Lots of caches, empty dirt roads, spectacular views, fun friends.
Yep…
North of Ojai – a jeep trail that only permits 10 vehicles per day to drive on it
Ventura Kids, the Devious Max Power, Terra Girl, f0t0m0m, me
95 finds
THIS is geocaching:
That’s pretty much what we “had” to look at all day. Those are the Channel Islands out there:
Most of the caches were really easy to find, even under these potentially daunting circumstances:
The next one is over there somewhere:
We never could figure out what this alien beacon was really for:
It might have something to do with the lovely little pond nearby:
Steve shows us how to really look for caches. He said he could see it from there, down where we were. Hm.
50 years ago (or as the card my sister gave me expressed it “A Long, Long, Long Time Ago”), on August 29, I breathed my first taste of Terran air. What better way to celebrate than with a crazy, exhausting, record-setting day of geocaching??
For those of you who have never attempted real power caching like this and wonder how on earth it can be done, here are the most essential things for achieving light speed:
1) density – there must be a LOT of caches in a concentrated area
2) ease of transition – no traffic lights or muggles, but an open country grid of roads
3) complete pre-planning – all puzzles solves and the entire route is mapped out for maximum efficiency
***I have to give Steve of the Ventura Kids great credit for handling this part!***
4) ease of finding and logging – not too many nanos, no tricky hides, no vegetation hides, no multis
5) high level of maintenance – lots of folks finding them recently, no DNFs in the history
6) excessive good humor – it’s a LONG time to be driving around… if it ain’t going to be fun, don’t bother!
7) tenacity – especially as the sun is going down again and your hourly cache count with it, you need to know you and your team will stick with it to the end
There’s your basic recipe for a wild and woolly ride through a cosmos’ worth of logbooks.
Here’s a peek into how our day went. Well, first of all, I was picked up at the airport the day before:
We found 15 caches that afternoon, then we all ate dinner and rested up for the coming marathon. At 11:15pm, we regrouped in the hotel lobby. Steve fortified himself with coffee:
We loaded up the trunk with food for the day:
and we were off! We did 5 “warmup” caches before midnight, at which time the other three sang “Happy Birthday” to me!
Here’s our first official find of the 24-hour period of August 29: ‘34 Gold Wing
Steve observes the log signing ritual behind me. Why did he park so far from the cache??
(hahaha)
Somewhere along the way, we stopped for gas, and f0t0m0m presented me with cupcakes! They did not light the candles since we were at a gas station – whew!
The sunset looked similar to the sunrise, just in a different part of the big, broad sky:
We were a little worried earlier in the evening that we might not pull this off, but now we knew we were in the clear! We found the record-breaking #407 at 11:30pm and continued to midnight to nab 413! Douglas #12 Hungate
Oh, and here’s a short video that shows you basically what driving up to each and every cache was like:
Here are our per hour stats (listed from the beginning of each hour):
midnight = 15
1 am = 11
2 am = 23
3 am = 20
4 am = 24
5 am = 21
6 am = 19
7 am = 17
8 am = 17
9 am = 15
10 am = 20
11 am = 27
noon = 18
1 pm = 17
2 pm = 13
3 pm = 14
4 pm = 16
5 pm = 20
6 pm = 14
7 pm = 16
8 pm = 12
9 pm = 15
10 pm = 17
11 pm = 11
We also had 24 DNFs!
We don’t know how long we’ll hold this record, but we hope it will stand through the winter. Come the longer days next year, though… who will go for it??
YOU???
P.S. The Daily Reviewer has me on the list of top geocaching blogs! Here’s the *LINK*. I’m honored!
p.p.s. here’s a jpg of our route! (Steve lost his track, darn it…)
According to Clay Jenkinson, we as geocachers are part of what makes humanity strange and fascinating, and are to be admired as such. Check out his recent column in the Bismarck Tribune where I and all of you receive this honorable mention: The Article
We’re right in there with the miracle of heart transplants, great music, and the world’s largest collection of Elvis decanters. LOL. But he’s right: our species really IS remarkable.
Yes, yes, I know I’m #3 and not #2, as he wrote, but someday I probably will be, so it’s close enough. I have a plan for that, you know. I’m going to outlive everyone. Seriously! I have a goal to be a healthy 103. Ha HA! That oughta do it…
Meanwhile, here’s what I’ve been doing just to try to stay ahead of the fast-approaching Team Snook, who have been rising through the stats at break-neck speed.
I grabbed 50 caches with f0t0m0m and Spoondoggie all around the Solvang area amongst the myriad wineries. We drove for miles through the vineyards and agriculture.
The best caches of the day were a nicely crafted fake pine cone, a bolt in a guard rail, a sneaky magnetic in a tree, and one in a part of a guard rail that we had to rotate to access.
The best FIND of the day, though was this guy!
f0t0m0m saw this sign elsewhere, but they needed one here, as I almost drove over the beauty!
I spent the last few days up in the Eastern Sierras, as I had a performance in Bishop with Beethoven’s Wig. I was surprised to find a large group of petroglyphs at this cache:
I spent Labor Day weekend with my sister and her family in Madera, near Fresno, and did two days of caching around the latter with her, f0t0m0m, and various local cachers.
I got off the 99 and took more of a back road up through Corcoran, “the farming capital of California”:
… and through Hanford, where one of the area’s more inventive cachers, redwoodcanoe, is based. I only had time for a couple of his hides, but one certainly did not disappoint:
The container was not just creative, it was hilarious: a can of muggle spray with some wild directions on how to use it!
At a nearby pioneer cemetery, I was struck by one headstone in particular. It gave the age of the person beneath as 12 hours. Wow. We are so blessed now to live with all of the medical breakthroughs we have.
I found 104 over the next two days with A) f0t0m0m/Angelbaby7/Jake4729 and B) f0t0m0m/Twins R Us/Trekky. Pretty much all of the outstanding caches were by Team Forward Motion, and outstanding is even an understatement when it comes to their hides. Their efforts have revitalized the whole Dry Creek Cachers community!
I’ll give the hides, but not the titles, as not to spoil the fun for future finders. We found:
– a magnetic in a palm tree – ha!
– a lovely fake snail on a brick wall
– a fake “employees only” sign on a back door at a mall
– a tupperware under a large red pole cover
– a micro cleverly concealed behind a faded no trespassing sign posted on an old fence
– a nano in a small hole under a washer
– a spiffy version of the reflector hide
– a fake stump of a branch of a trimmed-off oleander
This last one was hands down the best of the trip!
I got some photos/videos of scenic Fresno. Scenic Fresno? Why, yes, there is a park with one of my favorite views:
I have the pleasure of caching with a number of different locals who enjoy the sport/hobby/obsession as much or… dare I say… even MORE than I do!
f0t0m0m is one such person, and our mutually flexible schedules allow us to sojourn out every week at least. We recently headed out to Palm Springs for an event, and found about 50 caches that day. This day turned out to be not so much about the hides as about finding a bunch in a series that was entertaining:
We even got the FTF on their new cache in the parking lot! Geo Gas Cache
A couple of days later, we headed back out easterly to Lake Elsinore to complete the 58 California Counties Challenge cache! We had each visited all the counties on various and separate excursions, and were eager to log the final cache.
As it turned out, the effort to get to this one left us with only enough time for a handful more in the area, but here are some photos from our successful find!
f0t0m0m approached the cache through the dry creek bed:
Not really a spoiler:
Here I am near GZ, celebrating our mutual victory:
Many thanks to Team GeoRangers for inspiring me to visit ALL of the counties in this incredibly diverse and scenic state!
