Geocaching

Official Geocache Page

This is a very bold urban hide. When I pulled up to the general area I quickly located where I figured the cache was hidden. There was a problem though, the cache was hidden in someones front yard and the owners of the house happened to be in their front yard. I decided to wait it out because it appeared as if they were going to be leaving. I pulled out my Treo and started reading cache descriptions for caches I knew I would be visiting shortly, I pretended to make a few text messages after that yet the man who lived in the house was still there.

It was actually kind of funny, he had to move cars to get the car he wanted to drive out of the way or something like that. He kept on swearing to himself, he would close the door to the car and I’d hear him mumble shit under his breath and then go back into the car to get whatever it was that he needed. This went on for awhile, I must have waited in my car for a good 10 minutes before the coast was finally clear.

Once they had left I walked up to where I figured the cache was hidden and I was right. I quickly extracted the cache and signed the log book. I felt very exposed getting this cache as it’s right in the middle of a urban neighborhood. I did get the log signed and the cache securely hidden again without anyone noticing though (at least I think I did).

Official Geocache Page

I was sitting at home working and I just wasn’t at all inspired. I just knew I wasn’t going to be very productive so I decided if I wasn’t going to get any work done I wasn’t going to sit on my butt all day in front of the computer, I was going to go out and do some caching and get myself some exercise.

I was also craving Taco Bell so that determined my initial direction

After getting myself some yummy taco bell (two soft tacos and a chicken quesadilla if you want to know) I headed off to the next closest cache which was on of the Bart ones. Someone has gone out and in to honor the Bart system hidden a cache near all of the stations. I am not sure how this one is near a station, granted I didn’t look that hard but I sure didn’t see it and the cache is in the middle of a strip mall parking lot.

Anyway, I got lucky and I was able to park right next to the cache. There was a security guard strolling around so I had to play it a bit stealthy but once his back was to me I made a quick grab. The day was off to a good start, always nice to find the first one.

Official Geocache Page

I decided to go on a bit of a drive after finding Digits of Pi it was a beautiful night and I always like going up into the Berkeley hills and enjoying the view. I drove myself up to the Lawrence Hall of Science and sat and looked out of the city for awhile and then noticed that there was a cache just a few hundred feet away.

I decided to go for it, it was a Virtual cache so it shouldn’t be too hard. I drove the short distance over to the where I needed to go. This Geocache requires you to read a plaque and get some information off of it and then go over to the object that the plaque is talking about and get some information off the object itself.

Now, I had driven by this object literally thousands of times and while I had seen it sitting there (it’s hard to miss) I really had no idea what the heck it was. Because of this cache I now know what it is, it’s things like that which really make me love this sport. It gets me out and about, I get to see lots of cool new things and I also get to learn about things that I used to just dismiss completely. The exercise doesn’t hurt either!

Official Geocache Page

This was one of the funnest caches we did of the day. This is another candcfamily who have proven themselves to be some of the most creative geocache hiders in our area. FTF, for you people out there wondering, mean First To Find. Lots of people like to be the first person to find a cache and if you look at the cache page it looks like no one has found the cache.

We made out way over to the cache location and this was actually a pretty easy one. My GPSr pointed me to just the right spot and I was able to make the grab in no time. In keeping with the theme this cache has a very unique log book and I was able to make it so that we were the first people to sign it!

Spoiler/Hint ▼

Official Geocache Page

This wasn’t one that we were going to go after but we noticed that it was just down the street from the one that we were headed to and we couldn’t resist. Charley had already found this one so he stayed in the car and my brother and I headed out. As we followed our GPS it quickly became apparent to us approximately where it was going to be hidden and when we got to the final coords it didn’t take long for us to find it. Clever container, not one that I had seen used before.

My brother and I signed the log and then quickly headed back to the car for some more.

Official Geocache Page

Out of all the caches we found today this one probably had the best coordinates posted. Following my GPSr literally brought me to within inches of the cache. Of course, my brother still managed to find this one before me.

This cache was located in a rather nice quite big park but it had one serious drawback, it smelled like rotten eggs. I don’t know if there was a sulfur pit nearby or what but man did it reek. Charley had found this one in the past so he had headed off to the next cache when we arrived at the park. After signing the log my brother and I headed over to meet him.

Official Geocache Page

This was probably my least favorite cache of the day. There was nothing really worth seeing in the area. Before we even stopped the car we figured where it would be hidden and we were right. The parking lot was full and I was driving so I didn’t even bother getting out of the car for this one.

I like when people show a bit more creativity with their caches than this one displayed. I have a feeling that the hider probably works in the strip mall or makes visits often so it’s easy for him to check in on it.

Official Geocache Page

We continued our hunt around the military base and went for this one named “Under New Management”. After coming from See Planes in Alameda this one was a bit easy (they use the same style hide). Even though the two are similar they are still very clever hides and I am a bit more surprised that I haven’t seen more of them.

One really nice thing about this cache is that parking sure is easy! The cache is located in a good sized lot and there wasn’t another car even in sight while we were there.

Official Geocache Page

After Bunny Town and still following the trail for In The Line Of Duty we further explored the military base and ran across this cache. This ended up being one of my favorite caches of the day.

