The more things change, they really change.

Our nephew, Overcast_shade, came down to Orlando to spend the weekend with us again. Faced with an amazingly beautiful day, I simply couldn't let either of us waste a Saturday on the couch killing zombies. I decided to take him to one my favorite caches: GC18HQF. I know I'm breaking my policy about naming caches, but it's ok because the cache is easy to find, not so easy to get to. If you recall my blog post The Evelev School of Flipflip Geocaching, I had to cross a creek (by walking barefoot across a log) to get to this cache. It was a blast, and I knew he would enjoy it.

But here was my first clue:

Not so scary, right? Except that last time I was here, it looked like this:

I guess we've had a lot more rain in the last 5 months than I thought. The water was too big to jump across, so we bushwhacked a bit until we found a nice wide log we could walk across. Our next task was finding the log I used to get to the area where the cache is. This is what it looked like in October:

Now? It's 2 feet under water. So we set about finding another way across. This is what we settled on:

"But Evelev, that log doesn't go all the way across." You're right, it doesn't, but it went further than any of the other fallen trees. Overcast_shade went first.

The plan was to get as far as possible, and then leap to the shore. It went basically like this:

I had a very similar dismount, but luckily there was no one back there taking pictures with their iPhone.

Safely across, we set about finding the cache. Actually, he set about it. I knew where it was, so I just hung out and did a little dance to keep the spiders from crawling on me. I didn't see any, but I know they're watching me. Always.

Anyway, he found the cache pretty quickly, and then we headed back across. He went first so he could take pictures of me this time.

Here's me, standing in the water, on the log. Yeah, I'm super cool.

And here's me trying really hard not to fall down. Contrary to what you might believe, it's actually a lot easier to walk on the log while it's under the water. I thought the current might unsteady my footing, but that was not the case. Coming out of the water onto the dry log was a bit challenging.

Funny story, about that stick, which I still have by the way. When I first stepped on the log (before we found the cache), I was curious to see how deep the water was. So I plunged the stick into the water by the shore. My hand got lower, and lower, and I damn near fell in. So, I don't really know how deep the water is...at least as long as that stick.

Oh, by the way, my leg is went from when I tried to jump off the log and onto the shore. I didn't pee myself, let's just be clear about that.

One cache down, we set about finding another in the area. Brian and I tried for this other cache a few months back, but didn't find it. Someone has since updated the coordinates, so we decided to try again. The map showed that we were .09 miles away. Cool, let's bushwhack. I'm game. After all, I remembered the cache being just a little off the path. 20 minutes later, we were still .08 miles away, and somehow ended up back at the log we used to get to the first cache. Oy. We headed back to the car.

And then it hit me. The cache was right off the path...just not the path we were on. I had forgotten that Brian and I had taken a different trail. So we walked (on the outside of the woods) to that trail, bushwhacked for about 10 minutes, and found the cache. If I gave a prize for the cutest log, it would be this one:

After that, I had yet another goal. Flashback for just a moment to November, The Honeymoon is Over, when I was stung by a wasp while looking for a cache. In my frenzy, I lost a travel bug I was going to release. I've been meaning to go back and look for it, seeing as how no one has come across it. We weren't right next to the cache when this wasp-incidence occured, but I was hoping that someone else in their quest might wander by my travel bug.

We didn't find it either. Too much new leaf cover. I might go back with a metal detector. What we did find this owl, just hanging out on a branch. I think it might be a barred owl, but I'm not sure. We we were about 30 feet away when I saw it looking at us. It was about 5pm, so I suppose it just waking up. Owls are so elusive, I was surprised to see one so calm, and out in the daylight.

We did a few more caches after that. We had the unfortunate experience of accidentally wandering into private property, twice. The first guy was clearly annoyed, and rightly so. We apolologized profusely and left quickly. I'm not 100% convinced it was his property, but I wasn't going to argue. At the next location, the guy was really nice, and even let us keep looking for the cache. I apologized, and apologized, but he didn't really care. The land is undeveloped and for sale, so he didn't see that we were doing any harm. We didn't find the cache, but I probably won't go back. Even if he didn't mind us being there, I was embarassed.

