Archive for the 'Geocaching' Category

There are so many beautiful little squares of awesomeness in this area. I had no idea there were places like this when we decided to move here. We moved here for purely economic reasons. This cache is located in a nature preserve run by the Riparian Institute. There are trails all over the preserve with running water all over. A riparian zone is the interface between land and a flowing surface water body. This area also houses a small observatory and is conveniently located right near a library.

Krissy and I brought lunch and ate it at the gazebo near the cache. While we were eating there were at least two other groups of geocachers that came by looking for the cache. There are a lot of other caches in this preserve, so we will be back here a few times for them, but this is a beautiful spot just to spend the day and enjoy nature.

I’m rockin’ my Windows Vista swag I got from the Microsoft rep at work. I’m so cheap that I’ll promote Microsoft crap if it means I get free clothes.

North of the lake in Freestone park is a skate park that I never knew existed. I bet Christopher would have liked to spend some time there if we had known about it. I had trouble finding this one, but Krissy used her cache-sense and grabbed it with little trouble. This is a pretty big cache which would be great for a travel bug in the future.

While walking around and getting these caches we walked a total of about three miles, which is pretty respectable for a couple hours of geocaching. We left home as the sun was setting and arrived home in the dark.

This cache is located near the banks of the lake at Freestone park. No one was feeding the ducks today, so I couldn’t get pictures of people throwing entire pieces of bead into the water like Frisbees.

When we started getting close to the cache there was a family getting their pictures taken on the side of the nearby hill. Krissy and I sat down near the banks of the lake and enjoyed the breeze, waiting for the family to get dona and leave. After a few minutes they were still there, so I got up, grabbed the cache, and walked back where she was sitting. While we were hanging out, I took a few pictures of the small-gauge train that circles the park.

Krissy and I decided that it had been far too long since we went Geocaching. Today is only the second time we’ve been out since we moved here. Since the weather is so nice right now, it’s the perfect time. There are parks all over the place out where we live, and that where this cache took us. There were tons of muggles out on this beautiful Saturday, but they were not close to this one.

The cache must be getting sprayed by sprinklers or something, because the logbook inside was soaked! Thankfully I had a pen that wrote on the wet paper without smearing and without tearing it.

This one is pretty close to the road if you know where to park. We came here from the Taylor’s Quarry cache and so we just followed the trail all the way out here. It was 0.33 miles according to our GPSr. When we were within about 800 feet of the cache there was another entrance from the road to the trail we were on. Oh well, we needed the exercise anyway.

The cache itself was a lot of fun. We were standing on top of it and I kept looking under the bushes for it. It was hidden under a rock so well that you would never even think of looking under it. The coordinates were dead on, but it still took us a while to investigate that one inconspicuous rock. We walked back to the car on the road and got to see a lot of fun Halloween decorations. What a fun day caching!

Krissy and I found this one without too much trouble, although it has some of the best camouflage I’ve ever seen in Geocaching. There was a Spiderman Travel Bug action figure inside, so I thought this one would come with us to either Las Vegas for Thanksgiving or to Georgia this Christmas.

This is probably the biggest surprise I’ve ever encountered in geocaching. This is a huge ammo box with (at present) tons of travel bugs in it. It’s really unusual to find such large, high-quality caches in the middle of the city. I wanted to come here to get some travel bugs to take with me to Arizona. There were a lot to choose from, but I chose NIKO, a metal dog looking to end up in each state before returning home to Idaho, and Jack the Pumpkin who seems to just want to roam all over the country.

This is in front of a small English pub called Churchill’s. The food smelled really good, although we didn’t go inside. It’s in a really tiny building, but it seems to be rather popular. I would consider going in, but since I don’t drink, I don’t think I’d fit in too well.

This is one I’ve been wanting to get for a while. I thought of trying to get some of the people at the dentist’s office where I go to come outside and get this one. It’s right outside the San Marcos City Hall and the dentist’s office is located in the same building as the city hall. I didn’t have time to do that, thought the last time that I got my teeth cleaned.

When Krissy and I got to the cache we found it right behind a large moving-truck. The truck provided excellent cover from muggles and had the added benefit of shading us from the late afternoon sun.

In the cache was the best thing I’ve found to date: a $2 off gift certificate to Baskin Robbins! We took that and left the Inspector Gadget we got a while ago from another cache.

This was our second atempt for the day in Geocaching. The first one we think we might have found where it was, but it looked like it might be in a hole, and I didn’t want to stick my hand down there in case I was wrong. Krissy found this one. It was right close to the Fry’s Electronics, and that’s where the name of the Geocache comes from! There were some spiders around here, but not too many. There was some fun stuff in this cache. When we opened the top it had a Koosh ball sticking up. Koosh balls were awesome when I was a kid!

This cache is really in the open. So many cars were driving past us and staring at us. The chances that any of them will even care are minimal, but if someone wanted to, they could come and swipe this cache or mess it up for everyone. One guy even winked at Krissy! Why I oughtta!!!

We took a C-3PO ring and left a Chuck E. Cheese’s token that my Grandfather found long ago while metal detecting. These tokens will soon be all over the place! He found so many of them when he thought he was finding quarters. He’d dig ’em up and… a lousy, useless Chuck E. Cheese’s token!

Tommy remarked that driving into the San Elijo Hills town center is like driving into the Truman Show. Everything looks brand new, and it appears out of nowhere. When he said this two years ago this was definitely the case. Out of the chaparral wilderness sprang a spring surrounded by a well-manicured lawn. That same fountain that welcomes the thirsty traveler also calls to the budding geocacher.

This is now the closest geocache to my home. It’s also a great geocache to introduce friends in the area to the sport. This was a quick “cache ‘n dash.” I stood back a bit and let my Spencer and Jamie do most of the hunting. Their reaction to the caching experience: excitement with a desire for more!