Geocaching with "thepaytons"

We haven’t been caching very much lately. I don’t get around like I used to, so that has put a damper on things.

Cache Update: I noticed that we were getting a few DNF (Did Not Find) log entries on our 1 hide at our church. When we went to look for it, we couldn’t find it. It had been hidden in a huge bush on the grounds of our church  (thing a ball about 8 feet tall) behind a large rock that the bush had engulfed. But when we went to look, the rock wasn’t there.

And then I realized that the rock was there; it was just that it was outside of the bush now! Turns out the church had the shrubs cut back by a landscaping company, and the cut back this bush at least 2 feet. The thought is they just scooped up the debris and hauled it off, not realizing there was an ammo can in there. So the cache is probably at a dump site somewhere. We need to come up with a new container and site.

Coin update: Our geocoin "Georgia (Appalachian Trail) On My Mind" has been really making the rounds in southern Germany and surrounding areas. It’s racked up over 23,000 miles as of this writing. There is a feature of either the Geocaching.com website or some geocaching app that automatically "dips" every coin in every geocache you visit (i.e. puts it in and takes it out) so that you get the mileage added to the coin from the last cache you found. This was done by one cacher for over a year, which really put on the mileage. It’s been in Germany, Austria, and Liechtenstein just this past month!

The goal is to get this to the Republic of Georgia, and the closest it has gotten so far is the coast of Turkey. But hey, it’s fun watching it travel around.

I’ve sent 2 of the kids off to their 1st and 3rd years of college, the oldest was out for the day, so I took the youngest on a geocaching adventure down Lawrenceville Highway, the main artery through our little suburb that some folks use to get in and out of Atlanta.

On our way there, a new cache had been place near us since the last time we went out, so we stopped by that first. The software that I use on my Android phone to look for geocaches (c:geo) was having some issues with talking to the official geocaching website (so I found out after I got home). Compounding that was the fact that my phone’s GPS receiver was responding very slowly, so we had to rely on the description more than directions from the phone.

But after a short amount of searching, Adam came up with the find. The description of the container in the description didn’t match what we found, but the most recent (damp) paper log entries matched the ones for the cache, so we were pretty sure this was it. (I read down through the earlier log entries and noticed that some had said they replaced it.)

We then went on to Lawrenceville Highway. The first stop was behind a Kroger grocery store. It seemed like it would be a simple find (all the recent entries said it was easy), but we came up empty handed. Just before we left, reading through the logs, I found that, again, someone had replaced the cache container because the one in the description had been broken. So we had been looking for one thing (a magnetic hide-a-key container). Still, even with the hint, we didn’t find it.

Onward to the next stop. This was a relatively new cache as well. Adam got out of the car, saw the fence staring at us and couldn’t imagine where in the world someone could hide a cache at that spot.

Well this time I found it, and quite quickly I might add. It was a very small "nano" cache; a cylinder about as tall as my thumb, and about half as wide. Yeah, tiny. I’d post a picture with me victoriously holding it, but then that would be a spoiler. Suffice to say I felt good about finding this one.

The next stop was a cache in a row of trees between a shopping center parking lot and a church.

According to the cache description, it’s higher up than usual (though I don’t think climbing would be involved). Combine that with the many trees that it could be in, and we gave up after about 5 minutes. Couldn’t see the cache for the trees.

Finally, with all the heavy (and light) rains we’ve had here this summer, we thought we’d check on our cache, which is also along the same road. It’s rained almost every day, to some extent, for much of July and August, though the good news to that is temperatures have been kept down, and we’ve not had as many 90+ degree days as usual.

We got to our cache, opened it up, and was amazed at how well it withstood the water. There was a paper Varsity hat that was not damp in the least, just to give you an idea of how well the ammo can has held up. We used to have a "waterproof" container, but after it got waterlogged a few times, we swapped it out. Great idea.

Having reassured ourselves that all was well, we put it back and went home. Today’s geocaching stats are 2 found and 2 not.

One of the reasons I wanted to place our first cache at church was because we’re there very often and I would have many opportunities to check on the box itself and see if it needed maintenance. One of the problems with caches is that their owners don’t check on them, and, as with many things, water is a cache’s worst enemy.  Sometimes they get wet and yucky, the log book is soaked so you cant’ sign it, and the swag inside is moldy. I didn’t want one of my caches to get ignored, so I checked it out. It had been a bit of time since I had, and we’d had a few rainstorms in the interim. Sure enough, either the waterproof box is, instead, water resistant, or the lid wasn’t properly closed a time or two.

The packaging for the yo-yo (which included instructions) was covered in mold and, with the dampness, had opened up. The crayons looked very suspect, and the Atlanta Braves parking receipt was beyond hope (and not very healthy to be near, I imagine). So the yo-yo packaging a those two other items just had to get thrown out.

I got out some cleaner with bleach and we wiped down everything else that could be saved.

I also got as much of the mold as I could off the inside and outside of the box.

Having thrown some things out, we replenished the cache, put the log book in a new bag, and packed it up to be placed back in its spot tomorrow.

If you have a cache, please do regular maintenance. And for those of you who do maintenance on other peoples’ caches that you find need them, many thanks.

I finally hid the cache the kids gave me for Father’s Day.  I wanted to get permission from our church, and finding a spot to hide it was difficult.  All the land’s developed, so no natural area to stash it.  But I found a decent spot, submitted the hide, called "LACking Nothing" (hidden at Lilburn Alliance Church) and now the page is active.

Less than 1/2 hour later, "Da Posse" found it.  Man, that was fast!  Congrats, girls!

My girls are working at a summer camp this year.  They leave on the 9th, before Father’s Day, and since they wouldn’t be here for it, all the kids came up with an idea for an early Father’s Day gift.

I got a gift bag with a combo clock/thermometer/humidity meter.  We have a garden out front, so that’s an ideal spot for that.  Then there was a hand-made card, decorated in camouflage, from my kids.  It said that they had the perfect present for me, but they lost it.  Last they recall it was at a set of coordinates.  So I dutifully fired up the GPS software and started hunting.  (It was early evening, so some of the pictures didn’t come out that well.)

After searching around for a while, I said out loud, “It’s at this point that I would probably look up the cache web page and find the hint.”  (See, we have lots of trees in the backyard, and the GPS was going nuts.  That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.)  I got a very general hint as to the area that it was in, and so I worked my way over there and ultimately found it.

They’d been itching to hide a cache — an official one — so they gave me a waterproof container.  Not only that, they stocked it with trinkets already.  It includes one of our signature boondoggles, a friendship bracelet that my oldest made at camp last year, a beaded leather bracelet, a plastic dinosaur toy that my youngest had played with, some fox teeth, a few cool stones, a picture wallet, and of course a log book.

In the coming days, the boys and I plan to find a place to hide this.  Stay tuned!