We did some more bushwhacking today. For some reason, today's cache locations were fraught with thorny vines. I wore jeans, but I might as well have been bare-legged. Oh, and the mosquitos are definitely back.

On our way to the first cache, the Groundspeak app went down...again. I've found it doesn't really do Sundays. To kill a little time, I took Overcast_shade to grab some of the caches I've already done. I was reminded again how fast things change in a few short months.

This cache used to be a bird. Now it's a charred marshmallow with an attitude. Looks like somebody overcooked their peep. Happy (almost) Easter.

Ick. Eek. Nasties.

It's been a couple of weeks since I got out to do any real geocaching. This weekend was a nice reprieve. It started on Friday evening. I was setting down on the couch, wallowing in the crumminess of my week, when my iPhone buzzed with an email. Cache posted, 2/10 of a mile away. I leapt (yes, leapt) from the couch and ran out of the room...quickly realizing that I probably shouldn't leave my little snack where the dog could grab it. I scrambled back into the living room, gathered up my cheese and crackers, plunked them on the kitchen counter, and ran out of the room, again. I slipped-on a pair of sneakers. No time for socks. On my way out the door, I asked Brian if he wanted to come, he declined, and I was off.

I arrived at the location to find this crappy-looking bog. The terrain rating is a 3, so I put on my backpack and prepared to bushwhack. But then, in a stroke of genius, I looked a bit further and found a neat, manicured path to GZ.

At GZ, I got an up-close look at the bog. I felt like Frodo at the Dead Marshes (formerly the battlefield of Dagorlad). If you don't know what that means, pat yourself on the back for being less of a nerd than me. Anyway, with a 3-star terrain rating, I thought I was going to get even closer to the bog. Thankfully, I didn't.

There's a funny thing about FTFs. I think I get cache-blindness because I'm so spazzed that someone else is going to run up behind me and snag the cache. Neurotic? Yes. Immature? Of course. Justified? Absolutely. Don't judge me.

The happy ending is that I did finally find it first. It just appeared, dangling right in front of my eyeballs.

On my way out, I ran into mljungquist, so I hung around while she found it, and then we caught up for a few minutes.

When I got home, our nephew (Overcast_shade) and two fellow Marines had arrived. Two of the three stayed with us for the weekend. Had I not intervened, they would have spent the entire time playing xbox. I think I did them a favor.

I was supposed to spend yesterday studying, but the weather was just too nice to pass up. Plus, it rained all day today, so I had plenty of time to hit the books.

The first cache we visited is about a mile from my house. It's one I've wanted to do since I started geocaching, but was apparehensive because of the previous logs and the fact that it hadn't been found in over a year. I've had it on my watch list, and a few weeks ago, someone logged it.

The water near the car was stagnant and icky. Further down, it was clear but deeper with a bit of a current. We started out on the east side, but soon had to cross over to the west side on this downed-tree. The path ahead was dense with trees and had a high probability of spiders. Plus this log was like 2 feet wide and very easy to cross.

Here, overcast_shade and his buddy cross the stream in front of me. That's the benefit of caching with Marines, they try everything first.

On the west side of the creek, there was a well-beaten path leading almost to GZ. The description had noted that there were two ways to approach - wet feet or bushwhacking. We had unknowingly chosen wet feet. Not to worry, the creek looked shallow, so the three of us took off our shoes, rolled up our jeans, and waded across. It was almost as shallow as it looked, except that the sand was soft, so we sunk a few inches lower than we'd thought. But no harm done, really.

I spotted the cache almost immediately on the other side. It's some kind of box with a cool locking mechanism and a bunch of ferns glued to it. The description says it from a helicopter (minus the ferns). That's all cool, except that helicopters aren't made to be in water, and neither is this cache. It's absolutely disgusting inside. We couldn't even find the log, I think it broke down into it's original elements. Nasties.

This is the cache in it's "natural" habitat. Blends quite well, but I suppose some wanderer could come across it eventually. We saw ATV tracks. The nearby mobile home park is called Sherwood Forest, so the greatest muggle of all, the Sheriff of Nottingham, might obscond with it one day. Avert your eyes, I just got a little dweebier.

