It Was a Guardrail Kind of Day

4 February, 2011

Winter finally took a break and Woodhick803 and I were able to get out and find a few caches.  After he caught a couple of local caches, we traveled north on Rt. 16 (aka Robert C. Byrd Drive) to such mini-opoli (the opposite of megalopoli?) as Pemberton, Sullivan, and Coal City to track down a series of what turned out to be, with one exception, all guardrail caches.  Apparently they were all placed by the same geocacher who took his nieces and nephews to place the caches and then named them after that relative.

Here's a picture of six caches.  Yes, I know that's only one photo, but remember I told you that, with one exception, they were all guardrail caches.  I don't want to sound bigoted, but those guardrails all look alike to me.

The lone exception to guardrails was a cache placed at Fitzpatrick Park.  I had never been out there and, even though it's just a few miles from town, it felt as if we were not only in the wilderness but had also traveled back in time a generation or two (or three or four). <cue music from "Deliverance">

"Patriot Boot Camp" found us celebrating my 100th find.  Woodhick803 presented me with a certificate and letter of introduction (appropriate for framing, of course) and I think he was humming Pomp and Circumstance during the presentation ceremonies.

It was fun to get out, see the sun, and breathe some fresh air.  I doubt that winter's over yet, but it's getting closer each day.

Get outside and play!

He Found the Cache, But I Found the Cash

18 November, 2010.  Dreary, drizzly, chilly.  Just the right kind of weather for geocaching!  Yay!  Put on the long johns and a couple of extra layers and I'm ready to go.

Woodhick803 and I found 13 caches today.  Well, actually Woodhick found ALL OF THEM.  No fair - he was jumping out of the car before I even had the engine turned off.  Next time HE drives!  Not only did he find all the caches, I even paid for lunch!  (I prefer brie with that whine, please.)

The most significant part of the day, however, was that we were able to celebrate Woodhick's 100th find.  Here are photos of the momentous occasion.

Woodhick manipulates the lock to open this clever cache which looked just like an electrical box, but had the official geocaching sticker affixed to it.

 Woodhick signs the log.  If he realized this was his 100th find, he didn't let on, although he did make the comment that as of this morning he had made 91 finds.  Wonder if he was subconciously keeping track?

Even though Woodhick may not have been keeping track of his finds today, I was.  And, being the wonderful sister that I am, I had planned ahead and made this wonderful Certificate of Achievement (suitable for framing) to present to him at the appropriate time.

Congratulations, Woodhick!

Woodhick may have found all the caches today, but at the last site I found cash.  Cash!  Alright, it was only 11 cents, but still......

Oh yeah - happy birthday, Mom.  Aren't you delighted that your children are playing together finally?  

 Get outside and play!

2 + 3

Woodhick and I started off early on Tuesday, 11/2/10, with a couple stops at caches I'd already found, but soon found ourselves off on a couple of Waypoint_Wayne hides.  The first one took us to a cemetery near Mabscott, WV, where we had to locate a particular epitaph and count the frequency of certain letters and then assign them numeric values.  That would then give us the co-ordinates to the cache itself. 

This hill is much steeper than it looks.  Poor old Woodhick practically had to scramble up the first 20 feet or so on all fours.  I stayed at the bottom, but Woodhick says he signed my name to the log anyway.  Can you see him up there?








By now it was time for lunch and if you've been following this blog, you know that a good lunch is always a highlight of the day.  This time it was at Calacino's for their supreme pizza.  Very good.  Good crust, too.  (And yes, both of us remember the original Calacino's when "pizza pie" was an exotic food in Beckley.)

Another Waypoint_Wayne geocache had us out seemingly miles away from town, although we were just at the end of Woodlawn Avenue, practically in the center of town!  This one was called Raleigh Coke and Coal #4 and contained a history lesson on the mine and the miners who lost their lives there.

While returning from this cache I got a text message from the Drybees family.  We connected with them at the YMCA soccer fields and did a couple of caches together, with the Drybees daughter making the finds.  Good job!








With the onset of poor weather, I'm wondering how many more geocaching days Woodhick and I will be able to make.  I'd certainly like to hit the 100 finds mark (I'm at 78 now) before I have to hang up the GPS for the winter.  We'll see.

Get outside and play!

If Two Eyes Are Good ......

....... then twenty-two eyes are even better for geocache spotting.

It all started with Drybees' Facebook post that she, family, and friends were going geocaching.  I invited myself along and spent a lovely afternoon with ten others geocaching along Rails to Trails in Beckley.  We hit three caches, two of which I'd already found, and walked a couple of miles along the trail.  A nice afternoon.  Thanks, Drybees and friends, for letting me tag along.

A Perfect Caching Day

100% finds.  Perfect score!

