Travel on WT8P's Notes to Self

Prague Planning Retrospective

Mon, 10 Nov 2025 22:21:00 +0000

Where to start…

Unlike Iceland, where I’d be (at the time) moving around the island, I’d planned to stay in Prague. I initially started with the Lonely Planet Pocket Prague for trying to plan days of things to do. However, since I was going to be geocaching-focused, I used the CacheTur.No tool for laying out routes. For example, one sub-trip had me going down to Vysehrad (south), another hitting the Charles Bridge early, before crowds came in.

Triple Play

Sat, 10 Jun 2023 07:42:42 +0000

In geocaching, there are a lot of “challenges” published, where in addition to signing the log, you have an alternative logging requirement (“ALR”) to perform some feat. These can be as simple as “find 10 mystery caches” or “find a cache for every letter in the alphabet,” or more complicated. In my 15 years, I’ve done a lot of these, and some of my favorites: John Day Fossil Beds, Sheep Rock Unit, Oregon

Geocaching in the Northeast

Mon, 19 Sep 2022 21:06:35 +0000

Like a lot of folks, I had to cancel my travel plans in 2020 – this was a March trip to New York City — which left me with a moderate chunk of air travel credit$. I used some of them to visit the oldest geocaches Kansasand Colorado last year, but about by late December of last year, I still had a sizeable amount left and they were expiring. I couldn’t get my family to agree on anything, so I booked a trip to Boston in September. I hadn’t thought too deeply about it until July, when the trip seemed more likely than not to occur.

Tarryall / Pike’s Peak

Wed, 22 Dec 2021 23:07:00 +0000

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

Arikaree / Mingo

Fri, 22 Oct 2021 03:38:12 +0000

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.)

Mystery Valley

Thu, 06 Aug 2020 02:32:00 +0000

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!

Fun in Utah: Canyonlands and Dead Horse Point

Mon, 23 Dec 2019 03:52:00 +0000

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

College Visits 2015/7

Mon, 17 Sep 2018 05:09:38 +0000

The Seattle area is large enough that there are regular college fairs where throngs of potential students and parents wander aisles of a cacophonous hall of the Washington State Convention Center, seeking out schools they’ve possibly heard of and picking up brochures from (usually local) alumni volunteers. While the volunteers are able to answer generic questions, the venue is not conducive to having a meaningful conversation. Rather, these events are useful primarily to kick of the thought process during Junior year that, Z_OMG, it’s time to start thinking about colleges._ Dramatic reenactment of my reaction to “ZOMG it’s time to start thinking about colleges.” (Sculpture by the amazing Kimber Fliegler (artbykimber.com)

Michigan – Part 2

Wed, 29 Aug 2018 04:35:27 +0000

(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

Michigan – part 1

Fri, 24 Aug 2018 05:39:04 +0000

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.

Mid-Atlantic Countryside

Sat, 04 Mar 2017 07:03:25 +0000

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.

Geobiking Philly to DC

Tue, 07 Jun 2016 05:32:49 +0000

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.

Cycle Canada – Icefields Parkway Part 2

Fri, 19 Sep 2014 02:57:31 +0000

(Continued from part 1.)

Day 5 was a rest day in Jasper. Unlike Day 2, when I really wanted a rest day, I was feeling well enough that I would have preferred continuing. On the other hand, I seriously enjoyed the slow, sit-down meals where I wasn’t swatting mosquitos off my legs. I wandered around town, avoiding the anchovy-loving pizza bears.

Anchovies: pizza topping or bear attractant?

Cycle Canada: Icefields Parkway – Part 1

Sun, 17 Aug 2014 16:21:14 +0000

Lake Louise, AB

Cycle Canada – Icefields Parkway trip summary: 9 days, 582 miles, 26k elevation gain, 95 geocaches and a hundred insect bites.

Back in the darkest weeks of December, while visiting my parents in the Houston area, I was hunkered down on the couch, enjoying an escape (summer) fantasy with a copy of Adventure Cycling’s smörgåsbord of 2014 rides. While I’d love to do the six week ride down the Pacific Coast (or even a snippet, like the Pacific Coast Central), I couldn’t swing the time away.

Ride Idaho 2013

Mon, 19 Aug 2013 05:41:08 +0000

What I think about when I am having a bad day at work…

In the dark world the natives call “January in Seattle,” I was pining for a week-long bike ride as a “carrot” to entice myself to get back to riding. I’ve covered a lot of great spots in Washington, but was looking for something different. That something different – but not too different – was Ride Idaho. For reasons I blame squarely on Ted, I keep mentally thinking of it as Ridaho, and may occasionally lapse into typing it that way, deliberately or otherwise.