Saturday, February 18

Cave Springs

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To learn more about geocaching visit www.geocaching.com If you'd like to be geocaching buddies look me up! I'm TipsyTurtle77. Happy hunting!


Well, we didn't find a single cache today but we didn't look too hard either. The GPS was acting mega crazy, then my camera broke or something happened that we aren't sure how to fix and I'd just had it. We decided to enjoy the surroundings instead. I used Matt's phone to take all my pics.

As you can tell I have a fascination with pics that involve water in motion. There are more pics in this post about my other fascination, which is tree branches with the skyline in the background. I don't know why I like them. I just find them fascinating and beautiful. We also found a tree stump that someone had carved and of course, once I saw the turtle carving I was all over it lol!!

Here we go...




Look at this funny tree we found...

Here are some of my tree pics...


Pics of the awesome stump we found...




Saturday, February 11

D i s a s t e r :(

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To learn more about geocaching visit www.geocaching.com If you'd like to be geocaching buddies look me up! I'm TipsyTurtle77. Happy hunting!


That's kind of what today ended up being.

Our first stop ended up being on the side of a busy back road, which is usually the type of place I would rather be caching but today was so cold and so windy I could barely feel my face, kneecaps or fingers. Anna searched for about 5 minutes and said she was going back in the car with dad. We didn't find that one. Or the next one we went to. The third one was called Kiddie Cache and from the log tons of people have found it but as we were looking around (Anna had fallen asleep in the car and Matt was there with her) I got a message on my phone from Matt saying people were not thrilled we were there. We gave up the hunt and headed back out and sure enough there stood the lady and then her husband came out. I tried to explain what we were doing but she was not impressed that someone had not only hidden something on her property that she was not aware of but even less than impressed that apparently many, many people had been there and found it without her knowledge of them being on her property. It was really embarrassing and Matt was not impressed.

I did manage to get a few nice pics from the first area we were at...



We tried to find one that was supposed to be at an old Circuit City building but we didn't get that one either. I looked until I literally could not even make my hands function because they were so cold and then we went off to the next one.

I decided to go back to the Lock & Dam cause I knew where one of them was and I had planned on hunting for the other one as well. The kids finally got to find one :) Matt was not impressed with the weather and just kept bitching about everyone getting sick so he decided we were done caching for the day and that was that.

We made it home after Matt did a call and played Monopoly. Well, the kids and I played Monopoly. He walked straight to my bedroom to lay down. I knew he never even shut his eyes cause we were super loud. I couldn't help it. It was just nice to let out a bunch of whoops and giggles after such a frustrating day.

Here's some pics from the Lock & Dam...

Off on the hunt!

I'm bored... gonna play dead!

It's so cold Anna's hair was even holding onto her jacket!

Mr. GrumpyPants is not impressed.

Jackpot!

Random scenery pics and Anna deciding she's going to roll back down the hill to the car.




Just as we almost got back to the car Anna realized she had lost the blue bead necklace she took as a prize from the cache so we backtracked our steps to find it. Kellie found it for her and this was the victorious return of the loot. When Anna sat down to check out the cache after they first found it she said, "We found treasure (insert pirate sound here argh!)!" It was cute :)

I found a wicked piece of mossy wood for AL and also some more fungus. The day was not terrible I had just hoped it would be more exciting. Our meet up with the muggle almost turned me off to geocaching but I will have to try and research my spots that I hunt a bit better. Although, this cache detail/log says absolutely nothing about being on someone's property but oh well. Better luck to us next time :)

Monday, February 6

*Kingston Adventures*

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To learn more about geocaching visit www.geocaching.com If you'd like to be geocaching buddies look me up! I'm TipsyTurtle77. Happy hunting!


Well, I went out on the hunt for 5 caches and I ended up finding three. Not bad for a newbie but the funny thing is that I found all the micros and none of the smalls lol!

I did find some fabulous fungus and some tree bark for AL though...

