Geocaching in Taterland

Well, I should have been out shopping or pulling out the Christmas tree and decorations from the garage, but it was too nice of a day not to take Hope out for a hike out by the river. I also had an ulterior motive, I am approaching my 1,000th cache find and was thinking it would be fun to pick up a few caches I need for the Snookered series (GCYXVV), as maybe I can get the final cache for my milestone. So this morning Hope and I headed out in search of a couple of "D" caches I had the coordinates for, but haven't found yet as they are both located in snake territory. Now that (hopefully!) the snakes are snoozing, it is safe to go out - but I still take my hiking stick to poke around just in case.

This series has been a blast as its taken me to some places I would have never known about. This series requires you to find 44 caches in total to get the coordinates for the final cache. For each number in the GPS coordinates, you have to find an "A", "B", and "C" cache which gives you clues to find the "D" cache, which then gives you one of the numbers for the final coordinates to the final cache.

Today, we found one of the caches at Sailor Bar and I found a couple of new swimming holes for Hope that were nice. Here's a few pictures of her during one of our swimming stops...

Hope says, "Throw the stick, will 'ya?"...

We then headed over to another area called "Taterland" which is saturated with geocaches, but is full of "Folsom Potatoes", huge piles of cobble left over the the dredging for gold that took place in the area during the Gold Rush. Here is what the potatoes look like and what Hope and I climbed through today. I think Hope was pretty tired at this point as we had hikes a few miles at the other location, she swam a bunch, and we had just climbed through some of those rock piles in the background...

This picture made me laugh, its kind of like a "Where's Waldo" picture...."Where's Hope?" and "Where's the Cache"?? :-)

I also found an Earthcache today in Taterland that was near one of the caches I found. I still have to email the cache owner before I can log that cache. Not exactly sure of the answers, so hopefully he'll let me log.

My count is 985 now (986 if I get permission to log the earthcache)....getting to 1,000, slowly but surely!

Hiking and caching with friends

It is now November, and Hope and I finally got some caching in with our geocaching friends, Wetpaws and Waterlassie. We hit the Rattlesnake Bar area in Loomis and found 7 caches, it was the first time I was ever here. Lots of nice trails, so we'll be back. Unfortunately, the dogs (Hope, Kane, and Guinness (who I was puppysitting)) all had ticks on them, so we had to do a thorough tick check when we got back.

The next day, we went hiking with a muggle friend, so we only found one cache after we were done hiking along the river. This is a picture of the four dogs, Hope, Kane, Toddy, and Linar. Toddy is Hope's mom, Linar is Kane's mom, Toddy is Kane's grandma, and Hope is Kane's aunt. Hope is also distantly related to Linar. Guess its a family tree on a tree! :-)

The day after, we went to Cronan Ranch with the dogs and I found 12 caches, it was a beautiful day and another day of walking through stickers. I love Cronan Ranch as the half-way point is the river, so we were able to take a nice break and let the dogs swim.

This is on the way to the river. From left to right: Kane, Hope, and Maggie

Hope poses on a rock down by the river...

We were still rather cautious about reaching into spaces where snakes hang out. Even though the weather is cooler now, it is still wise to be careful just in case. We had a great afternoon, and came home with our socks full of stickers.

Wetpaws hit her 1500th cache, I'm closing in on my 1000th...almost there.