Geocaching with Woo

The Caching the Rain GeoTrail launched in June 2014 with six geocaches in Montgomery County, Maryland . If you found all six geocaches and answered a survey and the questions found on the passport , you would earn a geocoin. The caches had informative "booklets" inside, promoting storm water awareness. Tom and I decided to go out today and give this GeoTrail a try. The caches were relatively easy to find and there was a nice variety of hides. At this point in time, two of the caches are no longer the original containers, so the informational "booklets" from those caches are no longer available, which was disappointing. Luckily, there are still plenty of educational signs along the GeoTrail, and we were still able to learn a lot. There was also difficulty with one of the passport questions - the signage appears to have changed since 2014. I got the answer with a little trial and error, but if you're reading this, B=7. My favorite cache that we found...

A new announcement came out today on the Geocaching blog regarding Locationless Caches . While celebrating the future of Geocaching, they wanted to give a nod to the past by offering one Locationless Cache , which will only be available to find in 2020. To claim a find, post a picture of yourself, or a personal item, with the Signal the Frog mascot or the official 2020 Signal the Frog banner. The cache will become available to log as soon as the Signal the Frog mascot and/or official Signal the Frog banner make their first appearance in 2020 and will be archived on January 1, 2021. This is a new cache type/icon that I am anxious to add to my profile, and the best chance of doing that will be to attend a Mega or Giga event {wheels in head turning...}.

The Smokey Bear 75th Anniversary GeoTour (SBGT) launched in July 2019. In honor of Smokey Bear’s 75 years protecting America’s forests and wildlands, the Mid-Atlantic Forest Fire Protection Compact has established a Geocaching GeoTour. There are 75 caches located across the seven states that comprise the Mid-Atlantic Compact: Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia. The GeoTour launched with only 73 geocaches, and one has since been archived. The four prizes that were available at launch, for finding the geocache and recording the codeword, were: 75 First-to-find tokens Smokey 75th Trackable Coins for finding 6 caches in any one state Limited Edition Diamond Geocoins for finding 25 caches along the GeoTour A special gift from Smokey Bear for finding all 75 GeoTour geocaches Tom and I went to Delaware today with the express purpose of finding the last five geocaches that we needed to earn the Smokey 75th Trackable Coin. Before beginning ...

The Maryland Chocolate Trail launched in April 2019 and started out with 15 geocaches. The prize for finding all 15 caches, recording the codewords found in each cache and submitting the passport is a Pathtag. The traditional caches along the trail are located near, or at, chocolate shops throughout Maryland, and the mystery caches start at chocolate shops where information that leads to the final locations is gathered. The majority of the geocaches were birdhouses secured with locks, with the combinations provided on the cache pages. Today, Tom and I found the last cache that we needed to complete the Maryland Chocolate Trail. Even though I didn't take advantage of the chocolate-buying opportunities, it was still enjoyable. I found this trail to be quite straightforward and had very little difficulty finding the caches. I think my favorite cache along the trail was MDCT - Michelle Ferrero - the final location was great! I will be submitting my codewords tomorrow, and w...

The two, newest souvenirs have been announced on the Geocaching blog . The end of the year is coming soon, and we're ready to begin a new one, so find a geocache or attend an event on both December 31 and January 1 in order to earn both of them. Just remember, they can count towards the " 3, 2, 1 Go! " souvenir. Happy hunting!

A new souvenir was announced on Geocaching's blog , called "3, 2, 1 Go!" It's as easy as 1, 2, 3! 3 weeks: December 11, 2019 – January 1, 2020. 2 cache outings per week: Find a geocache on 2 different days each week. 1 souvenir: Earn a souvenir if you geocache two days per week December 11 – January 1. After reading the FAQs, the wording seems a little ambiguous. During the three weeks of this campaign, in order to earn the souvenir, we're expected to geocache on six separate days. So, it doesn't have to be two per week, it can be six days in a row. It seems easier, and more manageable, than Streak Week . I'm excited to get started! I haven't been geocaching lately, because I never know when I'm going to need a lot of caches for a campaign, but now, I can start working on some caches that published in my area back in August - I was saving them for this reason.

The fifth annual Geocaching International Film Festival begins today. Tom and I attended our first GIFF last year, and I enjoyed it so much that I spent days going back and watching all of the old GIFF films on-line. We're planning on attending our GIFF event tonight, so don't forget to look for events in your area, it should be good family fun!

