How Did We Miss That?

We searched for probably 30 minutes for this cache, in the rain! One of the things in the description totally threw us off, but it was right where the GPSr said it was. There was a neat little free museum near this cache, and we took some time to browse through it. Turns out this waterwheel is from a steamboat called the Henderson, and it was beached right along the coast of our little town!

Need Exercise?

There were a series of these flights,
and they were steep!
Wow, this was quite a workout! It didn't sound like that many stairs from the bottom, but it sure feels like it as you're climbing them. I never would have climbed these stairs if it weren't to find a cache, so I'm so glad there was one here to find! The stairs begin at a pretty waterfall, then take you past a gorgeous garden, and then on up to the top of the town with a fantastic view of the city below!

Cool Park!

Is this a cool park or what? We will have to bring the kids to this park sometime because they would love it! The cache was hidden nearby very well and very cleverly. It's hard to believe the cache doesn't get accidentally found in its location, but it seems to be doing very well there!

Another Bug Hotel

I was glad to find a bug hotel so I could drop off some of the travel bugs I brought back with me from California. This was hidden really well, and the history was neat too.

Longer Uphill Climb

This was the second cache on this trail, but we didn't know it until we were already back down the hill and to the van again! Oh, well the exercise did us good, and it was a pretty decent climb. The cache was easily found, and we enjoyed the walk, the creek, and the time alone together immensely.

Short Uphill Climb

This kind of trail in the woods is my favorite kind, and there were two caches on this trail. This first one was just a short walk and an easy find.

Have To Bring The Kids

This was such a neat spot, and we didn't even get to explore it. But that will give us a good reason to bring the kids back here. The find was easy, but the scenery was awesome!

Nice Little Hike

This trail would easily have been missed by us if it weren't for geocaching. In fact, we drove right by it even when we were looking for it! The actual hide turned out to be really easy, and I was surprised the trail ended up leading us right back near Highway 84.

Huge Tree!

This cache is right next to The Original Stash, and it was an easy find, though a slippery and potentially muddy trek up and down the hillside. We managed to make it without too much mud, but I was worried I'd end up needing to change my pants before we got back down. I was glad the kiddies weren't with us on this one or we would still be there cleaning my daughter up!

The Original Stash & No. 100!

Geocaching started back in 2000 when President Clinton declassified the use of GPS technology. Geocaching.com on the page for The Original Stash says,

On May 3, 2000, a five-gallon bucket was placed right at this very spot by Dave Ulmer, containing Delorme Topo USA and 2 CD Roms, a cassette recorder, a "George of the Jungle" VHS tape, a Ross Perot book, 4 $1 bills, a slingshot handle, and a very famous can of beans (now the O.C.B. T.B.!) The coordinates were then listed on the Internet and modern-day Geocaching was born.

We have been wanting to go find this cache ever since, especially since it's right in our backyard, relatively speaking. We decided this would be a great cache to mak our 100th find! It was a bit anticlimactic since it is right next to the road with no hunting involved. There was an ammo can hidden nearby for trading items, but it was gone when we were there. We were bummed to find out they replaced the log and the ammo can the day we were there, so we must have just missed it! Oh well, we will want to take the kids there one day anyway, so I'm sure we'll make our way back over there again. This is definitely one every geocacher should make a point to find!

Bad Coordinates

The coordinates were way off on this cache, but after the owner listed a hint on the cache page, we were able to find this one. The cache had fallen from its original location and is need of maintenance, but at least we finally found it.

Yet Another Cemetary Cache

People really like hiding caches in cemetaries, and this was yet another one. It was easy to find too. On our way out we saw the cutest Jeep, which Abigail thought was so cute...and frankly, I did too!

Gorgeous Rest Stop

This was a gorgeous rest stop. We actually needed to take a break from driving to let one of the little ones use the facilities. As we were washing up, I remembered I had printed out some caches nearby, so I looked and, sure enough, there was one in this very spot! It was a pretty steep downhill slide, so I made the find without the littles, much to their dismay.