Cache #1
This one was a pretty cool cache even though it was a micro. The actual container had been drilled into the tree or maybe there was a hole there already and they managed to fenagle it in there I'm not sure but it was still neat. Technically, Matt found this one but he doesn't want a geocache name to log his own ("I'm not really into this stuff, I just like watching you fall and trip" haha!) so I'm taking it since I was along and looking for it myself. I've got to get used to these dang coordinates because they don't pinpoint me to an exact location just an area of where it could be.

Cache #2
Even though this was a pretty easy find (no idea why they gave it a 3 in difficulty... that's the same that Dr. Evil has and I knew right where to look for this before I even got out of the car!) it was pretty darn awesome. Matt didn't even get out of the car. I was like, "OMG I see right where to look!" and off I went out the door! It was kind of creepy knowing someone was inside (I heard him cough lol) but the details said that he had given his permission and wouldn't bother any cachers so I went for it! It's somewhere in this pic hehe...

Cache #3: Sherman's Headquarters
Did not find this one dangit. When I came back here and was checking over the listing I see an additional hint that I did not see before. Blasted! Will maybe have to try this one again the next time Matt goes to Kingston lol!

There was no cache in this tree, but man what a great spot for one!

And this was another cool tree. Not sure why I snapped a pic. I just thought it looked interesting.

Cache #4
I did not find this one either and it was really aggravating. I really don't like caching where lots of people are. It makes me very uncomfortable - don't like people watching me. Every dang car that went by (and there were lots!) slowed down to see what the heck we were doing. One guy in a truck finally stopped and asked if we were looking for the owner of the place. I said, "Nope, just geocaching." He looked at me like I'd sprouted two extra heads so I just turned around and walked away from him. By that time I was in a cranky mood and just wanted to tell all the passerbys to MUGGLE OFF! I got in the car and was ready to leave. Sadly, this will be a doggone DNF grr! Didn't even take any pics I was so frustrated. Just wanted to get the heck out of there!

Cache #5
We got to this destination (which was someone's home but they gave permission for the cache to be there) and right when I got out to orientate myself with the GPS Matt got a call. I was like, "Oh heck no! I am not ending my day with another DNF dangit!" So, I took off down the fence looking everywhere and happened to spy it just a bit further up ahead than I already was. The container was a little snowman whose head twisted off and the log was inside lol. I hopped back in the car and Matt said, "Did you find it?" I said, "Yep!" and that was the end of my geocaching for the day! I didn't get to take any pics cause I have to use Matt's phone and he was taking a call on it but at least I got the find woohoo!!

Until next time... Happy Caching to all!

*I know Matt says he doesn't really get into this sort of thing but today I caught him practicing CITO and I must say I was quite proud. Also, at the Sherman's Headquarters hunt I heard him say, "Hey, is this... oh wait. Nope that's real dog shit." ROFL! So, I know he likes to hunt at least a little bit cause he's really trying!*

Friday, February 3

Had to share this!

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To learn more about geocaching visit www.geocaching.com If you'd like to be geocaching buddies look me up! I'm TipsyTurtle77. Happy hunting!


You Know You're A Geocacher When

your friend who got you into geocaching, gives you a roll of cammoed duct tape, and you jumping up & down with joy!

standing at a party, you spot the guys fake rock in his rock bed.

anyone ask you what you are doing you have the impulse to lie or make up something.

people surprise you, you try to act "natural"

your co-workers hate you because every time you take a pencil or stapler from their desks you leave a stupid toy car, pocket knife or battery.

when you buy a tin of mints or candy just for the tin and give the contents away to your kids so you can make a cache out of it.

planning your Christmas holidays home, you've already figured out that you can stop at least 3 cache sites on the way home from the airport.

You get the kids meal at BK or McDonald’s for the swag

You know your an ADDICT cacher when you get the sweats when your GPS and PDA are not in the car with you.

You use the names of area caches as landmarks when giving someone directions.

You realize you lost the papers for an important meeting and report to the boss that someone has "muggled my desk".

