Around the World with 1,532,000 active Geocaches

     I really enjoy traveling, mostly with family members.  Geocaching and trading swag has added still another reason to make stops along the way.  We stop to take pictures, take that quick pee while getting gas and now to Geocache.  I have been real lucky to have had to opportunity to make a few trip in the past year that ended up caching trips; and I will start sharing those trips in the new post.  Every trip has post worthy info to share.

     I am hoping to venture out a little further and turn into an international cacher in the near future.   Granted - it may only be into Mexico but that is a start.  The travel into the first cache across the Mexico border is less than a 30 minute drive from the Yuma Event #9 in February 2012.  I am so there!  And I am a day dreamer so my mind goes to other countries also.

     To keep things realistic I decided to check out the facts that go along with World caching.  I am amazed and excited with some of what I found.  I'll share a bit and also supply you with the links to some great sites.
     Did you know -

Geocaches are currently placed in over 100 countries around the world and on all seven continents, including Antarctica. After 10 years of activity there are over 1,532,000 active geocaches published on various websites. There are over 5 million geocachers worldwide.

This proves that there is more to this Geocaching thing than a few bored people hiding containers with toys.

    I found this great link for Europe connections that even shows a map.  AND - you can continue to link to all these countries also:

Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Africa, the Near and Middle East, and Russia.

     Crazy ! Right ?  so if you are one of those lucky people who bounce all over the our Mother Earth, then here is a site for you.  Or if you are one of those day dreamers like myself, it is fun to visit the sites and live vicariously thru others who have been there.

     WARNING !  I found a link that could very well induce insomnia to those who generally have good sleep habits.  I  got on this site, Cacheopedia, and before I knew it the sun was coming up.   
I bounced around some much that I found myself having to go back to the very beginning, over and over again, just to get myself back to the subject I was wanted to read more of.  Crazy stuff.  Fun stuff. Be prepared.   ( and if you don't find this site entertaining, please let me know so I can consider the fact that I may be loosing my mind )

     I hope you find yourself enjoying these sites.  There is way too much to include the info in the body of this post.  All links are easy to follow, but I really am not worried about that since we are Geocachers, seekers of hidden objects.
    

     Coming soon - Geocaching from Iowa to Arizona.

The man behind the Metal of Honor series

     Docgeo is the man who set up and maintains the Metal of Honor series, just out of Las Cruces, New Mexico.  He is a Vietnam Vet and did a great tribute to those Metal of Honor soldiers.

     Check out Docgeo, say hello and thanks for helping us all remember an important part of the past.
 

MOH adventure - part 2

     This series deserves more than just one post and also more than just a post by me.  I am certain that you will hear, through SwagHunter blog, from others involved in this series.  My new friend, the not so friendly cow, Mr. Cache Cow, also deserves more mentions and one more photo drop in.  This is him to the right, for those of you who have spent way too much time on desert roads, caching and sucking dirt and dust into your brain to recognize him from the previous post.

     There are things about our trip that I want to make mention of that may be of some help to anyone  considering this adventure.  First, it is an adventure.  I think that anytime you take on a series of 100 caches, in one day, you must consider it an adventure.  Ya just don't know what you will find out in the middle of nowhere.  We experienced cows, mud, dusty air and the fore mentioned Mr. Cache Cow.  All of these things will change depending on the day.  Some things won't.  Because of the time of the year and weather conditions, we didn't encounter snakes, scorpions and other assorted creatures but I am sure were sleeping close by just waiting for the spring time cachers.

     The trail starts just off the freeway so there is easy access.  If you start to the West end as we did, you will be less than 20 miles from Las Cruces, New Mexico.  The East end is less than 10 miles from the outskirts of Las Cruces..  Obviously there are no gas stations on this route so you best be filled up and have plenty of water.  We had good cell service most of the way; the worst being just toward the end; the last few miles.   Know your way out before you head in.  Our GPS wanted to take us the wrong direction.  Nice that it was just getting dark and we could still see our way out.

     If you are staying the night in Las Cruces I would highly recommend the Motel 6 Las Cruces Telshor, on Summit Court.  I had not stayed in a Motel 6 in over 20 years and some extenuating circumstances brought us to this one.  Yes - it is simple and lacks the frills but it has an indoor pool and spa.  It was exceptionally clean and had great water pressure, to wash off the day's grit.  And I can't say enough about the staff.  On front desk person was remarkable.  She helped us out, with a smile on her face, more readily than any other staffer had in past hotels that would boast to be 'high end or elite'.  Her name is Rebecca and if you are ever in the area you should go by and say hello and ask her how the caching is going for her. 

     Rebecca had never hear of geocaching until we arrived at the front desk.  She had only listened to a little about what we had done that day  when she came to the conclusion that this would be the perfect thing to share with her sons.  She is a single mother and like many of us, has to find a way to stretch our time and funds to accommodate the needs of our kids.  One of the biggest needs being recreational activities and Geocaching qualifies as that. Rebecca told us that she would be off work at a little after 11 that night and would love to go on a night cache.  It's New Year's Eve and what would be a better way to kick off the new year !

     SchnauzerQueen and I grabbed a bite to eat and took off for the Texas border that is only about15 minutes from the hotel to get our first Texas caches.  It was dark and cold but so worth it.  In less than 45 minutes we found a TB hotel and a micro, just across the border.  Quick and sweet.  Texas is now on our list of states covered and we are on our way back to a much needed hot shower. 

