Thur. April 30
Today after work Angie and I decided to go for a walk and check out some walking trails. It was just a coincidence that there were suppose to be a few geocaches along those trails. ;) I say suppose to be, because we didn't have much luck. We started out just off of the Kaysville cemetery by Hods Hollow. We had our GPS and were all excited to start walking. That excitement ended fast as we noticed that we had to climb down a really steep hill to get to the trail head. We weren't willing to quit that easy so we started to look for the easiest place to descend the hill. That is how I learned an important lesson that I will share with you. It is not a good idea to let Angie lead in this sort of situation. She convinced me that it would be easier to get down the hill a little farther to the right of the trail head and I followed her. It wasn't too bad to climb down the hill, if you don't mind sliding down the hill on your butt or holding onto branches to keep your balance. (I wish I could have taken a picture of the experience to share with you) We soon found our progress hindered by a chain link fence. We tried to work our way to the trail head but it wasn't easy. We finally made it, but in hindsight it probably would have been easier to just hike up the hill where we went down and start over by the trail head. That would have been too easy for us though. Besides we were on an adventure.
We started down the trail cautiously. The trail was surrounded by thorny bushes and was sort of overgrown in places. The warning on the cache listing about cougar sightings wasn't helping to reassure us either. Again we had issues with noises and movement in the bushes. I did call and made sure that my dad knew where we were going just in case they needed to send out a search party. We kept on going down the trail following our GPS. Unfortunately we didn't get the caches. We were within 200 feet of the first one on the trail when we ran across a problem. To get the cache they expected us to cross the river on 3 small logs that had been placed across the water like a bridge. They were not very sturdy. If you step on them they were very bouncy. After a few short attempts and failures, we walked several feet up and down the river looking for other alternatives. We had no luck, the only way across seemed to be the logs. We looked at the logs a bit more and even wondered if it would be possible to jump the river but eventually we had to give up. We could not figure out how to cross without ending up in the river. With our luck today I have no doubt that we would have ended up in the river. Oh well. I guess we'll have to think about this one and attempt it at another time.
After the Hods Hollow experience we were discouraged but not ready to quit. We next headed to the walking trail along the old Bamberger tracks. We again started out following our GPS. We searched and searched but could not find the cache at the designated coordinates. Desperate we called for reinforcements. We were able to drag Troy away from his computer to come help. While we waited for him we actually got our walk in. It was fairly boring considering the trail was only about 400 feet long. We walked back and forth a few times hoping the neighbors in the area didn't think we were casing the place or something. Eventually Troy came and we went back to the search. We searched and searched but found nothing.
We couldn't stand to find nothing, so we went and looked up a few more to try and find something before it got too late. We ended up finding 3 by the Sportsplex in Kaysville. GC1B1Q1, GC1CGPD & GC1CCY9. Not a really successful night but we still had some fun and got some exercise.
Hopefully we'll do better next time.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Geocaching Trip 2
I really seem to be in a geocaching mood. I made several trips out this week. You would think I would be tired of it by now, but surprisingly I'm not. The challenge still seems to be there for me or maybe it is just the adventure. I've been a little behind updating this blog but will try to get caught up on the geocache adventures to date.
Tues April 28th
After the successful geocaching trip that I had with Angie last week, we decided to try it again. Troy and Melissa decided to join us. For this trip we researched caches in the Kaysville area. We had to wait and go after work, so we weren't going to have too much daylight for caching. We got all of our gear together including the list of caches, flashlight, tweezers, a handful of pens (we seem to have trouble keeping track of them), small trading items, etc. and off we went.
Unfortunately the weather was not cooperating with us. It just had to rain on us. We didn't let the rain stop us though. It just added to the adventure. (at least that is what we kept trying to tell ourselves)
We actually did pretty well all things considered. Went home with 8 finds. I even solved and found my first puzzle cache. GC1BT1J titled Pascal's Triangle. It was kind of fun to work on the puzzle. Ok maybe fun was not quite the right word. It was actually pretty frustrating trying to figure out the triangle without help. I did finally cave in and got a little help from the internet. Oh well, with the puzzle finally solved I went to the geocaching website to check my coordinates. I quickly entered the coordinates that I had obtained from my triangle, held my breath and then clicked on the button. After what seemed like forever, the wonderful word CORRECT! flashed on my screen. What a relief, I don't think I could have stood to look at that stupid triangle another minute.
Finding the cache was an adventure by itself. This was the last cache that we looked for. It was around 9pm and we were still dealing with rain and now darkness. I was so excited to have solved the puzzle that I was determined to at least look for the cache before I went home. Little did I know where the search would lead us. Picture this if you will, the 4 of us wandering around in a dark wooded area following a small muddy trail in the rain. The only light coming from the moon and a small flashlight. It was a little unnerving. I don't think I was the only one that would flinch at the slightest noise or movement from the bushes. On and on we went down the trail in the mud until we came to a small river/stream. I'm sure I would have given up before too long if Troy hadn't been there determined not to give up. He sort of ended up dragging us along. It didn't take too long for us to actually find the cache once we got to this location. We quickly signed the log and started on our way out. All uphill in the mud. It was on the way out that we started to catch the whiff of a skunk in the area. That helped us get up the hill and back to the park a little easier. All in all it was a fun hunting trip and started us planning to geocache on the weekend.
