[Grandma & Grandpa]

I like caribiners, I use them a lot. Fishing lures are good, too. Gram likes anything related to sewing or quilting.

But with the way caches get emptied out with no trading, we’ve been putting more and more free rummage sale stuff in. We seem to have a streak of empty medium and large cache finds lately.

We have KFCs, maybe we need a designation for GFC – Grandparent Friendly Cache!

cYa, Chris & Jim

[Grandma & Grandpa]

I pulled a deer tick nymph off my leg this morning. It had been attached less than 24 hours, it was not there when I showered yesterday morning. This is the second one this week.

Research I’ve done suggests that attachment of 24 – 36 hours is necessary before the transmittal of various germs can occur.

My procedure with an embedded deer tick is to use a very fine curved tip precision tweezers to get right down next to the skin to grab just the mouth parts of the deer tick. It is then gently pulled off. I try to avoid squeezing the body. This is followed up by application of an antibiotic ointment for a few days. Typically a small swelling that itches will occur, but I watch closely for any rash or larger irritation. Regular wood ticks are just grabbed and pulled off, followed by the ointment.

Living out in the country in Waupaca County, which is a Wisconsin hotbed for tick and Lyme activity, we deal with common wood ticks and the smaller deer ticks often. So far, with diligent checking of ourselves and careful removal, we’ve avoided any health issues.

This photo shows a baby deer tick (a nymph) inside the red circle – notice it is about the size of the period at the end of this sentence. Also shown is the forceps I use for deer ticks, and a tick I.D. card, commonly available at campgrounds and state parks offices.

So we either stay in the house all spring, summer, and fall, or are careful about tick and get outside and enjoy the great outdoors!

cYa, Jim & Chris

[Grandma & Grandpa]

I put on about 90 miles every day just back-n-forth to work. That pretty much takes care of our gas budget! Even driving our little Toyotas, I go through plenty of gas. I’ll catch caches en route when weather and daylight and schedule allow, but we have not made many special trips lately.

cYa, Jim

[Grandma & Grandpa]

Yup, I’d love to!

[Grandma & Grandpa]

Here’s a pic I took off our deck at 6:40 pm tonight. We live about 4 miles east of Hartman Creek State Park. There’s snow on the ground again now!

cYa, Grandpa

[Grandma & Grandpa]

Don’t see the Campout Committee section in the forums since the website update… and can’t seem to find it buried anywhere, either.

Jim

[Grandma & Grandpa]

Having camped on all of the groups sites in recent years, I agree that #3 & 4 are the prime choice. And also knowing how quickly these fill up, I’d suggest haste in getting the reservation in. If somebody wants to count heads in May, I’m sure a payment adjustment woould be accepted if the early estimate is off.

Jim

[Grandma & Grandpa]

Next week I’ll be taking a bunch of 6th graders outside. As part of their Egypt unit, we use GPS’ to lay out the actual size of the base of the Great Pyramid. The water tower next to the schoolyard is just about dead center, and is almost exactly 1/3 the height. What a great visual demonstration using modern technology on a 5,000 year old topic.

BTW, it is .14 mile wide per side, and about 450′ tall to the tip. Unbelievably huge! The kids are usually pretty astounded.

cYa, Jim

[Grandma & Grandpa]

A “recreation” catagory of kayak is usually wider for stability, and the cockpit entry is long and wide for ease of getting in and out. A “touring” kayak is usually a bit thinner and perhaps less stable initially. These also tend to have a smaller entry.

As the price goes up, generally the weight of the boat goes down due to more exotic materials being used. Also the quality of the seats, deck bungees, and hatches gets better.

We have a 12′ Wilderness Systems Pungo, a rec boat with a terrific seat, very good stability, huge cockpit entry, and storage hatches that stay fairly dry. Chris loves it. These sell for ~ $700.00. Our other boat is a 14.5′ Mainstream Biscayne, a typical big-box kayak. It has a lousy seat that I’ve tried to upgrad twice with various add-ons. It has minimal rigging, small cockpit entry, and the hatches leak. But it only cost $350.00. I like it for about an hour at a time, any longer than that it is just too uncomfortable.

I just sold one of our canoes, so I’m looking to upgrade to a Wilderness Systems Tsunami 12.5′. This is a touring boat with good seat, hatches, and a small cockpit that will accept a spray skirt. I’ll use it on rivers and it will go along on some of our longer trips as well.

Whatever you get, paddling will open up a whole new word of recreation if you get bit by the bug! And it certainly is a good addition to geocaching.

cYa, Jim

[Grandma & Grandpa]

I’d be happy to help out ahead of time with planning for the campout. But I probably will not be able to attend – I’ve outfitted and led canoe trips the first and third weekends of May for many years, and am committed to doing this again.

Maybe we can even get some help from Gram – she is multi talented and pretty well connected in the Waupaca area.

cYa, Jim & Chris

[Grandma & Grandpa]

I logged one today that I found Friday… guess that didn’t count!

Jim

[Grandma & Grandpa]

I am not aware of any unusual Waupaca cache registration requirements, other than at Hartman Creek State Park. Just the normal permissions, gc.com rules, etc.

We’ve had no issues with any of ours.

Jim

[Grandma & Grandpa]

Between 3:30 and 5:30 this afternoon (Oct. 05) approximately 20 student TB’s will be dropped in R.J.’s Menasha TB Hotel ( GC26EZE ); the Seton Eagle Nest cache ( GC13EA5 ) just west of the Fox Valley at Hwy 10 / CB; and Seton’s St. M-M TB Retreat ( GC17508 ) in Waupaca.

Thanks a lot, Lighthouse Nut, for getting the first several moving, including one to California. These kids are absolutely thrilled! We now have four map pins placed on our big hallway bulletin boards. The rest of the 6th graders are anxiously watching the website so they can poke their pins someplace.

Thanks a lot!

cYa, Jim & the SetonCachers4 team

[Grandma & Grandpa]

We thought the same thing about Duluth-Superior being very similar to Marquette. Similar old buildings built of similar stone, same ore docks and harbors, and many high quality caches.

We get up to Marquette several times a year to visit our son & daughter-in-law, and felt right at home in Duluth-Superior last month.

cYa, Jim & Chris

[Grandma & Grandpa]

Since this thread originally began, we have done two caching-specific trips within Wisconsin. Both were for 4 days, and we did about 20 each time. Nothing excessive, and we still had time to do other things. But like others, our routes and caches were carefully chosen.

We don’t feel much pressure to be constantly caching, we typically average about 100 finds per year. We’re a little ahead of that for 2010, but this is unusual.

Caching and trips are a great combination for us, as long as the caching is kept in moderation.

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