Then we moved on to a cache Brian and I tried almost a year ago, but didn't find. Turns out, the coordinates were off by a good 20 feet. Also, the clues were misleading or just irrelevent. I have to wonder if this cache isn't where it's supposed to be. Anyway, overcast_shade finally found it. There was a yay and an eek at the same time - the camo was covered in enormous red ants. You can just make them out in this photo, which should show you that these are no ordinary ants. I was ready to give up then, but the Marines brushed the ants aside and extracted the bison tube.

Not far away was another cache. The coordinates put us in the middle of the street, but obviously it wasn't there. The clue made reference to hanging, so we scoured the trees nearby. No cache. I was getting ready to call it a DNF, when I made one more loop around the trees and spotted the cache hanging from a piece of fishing line attached to a cinder block fence.

We found two more caches before we had to had home to a very hungry Brian. It was my first DNF-less day in a long, long time. Fingers crossed we get nice weather next weekend. I'd like to do some of the kayak-only caches in the area before it gets too hot and buggy here.

The kindness of cachers

As some of you know, Brian and I have been all-consumed with moving into our new house the past few weeks. Sadly, it hasn’t left a lot of time for geocaching. This is especially disappointing because right now we have some of the best geocaching weather of the year. The spiders have already begun to make a resurgence, which means I’ll have to dust off the old spider-whacking stick.

Anyway, we’re almost moved-in. Up until yesterday, the front room remained unfinished. I decided to make it a library, and spent the last few weeks shopping for the right bookcases. The night I was supposed to bring them home, my friend with a truck had a bad experience with bleu cheese and had to bail. Ick.

In my desperation, I turned to Facebook. Who replied? Local geocaching legend, War1man, of War1man and Mimi. Both War1man and Mimi met me at the furniture store, hauled the bookcases back to my house (in the infamous white geo-van), and helped me bring them inside.

Less than a year ago, I was pacing (stomping, a little) around the Casselberry dam, cursing the day they ever decided to hide a cache there. If you told me then, that one day War1man and Mimi would be helping me move bookcases…I don’t know what I would have done, but I wouldn’t have believed you. It was surreal, to say the least.

It really speaks to the community of geocaching. It shows me, once again, that this is no ordinary hobby. I’ve never met an unfriendly geocacher (though I hear they’re out there), but I was not expecting cachers to come to my rescue that night.

Funny thing is, the next day I told some people at work about this. I was expecting them to reply, “Wow, that’s super cool.” Actually, they were like, “are you out of your mind??” I guess I never considered that.

Again, thank you, War1man and Mimi. Now, if I could just figure out what makes you tick, I might find a few more of your caches.

For those of you who’ve never had the pleasure of finding a War1man and Mimi cache (or even if you have), they have a blog called Geocaching with War1man and Mimi.

Reputations and Ramifications: What geocaching means to everyone else

We all know the drill. The driver puts the car in park and everyone scrambles out. We stifle the urge to break into a sprint, but the result is a jaunty I’m-not-speed-walking shuffle in the direction of the cache. Any remaining fear of the unknown is brushed aside as we expose ourselves to any number of geohazards. These risks we accept gladly if it means finding the cache before someone else. And if the cache has never been found before, well, it’s on.

If you've never been that person, surely you have witnessed this behavior.

The Reputation

Sometimes we forget that all we are looking for is Tupperware containing a sheet of paper. Just a few months ago, a geocacher in Spokane Valley, Washington slipped on pine needles at the edge of a cliff and fell over 100 feet to his death (full story here). As a continual reminder, a cache in California (GC9135) is dedicated to the memory of another fallen geocacher.

We’re a bit of a nuisance to the public, too. On occasion, geocaching makes the news when the local police department blows up a “suspicious package” or locks down a high school. If you're not convinced, just google "geocaching and police."

Ever since I saw Geocache (a documentary by David Liban, 2006), I’ve done a lot of thinking about the geo-reputation. We all know someone who thinks it’s dorky, and a lot people have never even heard of geocaching, but until I saw the documentary I didn’t realize that anyone disliked it on a professional level. In Geocache, Liban interviews a representative from the Natural Resources department of Larimer county, Colorado, who makes it very clear that geocachers can be troublesome. I had to wonder if he was an outlier, or a true reflection of the public opinion. What I found is that after nearly a decade of geocaching, our reputation definitely precedes us.

