Geocaching

The second half of my geocation was in Colorado. With some potentially dicey weather en route (midwest Thunderstorms), my plan was to drive from Mt Sunflower all the way to Tarryall (GC18), the oldest cache in Colorado, then pick up caches (as weather permitted) on the way back to my motel. Departing Mt. Sunflower, KS This part of Western Kansas/Eastern Colorado feels endless with no official rest stops. I stopped a few times to stretch my legs, grab a quick park-and-grab cache (enough to claim the county), and pee. The night before, I picked up some extra tamales at Los Jarochos food truck in Colby to munch on at an appropriate point. Cell coverage was very limited, I was really glad I had pre-downloaded music and a few (good) audio (meh) books (great). I wish the Netflix app would let one play just the soundtrack to music without having the video screen go. The scene before Lake Urine spontaneously appeared next to my car ...

Day 1: Denver Intergalactic Airport to Arikaree (GC31) and Mingo (GC30) I took the early flight from Seattle to Denver, not checking a bag to hasten my departure from the airport in hopes of grabbing Mingo (GC30) — the oldest active geocache — and Arikaree (GC31), nearly as old. I soon ended up on a very lonely road, headed east to Nebraska. The first stop was the triple-point intersection of Kansas, Nebraska and Colorado, a completely arbitrary waypoint that I’d have no other chance to stop at and claim a virtual cache. Unbeknownst, I’d not only left Settlers of Catan running in the foreground, I also hadn’t plugged the charger cable in right. No battery. I plopped the alternate battery in near Texas Trail Canyon. Hey, I’m in Nebraska! (Also, we really fucked the locals over.) ...

Here it is in August, and it feels like the year has been a dumpster-full-of-doo-doo on fire, about to be hit by murder hornets riding an asteroid. So I started looking at my vacation photos from last October and so much awesome scenery in the Southwestern US get solace in the crazy times since. One of my favorite parts was my brief visit to the Navajo Nation. I drove up from Farmington, NM, a convenient and inexpensive place to stop and spend the night after visiting Mesa Verde National Park. The Four Corners Monument is a small side-trip from the drive to Navajo Nations Park and an opportunity to claim the four virtual caches marking this small, geographical oddity. Minor travel achievement: unlocked! ...

Solo Travel Breakfast of Champions With the Fiery Furnace trip scheduled, I juggled a few of my days there to maximize my awake time. The itinerary was not hugely different: **Day** **Overnight** **Original Plan** **Final Plan** Salt Lake City 1 Moab, UT Potter’s Pond, geocaching added hiking in Arches NP 2 Moab Arches National Park Canyonlands, Dead Horse Point; Arches 3 Moab Fiery Furnace, Canyonlands Fiery Furnace; get permit at Mesa Verde 4 Farmington Mesa Verde Mesa Verde, Aztec NM 5 Monument Valley Sunset tour of Mystery Valley added Four Corners 6 Torrey Dead Horse SP, Canyonlands NP Added stop at Natural Bridges 7 Salt Lake City Geocaching around SLC Bryce Canyon 8 Home! Geocaching around SLC Pocatello (Southern ID’s oldest cache) Logistical note: To save the hassle, and for crowd-avoidance, I pre-purchased annual National Parks ($80, from REI) and Utah State Parks ($75 online) passes, keeping both in the window of the rental Jeep. This let me get in super early, usually before gate was attended. Canyonlands National Park, Island in the Sky ...

One of the rare holidays we receive is Columbus Day. (Seriously?) I’d planned to spend a four-day weekend visiting Arches National Park, when I found some vacation “under the couch,” and extended it to a whole ten days, then added destinations onto that. The plan was to fly to Salt Lake City Friday evening, spend the night, then drive to Moab via a rare (one of four remaining August 2000 hides) geocache, Potter’s Pond. Located in Manti-La Sal National Forest, at about 9,000′, inclement weather is always a possibility. Once the snow accumulates enough, it’s extremely difficult for a tourist like me to access it until the spring thaw, mid- to late-June. I kept my eye on the weather. ...

(Notes to self, Continued from part 1.) Whitefish Island Indian Reserve, Sault Saint Marie, Ontario Sault Ste Marie – I’d originally planned to spend a full day in Sault Ste Marie, but that fell apart when I opted to go to Mackinac Island the second time. Since I had to claim my Ontario geocaching souvenir, I crossed the border to hike on Whitefish Island Indian Reserve and see Soo Locks. Swing Gate ...

Happy Lighthouse is Happy Finding a time that all of the family schedules line up, and is not so last-minute that activities are sold out or excessively expensive, led to an over-accumulation of vacation time at the end of the year. As I’m less a fan of “losing vacation time” than “vacationing in winter,” I’d take a few days off, but we’d invariably sit around the house as everyone equivocated about what they didn’t want to do. ...

Well that was an enjoyable week! 88 geocaches in 6 states (DC, DE, MD, NJ, PA, WV) with 375 miles of biking (and some Ubering) over 9 days. Highlights were the guided tours of Gettysburg, PA (by a professional guide) and Washington, DC monuments (local, at night). Pre-trip: This was about as bad shape as I could be in for the ride. In June, shortly after signing up for the ride, I sprained my ankle on a hike. Then in August, I caught some sweet bronchitis for 4 weeks: I was in not-so-great shape for the ride. ...

The excitement of visiting colleges with my daughter, her applying to the short list, and waiting on the results has is over and I’m seriously craving a week unplugged from work. I’ll be taking an organized ride in October from Philadelphia to Washington, DC. Since these trips are as much about seeing different things as the Zen of cycling, I’ll also be stopping for geocaches (and other site seeing) along the way. And maybe butterscotch Tastycakes, Cheeseteaks and those legendary tomatoes I’ve heard about. ...

After 3 3/4 years, I finally completed the 50k elevation challenge (for geocaching) in October with my friend Jes. Spoiler alert: Victory! I logged far more than than 50k of elevation over the period, but the challenge had so many rules that many of my hikes didn’t count. In fact, for a while I had kind of given up even tracking gain. I was tantalizingly close after a huge boost in July from Cycle Canada but resigned to completing the official challenge in 2015. In September, Jes mentioned that she wanted to go to Mailbox Peak, and let me tag along. The elevation gain (>4000′) put us both over the cutoff. On that trip, we schemed on how we might finish it off while not completely incurring the wrath of our respective spouses. ...