Geocaching

Official Geocache Page

This is a bit of a strange cache. It is listed as a traditional cache but the cache isn’t located at the listed coordinates so it really is a Mystery cache. The puzzle involves the movement of the sun and Azimuth stuff that I couldn’t make rhyme or reason out of.
I was able to find out where this one was because I knew that the listed coords were close and in the logs there were pictures of the the bear statues that are at the final location. I used my internet detective skills and was able to find out where those bears are on the campus. I figured I was right and when I arrived on the scene I knew instantly that I was right. The cache itself was easy to find if you read the hint.

Official Geocache Page

I have walked across the UC Berkeley campus countless times and I never had any idea that this location existed. Hidden on the campus is this log cabin of sorts. The building is quite large and very cool looking. Unfortunately, the building wasn’t open so I couldn’t see the inside but the outside was still worth the visit. The cache itself is one of those hides where a normal person could walk past day in day out for years at a time without ever noticing it but a cacher will spot quite quickly.

Official Geocache Page

This was one of those caches that when we were about 200 feet away I said to myself I bet the cache is right there and when we got up to the spot I was right. I have driven by this area many times in my life but I had never noticed the art work that is here. If you can find this one after dark I would suggest it, the art work here makes some very cool shadows.

Official Geocache Page

From the name of this Geocache I was thinking maybe I would swing inside and grab myself a double-double but that wasn’t the case. This is a very bold hide, the cache itself is hidden almost in plain sight. It did take us a little bit to find it but once I did spot it I couldn’t believe that the cache has lasted as long as it has.

Official Geocache Page

My brother had come out to Berkeley to help me get Cerritos Creek Cache but since we still had time we decided to go and grab a few more as well. This one was the next closest cache that I hadn’t found. This is pretty much a drive up cache. While I was looking in the area that cache name would make you think it is my brother was looking in the correct spot and quickly found the cache.

Official Geocache Page

To date this is the oldest cache that I have found. This cache was placed on 3/10/2001 so it is over six years old. The cache is labeled as Difficulty 1/Terrain 1 and the terrain rating is definitely way off. A one star terrain should mean that it is wheelchair accessible and there is no possible way that someone in a chair could get to this cache. That being said, it was still pretty easy to get to, just had to navigate around some bushes and branches and stuff. Once I made my way to the cache location the cache itself was easy to spot.

I have a feeling that this cache will last for a very very long time. There really isn’t any reason for anyone other than cachers to go up here. The area it is hidden in is not on any real paths and it is right next to quite a bit of private property. I was actually not completely sure whether or not I was trespassing or not.

Official Geocache Page

This cache was hidden in a rather unspectacular area. It was near some really nice areas but the area of the cache itself is like a storage area for the parks and rec guys. Oh well. When I arrived at the cache spot I actually found the cache very quickly. The camo that was used to hide the cache had fallen away so the cache itself was totally exposed. The exposure seemed to have had a negative effect on the cache as well, the cache container was melted and had a huge dent in the side of it. The top no longer fit on well and it was just generally speaking in bad shape. After I signed the log I tried to hide it a bit better than I found it since it was totally exposed.

Official Geocache Page

This was a really fun “armchair cache”. The idea was simple, go to this site which has a bunch of webcams in the Dresden area. Watch these webcams and when you “Trabi” (a Trabant actually), which is a type of car, take a screen shot of it and post it on the cache page.

As silly as it may sound, I really enjoyed hunting around looking for my Trabi. When I first tried the sun was going down in Dresden and it was quickly too dark for me to continue the hunt. I tried again about 12 hours later when the sun was back out. There were several times where I thought I have may have caught a Trabi but I wasn’t positive and I really wanted to catch a nice clear shot. There are many pictures listed on the cache page where there is no obvious Trabi and to me, they are cheating.

I spent about a couple hours looking while I was doing other stuff on my computer (the webcams only update every 30 seconds or so) and then I finally spotted one. You can see my Trabi below! Very cool idea for a cache!

Official Geocache Page

I had gone out with my brother and grabbed a few caches earlier in the day. That night he sent me an email telling me to check this cache out. This cache is like no other that I have seen. The “hider” gives you coordinates and then you just have to tell him, via email, what man made item is placed at this location.

