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... in the middle of a nearly desolate industrial area, standing on an overpass where pedestrians never walk and definitely do not loiter. The bay wind is chilling my bones, the sun is in my eyes, and the only traffic is a steady stream of trucks rushing to and from the nearby port. I'm alternating between staring at my GPSr yet again to be sure I'm in the right place, investigating every crack and crevice I can find, staring around at the landscape hunting for clues, and wondering what bit of insanity is making me doing this. I've questioned the marital status of the cache creator's parents more than once, and now I've resorted to picking up road detritus looking to see if one of the bolts on the ground has a number engraved on the head.
It's very difficult to look inconspicuous when you're standing somewhere that there is absolutely no reason for anyone to ever stand, and doubly so when you have flaming fuchsia hair. (Note to self: next time, wear a hat.) I'm hyper-conscious of the fact that both the railroad tracks below me and the nearby port are potential terrorist targets, and a part of my brain is busy figuring out exactly what I'm going to tell the nice law enforcement officer that is bound to show up any moment now.
Just as I'm about to bag the whole thing and find the nearest cup of hot chocolate, I notice a word spraypainted on the ground near the railroad spur in front of the steelyard. Aha! But how to get there? There's clearly a road, but I can't see where it connects to anything.
I stride purposefully back to my car, pull out the laptop, and check my mapping software. Nothing. MapSource doesn't know nothin' 'bout no roads in front of no steelyards. I start driving, and eventually wind up on the road that goes where I need to go. After wandering around for a couple of minutes at my destintion I find the word painted on the ground, and in the middle of it is a metal surveyors disk with coordinates for the next stage. Success!
Do you ever have trouble explaining to your friends why you think geocaching is fun?
It's very difficult to look inconspicuous when you're standing somewhere that there is absolutely no reason for anyone to ever stand, and doubly so when you have flaming fuchsia hair. (Note to self: next time, wear a hat.) I'm hyper-conscious of the fact that both the railroad tracks below me and the nearby port are potential terrorist targets, and a part of my brain is busy figuring out exactly what I'm going to tell the nice law enforcement officer that is bound to show up any moment now.
Just as I'm about to bag the whole thing and find the nearest cup of hot chocolate, I notice a word spraypainted on the ground near the railroad spur in front of the steelyard. Aha! But how to get there? There's clearly a road, but I can't see where it connects to anything.
I stride purposefully back to my car, pull out the laptop, and check my mapping software. Nothing. MapSource doesn't know nothin' 'bout no roads in front of no steelyards. I start driving, and eventually wind up on the road that goes where I need to go. After wandering around for a couple of minutes at my destintion I find the word painted on the ground, and in the middle of it is a metal surveyors disk with coordinates for the next stage. Success!
Do you ever have trouble explaining to your friends why you think geocaching is fun?
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SF Bay Area
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Re: No $#!+, there I was...
Wed, April 28, 2004 - 5:46 PMMost of my friends don't get it...I guess they are not looking for adventure in their lives, or they are finding it via different avenues...I love geocaching...that cache sounds right up my alley...my krew of geocaching friends..."Project U.C.K." are putting out an array of highly difficult caches this summer in the Rogue Valley, southern Oregon, all of which we are trying to get the 5 star-5 star ratings on...if you are in the area and up for the challenege look us up!
Counsoul of project uck... out- -
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Re: No $#!+, there I was...
Wed, April 28, 2004 - 6:44 PMNot this kid... I'm waaaayyy too out of shape to go after terrain 4-5 caches. I love puzzles, though, and the other night I solved "Acrosticache #1" just because somebody made a joking comment on geochat that I should figure it out and give him the answer.
Clever urbans are my thing... caches that you can stare at for 15 minutes and not realize that you're looking right at it. -
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Re: No $#!+, there I was...
Sun, May 2, 2004 - 7:22 AMShape...did I say I was in good shape...LOL...not entirely but working on it... in reference to your comment on looking at cahes for 15 minutes and not even seeing them...I made this difficult hike on Wednesday only to stand on top of the cache and still not find it...Ithink a lot of people in my area don't check on their caches regular basis...I swear this one isn't there...! -
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Re: No $#!+, there I was...
Mon, May 3, 2004 - 12:57 AMToday I stopped at a few caches on my way home from Reno.
I stared at the area where One Hour Parking was in plain sight for... oh, about an hour. I almost gave up, but then my stuhbborn streak kicked in, and I decided I wasn't going anywhere until I found that cache. I finally did! It's a terribly clever hide.
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Re: No $#!+, there I was...
Wed, June 30, 2004 - 7:48 PMHey, I'm in shape. Well, at least if you consider "round" a shape...
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? re: clever 'urbans'
Tue, May 24, 2005 - 4:52 AMPatti... being new to geo, i thought it was pretty straight forward, but your post sounds like some caches are a bit more involved, ie find the first location only to find a clue to work out to navigate to the next ..etc. are these common? are there many variations on this? and/or, suggestions on places to read up on this rather than you typing a long answer? -
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Re: ? re: clever 'urbans'
Tue, May 24, 2005 - 10:27 AMSome caches are straightforward. Many are.
Over time, though, people have started creating variations on the theme. Multi-caches, where one step contains the location of the next, puzzle caches, etc.
The best thing to do is to wander the geocaching.com website and discussion boards. -
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Re: ? re: clever 'urbans'
Wed, May 25, 2005 - 1:32 AMPatti, thx and i'll take a look. Going to set aside a weekend day soon a go try to find my first.
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Re: ? re: clever 'urbans'
Wed, May 25, 2005 - 6:35 AMThere are some that can get quite tricky; sometimes based on the puzzles that you need to solve to get from one cache to the next in a multi-cache hunt, sometimes based on the size/location of the cache.
Cinci has a series of micros all based around public fountains. I've yet to find a single one because it's tough to look inconspicuous while peering about the nooks of a fountain and its surrounding park area while it's full of kids and business people on lunch and squatters etc... -
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Re: ? re: clever 'urbans'
Wed, May 25, 2005 - 7:02 AMThe University of California, Davis had a cache in a fountain. It was waterproof and hidden under some rocks underwater. The water was COLD at 06:00 just before sunrise. Unfortunately it’s now gone.
We also had a multi in San Mateo, CA that was underwater at high tide. It’s also gone.
normanb -
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Re: ? re: clever 'urbans'
Wed, May 25, 2005 - 7:16 AMThere's one in Cinci that I don't know how they got it there, or why they decided on this location, but it's in the middle of Burnett Lake. From the description, it's a waterproof lockbox tied to a light anchor so that the box floats about 2 feet below the surface of the slightly murky water. Considering you're not allowed to swim or boat in Burnett Lake, I'm wondering if the installation of this was via a nighttime run with an inflatable boat; totally geocache commando stylie.
There's two others in Burnett Park that are quick but sometimes tough grabs because one is in a spinney of trees on the frisbee golf course and the other is just off a highly trafficked staircase leading down to the lake.
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