MA & PA Full-time Obsessed Geocachers
We didn’t send any greetings newsletters out this year but if we did, you know that it would involve geocaching since we are obsessed full time cachers.
Here is a summary of our year
Each year we try and find more caches than the previous year. In September we were 500 behind last year, but by early November we had 500 more than last year. The obsession has us at nearly 3400 finds for this year and over 80 hides. On January 7 we will have a streak of 366 consecutive days of geocaching. Like many cachers, we completed our calendar on February 29. In August MA decided that she would like to have at least 5 caches on each day of the calendar, so we often have to find more than 1 cache during our streak.
Some of the details
New Years we went on a Cruise with our daughter Natasha and her family. We cached a few days in Florida before the cruise, and picked up a few caches on some Carribean islands
In February we had over 100 geocachers at our house for the Ice Walk event and to walk across the ice to Shediac Island and/or Cocagne Island to get some geocaches.
April we were in California to visit our son Justin (or so we told him). We did lots of hiking and caching in the hills and in the Bay area.
In June we hiked for over a week on the Appalachian trail in VA with friends. It took nearly two weeks to get there with the geocaching and a short stop at Natasha’s place in Gatineau. As usual the caching going through Quebec was great with some biking on the trails along the Saint Lawrence and some wonderul hiking. We also did some number caching driving along highway 132 (raather than autoroute 20) picking up some of the many many caches of the Nano de la 132 series. On our way back home we stopped in Ottawa and picked up the grandsons who spent 5 weeks with us.
We have been caching a lot since the boys left here in August. We watch the weather and take short caching vacations of a few days to nearby areas PEI, Saint John, Federicton, etc.. Globuf came to PEI with us this fall for some bike caching. We got over 300 caches in 3 dayson the CT. We had introduced globuf to caching in September 2011 during our hiking trip to the UK. She now has nearly 2500 cache finds.
Once a week or so, our buddy Belladan plans a caching day out of town where we usually travel dirt roads picking up series.
MA left me in the fall for 3 weeks to go on a trip with her sister and our daughter. It meant I was caching alone which was a little strange.
November we drove to Ottawa to pick up our bikes that we had left there in June. Trip involved nearly 2 weeks of caching, some in NB, but mostly in Quebec again. In ottawa we did s bit of maintenance on our caches there and hid another 6 Micro Logic caches on a trail. The response from the cachers there has been gratifying
Plans for 2013
Our son Justin is getting married this year. We will be going to California in February for the civil ceremony and we will be going to the wedding in May which will be in Bali. Of course we plan on doing a little caching on these trips, including a drive to Seattle to find the first geocache and visit the geocaching HQ
In March we are again hosting the Ice Walk geocaching event but this time we have rented a hall. We are hoping to go to the NB and QC geocaching MEGA events being held this year.
Our plan for next year is to get 3650 caches for an average of 10 per day.
I forgot what actually prompted me to write the long story above.
We got an email from a group of hiking friends who have a couple of trips a year to the appalachian trail. In May they have a week in PA and in September they have a week in GA. We were hoping to join them for a week in September since they will be hiking near the beginning of dthe trail.
However, we also got an email from another hiking friend from a group that we hike with in the UK every 2 years. In September they are planning a 3 week trip to UK or Scotland. There is nothing better than combining hiking, pubs and geocaching.
I’m envious…
enjoyed your write up…. congrats on great numbers and consistency and determination. your an inspiration to my caching adventures..
The last week has shown us to be truly obsessed. We are on a streak so we need a cache a day which is very tough with the weather we have been having.
Here are a few of our logs for the last week.
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We have been waiting a long time for the kind of day to to the two caches here. Maybe we should have waited longer
We went with globuf to find these two. Globuf found a good spot to cross to the island but PA was afraid the ice would not hold so he found a better place, or so he thought. A very narrow patch of ice which held him and then he proceeded to the long grass which gave way beneath him and he ended up with water in his boot. But that didnt stop him.
Onwards to the caches. Quite a bushwack to the second cache, which would not be necessary if we had waited for even colder weather. We finally got both caches and PA decided this time to cross where globuf had crossed. Big mistake. Knee deep water entered his boots. He did not stop, and headed right to the car where he emptied the boots, and put on dry socks and boots.
Caching is always an adventure. Not sure what went thourgh the mind of the bundled up muggle who walked by the car when PA was sittin with his bare wet feet out of the car, wringing out the lining of his boots
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Today would be day 358 of our streak but a storm is on the way. The Weather network said the storm would not start until at least 1:00 am and will bring about a foot of snow, so we decided to go for this one just after midnight. However PA decided that we could kill time at the casino until midnight. So we got to the casino at 11pm and PA went to his favorite machine. Luck was on his side and the machine slowly but surely started to increase PA’s investment. By 12:30 he was ahead $55 and was very reluctant to leave. But there was a cache waiting and a storm on the way.
We got this cache at 12:50 and were very pleased to do so because otherwise we would have had to go walking in Mapleton Park in the dark with a big flashlight.
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This was our cache of the day. The cache is certainly winter friendly but it is certainly tough to get to the tree after a storm. A 300 meter walk through an open field with the cold wind howling around us, and deep snow. PA volunteered to climb which wasnt too bad even with the high winter boots.
When the cache was reached, PA dropped a mitt. brrr. Then when he finished signing he dropped the lid to the cache. He had to descend partway down the tree to get the lid from MA, and then had to climb back up to the cache.
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Here is PA in the tree
http://img.geocaching.com/cache/log/a641ebe5-6cea-4d32-b58c-f71b6aa768f1.jpg
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Temperature minus 15, windchill minus 30. PA has the flu. But we are on a streak (day 361) and we have to get a cache. It was a brisk day for a walk in the park but we had to do it. Then we had to go off trail with snow over our boots. Now where is that micro cache? Took a bit of looking and a bit of thinking and a bit of snow removal but we finally got it.