Filling in your 366 day calendar aka the monkey on my back

The quest to complete the 366 day calendar challenge, not to be confused by the 366 day streak challenge, is a long tough road with lots of planning and even harder if you try to complete it in an area you have been caching for a while. I had been caching for about 3 years in the area when I decided to make the real run towards the end. So spring of 2013 I was running up on the time I had done a 100 day streak the year before. At that point I decided to really try to finish my calendar by that time in 2014. So March 10th became the target date. I stopped finding new caches in the area unless it was on an empty day. I volunteered to run errands that were longer drives from home for my wife to get the chance to pick up my cache somewhere that wasn't convenient to cache during the week, before or after work. I picked up caches while traveling for work and vacations to fill in days. I even had to run out from a camping trip to grab a cache in the middle of no where.
I am now winding down the trip. With under 20 days left to fill in I have an event planned for next month to celebrate almost finishing it, GC4XN4T. Almost because I missed December 19th. That gives me one suggestion if you are thinking about attempting a streak or any of the other monkey on the back challenges, if you have the chance to get a cache early in the day, get it. That day I skipped grabbing one on the way to work because I figured I could grab one on the way home. I ended up getting out of work late and was on my way to grab a cache (much more limited options because it was after dark) and got a call from home that there was an emergency and I needed to get home. I don't regret going home, I regret putting off getting the cache until later. Now whenever I can get one in the morning I go for it. Having it done and out of the way early is a relief.
Once this one is done (almost) the next goal to complete is the Jasmer Challenge. Just one more month, November 2000, to fill in and there is a group headed to New Jersey for Gerbil Cache in April.

Geocaching in Space

Welcome to the world of geocaching events for crazy activities. This is a photo from the Event GC4PWAN Geocaching in Space - A Photo Op Event hosted by Derek of the derektiffany caching team. While it was a little while after the launch that took a new travelbug into space, it gave a sense of awe to all who attended as we had the opportunity to stand so close to a craft that had left our world behind to explore space.

Jasmer Challenge

After a road trip from Leesburg Virginia to the Going Caching mega event outside Columbus Georgia with a few round about side trips I now am just one empty slot away from completing the Jasmer Challenge. Looking at the available caches, a trip to Ossining New York is in order. There are two caches within 10 miles of each other that would qualify. Sleepy Hollow-1 and Turkey Cache with Boston Cache being pretty close though on the other side of the river.

It is exciting to be closing in on this goal after working on it for nearly two years.

GSAK Tip - Elevation

I received a question about my Geocaching stats and the elevation information that was listed. In the past I had used the macro GetElevationUSA to pull in the elevation data but recently came across a note that it had been integrated into GSAK itself. As of 8.2.1.40 there is a native elevation lookup under the Database option in the menu. It is towards the bottom of the list and is named "Update Elevation..." it will then prompt you if you want to only check caches without elevation information or all caches in the current filter. It can take a bit of time if this is the first time you are running it, are working off a slow internet connection or if there are many caches in the filter so just hang in there. After you have populated your database it won't take so long after that. To take a look at what clyde has put into this feature go over to the gsak forum tracking this feature http://gsak.net/board/index.php?showtopic=23659&st=0&#entry175757 where there is an explanation of how it all works and the way that it stages the information and uses crowd sourcing is pretty cool. Once you have your elevation populated in your database it will be used in the BadgeGen macro as well as the FindStatGen macro. You will have to turn on the report for FindStatGen for it to show. Just click the option button after starting up the macro then click the elevation button on the right side check the boxes and off you go. I hope this tip helps you get a little more out of GSAK.

Pirates of the Potomac: Voyage to VanDeventer Isle

This weekend we took a voyage into the Potomac River to join other cachers in an adventure of Pirate Proportions!

I racked up 10 new Terrain 5 caches in the process with a great pirate crew.

Below is a video that one of the other Pirate crews took on their adventure. We ran across this group at Ode to the MGS Elizabeth and we can be seen around minute 10 in the video.




Here are links to my cache logs for the day. They tell the story of Team Slow and our Pirate Adventure.


Pirates of the Potomac: Voyage to VanDeventer Isle


Dead Men Tell No Tales


Dead Man's Chest


Ode to the MGS Elizabeth

RAGE QUIT! (dickory dock edition)


Cohongarooton (2 of 3)


The Tempest


Just Another Island Cache


A Cache with a Story


Treasure Island

I won!

I recently entered the "Tell me your stories, win a prize" contest over on Only Googlebot Reads This Blog and as luck would have it my story was picked.

Head over to the contest page to read some of the other great submissions.

My story was about my trip with PaddleAway in my first year of caching to finish the Great Lakes Seaway Trail. Below you will find my entry.

Hey this is OBXGeek here from northern Virginia outside the DC metro area.

