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Showing posts from July, 2018

AAR: Hidden Creatures

Now that the dust has settled, and the Hidden Creatures campaign has officially come to an end, I've been thinking about the whole thing. Overall, I think that the pros outweighed the cons - here's my breakdown: Thirteen new souvenirs. I love souvenirs. I'm the kind of person who likes small measurable tasks, and completing each one gives me a sense of accomplishment. Souvenirs are the rewards for completing those tasks. They give me something to look forward to and something to strive for. Definite pro. One hundred caches. That's a lot of caches. If you're like me, and I'm only three years in to this hobby, my general area is almost cached out. Finding one hundred caches that are a reasonable distance from my home and/or work is difficult, to say the least. In the end, slight con. Four weeks. Let's do the math. One hundred caches in four weeks. That's twenty-five caches a week, or 3.57 caches per day. It's twelve and a half caches a...

GC4C1E - Bikes, Boats, and Planes

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Over the course of the evening, I had noticed Tom looking to the skies - he does that when he's near airports. So, since he'd been kind enough to take me geocaching, I thought I'd treat him to something that he'd enjoy - a trip to Gravelly Point, an observation point for arrivals and departures at Reagan National Airport. Of course, I wasn't being totally selfless, there's a virtual cache there. Gravelly Point was surprisingly easy to get to, there was plenty of parking and I was impressed to see port-a-potties set up there. I was also surprised to see so many people there, many more than I expected. There was plenty of open, green space and even a few picnic tables. It looked like a great place for families to spend time together. After taking the required selfie to claim a find, we stayed for a couple more hours, watching the planes taking off and landing.

GC7B6R8 - Alexandria, DC (Virtual Reward Cache)

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Today, while in Alexandria, VA, Tom and I enjoyed several virtual caches. I'll tell you about the others in later posts, but this one was cool, not only because of the historical item that was the focus of the cache, but because of the area surrounding it. Of course, I can't divulge what the item was, but the surrounding area was full of amazing history. While trying to figure out what I was looking for, I came across several historical markers. I don't know what they signified, but they were pretty interesting, nonetheless. In my continued search for the item, I ended up walking around the block. The cobblestone alley was a treat to walk down. To was mind-boggling to think about the age of those stones. Then as I came back up and around the block, I came across two plaques, marking the homes of the doctors who tended to George Washington at the time of his death. Eventually, I encountered a man walking his dog that was able to tell me what to look for, so I was...

Treasure X Trackable Promotion

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In Geocaching's latest trackable promotion, they are partnering with Moose Toys to promote "Treasure X, a multi-layered treasure hunting toy with the ultimate surprise reveal." 3,000 randomly chosen people from select regions will receive trackables, and 300 random people from the United States will receive a Treasure X toy. The toy starts out as a lump of packed sand. Using the included "X-Cavator" plastic tool, you dig through the sand to find pieces of a cartoon skeleton action figure dressed in one of twenty-four different themes, which are to be assembled. A treasure chest is also buried in each toy, which may or may not contain one of thirty-two different gold-plated treasure pieces. I think they sound like fun and I'll keep an eye out for them in the store. Request your free trackable and/or toy here , and share your trackables adventures using #TreasureXgeo. Edit 08/02/18: I just received e-mail notification that I was randomly chosen t...

In Pursuit of the World Turtle

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This weekend, Tom and I went in pursuit of the World Turtle. After I told him about the Hidden Creatures campaign, and my thoughts on how to get all of the souvenirs within the required time frame, Tom asked me to figure out how we could knock it all out in one or two days. The ideas I came up with were hiking trails and biking trails, but he insisted on something that was more like a power trail, that we could drive along. That's when I proposed trying the TAD (Trails Across Delmarva) caches. Most of the TAD segments were about twenty caches long, but there was one segment that started close to Sharptown, MD with thirty caches leading up to Laurel, DE. Forty caches after Laurel, the road intersects Route 113, and depending on which direction you chose, you would encounter twenty to twenty-five more caches. We had a good start, we found our first creature, Bigfoot, on the day the campaign started, since we needed to fill that day in on our cache calendar. Then yesterday, th...