The good the bad and the ugly.

Well here goes the story for the week.  I packed up with a group of young men and headed to Maple Dell for my scout camp.  It was going to be rough, eating food and letting the scouts do all the work, but someone has to do it.

There was a lot to do to get ready, medical forms, getting a physical (weee).  So much to do and so little time.

I did finally get everything together.  I about forgot to actually get someone to look over the Utah Queue.  At the last second I send out some feelers to HighCountryAdmin, one of the greatest reviewers of all time, all hail his name.  I actually have to say that.  I think it was part of the contract of having him train me.  I must always point out how fantastic he is.  He would be to have to put up with me.

After a long day saturday I headed up to the mountain with the boys.  Everything went well.  I did take the time to get out and see a few things.  I showed a few of the boys a micro that was at the entrance.  Not a great one, but placed by one of my favorite cachers Cervine Girls.  She has worked at this camp for a number of years.  Due to a series of events she is at another camp this year.  That kind of depressed me.  But it was fun anyway.

Well the time at camps was pretty well spent.  Arrival is full of many duties that entail, looking lost, lifting lots of heavy stuff, wondering if you will have the courage to use the outhouses after you smell them, and wondering if you can actually sneak away and get a cache.

Well that night we headed up to do a service project around the lake.  Great view.

We spend a few hours caching around the lake.  Of course what could be more fitting when looking for trash than trying to find a cache.  When everyone was settled down and waiting to go home I broke away and headed up into the trees to find a cache left by a scout troop.   

Troop 68 Rocks Layson Lakes  has been around for 4 years.  Not bad.  Seems like most that i have found are 2 years old or less.

It was a hundred yards off the trail and up in the weeds.  It was pretty easy to spot.  There are not many rocks in the area, they must have scavanged to find the few that they used.  But the big one on top.. not really heave but a little kid would not have mored. it.  

Nothing much inside, but then I do not pay attention to that.  It is too much work and too much pain for me to worry about the contents.  After finding it I scrambled back and we headed down to camp. 

Later in the week thrusday night four of us headed for a walk.  There are a ton of caches placed by Baldin Eagle about scouts.  I have spent a ton of time solving them, and have a few more to go.  A few have me really stumped, but I will get them sooner or later.  I am missing something obvious.  We did stop and get Citizinship in the Community.  They are a bunch of puzzles that are in the shape of a scout symbol.  Really cool.  I have done a few dozen (or less), I passed a number, but we were hiking with youth and did not want to spend the day looking for caches with boys that may not want to.

After my trip home and looking over my reviewing queue I had a bunch of issues that I had to deal with.  Too many people did not get my auto response that I am out of town.  If you sent an email to me and used geocaching.com and did not select the button to include your email address, you thought I was ignoring you.  It was not the case, a few I should have dealt with earlier, but I had not taken the time.

Then last night as things were getting back to normal and I was going home to buy tickets to geowoodstock and back, a young lady pulled out, and into the side of my car.  :P  so now I am without car.  Well I can play Dukes of Hazard and go in and out the window, but I am not 22 anymore.  Plus my car is small and it is tricky to wiggle behind the seat.

Munched door and some of the frame.  So we will see what happens.

MIA

I was missing for a week.. I had not forgotten and will follow up soon.

Breakfast, Cito, and Scouts.

I woke up way to early.  I did not mean to, but I did.  I guess it is the result of getting older, but sadly it is killing the fact that I stay up too late.. but I digress.. back to topic.  I decided that if I got up I would head to breakfast with some of the others that were going: DrJay, Jac0b, PeanutsParents, Princess Daisies, SuperTbone, the Mortys, and spouses. 

I went and ordered, and was kind of happy.  I wait until the last second to order.  Too many choices and I am lost.  Someone recommended it, and I jumped on it, two robin sized eggs-scrambled, overcooked sticks of bacon, a cup of yogurt that had a cup of granola behind it that I did not see until I was done, and a muffin.  Not bad. Then I saw what the Dr had.

