Time to think about warm weather!!!!!!

[Team Hemisphere Dancer]

So it is the coldest day of the year and my wife asked me to run to the grocery store to pick up the fixin’s to make some omelets. I “gladly” decided to rush out into the bitter cold to get them.

I rolled down the window to knock the snow off the windows. Well it stuck in the down position. All the way to the store I was cussing about having to fix it when I got home. But the stomach was calling and I was on a mission. My ears were about to crack from the cold wind blowing on my head.

That was when I got to thinking…. I need to start thinking about warmer weather. So I thought about a day on labor day weekend when our team went out to grab some Michigan caches.

We were driving north along M-35 with Green Bay at my right. GPS says there is a cache a few miles up the road. I believe it was the Baily Park Cache. As I pulled the he entrance there was a split in the road. To the left was the West Shore Fishing Museum. To the left was the park and The cache. This cache was a standard ammo can which I traded TB’s and moved on. On the way out of the park I said to the rest, “I want to check out that museum.” They all agreed that this was OK.

As we pulled in there was a man waiting to direct people to a parking spot. He asked if we were there to join them, so my inquisitive nature replied with whats going on here today. ( the museum wasn’t supposed to be open til much later that day) He replied with details about it being their annual fundraiser. We parked and took a tour of the museum. There were many old relics from the bays fishing history that was just fascinating. Not to mention the house and all the great woodwork that went into it.

We waited until the food was ready and we each ate a local brat. One of the best I’ve ever had. Then came the Model “A’s” and “T’s” for the old time car show. After I checked all this out we sat and enjoyed a local bluegrass band ate ice cream and Home made pie from all the lady volunteers at the museum.

We probably spent a good 4 hours just relaxing and enjoying the local flair that they put on as this fundraiser. The kids were hinting that they wanted to go swimming so we decided it was time to head back to the lake and let them swim. as we pulled out of the museum and park area I remember saying to the team, “There’s a lot more in a cache than just tradeable trinkets.”

This is a great memory that will last in all of us for quite some time.

What about you guys, Do you have any good stories from caching this last summer? post them so we can all find a way to cope with all this cold weather.

[EnergySaver]

Not a specific summer cache … but the summer in general: we changed our “geo-mood” and have pretty much gotten in the habit of only caching when we bring others along (sometimes first timers and sometimes not) … this has created so many great memories of strolling down wooded trails, enjoying the scenery and each others company … and oh yes, the caches.

I hope this one counts … it wasn’t in summer but a sunny day in the mid-30’s about a month ago … warm enough to un-zip the coat once we got walking (remember those days?): We took our church’s new pastor and his wife geocaching for the first time and also their first time in the northern Kettle Moraine (they moved here from CA in October to become our pastor, he was a National Park Law Enforcement Ranger in his past career) … so they of course loved the Kettles and we had great laughs caching the day away … we were doing “Pretty (Muddy) Back There”, with Pastor Kevin running ahead with the GPSr, he decided it would be quicker to go off trail, he got almost out of site of us, running ahead being silly, when he took a head first dive off a bit of a drop in elevation along a deer run … Rev. Kev was fine and so was the GPSr … he was just hoping we wouldn’t see what he did. I of course have never stopped teasing him about it. He’s a big guy, 6’6″, and it was funny to see him disapearing into the brush. Link to my favorite photo of them during the outting: http://wi-geocaching.com/modules/Gallery/albums/member_7/Rev_Kev_and_Pam.jpg[/url]

[Team Hemisphere Dancer]

excellent story, 30 degrees is much better than this.

Keep them coming

[cheezehead]

Well, I spent the coldest day of the winter in front of the puter looking up some little know Wisconsin fact as I am starting to get prepared for a set of cache series’s. Also looking over a few maps and notes for some future cache sites. So what I’m trying to put together is what I would call a 3 part, multi-mystery-puzzle cache series. You more or less will have to find the puzzle, then the code, then the cipher, which will take you back to another set of codes to find the Final.

Speaking of cold, last week I downloaded the coords. to a cache that is on an island near a local lake. So I have the coords in my GPSr,look at the map, look at the plat book to make sure I take the right road. I load up the dogs, grab the 2 TB’s I wanted to drop off and head out. Oh ya. it’s about -3 or so but I’m dressed for it. I drive a bit to find a place to park. Find a spot that is not to far from the lake. We head out across the lake. Wind is blowing pretty good but we keep a trompin’. It’s about a 3/4 mile hike or so. Have to go around another island to get to it.