Different Cache

This was the last one we did on this day, and it was different from any cache I've ever done before. You actually have to find the correct establishment and ask for the cache! We met the nice cache owner and traded some goodies. Fun one!

Jumping For It

I wanted to show my best friend how much fun geocaching can be, but I only managed to make a fool of myself, I think! This cache was out of reach, and so I tried jumping for it but with no success. I only managed to push it around but couldn't actually get my fingers on it enough to grab it. Oh, and the police station across the very busy street wasn't making me feel like continuing to try either!

Trying to Convert a Friend

I took my best friend out geocaching for the first time today. This one took us much longer to find than it should have. It was right there in the open, and yet we looked for probably 20 minutes!

Desert Micro

Finding micros in the desert sounds difficult, but dad walked right up to this one as if he'd been geocaching for years, even despite the fact that the description was way off! We started off on the wrong side of the tracks with this one, but once we got straightened out it was still a little bit of a hunt just to find the right path.

Dad's First Cache

I tried to make geocachers out of my family while we were visiting, and this was the first one dad did with us. It was a very windy day, but it was fun nonetheless. I found it right away, but I gave the GPSr to dad and let him find it on his own. He did pretty well for his first time!

Along the Aquaduct

This was a neat cache located up a small hill and along the California Aquaduct. It was fairly easy to find, but we enjoyed looking anyway!

Business Cache

This cache was located at a local business, and though it was fairly easy, it was nicely hidden. There was a friendly kitty there that Abby about mauled to death. We traded travel bugs, and enjoyed finding this one. Unfortunately, right after we found this, someone stole the whole thing! What a shame...there were lots of travel bugs and coins in it.

Not Really Hidden

This wasn't my favorite cache. Not only were there No Trespassing signs, but the cache wasn't even hidden really. It was in a shiny box with two sticks on top sitting under a bush but in plain sight. Still, mom and Abby had fun finding it.

Taking Mom & Nieces

We had some time to kill before the next tour of the zoo, so I decided to let mom and my nieces try their hand at geocaching. I pulled up a nearby one on the GPSr, and off we went. We looked for quite some time, and after reading previous logs, I had a good idea where it was. Sure enough, it was right where I thought it would be. Hannah said she wanted to do more! Mom did too...but we needed to get back to the zoo, so it would have to wait for another day.

Bug Hotel

This was our third of the morning before getting back on the road for Gramie's. I was eager to find this one so I could unload all the travel bugs I had been holding on to that wanted to go to California. I traded four for four! It could have been a messy find if you're not careful!

Really Easy

Before I even turned off the van, Ryan yelled, "I see it!" He was right. This was one of those uncomfortable ones in someone's yard, but it was easy to spot if you've done more than one or two caches. Didn't get a photo as we were eager to get on to another cache which might be more challenging...and I wanted to get out of their yard.

First California Cache

This was a neat little park with new things for the kids to play on. We did a few caches before beginning the second leg of our trip to California. We had to outwait a few muggles before making this find, and Ryan found it after I made a suggestion. This is our first California cache!

Another Benchmark

This benchmark was in the park where we went looking for a geocache. I couldn't find it listed in the database, so I don't know if it's been moved or what the exact story on it is.

On The Border

I had to stop and get this cache on our way down to visit family and friends in California. The kids got a big kick out of stopping so close to the California border, and Ryan made the find, which is always exciting for him. The wind was blowing hard and sand got all over the inside of the van while we were buckling the kiddies in, but it was well worth the stop!

Steep

This cache was one of the last in our area that we wanted to find, but for a while it was taken offline. Someone dumped a dead body in the vicinity of where the trail begins for this cache, and there had been lots of activity by police and new crews. So the owner wisely took it down until it was safe to go back there without fear of messing up a crime scene or getting questioned by the police about what you were doing in the area.


Abby wearing the light-up goggles she got out of the cache!
When they opened this back up we finally went to hunt for this cache, I was unprepared for the hike it turned out to be! Wow, it doesn't look like much at the beginning, but once you turn that corner, the hill gets steep in a hurry and we had to take a couple of breathers on the way up! The picture looks like a flat path, but it actually is about a 70-degree angle, STEEP.

