Geocaching with "thepaytons"

I went up to Cleveland for one day on business, and thought this would be the best time to drop a geocoin that is trying to get the the northeast United States.  The client was done with me at around 3pm, so I went out to find a nearby cache that was also a “travel bug hotel”; one specifically purposed to trade trackables.

This was in a grown up area between businesses and at first I was concerned that I’d have to venture into the scrub.  I did a little bit, but then I decided to think like a cache hider, assessed the terrain rather than blindly following the GPS, and immediately found it.

I dropped in the coin, signed the log, and headed out for the airport.  Added one more state to our list of cache finds.

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.

With my eldest back from college, we had to do some caching.  We went over to a baseball park that both my sons have (in the past) played at.  There are a couple of multis there, but we were in a bit of a hurry (had to pick up one or two within an hour and get something to help out with supper).  So we went for the easy grabs.

And they were, especially for my eldest.  Both time, she pretty much walked right up to them.

The first was near some walking trails at one end of the park, off the trail a bit near the houses that back up to the park.

We brought along the geocoin that we’d picked up before.  I’d hoped to drop it off in Savannah, but my wife went to help get my daughter packed up rather than I.  So we decided to drop it off here and let someone else send it on its way.

Not much in the cache itself, so we just signed the log and dropped off the coin.

On to the other cache, on the other side of the park where the jogging trails are.  Once again, my oldest basically just walked into it.  Her geocaching radar was really working.

We found what looked like a face in a tree while doing our hunting.

We found the micro, but forgot to bring our own pen, so this photographic evidence will have to suffice.

So endeth another fine day of caching.

With the whole family out of town but my youngest son and I, I decided to do some special geocaching with him.  (Seems that’s what happens when he winds up here with no siblings.)  We had been sitting for three weeks on a trackable that we picked up on Spring Break in Florida, so it was time to move it along.  (I made up for this by taking 2 pictures of it next to bodies of water near us, as it asked.)  So I found a regular cache (i.e. not a small or micro) near us and we headed out.

The place is a nice wooded area next to a Lutheran church, along a path that they created into it.  I assume that someone from the church knows it’s there, so we parked near the woods and walked on in.  Again, I was without a regular camera so a Blackberry in the dusk was all I had, and thus the pictures aren’t all that good.

I availed myself of the hint, but once we followed the arrow, it really wasn’t necessary.

A very swag-rich find, including 2 trackables.

We dropped off our Floridian guest and picked up a German racing coin.

The intent of the coin is to hit as many caches as it can, and travel as great a distance as possible.  I have to go start the pack-up process for my daughter at college, so I’ll bring it with me there to put a few miles on it.

We signed the log, closed it, and hid it (slightly) better than we found it.  See you later, travel bug!