Groan

[altivo]

A five day week is going to seem incredibly long now, and here it is staring me in the face.

Happily, the week after that has only two work days, because I'll be attending a weaving workshop on the other three.

Unhappily, that means I have to get the workshop loom warped for the project I'll be doing, which in turn means finishing the warp that's already on there. Not enough hours... I have to sleep too.

Having looked at the information for some of the nearby geocaches, I begin to wonder how much of the challenge is finding a cache and how much is managing to open it, sign the log, seal it back up, and replace it without being obvious. There are two caches (GC1DAVM and GC1DAVT) right in the park surrounding the library. They would have to be pretty exposed. A third (GC1FBCA) is apparently at or very near the statue of a cow that graces Harvard's main intersection. That's even more exposed.Another (GC1EGHX) is apparently right alongside the road on my way to work, just 1.5 miles from home. From looking at the GPS map, I'm pretty sure I know the area in question and there are lots of possible hiding places there, but again it's exposed to passing road traffic all the time.

We have a couple of letterboxes hidden right in the library, but those work a little differently. At least in our case, it would be pretty easy to access one of them, enter the log, and return it to its place without attracting any attention.

The Geocaching web site and Garmin's own site are able to transfer cache coordinates directly to the GPS. However, that only works if you are running Windows 2000 or higher and Internet Explorer, apparently. Fortunately, it's easy enough to enter the location data manually. It consists only of a latitude and longitude, with a code name beginning with "GC" attached. I downloaded some this morning using Gary's Windows computer, but just now I entered several manually and it really took no longer. Of course you have to be careful about errors in entering the coordinates, but that's not too hard.

As soon as I get a lunch break where it isn't drizzling or a minus 40 wind chill, I'm going to have to go try to find one of these that are right near the library.

Comments

[saythename.livejournal.com]

You'll make it, don't worry. One hoof in front of the other...

Geocaching is great fun. My kid got me into that about '02.
Its another reason to wander out in the woods, along with
having a camera.

Leave a little something extra in the box.

^.~

*leaves quarters and coupons himself*

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Heh. The first one I'm thinking about trying is so tiny there'd be no room for anything in there. It's in one of those metal pencil lead containers. ;p Last found two days ago, finder reports that the log book is full and falling apart. (Probably due to the friction of getting it in and out of the tiny container.)

[soanos.livejournal.com]

Sounds... Fun? o.o

I am not much of an archeologist myself, but I have found an old horseshoe once behind my old school when I was about 10.

But, wouldn't it be more fun to put it in a riddle and a general location data for it instead of exact co-ordinates? ;)

I hope the weather will be fortuituous for your exploration and luck be with you in findong the treasures you are looking for. ;)

*hugs tight and snuggles for some warmth*

[altivo.livejournal.com]

The exact coordinates still don't usually give it to you. With a geocache, it's finding how it's hidden that's the challenge. That and keeping the "muggles" from spotting you as you remove or replace it. They aren't supposed to be buried in the earth, but they may be in a hollow tree or under a loose brick or any number of odd things like that. Judging by the log reports, any with a difficulty over 1 on a scale of 1 to 5 are often quite hard to find. People report standing on the spot for an hour but never locating the cache. Then someone else comes along a day later and finds it right away. :)

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

This does depend on familiarity with the type of environment. Jay and I went geocaching a few times a couple years ago and while some managed to stump both of us for a while there were times when something was hidden in the woods or such that I went, "Oh, there it is." and got a funny "How could you tell?" reaction. To me, some arrangements of rocks and such just look "posed" and seem obvious, even if the intent was not to be. This is the sort of thing that Jay tends not to pick up on as he never spent much time in the country or woods.

Accurate coordinates and an accurate GPS help, but as you say that only gets you close.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Well, I tried and failed at noon today. It may be I just missed it, or it may be that the cache has been removed or lost. It's in a city park, and now that I've pinpointed the coordinates, I can look right at it from my desk window. There are a number of oak trees within 50 feet or so that have small hollows at their base. A couple of them have deep holes in the ground farther in so a small container could have been pushed back too far and dropped into one.

However, looking back through the loggings over the past year, two visitors reported that the cache was "hanging open" with the log missing. I'm guessing it was more exposed, wedged into the tree bark or something. No one has reported finding it since November 28, so it may well be AWOL at this point.