Charley had already found this one so it was up to my brother and I to find it. Neither my brother or I had read the cache description so we didn’t know what we were looking for. If we had, finding this one would have been a lot easier but not as much fun. We spent quite a bit of time looking for this one but then we finally located something that we thought may be correct. But, what’s this? It’s locked. Charley was just smiling at us so it was then that we decided to read the cache description. Very clever and my brother and I really enjoyed it.

We signed the log and moved on.

Official Geocache Page

We finally made it over to Alameda, surprisingly, I have spent little to no time in this part of the bay area. In Alameda is a large defunct military base and there are quite a few caches hidden on it. Our first stop was actually for the Geocache “In The Line of Duty” but it is a multistage cache and we didn’t get to the final stage till much later in the day.

We followed the GPS to the coords for bunny town and found that it is an aptly named place. While we only saw one bunny we saw evidence of many many more in the form of bunny poop. I was checking out the bunny when either my brother or Charley came up with the cache.

It was a neat little area and people with kids would love it because of all the bunnies.

We were coming back from Trivial Math and headed over to Alameda and I noticed on my GPS that we were driving right past this one. Charley had already done it but he told us to go for it. We couldn’t find legal parking again but Charley said he would stay with car while we went and did this multi-stage virtual cache. This was to be my very first virtual cache, in a virtual you don’t actually have to find a log book or sign anything, it’s usually just seeing something neat or interesting. To verify that you actually saw the owners of the cache usually ask you to email them some information from the area to prove that you saw it.

The first stage of this brought you to “the house that Jack built” Jack being, Jack London who is quite important to Oakland’s history. I had actually never been over to this area of Oakland (I am learning that I haven’t seen a lot of the area that I live in), there was a nice farmers market going on as well. We didn’t really have too much time to stop and smell the roses as Charley was waiting for us though. So my brother and I quickly got the needed information from the first stage and then headed over to stage two. Stage to brings you to a statue of Jack himself, from there we grabbed the info we needed off the plaque at his feet and then headed off to Alameda.

When we got home I emailed the owner of the cache and he verified my info. Virtual caches are a bit odd and I miss not having the hunt of looking for the actual caches. Virtual caches are no longer allowed to be made but the old ones are still available to you on Geocaching.com

Official Geocache Page

This cache was reactivated just the night before, my brother nor I were even aware that it existed but Charley did. We headed on over, there was very little parking so we parked the car in a manner that may not have been completely legal but we were in visual contact with it the whole time. We followed our GPS’s to the coordinates and before I really even had a chance to start looking for it my brother had it in hand.

There is one funny thing about that sort of relates to this cache. One of the people who logged their find on Geocaching.com a few days before we found it is a caching maniac. This gentleman has over 20,000 finds. Anyway, he picked up this cache on the way to dropping off a rental car. This was the rental car that he and some of cacher friends rented to go on a caching marathon. When he got the rental car it only had 200 miles on it, when he returned it about a week later, it had over 10,000 miles

Official Geocache Page

This was by far the easiest cache I found of the day. I was driving along, noticed that there was one coming up and by looking at the GPS it appeared that it was just off the side of the road. I pulled up to the spot, just parking off the road a bit as there was no traffic, and hopped out. My GPS led me to the spot and the second place I looked there was the cache. I of course had left my pen in the car so I made a quick run back to the car, signed the log, rehid the cache and was on my way.

Official Geocache Page

After the cool view from the last cache site we headed up to this one. I had seen this object on campus before, it’s a clock on a hillside where the numbers and stuff are made from plants. I had never known there was a cache hidden around it though. I still didn’t have my own GPS yet so I was following my brother and as soon as we saw the clock we knew we were in the right place.

This one is ranked as on a one star difficulty. In my book it was a bit harder than that. It took us awhile to find it and then it took us awhile to wait for the muggles (non cachers) to go away so we’d have an opportunity to grab the cache and sign it. I did eventually locate the cache though and we all signed the log.

Official Geocache Page

This was the first find on a day that we found quite a few. My dad was still here and he was having a good time caching with us so we decided to make a day out of it. We invited my brothers father in-law (who is really into Geocaching) along with us as well and all met at my house in the morning.

Blue Bottles is only a few blocks away from my house so we headed over their first. Caches like this are one of the reasons I really like Geocaching, you get to see some really cool stuff that you didn’t even know was there. I have driven by this cache hundreds of times but never noticed anything special. This cache is located in front of blue house which has hundreds of blue bottles in the windows. According to the cache page her collection of bottles started modestly enough, but then people started buying them for her. Then strangers were leaving cobalt blue bottles for her on her door step.

The cache itself was fairly easy to find, my brother is the one who made the actual find. It was a nice start to the day.

Official Geocache Page

After picking up Kyle’s Cache we continued down the trail to this cache. The trail is nice, quite wide, paved, no cars to worry about so it makes for a pleasant walk. I had the GPS so I was leading the way. The GPS brought me right to the right spot and without reading any hints or anything I quickly had the film canister cache in hand. I signed the log and then we headed back to the house, done caching for the night… or so we thought