     At about 11:30 we got the knock on the door to find Rebecca ready to rock and roll, with one little compromise.  She wanted to bring in the new year with her co-worker who had taken her place at the front desk.  SchnauzerQueen had to drag herself out of the warm, cozy covers and shake off the aching muscles to start all over again.  Who would have thought that after a nice warm shower she would be out and searching again?  Not the SQueen.

     We had a pleasant surprise waiting for us at the front desk - Rebecca had prepared each of us a little handful of grapes. 12 to be exact.  She wanted us all to share her family tradition of  counting down the last 12 minutes of the year with a wish and a grape, for each of the up coming 12 months.  Well, the grapes were gone, the countdown was done, the toast to new friends was complete and we were out the door, in search of our first cache of the 2012.

      The 3 of us climbed walls, stumbled in rocks and stuck our fingers in many small areas that they didn't belong for well over 30 minutes before abandoning the effort.  It's tough to concede to a loss on the first of the year.   Off we went to the next attempt, not much of a drive away.   This one was in a some what high traffic area so there was a bit of a challenge to look inconspicuous, especially with Rebecca giggling and bouncing around with excitement the entire time.  She reassured us that she knows many of the police officers in the area, because she had lived in  the are for a long time and not for some dark past, so even if we had the cops called on us we would have a 'get out of jail free' card.  Always a good thing to know the law.  After about 20 minutes this neat little TB hotel was found, and by Rebecca !   It was perfect !

     That was  the end of the night, the beginning of a new year and also the beginning of a neat  friendship.  I am sure that we will compare caching notes with each other in the future.  And REALLY!  if you are ever in the area you should stop by and say Hi to Rebecca.

ONE MORE THING - I have to mention that there is a Ruby Tuesdays close by that actually delivers to that hotel.  Great menu with a huge variety of affordable food. What more can you ask for?

the METAL OF HONOR series

       When I realized how much fun this Geocaching thing could be I wanted to share some of my experiences with others - just for fun and also to pass on little helpful hints that I have been learning, it seems reasonable, to me, to start at the beginning and write about events in order as they happened. But I am seldom reasonable and this past weekend just reaffirms that fact that this blog is not going to be in any sort of order.  I will be bouncing all over the place and that really works out just fine.

     This series of caches caught my eye when I was browsing the geo-map of New Mexico and instantly knew it was on my 'must do' list.  SchnauzerQueen and I started planning the trip for New Years Eve and off we went.   From start to finish, these 100 caches cover about 14 miles from first cache to last, plus the mileage to get back to the freeway, and took about 7 hours for us to complete.  That is about double the record time but we did take our time and enjoyed to day and the sites.

     We have many fantastic memories from the day but none compare to our encounter with the cows.  One cow in particular.   I have given him the name "Cache Cow" for obvious reasons and he will forever have a spot in my heart and on my blogs.  At the third cache find we noticed a little group of cows coming our way.  That's cool ! Right?  We have a little company and we know that the cows must be a bit lonely out here in the middle of the desert.  Right?  They were just getting close when one kind of smaller cow separated from the group and moved our way.  It was almost like he was putting himself between the other cows and us.  Funny. Right?  We got in our car and crept down the road toward the next cache, about 1/3 mile away.

     We had walked about 100 feet from the car when we noticed that the Cache Cow had moved to just behind the car and was making sounds that I have never heard from a friendly cow.  He may be a small cow but he didn't look helpless or weak in any way.   Cache Cow allowed us back to the car but did move to take a look in SchnauzerQueen's window; a close look.  Yep - she wasn't afraid but smart when she put her window up.  Cache followed us to the next stop and sure enough managed to catch up long before we were done.  A plan had to be made to pull these off.  I drove, SchnauzerQueen would hop out find the goods and I would try to distract the cows and keep Cache Cow back to a safe distance.

     This is the routine we followed as we proceeded down the road to stop 15 where we came to a cattle guard.  We never got the names of any of the other cows nor did we name them ourselves.  What I did discover is that cows like homemade oatmeal cookies and they will stop to search for them even if there is only a small portion to share.

Take your camera – there is more in this area than caches.  We saw many types of vegetation, interesting rock formations, the ‘cow family’ and scattering of other cow families that we all friendly, signs of the American ranchers (a beautiful coral) and a great sunset. Even without the searching for caches it would be a great day trip. But the feeling of hitting that number 100 was quite fulfilling. 

 

     It is important, to me, to share a warning about the road conditions.  The weather had been nice and dry for many days but there were still little patches of snow in areas and some very muddy spots.  Even some of the parts that appeared to be mostly dry proved to be extremely slippery and there is no doubt in my mind that if we had come to a stop, we would have set up temporary permanent residents with the cows.  So beware of the mighty mud.   I have to give a lot of credit to the little vehicle that we drove.  SchnauzerQueen recently got this 2011 Kia Sportage and it really did the job.  The fact that it has a little higher clearance helped us with some spots.  But I still wouldn’t recommend a vehicle without 4 wheel drive most of the year.  

  There is a lot of history connected to these caches.  If you can take the time to read the info on Geocaching.com about each of the heroes, you will understand how much feeling Docgeo put into this project.  He also put in a lot of time and effort.  The caches are well placed with a great variety of hiding places which couldn’t be easy in this area.  Docgeo kept all caches within a reasonable range so that it is possible to complete the series in one day.  I am hoping to get Docgeo to write us a little article about this project; it’d be great to hear from him first hand.

     Watch for more on this trip later in the week.