The item in question looks really cool. Hell, I’ll show you what it is, it’s not like it’s a hard puzzle to figure out. At the location is Eartha, The World’s Largest Revolving and Rotating Globe. Check it out

Taken from the link above here is what this Eartha is

Eartha is a 3-dimensional scale model of our earth with mountains and landforms in full 3D, that rotates and revolves, simulating the earth’s real movements. Eartha was given the title of “World’s Largest Revolving/Rotating Globe” by the editors of the Guinness Book of World Records in 1999, and still holds that record today. It measures 41.5 ft in diameter. Unveiled July 23, 1998 Eartha took two years to build and represents earth as it is seen from space. It rotates and revolves on a specially designed and built mechanized, cantilever arm.

I’d love the chance to check it out in person some day, it sounds really cool.

Official Geocache Page

By the time we were done looking for A Quiet Corner it was pretty much time for me to get headed home. My brother told me about this one and told me that it was really easy and we would be driving right past it.

He was right, he pulled up to the spot and I had the cache in my hand in under 30 seconds. I quickly signed the log and we were headed off. This was a pretty boring cache, the area that the cache is hidden is definitely nothing to write home about but sometimes it’s nice to get a nice easy find.

Official Geocache Page

I thought I felt uncomfortable when I went looking for ELECTRIFYING but it didn’t compare to this one. This cache is hidden practically in someones front yard. I don’t know for sure but I think (hope) that the owner of the cache lives in the house. I got lucky in that there wasn’t really anyone out and about on the street while I was there. Another good thing is that when you are retrieving the cache you are pretty well shielded by bushes. I was very happy that I found this cache quickly as I wouldn’t want to spend a lot of time poking around in someones front yard.

The cache is hidden in a clever spot and is well hidden. I was happy to just sign the log and be on my way without drawing a whole bunch of attention to myself.

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

After nearly pulling my hair out at Up the Down Staircase I headed home defeated and decided to pick this one up as it was on the way. I was able to find nice easy parking and headed down into the well hidden, but very nice little park here. This cache was super easy for me to find. My GPS led me directly to the spot and I didn’t even break stride walking up to the cache. The logbook was a bit damp and needed some maintenance but it was still signable so I did so.

While I was here I had spoken to my brother about Up the Down Staircase and I decided to head back and look again.

Official Geocache Page

We finally decided it was about time to call it a day and left Alameda and headed back to Berkeley. We dropped Charley off at his car at the Bart station and said our goodbyes. My brother had noticed that we had driven right past a cache when we pulled into the parking lot and we decided, hell why not, lets do one more.

This was another one of those semi pointless caches, there really isn’t anything worth seeing here and it’s hid like many, many other caches. Thankfully it didn’t take us long to find it. We walked right up to it and found it.

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 was a nice short little mystery cache. The posted coordinated bring your to a rather large sculpture, I wish I had brought my camera for this one because the sculpture was quite large and impressive. By looking at the sculpture you will be able to answer the question “which came first?”. My brother saw the sculpture and then quickly figured out the puzzle before I was even sure what we were looking for. With the answer in hand we pulled over quickly and worked out the final coordinates.

The final location was very close so we went on over and started looking. From what the actual final location was we figured it would be a very easy quick find but that proved to not be the case. We looked and looked, Charley who had found this one previously was waiting in the car. When he saw that we were taking a really long time finding one that should be easy to find he came out and tried to help. In the end it turned out that the cache was no longer there, it had been muggled.

When we got home that night I emailed the owner and she confirmed a couple days later that it was gone.

Official Geocache Page

Yet another puzzle that I didn’t look at before we headed out, there sure were a lot of those today. This was one that my brother had solved and looking at it I think I could figure it out, it all appears to be chess based, I just haven’t bothered to do so. Near the actual cache location there was a little spot to pull the car over, I don’t think it was legal parking though. Just in case it wasn’t legal I decided to hang back in the car. Wasn’t too big of a deal, my brother walked right up to the cache and found it in practically the first place he looked.

The cache itself was pretty funny, I won’t spoil the surprise for you though.