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This past weekend Sean and I traveled to northern New Jersey to attend a mega geocaching event. We had gone last year and I really love seeing historic buildings and nature all rolled into one! I suggested one route and we took the one he goes to work using. He wanted to show me where […]
I am still attempting to update my blog. I have the laptop open now to upload a few photos, so there is no better time then the present! This event happened the 3rd weekend in May.
So you may know that one of my hobbies is geocaching. People hide caches that are all shapes and sizes and get them published on http://www.geocaching.com. We then take our phones or GPSr devices and try to find them. Brian and I have a joint account and have close to 950 finds in a little over 3 years. Sean has gotten more into caching in the last year and has about 650 finds. There are things you do other than just find caches. You get to go to events and meet other people with a passion for geocaching like you! The mega event of the year is Geo Woodstock and it was held in Boonsboro, Maryland this year, so we went! It’s about 2.5 hours and we got to see a bit of West Virginia too. In fact, we went right to Harper’s Ferry, WV so we could look around and grab the West Virginia souvenir. It’s pretty neat to get state souvenirs. We have about 12 out of 50, but hope to add at least Ohio by the end of the year.
The first cache we located in Harper’s Ferry had this scenery to enjoy! I thought of the John Denver song ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads’. This must have been what he saw too!
Signing the log.
We drove around this town on the hill a bit and found a pizza joint to have dinner in.
We then went to the meet and greet in Boonsboro. We saw a few local cachers who we knew, then we saw Joshua Johnston from Minnesota who is a energetic, fun video blogger who takes us to caches that he finds! He took a selfie (click to see) of the two of us.
. But that is Joshua in the middle. A married dad of three with a cool. Vlog.
Sean and I are in this video…about at 33 seconds near the big satellite dish!
We stayed at a nice hotel thanks to Sean. On our way back to the event, we looked for a cache near the hotel.
We ran into more pals and went looking for a few lab caches. They we listened to a local cacher from Rehoboth Beach talk about how to do puzzle caches. We were waiting to hear West Virginia Tim who does fun gadget caches in his retirement. He is pretty funny and presents himself like Jeff Foxworthy.
We ate a light lunch which happened to be catered by the guy who owns the Brandywine Picnic Park. He is also a cacher!
We went back to West Virginia to look for a few of WVTim’s gadget caches. We found one at a rest stop and at a Chick-Fil-a one. The one at the rest stop had a whole bunch of people trying to open it. A guy who had opened it came along and helped us. We then went driving around and stopped at Antietam Battlefield. We were about to grab a cache in the visitor center and they had just closed.
We headed home and stopped first at an Olive Garden and had a little trouble with our meal. I complained and got a discount on my meal.
Here are a few more photos.
We posed with the geocaching mascot Signal the first night we were there.
Sean and me posing near the direction signs.
Wendy’s geocaching car! Everyone was signing it!
Antietam cannons
All in all, we had a fun time seeing a new state, gorgeous scenery, a few strange people, but mostly friendly folks with the same interest. I would recommend caching to anyone! It’s a fun family activity too.
I was looking through my feed on Facebook Friday night and saw where a few geocaching pals were up in Roselle, NJ at a pre-bash function for a mega event. A mega event is something every cacher wants to attend. If over 500 people sign up for an event, it turns into a mega event! It was a Metro-gathering, meaning people from New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and even Delaware and Maryland could attend. I was thinking about it all evening and when Sean got up in the morning, he asked if I wanted to go and I said sure! It’s not around the corner, over 125 miles one way, mostly up the turnpike. I started to text a pal who was on her way there. When she got there she said to come on up as it wasn’t overwhelming crowded. I know a few seasoned cachers said in the log for the cache event that it was their first mega event! We wished we had planned this better as we left past 11:30. We stopped at a McDonald’s near Sean’s work to use the bathroom and decided to grab a wrap. Then Sean wanted me to help him find a cache that eluded him on previous looks. I saw it was in a tree and looked for something hanging down. We found it after a few minutes.
We got to the park about 2:45. We got a ‘tricky tray’ ticket for a prize and then we had to pick a prize. They really outdid themselves! I picked a big ammo box and Sean a cammoed backpack. We didn’t win as far as we knew. We’re thinking a lot of people had left and maybe they had to chose other winners. We decided to do some caches instead of waiting to see if we really did win anything.
We were all bundled up. Love my faux fleece coat. I wasn’t cold at all. I think it was about 40 degrees. I swear my shadow on the world’s biggest trackable coin looks just like my grandmom Ruth. (Miss her and think about her!) She is always with me. Anyway, you can see the tracking number and surely you can say you discovered the coin on my blog!
We were very close to Manhattan-about 1/2 an hour.
I can’t mention a place as Sean is ready to go! He is so glad to have his weekends off. It would be awesome for him to meet a lady cacher his age. Maybe someday! I know a few people who met through caching!
So we also ‘found’ the mega cache. They were hoping to break a record by having the most log entries in one day. Hope they did it. Need to add the photo.
They was a statue of the Liberty where you could pose too.
We went around and did some new geocaches in Warinanco park where the event was held. Getting there so late, we lost sunlight quickly. We didn’t get to really see the lake. We met up with some guys at a ‘lookout’ or a place to stand and admire the lake. They found the cache first. We found about 6 altogether.
Sean lightened this up. The hint was something like don’t overlook a pile of sticks. We got to ground zero and I started moving logs and branches and Sean saw this! They had drilled a hole in it for the cache! Very clever.
I bought a blue sweat shirt with the logo on it from the event plus a sticker for my car. Sean bought a bison tube and this little mini ammo box for me. It’s so cute!
We only saw a few people that we knew indirectly. I said, wow you look cold! The one lady, who I had talked to at a few events walked right past me, but another lady chatted with us a bit. The guy with them has a big event every year and didn’t say anything either. Wow, that was rude. It’s not often you see people you can point out in a crowd so far away from home.
We also got a few lab caches which are caches associated with the event that get taken down. I love learning about different places and we would like to see Roselle again some other time. Brian and I are up to over 700 finds. Not bad for ‘sometimes’ cachers. Sean is approaching 400.
I will plan our itinerary for our trip in a few months so we can see places and grab some caches in the states we need. I can’t wait to see a southern style Christmas!
Collages & Creative Goodness 