One of the most fun adventures with caching was in November of 2010. My Mom PaddleAway and I decided to complete the Great Lakes Seaway Trail. I took off Friday and Monday and headed north to meet her in Northern Pennsylvania about half way between my house and the eastern tip of the trail. On Friday morning we got up early and drove to start the trail and had our first find at about 9 in the morning. That first find though was an accidental letterbox in the same park as the trail cache. After locating the proper container we continued the day in and out of rain storms for most of the time. By the time day light was falling we had finished one of the 5 regions and were started in on the next. Some driving in the dark and 10 more ammo cans had us finishing the night with two regions under our belt and headed to the third. That first day found us in state parks, visitors centers and some of the prettiest locations that the area has to offer.

Saturday morning we got on the road early again and were headed towards Rochester NY. This region was one of the hardest with longer walks to get to each of the caches and harder road navigation between sites to find the best places to park. We moved on into the Buffalo Niagara Falls region at the end of Saturday and spend the night near the falls so that we could visit them Sunday morning. We were able to take in most of the tourist spots and completed a few earth caches while we were there. Then back on the road to finish up the region and leaving us with just one region to go. We worked our way through the Lake Erie region doing lots of research work on the way to make sure that we were going to be able to find the caches as there were a few disabled in the region and we had to get atleast 10 to earn our coin. We opted for some multis with more walking over a puzzle that had stumped many people sending them back to the first spot to redo their math. We ended up racing the sun to one of the hides at a winery where they didn't allow night caching so we had to hurry. We pulled in and managed to find the cache just before the sun dipped below the horizon. Then off to visit a lighthouse in Erie PA to pick up the last cache in the region.

All told we found 50 caches in the trail with another handful of earth caches and nontrail caches along the way. The trip racked up nearly 1400 miles from the time I met up with my mom and just shy of 2000 total for me. They were 5 of the hardest earned coins I have and resulted in my favorite caching memory.

2012 Goals - Sept 1 Update

The summer just flew by and a lot of caching has happened in that time. Some new goals have been added, some have been smashed, and some may not be as important. So here is where we stand at the end of August.

My hard number goals for the year are

1. Complete CAM 2012 - Found all the caches and attended the picnic with PaddleAway.
2. Hit total find count of 2000 with a stretch goal of 2500 - 1600 currently. ~400 caches to go in 4 months. There hasn't been any really high volume caching days this summer.
3. Get to 200 found days of the year - Now at 216. Working on the 100 day streak blew this one out of the water. Making it to the 250 or higher mark will be no trouble at all.
4. Keep my hide count to find count at least at 1 to 100 - 30 hidden to 1600 for a ratio of 1.9%
5. Get finds in my other 10 MD counties I am missing - 7 counties to go.
6. Pennsylvania Delorme Challenge - I was at around 35 pages complete until the ASP GeoBash in May, a road trip in June to Pittsburgh and NEPA and then another one day blitz in August. I now have 8 pages left to go. A cluster of 4 in the very north east and a cluster of 4 in the south east.
7. Get a 100 Day streak to qualify for the various challenges - 100 consecutive days with finds from 04/25/2012 to 08/02/2012

Soft number goals

1. Fill in more of the 2000 and 2001 months that I am missing - I picked up State Game Lands in Erie for my September 2000 and The Spot in New York for the May 2000 slots. I also picked up the last of my 2001 caches while In Pittsburgh in June. That leaves me with June, July, August, October, November 2000 to go.
2. Add more of the North East States - No trips
3. Get on the water and find some paddle caches now that I have the kayaks - Found 4 paddle caches. Two different trips out with two finds.
4. More hikes! - I decided to complete the Top 10 Fulfillment challenge in June and racked up 3 different hikes in a week. At ASP GeoBash we hunted all the night caches that were available as well as making the hike to State Game Lands. The Spot and Jump Off were two great hikes with PaddleAway.
5. Captain John Smith Trail: Finish it and visit more of them - Didn't make any headway here
6. Dig through the ? caches around and find the ones that are challenges rather than puzzles and find the ones I qualify for and work on the ones I don't - Rate Your Favorite, Looking the Wrong Way, VPDJ's 2.5 and 5 mile clear out, The 3 10-10-10 challenges 10 types, 10 counties/day and 10 days in a row, The Top ten fulfillment challenge, Riddlers Revenge, Play Ball and Varrezat udhëtimi were all found. I also have all the 100 days challenges now on my list to go hunt as well as some complete the whole month challenges.
7. Find a 5/X and a X/5 cache or few - Found Psycho Urban Cache #8 - Ghost in Ancient Citadel, Marsh Maple, Roanoke Sound P&G, Sunshine & Sandy Bottoms, and Silver Island. 4 paddle caches and one of the most awesome multi-caches I have experienced.