When, what to my wondering eyes should appear, But a white envelope from one, Xavier! After a couple of months of back-and-forth e-mails between myself and the Small Parks Specialist in charge of the Eight Wards of Washington, DC GeoTrail , I received an awesome geocoin in the mail. My parents, DragonSoldier45 and DragonLadyHue, Tom and I completed all but one of the caches on the Eight Wards of Washington, DC GeoTrail back in March. Since then, I've been watching the DNF'ed cache, to see if someone else finds it, so I could swoop down and find it, too. Unfortunately, the cache was archived in August. I continued to keep an eye on it, just in case it was unarchived, and some time in September, I decided to reach out and learn more about the status of the cache. Xavier, the Small Parks Specialist, said that he still had coins left and that even though we hadn't found the one cache, he was willing to award us the geocoin. My first passport must have got lost in the ...

International EarthCache Day is tomorrow, but you can earn your International EarthCache Day 2019 souvenir by logging an EarthCache either today or tomorrow.

After returning home from the " 2019 Metro Gathering ~ Pirates of Port Royale ," I opened my mail and found out that I won a free trackable from the FTF Geocacher magazine's puzzle contest. It's so cool! I've been entering the contests in the magazines as often as I can, and it finally paid off. My geo-nick will be published, too, so look for it in the FTF Geocacher magazine, Volume 10, Issue 2.

This year, Tom and I attended our first Metro Gathering , and had a pretty good time. This year's theme was Pirates of Port Royale, and there were plenty of things to do. Prior to the event, there was their " Golden Ticket " contest. Golden Tickets were periodically hidden in geocaches, and hints to their whereabouts were posted on the Metro Gathering website, along with a general location (the state). If you were to find the "Golden Ticket," follow the directions and bring it to the Metro Gathering, you would get a special geocoin. It took me a while to figure out the hints, but I eventually got the hang of figuring out which geocache to look in for the Golden Ticket. Unfortunately, the majority of them were in New Jersey, so I never actually found one, but, knowing how much I love a good puzzle, I'll definitely keep track in upcoming years for one that I might have a chance of finding. There were 50 Adventure Lab Caches put out in conjunction with ...

A new trackable promotion was just announced for Nickelodeon's Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! To celebrate the 35th Anniversary of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Geocaching has teamed up with Nickelodeon and The Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and is giving away 4,000 trackables featuring Leonardo (Leo), Michelangelo (Mickey), Donatello (Donnie) and Raphael (Raph). To enter for your chance to win a free trackable, fill in the form here . A map of events where TMNT trackables are being given away is on the same page as the entry form. Once you get your trackable, don't forget to photograph it's adventures and tag it with #TMNTcache or @TMNT. Good luck!

Did you get your CITO 2019, Season 1 souvenir? Well, just in case you missed it Season 2 of 2019's Cache In, Trash Out starts today. Attend a CITO event in September, October or November to earn the next souvenir.

This was a fun cache - FYC - Trap Pond State Park #2 . I took a few videos with my iPhone while Tom and I were on our way there and searching for it. This is my first attempt at putting video clips together, I hope you enjoy it.

What is going on? This is short notice for me, but Geocaching has just announced a new souvenir that can be earned - for Streak Week: August 2019 . In order to earn the souvenir, we have to find and log a cache every day in the last week of August (from 25 August to 31 August). Unfortunately, meeting that goal might be difficult for me, since I'm heading out of town for the week. Wish me luck!

Happy International Geocaching Day! International Geocaching Day is celebrated on the third Saturday in August every year, so celebrate the day by finding a geocache or attending an event, and earning a souvenir in the process.

Now that the 2019 summer campaign has come to a close, I guess it's about time I had an opinion about it. My initial thoughts were about how cool the theme was. I thoroughly enjoyed the teasers and all of my speculations were for naught - for a change. After earning, and looking at, the "Briefed on the Case" souvenir, I immediately knew how to figure out what the lock combination was. It took some planning, but after learning what caches would count towards the "Evidence Collected" souvenir, it was only logical that any other caches with an unknown clue type would go towards the "Jewels Recovered" souvenir. But which ones? I found an area where there were plenty of caches that had Jewel clues, then cached my way through Evidence clues until I got there. Luckily, I didn't have to venture too far away from that area to recover all of the jewels. But then, I hit a snag. Instead of being able to enter the lock combination at that point, I had...