The Ramifications

I often visit the logs of geocaches I’ve grabbed in the past, and was surprised to find that two were recently archived. A note on the cache page explains that bill H3794 now prohibits geocaching on all wildlife management areas, heritage preserves, and all other lands owned by the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources. We certainly didn't feel like we were imposing on the local wildlife, but the state of South Carolina believes otherwise.

A bit of digging revealed that other states also have established guidelines and prohibitions regarding geocaching. For starters, it is not uncommon for caches in sensitive environments to be registered with a local agency.

My search began with a letter against a potential ban on geocaching in the Badlands Wilderness Study Area in Oregon. According to the author, the proposed ban stemmed from a concern about damage from potential geotrails. The author's argument is that the geocaches in question are visited an average of two times per month. He claims this is not enough to create new trails because the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) planners can provide no evidence that geocaching is directly responsible for damage to the landscape.

Today, geocaching in the Badlands is allowed. The existing seventeen geocaches were grandfathered-in, but no more caches are to be placed. They also issued guidelines that geocaching must be of a casual (as opposed to commercial) nature and not harm public land or water. The BLM now lists geocaching in their brochure as an activity. Although, rather than list it with hiking and biking, they list it in the “other activities” section, along with the things you’re not allowed to do. Charming.

Other areas require special permits and/or “cache request” forms in order to hide a geocache. The Minnesota Division of Parks and Trails (MNDNR-PAT) requires an annual permit for geocaches placed on their land. Prior to hiding a cache, the geocacher must also meet with a park ranger to determine a suitable place for the hide. The part of the form I found most interesting is that four individuals must approve it, including an archaeologist. Indiana Jones does indeed have the power to ruin your fun in Minnesota.

Parks Canada takes a slightly different approach. Geocaches placed within their jurisdiction may not include trade items because certain items attract wildlife. I imagine this rule stems from an unfortunate incident including bacon of some Canadian variety. Further, the geocache is required to have an educational message, such as a story about the location where the cache has been placed. In order for a cache to be approved, the cache owner must meet with a Parks Canada staff person (they even tell you what to bring to the meeting) and obtain an authorization seal.

Referring back to the individuals featured in Geocache, I got the impression they feel geocaching is a right and park rangers should be appreciative of their contributions. I agree with this in-theory, but in the real world we as geocachers have a responsiblity to be respectful of our surroundings and cognoscente of the bigger picture. This means dropping the Black Friday-stravaganza attitude and paying attention to what we’re really doing. Although the geocachers I’ve crossed paths with are wonderful, decent people, it takes far less than a majority to ruin a reputation. If we have any chance of correcting this, we have to show everyone that we’re more than FTF-hungry number-fiends.

As supplemental reading, I also suggest an article by geoSquid: “How to keep geocaching from being banned." It’s probably not anything you haven’t heard before, but it is certainly worth the read.

Maybe nevermore was a little harsh...

In classic Evelev fashion, I threw a little tantrum about never getting FTFs...and then I got one.

I was sitting on my new couch, in my new house, eating some reheated home fries for breakfast and watching CBS Sunday Morning. Then my iPhone buzzed, indicating a new email. Normally I wouldn't jump up and run over to my phone, but I just had a feeling. Newly posted cache. 0.4 miles from home coordinates. I frisbeed my home fries across the counter and sprinted towards the bedroom. I changed out of my pajamas and into jeans, a hoodie, and sneakers. Period. Didn't put on socks, nor did I brush my teeth, or my hair for that matter. I was in the car before I even thought to look at where the cache was actually located.

I was in such a fury, I turned down the wrong road. I was sure I'd lost any chance at FTF, but when I arrived there were no other cars. The area was somewhat secluded. There were houses all around, but they were either set way back from the road, or had a privacy fence. After looking around a bit, I soon attracted the attention of two dogs on the other side of a fence. I didn't mind that they were barking, but I was concerned that they would draw attetion to me. I shh'd as loud as I could, but it didn't help. Sometimes they would quiet down, but as soon as I crunched down on a leaf, they would start all over. Eventually the owner came out and called them inside.