You say "Honey, I will be back in an hour or two, or three, or four."

wherever you go you have the gps, the laptop, and a portable printer.

you buy a 64 pack of AA batteries just for your gps.

you decide you hate buying the batteries and decide to get the car charger.

you say, "Honey, can you pull over here.", *5 min. later, "Honey, can you pull over here."

you hang a big painting of a geocache on your cubical.

..."Mom, could you please take us to school, first?"
..."Mom, could we go home now? It's half past eight and we are tired and hungry!"
..."Mom, just let us out of the car, ok? We'll walk!"

the shop owner of the 99-Cent-Store sends you a greeting card for Christmas.

You are at the grocery store and sign the check "busterbabes" instead of your real name.

When your kids ask you "where are the cornflakes, mom?" you reply "in a traditional in the kitchen"...

You take sick leave from work to be FIRST to a cache.

You can read encrypted hints as quickly as unencrypted.

You begin referring to your pets with the prefix "Geo".

Someone asks you where the photocopier is and you say, "25 feet
bearing 270".

You're looking at $1 dollar stores and garage sales with new interest
because they are a source of Geocache "treasure".

YOU CREATE YOUR OWN LIGHTED GEOHIKING STICK FOR
NIGHTCACHING.

You are the computer Geek with a tan.

You plan your entire vacation around Geocaching.

There might be a store right nearby to you, yet you go out of your way to go to another of that same store, just because you have unfound caches nearby

You come back from a business trip without finding any caches and consider it a wasted journey

You know which stores in your area have good offers on lock & lock boxes.

Your choice of food shopping is swayed by the type of container the products come in.

Half the phone numbers saved in your phone have caching names rather than real names next to them.

You think "Signal" is a good name for a pet.

Someone mentions what part of the country they come from and you think to yourself "That's somewhere in N51 W001"!

you consider using a birdhouse that you made a few years ago for an Eagle Project/Senior Project, have a real bird nest with fake eggs and a nano underneath

your keep a used wasps nest to use as a "cache"

you got a car travel bug to log the miles it's gone to every cache you go to

your most finds in one day is 10, 9 dnfs

your next most finds for one day is 9, 8 dnfs

and you've gone back for those 9 or 8 to find them

When you honestly consider choosing which islands you'll visit in the Pacific during your sail around the world based on which ones have good caching.

Or which ones need good caches.

When you see on the news that the authorities are searching for a body in nearby woods and you wonder if they'll find that cache that’s around there.

The day after you are discharged from the hospital for having pneumonia you are right out there again in the cold weather searching for caches... when you should be home resting.

when you get disappointed because the person you were watching in the parking lot was really looking for a parking spot and not a cache.

when you decide "that cache has sat there long enough" and spend 11 hours on the road and put 520 miles on the travel bug to get a FTF.

"don't leave home without it" means your GPSr.

you get laid-off from work but instead of looking for work you look for caches!

When your job tasks you with a driving task to another town many miles away and you are asked to suggest a co-driver.......
You choose a smoker!
Why you ask?
Because the vehicle is non-smoking and you are forced to stop at pull offs and rest stops so they can have a smoke.
Oh, and how coincidental, there's a Geocache at those stops.

When you pray you don't get pulled over by the cops because you don't want to try explaining all the electronic gear, the ammo can, the camo-covered items, and the pointy stick in the back seat of the car.

when out in the woods you see a bush shaking, and hear giggles and moaning, only to think "Dang! They beat me to GC3X4RT!"

you and the hubby decide you need to head to the grocery store to get stuff for dinner that evening, and you ask, "Well, could you get out the e-trex and download a couple of caches first? We don't want to waste a trip!"

You went out and bought a new purse, just for geocaching and hiking. Only you can justify it by not calling it a purse. "But honey, it's a nice rugged canvas messenger bag, with room for a water bottle and everything..

When asked what you would take with you to a desert island, you list your wallet, phone, camera, gpsr, and Swiss army knife.

You object when some 10 yr old Harry Potter fan calls you a muggle.