Today, the Smokey Bear 75th Anniversary GeoTour launched. I did what little preparation I could - looking to see what State Forests are located in Maryland, which ones were in my county and the next closest one, inspecting a trail map of the closest State Forest and letting Tom know well in advance that if one of the Smokey Bear caches published in a 30 mile radius, that I was going to try to go for the First-to-Find. Before falling asleep last night, I made sure that my phone was not on vibrate, and when I got the new cache alert at 8:01 a.m. - and saw that it was 5 miles from my location, I rushed to the computer to get more specifics. It was a 17 minute drive to the parking coordinates, a walk down a trail to where it forked, then the cache was on the left. I let Tom know I was going for it, not wanting to disturb him if he wanted to sleep in, but he wanted to come along. In short order, we were out the door and heading down the road. I fully expected to see other cars at t...

There's a new web page introducing the Smokey Bear 75th Anniversary GeoTour . Some of the rewards have different requirements from when I first learned about the GeoTour: 75 Smokey Bear "First-to-find" tokens [remains the same] Find 6 caches in one state, get a Smokey 75th Trackable Coin [down from all caches in state] Find 25 caches in the GeoTour, get a Limited Edition Diamond Geocoin [down from 75] Find all 75 caches in the GeoTour, get a special gift from Smokey Bear! [new prize!] The passport does not reflect these changes, but don't forget to download it before starting the GeoTour, since getting a prize is now more achievable. The GeoTour launches July 7, 2019 and I'm ready to get started - I just hope that there are some caches close to where I live.

Today, a little bit more information about the 2019 summer campaign was released. Another news video has been posted, as well as a FAQs page . The campaign starts July 11 and lasts through August 11, and there are four souvenirs to be earned: Briefed on the case . One cache had to be found with the detective asset. Evidence collected . Find six caches with clue assets (two each of fingerprints, footprints and shadows). Jewels recovered . Find fifteen caches with jewel assets (three each of sapphire, ruby, diamond, emerald and topaz). Case closed . A bonus challenge where you will unlock the vault and return the missing jewels. The souvenirs have to be found in order, so finding a jewel asset before you've found a detective asset will not get you the souvenirs quicker. Something that stood out to me in the video was that the thieves spent 81 minutes in the museum, and the FAQs state that every event has a detective asset, so my new working theory is that the caches are dif...

Tom and I went to Martinsburg in Berkeley County, West Virginia in order to earn the Smart Caches of Berkeley County (SCBC) geocoin, as well as the Berkeley Gadgets GeoTour (BGG) geocoin. We focused on caches that counted for both the SCBC and the BGG, but this was not one of them. Either way, I really wanted to do it, so even though we had enough caches to qualify for the geocoin, we stopped here for one more cache. I loved it! Please forgive me though, this is the first video I've ever taken of myself at a geocache, and I wasn't sure exactly how to do it. When I put it together in iMovie, I added a few pictures I took while there, and voila!

Earlier this week, Tom mentioned that he'd like to go to Kent Island this Saturday to do a little geocaching, and I mentioned that we should schedule a trip to West Virginia in the not-to-distant future, because the number of geocoins remaining for the Smart Caches of Berkeley County and the Berkeley Gadgets GeoTour were slowly dwindling. He decided that we would scrap the initial plans and head back to West Virginia for an overnight stay, since the GeoTour includes three night caches. The Berkeley Gadgets GeoTour consists of 50 caches, which include 18 newly published caches (BGG), a selection of caches from three previous GeoTrails (GBC, MCBC and SCBC ) and a handful of other caches the have been put out by WVTim. In order to qualify for the Berkeley Gadgets GeoTour geocoin, we had to find 16 of the 18 BGG caches. I'm happy to say that we found 17 of them! We're well on our way to earning the souvenir, too. Our past two trips have netted us 42 of the 50 required ...

While Tom and I were in Berkeley County, West Virginia to work on the Berkeley Gadgets GeoTour , we ended up finding all but two of the Smart Caches of Berkeley County (SCBC). In order to earn the SCBC geocoin, we had to find eleven of the fourteen remaining SCBC caches, which gave us the ability to pick and choose which ones to find. The hard part in choosing was that three of them are not on the Berkeley Gadgets GeoTour, so do we go with GeoTour caches exclusively, or do we find the ones that are near other caches? We ended up finding the three non-GeoTour caches, and leaving two GeoTour caches for a future trip. These caches were varied and fun to complete. My favorite was "SCBC 7 Bike Trail," where I had to travel about 400 feet down a corrugated pipe to end up in the middle of an expressway. The most difficult one for me was "SCBC 12 Illuminating," but only because the flashlight that I was using wasn't strong enough to trigger the sensors. "SC...