It wasn't long after that when I found the cache. With trembling hands, I twisted open the cache and extracted the log. It's like jogging in a circle, my happy dance. Furious, seizing, circle-jogging. It's probably better that I do it only twice a year.

I know this post is kinda weak. While moving into my new house has been totally fun, it's been totally exhausting, too. No energy for geocaching and even less for writing. I had hoped to debut my article, but I'm just not comfortable with it yet. I need one good day to review and edit, hopefully that happens this week.

FTF? Nevermore!

Daily emails announce it bleakly. "Maybe this time," I say weakly.
A new cache has been posted and I head for the door.
In a haze, moving quickly, suddenly the clock is ticking.
But someone else is already driving, driving towards the cache I adore.
"There they are," I mutter, "FTF is not in store."
STF and nothing more.

It was only a matter of time before I had to resort to gothic poetry to express myself. If you have no idea what I'm getting at, click here. Aside from the obvious conotations of madness and hopelessness, I chose to parody The Raven for another reason: it's about a bird.

Let's start from the beginning. Some of you know that Brian and I are getting ready to move into our new home. We knocked down our old house and replaced it with a new one. Unfortunately, in order to do this, the builder destroyed our lawn and we were forced to lay sod before the city would give us the Certificate of Occupancy. We enlisted a hord of muggles and EyeoftheSeeker to help out with this endeavor. Anyway, this is why I didn't post last week. Not only did I not get to do any geocaching, I was simply exhausted.

To thank EyeoftheSeeker, we took him out to dinner last night. Midway through dinner, I checked my phone and discovered that a cache had been posted 0.3 miles from my house. And not just any cache, yet another EyeoftheSeeker cache, in my neighborhood. We also had a movie planned, so it wasn't until 3 hours later that we dropped by the new cache. Three cachers had already beaten me to it, but I wanted to grab it while it was fresh.

Upon arriving, we were surprised by an adorable little screetch owl, who was equally as surprised to see us. We weren't nearly fast enough to snap a photo, but he looked like this:

Then, after searching for a bit, I noticed this tuft of yellow feathers in a branch above me. He was sleeping with his head tucked back, so I'm not completely sure what kind of bird it is. It could be a warbler, but seeing as he didn't have a nest, I'm leaning towards somebody's pet. You just don't see a lot of peep-like cuteness in the wild here.

Eventually I found the cache, and signed farther down the log than I would have liked. It seemed to take forever for me to find it, but it was dark, cold, and spidery.

This morning, we met Team EyeoftheSeeker for a long-overdue breakfast get-together. As I was getting ready, I received the notorious cache-publishing email. Interestingly enough, it was practically across the street from EyeoftheSeeker's house. We raced over, but Seeker8 had just beaten us to it. Doh!

We smothered our sorrows with biscuits and gravy. On the way home, EyeoftheSeeker casually mentioned a difficult cache in the area, so we decided to look for it. Brian made the find this time, but it took some effort to extract the cache from it's spot. I was planning to post a photo; however, even though the photo doesn't actully show the cache, I think the camo would be very easy to recognize.

A few hours later, I was itching to go out again. I really wanted to look for a puzzle cache I solved a few months back, but I arrived at the cache location to find it swarming with muggles - farmers' market. I tried, but it just wasn't working, so I headed to another cache. It really wasn't that hard, but the gz kept bouncing all over. It wasn't until the Groundspeak app went down and I had to search "blind" that I finally spotted it. The cache can be seen peeking out in this picture. The camo should be super-obvious to all but the uninitiated.

After I found this cache, I decided to grab a multi. I finished the first stage to find that stage 2 took me right back to Lake Lily, which is where I had started out. I finished stage 2 of the multi, but decided to solve both mystery caches at Lake Lily before heading to stage 3.

The area around the first puzzle was still a bit busy, so I moved on to the second. It required me to walk around the lake, gather various dates and numbers, and then plug the numbers into an equation that would tell me the combination to open the lock on the cache. Cake.

