They were divided up into six categories: The Explorer (traditional), The Puzzler (mystery cache), The Sightseer (multi-cache), The Nature Lover (Earthcache or attending a CITO), The Socializer (attending an event whether it's a normal event, a mega or a giga) and The Collector (virtual, wherigo, letterbox hybrid or a webcam). Once you complete the six you would unlock a special souvenir, The Achiever.
My difficulty was going to be the earthcache or CITO. I had gotten all the earthcaches in the area and my closest was inside Mount Rainier National Park. Attending a CITO would be really hard for me because I work on the weekends, when most events are.
I started my journey on August 4th. After work I was invited to hang out with my friend Shauna at her house for burgers and to chill for a few hours. It was getting late and she needed to get up early the next day for work so I headed over to a few caches I've been ignoring for a few months. I'm glad I did. My traditional cache, Itsy Bitsy Spider (GC4PCMC) gave me a GPS runaround. It took me to a tree with a birdhouse on it. The description said not anywhere near the bird house. I was like, okay? Where do I go now? Hmmm... I saw a small geotrail off to the left of me. I'll try it. Sure enough, there it was...that little bison tube bugger.
Since I was in the area, I went and grabbed another one nearby along a paved trail. Heron the Trail (GC4PKYP). It was hidden about seven feet off the trail beside a huge tree. It was glued to a piece of bark.
I walked back to the car and saw a lovely view of Mount Rainier and the Coug Mobile.
I drove further up the road to grab my puzzle cache, Critter Challenge-25 Critters You've Found! (GC4PCM8). I made the critter list a few weeks before I went to find the cache so I would be legit. We had to find 25 caches with different critters in the names. For example: Tortoise Island, BBQ Chicken, Ape Cache, It's Raining Cats and Dogs, etc. I parked as close as I could in a nearby drive way, followed the GPS to a green box with a cement platform in front of it. I was thinking of their typical hides. Itty bitty tiny things attached to some sort of bark, pinecone or rock. I was looking for a tiny nut attached to a nano. Turns out it was inside the green box and it was a mixed nut jar.
As of August 4th I had two of my seven achievements unlocked.
The next time I had a chance to go out was the next evening after work. Ben and I were going out to dinner to Buffalo Wild Wings but I had to wait until he got off of work at 7:30. I used the extra time to grab caches out near the Black Lake area. Mostly because there was a letterbox I have ignored for about two years. I knew eventually it would come in handy.
It took me out to a walking loop near South Puget Sound CC called Black Lake Meadows. I have been here before in the past grabbing caches. There were two out here, the letterbox and a traditional that was part of the leap day caches...one of the 28 published that February morning. This one had to be replaced with DDS 13.1: The Replacement (GC3E8XA). It was an easy find.
When I finally figured out the letterbox hybrid, Curious George Celebrates St. Patrick's Day (GC3E8KC), (it was standard letterbox instructions or figure out a puzzle to give you coords) and I figured this out after the fact but once I figured it out it was easy. I had to count types of trees. When I got to the said maple tree I found the faded geotrail and made the grab.
I decided to add to my total so I would be that much closer to my 10k for the Block Party in a few weeks. I stopped and got Holy Locked Rocks, Batman! (GC4X0K0). I have now unlocked three of the seven achievements.
I went over to the Capitol Mall and bought some shorts from Old Navy and then met Ben at BWW for dinner.
The next time I was able to go out for the souvenirs was after work on August 8th. Luckily I didn't have to go too far. There were still some in Yelm left to go grab. I started with the ones over by the golf course. Lost my Tee (GC4XEG3) and Well...Well...Well! (GC4PA8V). Both were very accessible and easy to get to. And now for the one I needed to get, my multi-cache, Don't Post Me In - just handing you a line? (GC4TPFE). I walked where the coordinates took me. I found the old cache that used to be there. The only logical spot was the fence cap in the corner. I took it down and studied it for a bit. There were knots tied in the string. There were 15 numbers so I knew I was doing it right. I wrote the coords on my leg, plugged it into the GPS and off I went. I was roughly 300 feet from the first waypoint and people have been having trouble finding the final. I was determined. After a quick search and a cut finger I had the cache in hand.
I finished off the day with one more down the road, Horses and Heros (GC51HET). It took me a while to zero in on the cache and I even knew what I was looking for. I tried to avoid more owies with the sticker bushes and dry tree limbs.
Four of the seven achievements were now unlocked with most of August to go.
August 12th, I went to my favorite restaurant (Buffalo Wild Wings) for wings and a geocaching event, New Friends Meet & Greet (GC58T50) put on by Dirtyface, a cacher from Waterbury, Connecticut. He was in town for the Block Party/Ape event weekend. Mom and Bev came along with me so I wouldn't have to go by myself. Ben couldn't come with this time because he was on shift. We talked to a bunch of local cachers, ate food and watched some baseball.
I grabbed one at the theater nearby before driving back home. I was now one more away from unlocking my seventh achievement souvenir.
All I needed now was an earthcache or a CITO. I wasn't going to be able to make the local CITO in Tacoma on the Thursday so I was going to have to find an earthcache that didn't require me to drive to Mount Rainier and pay $15.00. Sean (Phatbldguy) mentioned the one up near Seattle at Discovery Park while we were at the Block Party this next weekend. I considered it. It really depended on the time I had.
My boss ended up giving me my weekend off so I could go to the Block Party and the APE event I was both volunteering at as a WSGA member. I needed about 13 more caches for my 10k milestone. I rode my bike around Green Lake for eight of them, went to the World's Collide event at the troll and had some time afterwards to head on out to Discovery park for the earthcache, Green Top Series #5: It's a Cliff (GC2WVHP). I walked down the trail, found the cliff and answered the questions and topped it off with a pic of me at the cliff. I walked to the lighthouse and walked back up grabbing the three more caches to set me up for my 10k milestone for the Block Party the next day.
I got my sixth achievement souvenir and unlocked the special The Achiever souvenir.
I finished the seven souvenirs of August on August 15th and are looking forward to see what's in store for us all next August.
Next Adventure: New Vehicle and My Own Insurance
No comments:
Post a Comment