Tues April 28th
After the successful geocaching trip that I had with Angie last week, we decided to try it again. Troy and Melissa decided to join us. For this trip we researched caches in the Kaysville area. We had to wait and go after work, so we weren't going to have too much daylight for caching. We got all of our gear together including the list of caches, flashlight, tweezers, a handful of pens (we seem to have trouble keeping track of them), small trading items, etc. and off we went.
Unfortunately the weather was not cooperating with us. It just had to rain on us. We didn't let the rain stop us though. It just added to the adventure. (at least that is what we kept trying to tell ourselves)
We actually did pretty well all things considered. Went home with 8 finds. I even solved and found my first puzzle cache. GC1BT1J titled Pascal's Triangle. It was kind of fun to work on the puzzle. Ok maybe fun was not quite the right word. It was actually pretty frustrating trying to figure out the triangle without help. I did finally cave in and got a little help from the internet. Oh well, with the puzzle finally solved I went to the geocaching website to check my coordinates. I quickly entered the coordinates that I had obtained from my triangle, held my breath and then clicked on the button. After what seemed like forever, the wonderful word CORRECT! flashed on my screen. What a relief, I don't think I could have stood to look at that stupid triangle another minute.
Finding the cache was an adventure by itself. This was the last cache that we looked for. It was around 9pm and we were still dealing with rain and now darkness. I was so excited to have solved the puzzle that I was determined to at least look for the cache before I went home. Little did I know where the search would lead us. Picture this if you will, the 4 of us wandering around in a dark wooded area following a small muddy trail in the rain. The only light coming from the moon and a small flashlight. It was a little unnerving. I don't think I was the only one that would flinch at the slightest noise or movement from the bushes. On and on we went down the trail in the mud until we came to a small river/stream. I'm sure I would have given up before too long if Troy hadn't been there determined not to give up. He sort of ended up dragging us along. It didn't take too long for us to actually find the cache once we got to this location. We quickly signed the log and started on our way out. All uphill in the mud. It was on the way out that we started to catch the whiff of a skunk in the area. That helped us get up the hill and back to the park a little easier. All in all it was a fun hunting trip and started us planning to geocache on the weekend.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Geocaching
I went on my first Geocaching trip of the year yesterday. I talked Angie into joining me. I think I might have got her hooked on it as well. It was fun and we were pretty sucessful. We managed to find all 7 of the caches we looked for. We also discovered a new walking trail which was pretty nice.
For anyone that is into Geocaching these are the caches we found. I recommend these. They were all in good locations and were not too difficult to find. (unless we were just very lucky)
Simple Simon (BERR - Layton ) GCYN1H
One fence, Two fence GCH9Z8
Here 2 EdUcate U GC10RVJ
Layton Espresso GC1M4FQ
Just Haning Out GC1686E
Gotcha Cornered II GCTF3Y
Red Bowery GC12MKR
For anyone that is into Geocaching these are the caches we found. I recommend these. They were all in good locations and were not too difficult to find. (unless we were just very lucky)
Simple Simon (BERR - Layton ) GCYN1H
One fence, Two fence GCH9Z8
Here 2 EdUcate U GC10RVJ
Layton Espresso GC1M4FQ
Just Haning Out GC1686E
Gotcha Cornered II GCTF3Y
Red Bowery GC12MKR
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Off they go again...
My parents are off again. I dropped them off at the airport today. I'm jealous.
It seems like they are always going somewhere. Disneyworld in Feb, Costa Rica in March, a weekend trip to Idaho and again to Colorado and now they are off to Pensacola Florida.
That's my idea of retirement!
It seems like they are always going somewhere. Disneyworld in Feb, Costa Rica in March, a weekend trip to Idaho and again to Colorado and now they are off to Pensacola Florida.
That's my idea of retirement!
Monday, April 20, 2009
Cruising Europe!
I finally did it! I am actually booked on a European cruise. For those of you that know me this is a big deal considering I'm not a big fan of water. Hopefully it will all go well. I've wanted to do something like this for years but always found some excuse to put it off, but not this time. Now that my mom is retired she is coming with me and we leave Southampton on Sept 5.
14 days in Europe, traveling to 9 different countries. Should be quite the adventure. We will be leaving from London, then the cruise goes to Rotterdam, Brussels, Paris, Cork, Vigo, Lisbon, Gibraltar, Barcelona, Cannes, Florence and ends in Rome.
14 days in Europe, traveling to 9 different countries. Should be quite the adventure. We will be leaving from London, then the cruise goes to Rotterdam, Brussels, Paris, Cork, Vigo, Lisbon, Gibraltar, Barcelona, Cannes, Florence and ends in Rome.
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