As I ventured around the lake, there were birds everywhere - Hitchcock would have been a little freaked. I didn't have any bread, so I had to sneak past these ducks. You can't tell from the picture, but they were all shaking their tail feathers furiously.

Then I saw these ducklings. There are no words. The cuteness was indescribable.

One stage of the puzzle required me to count the number of wooden planks on this bridge. I won't ever forget that number. I'd like to tell you what it is, but if I had to count them all, then so do you. All I can tell you is my calves were sore from taking tiny little steps all the way across.

After the counting, I succumbed to a moment of guitless vanity. Oh yeah.

When I'd finally gathered all the info, I headed for the cache. I was soon in a panic because I thought the cache had been muggled. Unlike other DNFs, I had actually done some work for this cache. I couldn't bare the thought. But then, I expanded the search radius, and there it was. I entered the combination and pryed open the rusty cache. There wasn't anything cool in this cache, but I was thrilled to have finally found it. To commemorate the moment, I took no less than 30 pictures with the cache. Warning: Shameless narcissism ahead.

You thought my raven parody was a joke? Look at that face and tell me it's a sane person.

After that I made another attempt at the mystery cache I had come to this area to find. But I never found it. I think I may have solved the puzzle wrong.

At this point this point the sun was setting, but I had to finish the multi I had started earlier. I drove to the area and found this serene spot on Lake Sybelia. You won't find me there on Sunday morning, but I can certainly appreciate the beauty.

Today was definitely not a numbers run. I think I prefer caches like this. I like doing the work and feeling like I accomplished something.

In other geonews - FTF Geocacher has the first issue availabe for download. You can still sign up for the second and third issues, but the first one is only available online.

I would also like to welcome EyeoftheSeeker to the world of blogging. Destination Unknown focuses on the cache locations more that the caches themselves. I think there is a tendency to get so wrapped up in finding the cache that appreciating the area sometimes comes second, or not at all.

Any Given Sunday

Despite being totally bogged down with my work and school schedule this week, we did get out to do a bit of geocaching. Team EyeoftheSeeker and Team Evelev had plans to visit some muggle-friends (as opposed to enemuggles) in Clermont to watch the Superbowl, so we grabbed a few caches along the way.

We started out the day with a DNF at a newly posted 5/2. We found plenty of junk, sandspurs, and the skull of a small animal, but no cache. Oh well.

Then we moved on to a couple of super easy park and grabs. Well, they were supposed to be park and grabs. We ended up walking more than necessary, but the weather was great and the finds were easy, so it was quite enjoyable.

Our final find of the day required a little stroll and tiny amount of bushwhacking (bush-stepping, really). The container was one I've seen on the geocaching website, but never in the wild. It is in great condition, although it probably won't stay that way once the rainy season gets here.

The cache location would have been obvious to anyone looking for anything. As every Southern geocacher knows, Spanish moss is more conspicuous than a neon sign advertising a strip club. Not that Spanish moss is bad camo (I think it's moderately muggle-proof), but it's definitely not subtle.

We made the grab right away after we found the right tree. While I was posing with my find (showing off my sweet backpack and wicked sunglasses), I was photobombed by EyeoftheSeeker. Very mature.

An unexpected bonus was this random tangerine tree. I didn't take any fruit, but I suppose no one would have minded...

The highlight of my week was the arrival of FTF Geocacher magazine. It was even better than I imagined. If you enjoy my blog, I highly recommend it. Not (just) because I'm in it, but because several geo-bloggers have contributed articles. This gives the magazine a very communal, story-teller feel - a quality somewhat unique to geocaching. And you don't have to blog to contribute, articles from any geocacher are welcome. Copies of the first issue are going fast, so if you are interested in a subscription, you're running out of time.

And finally, a tidbit from Evelev's enlightenment corner: Time really flies when you're geocaching. Holy cow. We killed three hours on four caches today, and it felt like no more than an hour had passed. Maybe it's a good thing no one is paying me to cache. I would probably wake up one morning to find an 80 year old woman in the mirror and wonder what the hell happened. I suppose that's a chance I'm willing to take.