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| Gratefulmike & NaviBear
Danville, IL 40º 07.936N 087º 35.957
If you already know what GeoCaching is then you can read on for some of our experiences. If you don't, you can go to the GeoCaching website for all the details. Then, you can come back and see what we have been through. If you don't like to read you can just look at the pics by clicking here. Want to know how to do it? (Get your mind out of the gutter!) Click here for what we use to accomplish the mission.
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We parked in a lot that appeared close to the site and started hiking. The whole time the little gizmo told us that the cache was "right over there." We walked our happy little butts off through some pretty serious prairie land with thorny plants up to our pits at times. Up and down hills to end up on a trail that we could have parked 10 feet from. After we found the trail, the cache was a cinch to find. Since we hadn't spent much time "trail blazing" we didn't realize that we were standing in a poison ivy patch until we read the log book. Samantha is nearly healed from her bout of poison and mine is just starting to appear. Another thing we learned is that people who are not very sensitive to poison ivy can sometimes take 3 weeks to show the symptoms. Damn I itch! It was still fun and we were not deterred from the next mission by a little brush with the great out doors.
The next site we went to was in Kickapoo State Park. Much easier this time as we took into account that the screen on the GPS is only about 4" square and the park covers many miles. We have been to 7 caches now (7/8/01) and the only real problem was at Turkey Run State Park in Indiana. We ran into some evil plant with jagged leaves that made our legs feel like they were on fire. I am not talking your run of the mill burning sensation. I mean 3 alarm fire from my feet to my thighs. I can't ever remember anything else that felt like that. Give me poison ivy any day over that!
We are still at it though and are planning several forays on our vacation to Ohio and Canada. 9/19/2001 UPDATE - We are up to 31 finds and have placed 2 of our own caches. WE LOVE IT!!!!!!
1/14/2002 UPDATE - 10 more since the last time I got around to updating. We have also moved our sight since because AT@T @Home went bankrupt. We have more space at this sight so I will try to add more pictures soon. I have also added a guest map.
6/2/2002 UPDATE - 26 more caches scored since the last time we got around to updating. Some of those were virtual though and only count a little. We have also upgraded our caching gear and moved entirely into the digital age. We purchased a IPAQ Pocket PC and it works wonders! We invested in Streets and Trips which came with a pocket version and we download waypoint maps to the IPAQ. So far it has worked like a charm and has entirely eliminated the need for a lot of paper work to drag around. With a GeoClipping program, we can take the cache description in the same device as the maps. The pc cable we bought for our Magellan 315 when used with the EasyGPS program makes entering coordinates effortless! We are officially high speed - low drag cachers!! We have also purchased some caching attire. We have had our fair share of poison ivy and critter attacks and our new getups should help eliminate some of that. We fell back on my military experience and got some utilities. Samantha has a blue set and I have an arctic set. We ordered some patches from the Geocaching web site and some Grateful Dead patches from another to keep with our Grateful Dead motif. We will post some pics when we get the patches sewn on. We have seen some photos of cachers wearing spandex or worse so we figure we surely won't look that bad! 12/15/2002 UPDATE - We are now up to 104 caches found. We will probably start going more again since Samantha is out of school for a while. We have missed going. 3/26/2003 Still at it! We have learned a few new tricks and have really streamlined our operation. We are completely paper free and the process of planning our trip is now painless with the addition of ExpertGPS and GPX View.
The GeoCaching expedition pictures Our Hitchhikers and Travel Bugs
The Groundspeak Geocaching Logo is a trademark of Grounded Inc. a/k/a Groundspeak. Used with permission
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