Have you seen the newest teaser from Geocaching? Check it out here . It looks like we have to wait two weeks to find out what's up. My current theory is that we will pursue the jewel thief through the museum, and in each section of the museum, we'll have to find a certain type of cache. For instance, in the geological section we'll have to find an EarthCache. It's just an initial theory - I've seen better posted on Twitter by @CacheTheLine.

Launched in 2016, this GeoTrail started out with 24 caches hidden in and around Hanover, Pennsylvania. Eighteen of those caches had to be found and the codes on those caches recorded on the passport , to qualify for the commemorative coin. Through a quick e-mail where I learned that there were still coins left, and some follow up phone calls from Tom, it was agreed that since the office was closed on weekends, we could send a self-addressed stamped envelope in order to receive our coin. With all that framework put in place, we headed to Hanover. Overall, the GeoTrail was enjoyable. We were able to find all 18 of the active caches is a day, and the caches brought us to interesting and historic locations as well as places that, if we'd had more time, I would have liked to have stayed and patronized. The caches themselves were varied: some were cleverly hidden, some were typical hides, a couple had hosts that had fallen into disrepair and one was just down right disappointing. ...

The Woodbooger GeoTour launched in 2018, and when I first learned about it, I thought it would be right up Tom's alley, with it's Woodbooger (Bigfoot) implications. We were fortunate enough to have a few days of favorable weather this weekend, so Tom contacted sewwatt, one of the GeoTour organizers, and learned that the geocoins were dwindling in number. She confirmed that we could complete the GeoTour in a day, so we tacked a trip down to Norton, Virginia onto the end of our trip to Berkeley County, West Virginia. We enjoyed the GeoTour, and were able to find all 25 caches, earning the geocoin and the souvenir. The majority of the caches were birdhouse hosts with a container inside, a few of those were field puzzles. There were a few gadget caches, several Letterbox caches and even an EarthCache. The Flag Rock Recreation Area was a beautiful sight to see, and even though we didn't see a Woodbooger, we enjoyed our time in Norton.  

I recently learned that a new GeoTour will be posting in the Mid-Atlantic region celebrating Smokey the Bear's 75th Anniversary - the Smokey Bear 75th Anniversary GeoTour. It starts on July 7, 2019 and the following prizes will be available: 75 Smokey Bear "First-to-Find" tokens A Smokey 75th trackable coin if you are the first to find all of the caches in one state A limited edition diamond geocoin for completing the entire GeoTour (all 75 caches) Read the official notice here - you can download your passport there, too.

Today, Tom and I traveled to Martinsburg, West Virginia in order to do the Mystery Caches of Berkeley County (MCBC). I had recently started a list of trips that Tom and I could take to use up my vacation time at work, and the GeoTrails in Berkeley County were on the list. In researching them, I learned that the MCBC cache pages had been updated in January 2019 to state that there were only 60 geocoins left and that only 11 of the remaining 14 caches were needed to qualify for them, instead of the initial 13 out of 15. Then, we saw in the latest issue of FTF Magazine that a new GeoTour would be launching in Berkeley County at the beginning of June, and I figured that with the possibility of people pouring in for the new, official GeoTour, that the remaining geocoins would be snatched up in no time. Tom made a phone call and learned that there were only "about 20" geocoins left. He also learned that the MCBC would be deactivated before the newest GeoTour published - we had...

The decoder was posted for the Cache Across Maryland (CAM) picnic today. In order to qualify to attend the picnic on May 4, participants had to find all ten CAM caches and record the attribute pictured within each cache. Today, we could enter those attributes into the decoder and get the coordinates for the picnic. We also got these fun badges for my profile page:

Smokey the Bear is turning 75 years old this year, and Geocaching HQ is partnering up with the Smokey Bear Wildfire Prevention campaign from the USDA Forest Service, the National Association of State Foresters and the Ad Council for their latest trackable promotion. 1,500 randomly chosen people from the United States will receive a custom Smokey Bear trackable. Smokey the Bear has been spreading the message that "Only you can prevent forest fires" for 75 years, and that message impacts geocachers and our playing field. Visit his website for more information. Fill out the form to request your free trackable here , and share photos of your trackable's adventures using #SmokeyBear75.