When fellow cube zombies at work start bringing in unused Tupperware containers and old key chains and useless junk for you to use as swag.

You head to the paint aisle at Wal-mart, only to be disappointed that they don't have any cans of camo-colored spray paint. You decide to go to the craft aisle to see if they have camouflage stencils.

you are also disappointed that your local scrapbook store doesn't have any geocaching themed embellishments to compliment your FTF photos. You ask if they can stock Groundspeak licensed items.

You hide a cache practically on your own doorstep hoping that local cachers will come by and say hi.

you honestly have no idea what way is north and yet you consistently function quite well as the navigator of caching trips.

you wish your boyfriend would manage to propose to you somehow using geocaching

The cashier at the crafts store knows you because you're always in looking for those tiny plastic Ziploc bags in the jewelry-making aisle...and you're a big, tough-looking guy.

All my refrigerator magnets are magnetic key holders.

When you can play "connect the dots" with the mosquito bites on your body, and spell out your gc.com user name AND the name of your favorite cache.

when all your pets have TB tags on their collars, and more than 20 of the local cachers have discovered them.

When you have more than 3 TB t-shirts.

When you have a TB sign for the back window of your cache-mobile, and a vanity plate # that matches the TB's number.

When you look around for a newbie to recruit for the game, in part to carry your 2nd backpack of swag.

When poison ivy plants recognize you, and either give up in disgust, or pull up their roots and walk over to greet you.

You know you're a geocacher when you look at your messy house and you think that it would make a good CITO event.

You are walking down the street and a neighbor has just cut down a tree and you think to ask him for a log to hollow out for a cache.

You have paid (or thought of paying) for a baby-sitter so that you can do some "serious" caching without the kids

When you look at the logs for a cache GC.com and see nothing but Maintenance Requests and DNFs for the last 6 months, but you go anyway because "Maybe I can find it."

When you log a DNF and the next day someone logs the FIND, and you remain depressed all day. Then you look for it again, DNF again, and then someone finds it the next day. Rinse and Repeat, happened to us, and we found it on our FIFTH try, the cache is 70 miles from home and up at 9,500 feet elevation.

When you find a difficult cache, you feel like you won the lottery!

You bought a vehicle that is BETTER than what you had, with Geocaching in mind

You take a Jeep Travel Bug skydiving because you've always wanted to go skydiving.

I had to take my wife to the hospital emergency room..and instead of waiting (we were told up to 3 hour wait) there with her my geodaughter and I went to look for a cache we knew was close by

You clean out your junk drawer and use the stuff for swag.

The cashier says "paper or plastic?" and you say "plastic" because you can use the bags for CITO.

Your kids' toys start to look more and more like swag every day.

You have dreams about caching and nightmares about DNF's.

You're fishing on a charter boat and wonder about placing a cache under water.

You're waiting for a new park to be opened so you can put a cache there.

You can't find something in a store and start walking in circles.

You see a phone number and think it looks like GPS coordinates.

You lose your Garmin and wonder what you'll do with all the free time.

You know all the poison ivy remedies and ways to remove ticks.

You chose your last pair of shoes with caching in mind.

You make waypoints for hollow trees just in case you might put a cache there some

You pick your dating spots by first checking how many caches are there within walking distance.

you know you're a geocacher when you aren't out caching - you're posting in the geocaching forums.

BORROWED FROM: THE CACHE STATION

Thursday, February 2

Caching in Rome!

LilySlim Fitness goals tickers


This hunt was an adventure indeed. It was at the Lock & Dam... there are actually two here but Matt got a call in the middle of my first hunt and considering what happened here he said, "Your caching is done for the day."

I started off, as it seems I normally do in these hunts, walking back and forth in the same area until I get my bearings. As it turns out I never really got my bearings because I was kind of lost in the parking lot... blame it on the GPS not me ;)

I was following the GPS coordinates and I came to a stop. I was on one side of a tiny creek and the GPS said I needed to be on the other. Matt had taken off the other way (which turned out to be correct - damn him!) to wait for me. I saw what appeared to be a stable spot to hop from one side of the creek to the other... ya know, cause I "hop" so gracefully every other day (ha!)... so I went to take off and make my triumphant jump... and my foot slipped in the mud that was apparently hiding under my "stable" take off.