Disturbing the Neighbors

Sometimes one person's hobby is another person's thorn. We wanted to grab this one last cache before heading home, so we quickly walked where our GPS took us. It was in a green belt behind someone's house. Unfortunately, they don't have a privacy fence, and people poking around behind their house frequently is beginning to get to them. I can't say I blame them. We made the find, and then reported the problem to the cache owner. Hopefully they will move the cache (which is really nicely camouflaged!) to an area where we won't be bothering people!

Never Enough Playtime

When we are out geocaching, we like to find hides in parks so the kids can play while we hunt or after we make the find. It was getting late when we found this cache, so the kids didn't get to play long enough to suit them. We'll have to come back to this park some time so they can play all they want to.

Cute Idea

I have heard of these kinds of caches, and when we saw one in the area where we were going to be geocaching, we had to try to find it. The idea is to give everyone a First To Find, only you have to be creative and think of your own first to find acronymn. Mine was FTFWPLGTC or First To Find With Plastic Leaves Glued To Cache! Get the idea?

Cool Stump

I don't know how people run across all the unusual stuff we see when we're caching, but this was a cool stump (which the picture does not do justice to). The tree is actually growing out of an old stump of another tree long since dead and cut down. Interesting. The container was a full-blown ammo can, but sadly, there was nothing in it really. We added a few extra goodies, just for good measure!

Just a Walk in the Weeds

We saw someone parked at this spot earlier in the day, and now we know they were probably geocaching. This was a quick walk in the weeds with nothing special to find, unfortunately. I fell down on the job of taking pictures again today, though there was nothing noteworthy about this cache to take a picture of anyway.

Quick and Easy

There was no room to walk on the road where this cache was hidden, so hubby went and made the find and brought the cache back to us waiting in the van. His comment was, "I can see how this will get boring after a while." After you've done a few dozen caches, you start to just know where they are likely to be hidden.

Wow!

This was the first Premium Members cache that we've attempted to find, and it is a great cache! This was a difficult puzzle to solve, but after that the cache was extraordinarily easy to find...there's no hiding this one!


Inside we found the biggest travel bug I've ever seen, along with some of the coolest loot ever placed in a cache. We knew this was going to be big, so we brought along a large swag item (an obnoxiously noisy front loader) which we traded for a pretty Winnie the Pooh ball.

Number 75

This was an interesting virtual cache that took you on a tour of things around downtown that you had to look up to see. We had seen them all before, but it was still a fun little cache. Again, no picture, but maybe I'll be able to snap one in the near future of my favorite of the local landmarks...his nose will soon be lit!

Stealth Needed

I definitely need to go back and get a picture of the piece of art featured in this cache. It happens to be across the street from one of my most favorite book stores! We have found that downtown caching needs to be done with geosenses more than with the GPS. Not only that, but there are so many people around, that making a find stealthily is very difficult. Still hubby made the find and grabbed it without being noticed. Unfortunately, we forgot a writing utensil and had to content ourselves with just signing the computer log.

First Virtual

There are many different types of caches, and though we usually do the traditional caches where there is a container of some type and an actual log book, we recently did our first virtual cache. On this one you had to follow the coordinates to a park and from there answer some questions to get the coordinates to the actual cache location.


We actually cheated a bit though since we already knew where the cache was located. It's the world's smallest park, and it's smack in the middle of the street that runs along the Willamette River downtown. I've been wanting to see this park for years, and geocaching finally brought me here! We had a travel bug with an Irish theme, so we took it along with us on this hunt.


We didn't want to miss the pleasure of seeing the homeless sleeping in the first park though, so we did visit the first place where the coordinates took us to, even though we didn't need to get the information from there!

Being Watched

Daddy and Ryan did this cache by themselves a couple weeks ago, so now it was my turn to find it. It was unsettling having someone watch me as I looked for the cache, but thankfully Ryan wasn't good about keeping the secret and gave a couple of hints away that helped me find it fairly quickly. The GPS was not helpful at all in this location, but it was a neat hide to find.