20 October, 2010, was "catch-up" day.  I met up with Woodhick803 and got a few finds that he had already discovered, plus getting a couple of caches he'd put out.  He's still about 10 caches ahead of me, though.  Gotta get more, gotta get more than him.  That ol' sibling rivalry doesn't stop, does it?

Here is Woodhick803 laughing at me.  We'd spent over an hour at Hern's Covered Bridge in Greenbrier County, WV, looking in the wrong place.  On a whim, he moved over to the other side of the bridge.  I told him he wasn't going to find it there and to trust our GPS readings, but, like the brother he is, what did he do but go and find it.  Argh.  Honestly, I think he had this cache in his pocket and pulled it out just to prove his point.

As I've said several times before, geocaching gives me the chance to get out and see sites that I've missed.  Here's the Greenbrier River Trail near Anthony, WV.  Pretty, huh?  I found several gigantic oak leaves along this trail.  Gigantic as in almost 12" long.  Wow!  Lots of acorns and black walnuts too.

We had an unofficial "escort" for this part of the Greenbrier River Trail.  Here you see Woodhick803 and Goldie.

Earthcaches don't offer a cache in the usual sense, but instead teach something about nature.  Here I am at Flowing Spring on Route 19, north of Lewisburg, WV.  I had to figure out the flow rate and magnitude of the spring (hence the bucket) and whether this was an artesian spring or a gravity fed spring.




 I think I logged 14 finds for this perfect geocaching day.  No DNFs!!! Yay!  Perfect score, beautiful autumn weather, good food at WisconGranny and Woodhick's home.

Get outside and play!

10/10/10: Celebrating 10 Years of Geocaching

It's hard to believe that the first geocache was placed only in 2000.  Now in 2010 there are 1,210,622 active caches.  That doesn't count caches that have been archived or deleted.  Today, 10/10/10, was declared geocaching day with the purpose of seeing how many different geocachers would log a find today.  Woodhick803 and I had to join in the fun and fun we indeed had.

Woodhick803 scored his first FTF (First To Find) with "My Body Needs Some Work, Man."  FTFs are hard to get.  Congratulations!

Do you see the cache hidden here at the gate leading to Beckley's Rails to Trails?  No?  It's that bump on the left pole of the gate.  Pretty clever, huh?  This was placed by a geocacher named Waypoint_Wayne.  You'll hear more about him later.

Yes, that's Woodhick803 and yes, he's on the phone, but what's so unusual is that the phone (an old dial phone, at that) was in the middle of the woods.  The name of this cache was "Phone a Friend" and Waypoint_Wayne had attached the phone to a huge, gigantic, enormous concrete block (must have been used by the railroad in some way, I guess).  You should have seen Woodhick's face when he lifted up the receiver and heard a voice giving us the combination to a lock at the final cache location.  This one still makes me outright laugh.  Very clever, Waypoint_Wayne.

You sure do see some strange things when you're out geocaching.  There are actually fourteen satellites in this guy's yard.  Only in West Virginia!  LOL!







It was a great day geocaching, with lunch at Campestre and only one DNF (did not find), but, in the words of the immortal Ahnold, "I'll be back."

Some days are meant for caching........

....  and Friday, 1 October, 2010, was one of them.  A beautiful clear sky, perfect temperature, just right for a geocaching roadtrip with Woodhick803.







I got distracted right away at "No Stone Left Unturned", a cache near Old Stone Presbyterian Church in Lewisburg.  This stone is in memory of a little girl who died at the age of eight.

Here I am, standing at the entrance of Organ Cave, founded in 1704 and containing rocks that may date back as far as 300-500 million years ago.  Wow!  The cave was used during the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, and was known as Lee's Underground Ammo Factory during the Civil War.

Woodhick does not get the Eagle Eyes Award for the day.  Here he is (nice view, haha!), prowling through a rock wall near Indian Creek Covered Bridge, Union, WV.  He touched the cache, looked at the cache, but never really saw it.  I finally had to play the old "Hot / Cold" game with him.  The problem for him here was that nothing seemed out of place.

The award for the most clever cache of the day goes to this one, Indian Creek Micro.  Here you see Woodhick holding it in his hand.  Yes, it's a spent bullet (don't ask me what caliber - that was part of my previous life) with another one as the cap.

Probably the best part of geocaching is that it gets you out to see sites that you would have missed otherwise.  This is the view from "In the Middle", a cache on a old, but refurbished, railroad bridge across the Greenbrier River.







So, yes, it was a perfect day for geocaching.  Woodhick and I have another excursion planned for 10/10/10, National Geocaching Day.  Whether or not we make a lot of finds, it'll be a fun one.  (Now where should we eat lunch???)