After completing the Cache Carnival, and not having to stress about points on finds, my parents, Tom and I headed back to Washington, D.C. to start working on the Eight Wards of Washington, D.C. GeoTrail . The GeoTrail consists of nine caches: eight letterboxes and one eight-stage multiple. The prize for completing the GeoTrail is a geocoin (while supplies last), and can be earned by stamping your passport with the stamp found in each of the nine caches. While we weren't entirely successful in completing the GeoTrail in one day (we couldn't find one of the caches), it was definitely achievable. Various puzzles were used for the coordinates for the letterboxes, and I was able to solve them prior to the trip. The route we took to make the best use of our time was Multi stage 1, Letterbox #1, Multi stage 2, Letterbox #2, etc. The areas we drove through were unexpected (Georgetown, really?), and I thought that some of the parks (like the Chuck Brown Memorial Park) were hidd...

In two days, Tom and I were able to grab all six souvenirs available for the Cache Carnival! Yesterday, I hosted my first event, a Creation Celebration featuring the creation of a cryptex. I was pleased with how the event turned out. With the help of a friend at work and Tom, we made three cryptex-es out of PVC. I made a hand-out with materials and directions and had parts on display in various stages of construction. After describing the process that I went through to construct the cryptex, I showed the attendees a completed product. We had a quick drawing for trackables, then an activity where the attendees could look around the Maryland House for letters that would make up the combination to the cryptex. If they got the correct combination, and opened the cryptex, they were entered in a drawing to win the cryptex. With the topic, the giveaways and the cookies that my sister made for refreshments, I think that it was a really good event for my first time. Then today, my par...

Geocaching's Cache Carnival begins today! Caches found and logged, as well as events attended between March 25 and April 14, 2019, will earn you points towards five new souvenirs inspired by historic Carnival locations around the world. I can't wait to start! My parents will be visiting for the weekend and on Friday, I'll be hosting my first event, a registered " Creation Celebration ." Then, since Tom and I have finished CAM , we're all planning on heading to Washington, D.C. on Saturday to find caches with high favorite points. The most efficient use of our time would be to find ten caches with 50+ favorite points, which should not be hard to do there. That should earn us all six souvenirs in two days. If we are unsuccessful, we will still have Sunday to fill in any gaps, or even the next two weeks of the campaign period. Don't forget to join in the fun, and keep track of your points on the Leaderboard!

The 16th annual Cache Across Maryland (CAM) kicked off on March 16, 2019. Ten CAM caches were hidden all over Maryland, and the coordinates were posted on the Maryland Geocaching Society's Forums at 8:00 a.m. Four kick-off events were held in different sections of Maryland where the event hosts uploaded the CAM caches, as well as Bonus caches, onto attendees' GPSr's. If a participant finds all ten CAM caches and records the symbol in each cache, they can find out what the coordinates to the CAM Picnic, being held on May 4, where they will be awarded a certificate of completion and a trackable geocoin. Participants have six weeks to find all ten caches, and still be eligible to attend the picnic; the caches will be published on Geocaching.com the day of the picnic. Tom and I decided to try it this year, and we invited my parents, DragonSoldier45 and DragonLadyHue, to join us. After attending the Kick-Off event, the four of us joined three other cachers, formulated a...

I'm officially registered as a Creation Celebration event! With the announcement of the Cache Carnival campaign, I decided to host my first event. After deciding what in the world to do and when and where to do it, I submitted an event, which was approved. Then, I submitted the on-line form to Geocaching Headquarters to have my event be officially registered as a Creation Celebration , which would earn attendees the Creation Celebration souvenir. At my event, Creation Celebration: Creating a Cryptex , I will feature my attempt at creating a cryptex. After looking up directions on the Internet and watching several YouTube videos, I came up with my own version. I'll provide instructions, a finished product and one that hasn't been completed so that anyone who is interested can see the step-by-step construction process. I hope it's a success, and even if it isn't, I'll have accomplished creating a cool gadget cache!

The first season of Cache In-Trash Out for 2019 starts today! This year, instead of having only a week to earn your Spring CITO souvenir, we'll have three months. I'm super excited to not have to rush to try to earn it, and I'm sure that hosts will enjoy the leeway with scheduling. So, keep an eye out for CITO events in your area, and do your part to help make our world a better place.