Caching with the Aufbau's

I spent today in Beverly, NJ and the Bristol, Pa area with the Aufbau's geocaching and looking for Munzees.  The Aufbau's are quickly approaching 4000 caches.  The goal is to make it before the end of the year.  We went out today to get approximately 10 so that next weekend, she'll be able to reach the milestone.

We came across some interesting places today.

This is Cat Shanty, it's across the parking lot from an apartment complex.  Apparently, when residents move from the apartments, many abandon their cats.  Some residents provide them with food and shelter.  This is the newest and nicest of the shelters.  Many of them are old and falling apart.  

We met the first people looking for Munzees today.  M and W, who had their dog with them. They just recently learned about Munzees and were finding their first today when we ran into them along a creek in PA.  Considering that Munzees are very new, it was strange running into people looking for them at the same time we are and especially people that we know. We found 1 but not the other.  It hasn't been found yet by anyone.  It's probably already gone.

Garysaurus was another fun cache that we went after.  We had to convince John to move the car so that Kathy could position herself so that she could reach the cache.  It's in front of a vet clinic on a very busy street.  People were coming and going.  They were staring at us but no one asked what we were up to.

The weather today was nearly perfect!  Look at how beautiful the sky is and it was about 65 degrees!  Not bad for the end of November!

This is our only DNF (Did not find) of the day.  We made a PAF (phone a friend) because we were pretty sure that we knew where it was but couldn't find it so we called a couple of people who had found it and were told that we were right.  Apparently, it's either missing or the rain has made the wood swell. Notice how John is out of the car?   He usually waits until Kathy and I can't find it and comes out to "show" us where it is, but he almost never finds it!

One of the Munzees we found was along the Delaware River.  It was a beautiful view but I bet it's prettier when it's green or fall colors. 

From Pa, we went back to Aufbau country and took the Aufbau dogs for a walk in a few parks where there were caches that we didn't have.  At one point, Ginger (she's the one near the top, Golden Lab) smelled something in a rotting tree.  Notice how her nose is buried in the tree?  She was literally tearing it apart with her teeth and then checking on whatever it was she was after.  The other 2 dogs, Sampson and Jack were watching and encouraging her.  We never did see what she was after but it was amusing to watch her tear that log apart! Kathy finally had to leash her and drag her away from it.

This is cache was put out by Kayaking Jane for the Boy Scouts.  It's name is Be Prepared.  I don't know if you can tell but it's right out in the open  and it's a pear.  Took me a few seconds to "get it" but I finally did.  O_o

This was the final cache of the day, I'm Thankful for.....,  it was starting to get dark.  It was a really nice day; you don't often get so many nice days this late in November and on weekends no less! We've been lucky but as long as we don't have a snow cover, weather doesn't stop us!  We actually love the cold: no bugs, no sweat!

Next weekend we'll be hunting in Egg Harbor City and Galloway, again!

UPDATE:

There were 2 caches near Kathy's house that are in trees.  We had plans to take her 24 ft. ladder to the park to get them but with darkness coming earlier all the time, we ran out of light and had to drop the idea.  I don't know the story but today,  Kathy some how ended up at the park with a ladder and some other people and has the cache in hand!  Bummed that I missed it but glad she got them!

Mother Daughter Geocaching

My oldest daughter, Dimples, is very goal driven. She sets goals at the beginning of each month and tries to met them. At the end of last month she asked me if I had any suggestions for a goal for the month of November. I told her she should geocache with me at least once.



Geocaching in Utah

Good thing she was there, I never would have gotten this one on my own.

Dimples hasn't geocached in a couple of years. About 2 years ago her  life got busy with 2 jobs and caching  fell to the side.

On vacation this summer, one day was set aside for geocaching. She came up with a few excuses why she shouldn't have to go and I didn't buy them. She whined in the car until we got to the first cache. While everyone sat in the car waiting for me, I searched and couldn't find it. I called to her to come and help me because I thought it might be up on the top of a rock that I couldn't reach.  She hopped out of the car to help and it was immediately obvious that she had fallen back in love with the activity! Here's the story from her blog.

Her goal this month is for 3 geocaching days with her mom, she's scheduled them and of course they're on the calendar! I'm really enjoying the company, we used to do this one day most weekends.

 We've been out twice now. The first trip was to Brigantine. Dimples tells that story in her blog here. Today, she ran a 5K early and then came home for a shower and off we went. We ate at Red Robin first and then started cleaning "My Circle". I have a radius of about 5 miles around my house that I don't like to have unfound caches in and lately it's been filling up!





This is what geocaching with a migraine looks like!

Things were good for about an hour.  We found a handful of caches when she felt a migraine coming one.  I found a few more with you in the above position and then we headed off for home so that she could take care of the migraine. I'm not sure when out next date is but next weekend is Sofiecat's annual Scavenger Hunt!  It's a favorite of mine!

And So It Begins

We've talked about a blog for years.  We've said that we should really write down our adventures but I was hoping someone else would take up the duty!

Thursday, I met up with C.C.Cacher, Kayaking Janet and Mrs. Aufbau in Egg Harbor City to do some cache clean up! There is a new team of cachers who are putting out what seems like a cache a day out and around EHC. We met at the train station and left 2 cars there and climbed into C.C's car and headed off.

If you are reading this blog, chances are you know that we call ourselves the OWLs. We had some other choice names for each other Thursday. I won't go into that because they weren't too complimentary! Because we were mainly looking for Mudwhore caches, we considered signing as the Sand Skanks, but thought better.

The new team, Mudwhore, has some really fun and interesting caches! We had a great time and found some sights along the way.

This is a random doll hung from a tree near a cache in the woods. There doesn't seem to be any connection.

I don't want to give away the name of the cache, not that it really matters but it was quite a surprise and a lot of fun. There is time lapse camera at the location; wish I could see the pictures that it captures! I know ours are interesting (we made sure that we entertained the COs) and I know other cachers wouldn't leave without a show, as well!

At one point we were searching and searching.  The coords seemed to lead us straight to this post.  As I  peaked in every nook and cranny, I realized someone was peaking back!  There was a little mouse hiding in the post!

Of course Mrs. Aufbau, who has a relationship with all things living (and some dead ones, too!)  decided the mouse must be starving, so she feed him some sun chips. He's in the woods for Pete's Sake!  There's food everywhere!


As for the cache, we realized that the area we were searching was private property so we moved across the street, searched some more and then did a PAF.  C.C. spent so much time on the phone with the help that she didn't even realized that we found the cache, signed the log and put it back before she got off!  


We found an area in the woods north of EHC that was like a killing area for deer.  There were so many bones and just around the corner, we found a skull hanging on a tree. The bones were all ages of decay.  Some were fresh; we found a small hoof still attached to a leg with the knee tendons still attached to the upper leg while other  bones had moss growing on them.  Very odd!

We had linner, as in part lunch part dinner, at the Venice Grill in Egg Harbor City. I've  been there twice now and recommended it.  The food was fantastic and reasonably priced. 

After linner, C.C. left for home.  KJ,  Aufbau and I continued on, picking up a few more caches and then headed home shortly after dark.