

We also went to nearby Ithaca College to look for some, but had similar results.  There was one near a small pond that we had high hopes for, but came up empty.  In both cases, folks after us found the cache, so clearly we left out cache-sense back home.

We’re up in Dahlonega, GA this Independence Day weekend, and got some caching in this afternoon; just me and the boys.  Dahlonega was the site of a gold rush in the early 1800s and is one of a number of quaint north Georgia towns, still with a town square and shops all around it.  It also has a quite a number caches.

We’re looking to pick up a travel bug for my younger daughter to take with her on her upcoming trip to Calgary, Alberta for Bible Quizzing Internationals.  So our first stop was to the cache called “Dahlonega Travel Bug Motel”, who’s purpose is to hold just travelers.  It was located between a gas station and a hotel.

While we were looking, the hotel manager and a maintenance man came by inspecting the air conditioning units and asked what we were doing.  We gave her the info and she was a bit concerned that the location was possibly on her property, but at least, if it wasn’t was in sight of some first floor guests, who might open the drapes to find people prowling around.  As soon as we got back from this caching run, I logged the DNF and let the owner know what the manager said.  Almost immediately, he disabled the cache, and said he would check to see if it’s still there, and if so move it to a new location.

Our next stop was at the Dahlonega Taco Bell for a micro.

We did some searching, but then I looked at the web page for the cache and discovered that at least the last 5 folks who tried looking didn’t find it.  So we figured we weren’t either, and moved on.

The next one, “Booker’s Stash” was outside the Lumpkin County Library (hence the name).  In under 5 minutes, my younger boy found it and we brought it back to the van to sift through it.

There wasn’t much of interest in there, and we hadn’t brought anything to trade anyway.  So we signed the log and put it back.

Next stop, a cache called “The Five Senses #1 – Smell”, and it was certainly appropriately named.  It was outside a trash facility.  We parked the van and started looking around; initially across the street but the fence nearby just called out to me.

Sure enough, my older son managed to find it and took the bison tube back to the van.  It was a very well-waterproofed setup; a small plastic tube inside the bison tube.  We signed the log, rolled it up tightly, put it back and moved on.

We started on our way towards home base and hit two more on the way.  The first was at a McDonald’s.

A pink bison tube was there, with a log book getting rather full.  We found a spot to sign it and put it back where we found it.  On we go…

Our last stop was at a Home Depot close to our Dahlonega base.  We searched and searched, making sure to avoid the many spiders hanging around, but didn’t find the bison tube that was waiting for us.

And so we end the day going 3 and 3.

The state parks in Georgia have a Geo-Challenge where they have hidden geocaches in 42 state parks.  Each is a normal geocache but also has a stamp that you are supposed to stamp onto your Geo-Challenge Passport.  When you find a certain number of GASP (GA state park) caches, you can get different custom geocoins.  I didn’t pick up on the passport thing until after we found the one at Amicalola Falls today, but we’ll have to print out one of their passports before we go next time.

The falls itself is very beautiful, and is the highest falls east of the Mississippi.  It’s surrounded by the north Georgia mountains.

This official GASP cache is close to the Lodge, where we were going to have lunch, normally an $8.50 buffet.  But for the July 4th weekend, the price was $13 per person, which I didn’t recall from the website.  Very disappointing.  So, deciding to eat later, we went down the trail.

Along the way we found a leaf bug, and my older daughter befriended it, as she does with many a large bug.

We made our way to within GPS-accuracy distance, and upon my announcing that fact, my youngest looked down and was standing right in front of the cache.  We opened it up and looked through the contents.

We hadn’t come prepared to trade anything, so we were going to just sign the log and go.  However, there was a geocoin there, in the log, the person who dropped it off said it was trying to go to the northeast United States.  Well, in a week and a half we’re going on vacation to New York, so we couldn’t resist (and we’re hooked on geocoins anyway).

So, sorry for not dropping anything off, but we’re going to send this Oakcoin on its way.

And this was our 25th find.

We took this Sunday afternoon to do some geocaching around Stone Mountain again, this time bringing a friend and hitting a number of spots.

The first one we looked for on our way around the mountain was at the end of the train line.  Good hiding place.  Too good, though.  We never found it.  But it’s there, because there have been logs posted since then where other did locate it.

So on we went to a cache in the playground.  Fortunately, having my youngest along meant we could get in "legally".  Unfortunately, there were a million mugglettes around.

Another DNF.  However, I did see a sight that gave me a chuckle; an indication of our cell-phone era.

We returned to the site of a previous DNF where the cache hider included a decoy.  I had wondered (here and in the official log) that the real cache may have been removed during some recent renovation.  However, the cache owner has since checked and indeed the cache is still there.  Again, unfortunately, even with additional help, we were unable to find the real cache.

OK, so quite the bummer of a run.  Fortunately, we had an ace in the hole.  Our friend had been geocaching at Stone Mountain before and knew the location of one, so we started off looking for it.  I will attest to the fact that he did not give any hints along the way, simply accompanying us as we followed the GPS.

On the way there, we came across 3 deer, and I got the best picture I could (which isn’t all that good) with my Blackberry camera fully zoomed in.

Finally, we closed in on the cache

And my older son, with caching-radar in good working order, looked at a particular location and thought, "That’s got to be it."  Indeed it was.

We signed the log, left out usual boondoggle, and took a plastic all-in-one thermometer/compass/magnifying glass thingie.

We placed it back in it’s hiding spot and hit the road.  It had been a very hot day already, and going 1-for-4 was a little depressing, but, as I always say, it did get us out of the house, which is always a good thing.