Everything kind of went in slow motion then because I felt parts of my body go in all different directions. One arm off to the left, one arm off to the right (the one that was holding the GPS, which went flying through the air), my right hip definitely hit the ground because I can still feel that now and a rock/twig punctured my right shin.

I literally watched the GPS fly through the air, land on the other side of the creek (bastard!) and roll down the hill towards the creek! As I said everything seemed to slow down and as I watched it tumble down I was saying, "NOOOOOOOOOOO!" as I tried to regain my footing... in the same damn muddy spot I slipped in the first time of course and busted my ass yet again. Since I was not blessed with Go-Go-Gadget arms that could extend out to save my beloved GPS... I had to watch it drowned in the creek :(

I finally gave up trying to get vertical and pulled myself/half crawled over to the creek and fished out my GPS. I almost burst into tears. Here, I had FINALLY figured out a way to be able to geocache and I had drowned my caching buddy! How do I keep three children alive???

I pulled myself up the hill until I found firm ground and sulked my way over to Matt. I'm sure he was wondering how I managed to go from sparkling clean and excited to almost on the verge of tears and completely muddy. I described to him as best I could what had happened but I was too humiliated to go into much detail.

I would have screamed for help but there were several fishermen at the dam and I really didn't need a boatload of men to come rushing over and laugh at the crazy white girl flopping around in the mud and fishing for her GPS :(

Matt took the GPS (I said to him, "See! That's why the handheld ones are on a necklace thingy!) and walked as far as it would take us before conking out. He said, "Well, if I had to guess I'd say it's somewhere in this area."

So I started looking around. I spotted a tree trunk I wanted to check out and took off towards it... and promptly tripped on a tree branch and landed sunny side down. How much more humiliation can one aspiring geocacher take I ask you???" I looked over to my right and spied the corner of the ammo box.

Once again, my hyper chipmunk alter ego kicked in and I did my, "OMG THERE IT IS! THERE'S THE CACHE! I FOUND IT!" happy dance again. True, I did trip and find it but the fact that I found it is all that matters!

Here's to hoping that my GPS is able to dry out and be functional again.

The prize... (I left the lizard trackable here)

Until my next adventure... happy caching!

Caching on the Mountain

LilySlim Fitness goals tickers


This was my first official find on my own. Matt went with me of course because if I go anywhere he has to be there in case he gets a call... plus I think he likes to observe the craziness that follows me wherever I go.

Here is a pretty flower I saw on my way to the cache:

Here is the cache itself:

I kind of found it by accident although I would have found it in the end anyhow. I had printed out the details for a cache that AL and I had previously found so that I could check the GPS today and see if our's would work. For some reason, my GPS is on seconds and minutes coordinates instead of decimal points like the coordinates are seen on the geocaching site... at any rate, we discovered that yes our GPS would work we just have to convert the coordinates and then we were off!

All right, so I discovered that I had the wrong paper and was headed back to the car to get the right paper but was watching the ground instead of ahead of me because there were vines everywhere that kept grabbing my feet! I happened to look over to the right and... wait a minute let me retrack mentally here... okay, I looked over to the left and BAM there it was. I was like, "Hmm what is that? What an odd spot for something so... OMG IT'S THE CACHE! I FOUND IT! RIGHT HERE! HERE IT IS!"

I am a very excitable person. It doesn't take much to set off my hyper meter. Matt is used to this so he was just kind of like woo - hoo, you found out as I was giddy as a chipmunk on crack. I don't think it helped that he was hungry... major Mr. GrumpyPants when he's craving a cheeseburger.

Anyhow, the cache was found, signed, put back where it was and that was that. I left a note for the cache owner that the log was barely signable and had gotten very wet. I had extra logs printed out but did not have a baggy to put it in.