I found myself annoyed. He had so much food.  I wanted to attack him and steal some of it.  4 biscuits?  gravy?  and that slice of ham and the eggs just like from home.. oh hash browns and apple stuff.

Man I felt screwed.  It was just wrong on so many levels.

But on with life.  Afterward we headed outside to go to the CITO.  No one was in a big hurry, the weather was bad and we were delaying it. It was time.

I have been lazy, with about 10 this year, and a few last year I have been to a grand total of..... one.   So I figured I needed to go and I did not want to be dragged off.

So the train began off in the cars and off to the other exit on the other side of the freeway to the Cito.  GoblinCamper was all ready by that point.  They were just getting rolling.  Well I finally grabbed my but in gear.

Apparently Jacob found something that resembled a kids fireman hat.  I went to take a pic and he jumped in.

Well Here is his handsome pic.  Eat your heart out girls, he is single, and apparently he has a really big head if that hat is for adults. 

Here is the one I snapped later on

I liked this one.. The color was great.  So I had to throw it in the mix on a wet afternoon.  There were a afew more things going on.. like the cito. I did finally get gloves on and clean up some garbage.  It was time.

Then I headed off for my day of scouting.  Getting a trailer running, lights, truck, cleaning car, buying food, food and more food. I wonder if I can get through tomorrow.

On a side note Balding Eagle and Art Vandelay found my new cache, Fudge Nugget.  I had hopes that it would be harder than it was.  But that is my luck.  Hopefully they found some kind of a challenge to get it, ant that it was not just a walk up and walk away.

Geocaching Podcast

Well I downloaded this weeks geocaching podcast tonight.  This show is a real roller coaster for me.  They have some great topics, and some terrible ones. Great audio, and other times it is downright horrible.

They tend to spend a lot of time chattering on about technology, and about technical items.  Unfortunately they get bogged down in some details. And if I hear them talk about a cache and go G-C-1-3-4-4-5 again.. I will go nuts.  Just tell me the name and put the GC number in the podcast notes. It really sounds dumb.

Mediocre today.  They seem a bit critical of everything that Geocaching.com has done.  The like button.  That I was told by one of the lackey in all caps last night, is not for rating caches. 

Oh wait you do not get the right effect without the caps..let me try again.

The like button IS NOT FOR RATING CACHES. It is to share caches you like with your friends on facebook.  Nothing more or less.   If you don't like facebook, don't participate.

Actually I do not remember if it was in all caps, but he did emphasize the point.

They did chatter on about collectibles that I do not know anything about, even thought I followed some discussions about it in Reviewer forums, and chats, but I did not pay that much attention.  they also discussed the Garmin Map 62.  I would like to see one.  but I have no real desire to change.

New icons
Yes there are two new icons out there.  Some have misunderstood that it will be for the Triad. (Main office, Ape, and First Cache.  Nope.  That would be stupid actually (in my opinion).  The first cache was archived many years ago, so I do not really even include it.

One will be for the Lily pads Headquarters.   I have not read to see if it applies to all past and future visits.  The other will be for the 10th anniversary party.

I think I have decided to go. Enough people asked me that I am heading up... I think.

Caching Time

I went out and placed three caches tonight.  There was a spot that I had been looking at for a while, and have been rather surprised that nothing has gone up.  So I finally took a walk out there and threw a few out.

One is rather difficult, one is nearby, and another will be a little walk of .35 miles out to the cache.  I will dump some more when I get a chance but I liked the place.

It was a nice walk.  This location was closed for some time. I was really surprised and the number of flowers that were around of all different kinds.

There were a number of birds that I was not familiar with.  I wish I was able to see them a littel better, but they were a ways away.  My pics did not turn out well at all.  I do not count on great pics from my phone.  If they turn out I am happy.

I did go find one today.  A rarity

 

It was a cache in a glass jar.  I do not think they normally last in utahs winters, they tend to shatter.  But it was also a power bait jar.  It still seemed to have some of the smell  .. uuggg.