September 26, 2016

  • Looking for a Hiding Place

    Yesterday Sparky and I made the trip to Fernwood Nature Preserve and Botanical Gardens. We were on a mission to hide geocaches we had put together for the Fernwood/Geocats geocaching event in October. This involved not just stomping around in mosquito infested woods or trying to find a spot one tenth of a mile distant from another geocache location. It required making the caches. This year's theme is trains. We had met with the other Geocats and brainstormed some cache ideas. Here's what I worked on.
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    This is a magentic key holder painted to look like a boxcar. The plan was to affix a piece of train track to a fallen tree to have something it will stick to! So we had to find a fallen tree... you would think that would be easy but it wasn't.

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    This is my "train wreck" cache. All of the train cars have notes and some swag but only one has the official log and some of the coordinates to the bonus cache. They are in a large Rubbermaid™ bin that I had to find a spot for. Since there are only so many spots I opted for the bridge where it could be out of view...

    The other caches are Sparky's. He is re-purposed his Odlaw cache for the train theme. I drew a railroad sign that he put in place of the drawing of Odlaw. He stocked it with a log book and some swag. It has some of the coordinates to find the bonus cache. The cache container was originally chained to a tree. We tried to retrieve it 2 weeks ago but Sparky had misplaced the key to the padlock. We intended to cut the chain and use a new lock. Sparky underestimated the strength of the chain and was unable to cut it to move it to a new spot... Same location but different.

    Then there is the bonus cache. Saintvi gave me a Thomas the Tank Engine bank to use as a cache. It is really pretty and since it is ceramic it is in theory fine to put outside. However it is really nice. Too nice to sit outside in the snow and rain and cold. I was hoping to set it somewhere inside the nature center so that it will be protected. I haven't heard yet if we got the OK. Some of the people there are wonderful and there are a couple who are grouchy and very negative when it comes to geocaching!

    The other caches placed were very well done. There is a Travel Bug Train Depot that is absolutely delightful. Also a Hobo's bindle as a cache - very inventive! One is a trumpet case as luggage which I thought was well done. Then there is the gadget cache which I believe is called "Get your ticket". I'm not sure where they were going to install it but it will be fun!!

    All in all a great afternoon. Only got 1 mosquito bite!

Comments (14)

  • I'm still not sure if I'll be back in time for the event, but I'm hoping to make it. Did anyone retrieve my Where's Waldo cache?

    • I don't know - I think Dawn was going to do that. We picked up all but Squeekums which she was going to grab since she had plans for a cache out there... I hope you can make it to the Fernwood event - the caches are good!!

  • Only one mosquito bite!

  • That sounds like a wonderful, creative afternoon! I'm surprised that the caches all seem to be rather large -- I was under the impression that they're usually very small.

  • I hope you have good weather for the October event so everyone can enjoy looking for your caches. I'm glad you seem to enjoy making and planting them as well. If it weren't for people like you, than those just wanting to look would eventually be out of luck. Do be careful of those mosquitoes. Zika is even in the US.

    • I'm more concerned about West Nile than getting Zika. I imagine if I was of child bearing age I'd be much more concerned. We have a pretty active group of cachers in the area so new caches are going up all the time!

  • Zika

  • @murisopsis: it can also cause neurological and autoimmune problems with non pregnant people, though the birth defects are what seem to get most media attention.

  • That sounds like fun!

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