I look at my GPSr and noticed that the way-point looks like it;s in water. I don’t think to much of it as I was doing some recon earlier in the week and my GPS said I was on water when I was on land. Thinking the same thing here. Get around the island and we are getting closer to the spot.
We get to the spot, within 2ft as the GPSr says and there ain’t nothing but ice. I look around, there is land 20 feet away or so. I start looking for a geo-beacon or tracks as someone else was out here just a few days ago. Nothing! Walk all the way back to the truck, drive back the 15 miles to the house and hop on the puter. The coords listed and the coords on the GPSr are different. I know what you are thinking, coords must have been entered wrong and re-posted. not the case. For whatever reason, they just downloaded wrong cuz even the map was different.

So I did not log this as a DNF. If it warms up Tuesday, I’m gonna go get that dang cache even if I freeze my butt off!

[Vegas Gamblers]

Just thinking of the summer since we started caching in June 2006. Now our plans are made for six days in Phoenix. Spring training (warm breezes, blue sky and cold beer). GO BREWERS!!!!!

[Team Margaritaville]

Being we just started geocaching this summer and don’t really have many find compared to most cacher. Our favorite memory of caching was the Bond Falls Cache in the U.P. It was a great the wife loves waterfalls the geo-kid loves playing in water and we loved the cache.

Now the other thing i’ve been doing to keep myself occupied during these cold months is trying to figure out all the buffett realated cache names and use them before Team Hemisphere Dancer does… LOL

I want to go where its Warm..

[Team Hemisphere Dancer]

Team Margaritaville wrote:

Now the other thing i’ve been doing to keep myself occupied during these cold months is trying to figure out all the buffett realated cache names and use them before Team Hemisphere Dancer does… LOL

quote]

Hey man I got the corner on that…..LOL

[Ray]

When the weekend comes, it is time for us to get out and do some geocaching. There have been times when we have not been able to, but we usually make the effort. We went out in single digit temperatures with double digit wind speeds with Geoffnsara and the Folk Trakers to score our 1000th cache find and enjoyed every minute of it in spite of the weather. Yesterday, Trudy & I went out and braved 4 degree temperatures with 20 mph winds to seek out a dozen local caches. (we found one). The bone chilling cold was cutting through several layers of clothing and fogging the glasses making the most nobel efforts futile. We had set aside 4 hours for cache hunting and managed to stay out for about 2.

One of our favorite warm weather adventures was in mid-June of ’05. Trudy & I each scored a Friday off and decided to take our oldest granddaughter on a roadtrip. We left Milwaukee Thursday evening and within 72 hours had covered 2000 miles. We visited Minnesota, North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Iowa and Illinois before returning home. MaryAnn (AKA Ginger520) discovered Perkins Restaurants and came to realize The difference between McDonalds Fare and real food. While passing through South Dakota we got a Phone-a-friend call from Geoffnsara looking for us at a Racine event. And somewhere in the middle of Iowa we found a cache that was last signed a week earlier by Natloh2. How great can life get?

[Team Hemisphere Dancer]

Now that is what I call a road trip. Not to mention some real Quality time.

[LightningBugs Mum]

There’s something about extreme temps that just seem to beckon to me – tho I can’t fathom why.

Today, Bec and I found 7 caches and 5 temps at the Super Bowl event. The high was forecast to be -4 with windchills in the -20 to -30s.

But last summer, I took the kids geocaching on what I believe was the hottest day of the year – topping out right at 100 sometime around the end of July if I remember correctly. The highlight of the day was visiting Lil Otter’s For God and Country Grotto Shrine cache somewhere west of Wisconsin Rapids. After finding it, we wandered the gardens which were lush and shady and the grotto, which was a man-made cave, was cool and inviting. The rest of the caches that day were a bit more sweaty (some involving stinging nettles and poison ivy), so we returned to the campground in the evening to take a dip in the pond there. The kids enjoyed trying to catch the tadpoles, but the skeeters were pretty relentless. That particular trip convinced me to upgrade to a camper with AC.

Skeeters, nettles and poison ivy – ahhhh, summer. 8)

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