The Musical Highway

An amazingly long and enjoyable day.

The plan.

I had been thinking about this and tossed some ideas out to a few people.  Wondering who might be interested.  I was not sure if i would be able to go, but i really wanted to.  I knew it would be a long one.  200 caches 3 hours away from home.  so we were looking at 8 hours at most (i was guessing i would be really fast in a search. (wrong).
Then finally my plans sorted themselves out about Wednesday night that I would be able to go.  After a trip to the zoo Friday, Saturday was to be free.
I called Jacob, he still wanted to do stuff nearby, but was thinking about it.  He made a few inquiries to the Mortys and Princess Daisies. Thursday night they came over to get a few caches that were located near my home, and we started to talk.  That led to calling Jacob and the decision was made.  We were going to go.  The car was discussed, what to take, when to leave. All vital points that we needed to determine before we left.
Some disagreement on when we were going to meet was discussed and we settled on 7am. Though I did call Jacob later to determine if I had really heard correctly.

Morning

Well I got up and headed out.  Of course I was the last one.  7am is really early for me. After a few convulsions  and seizures at getting up so early I finally got rolling.
We met and were off on the road.  I struggled to stay awake, but all was well. Sadly I had to sit in the back by Jacob, but eh... oh well.

Caches on the way.

We hit our first caches as we traveled ac cross the center of the state in Fillmore.  Cache across the US, one of PeanutsParents, and a Tico Jeffry cache. There was not much time to waste as we hit the bathrooms grabbed some small snacks, and were on our way once again.

As we headed south, we pulled off so Jacob to do some cache maintenance and to hit a few more caches on the way. Grabbing a multi, and a few other caches and back on the freeway heading south.  

We hit town at about 11 and grabbed some gas (so we would not be out in the desert without it). Princess Daisies and I grabbed a cache at the gas station, and we started looking for caches in the area to go find. We hit a few and finally decided to go grab some food.  jacob wanted to meet some girl while we were there, so we ate and talked.  

Then we jumped ship for a few and headed out into the parking lot to grab a cache while Jacob visited.  We hit the store and grabbed some Oreos, and a little junk food. We got there and broke up the lovebirds and off we went to the event.

We were late at this point, but there were caches on the way.  Crap.. how did that happen.  So we started to grab a few on the way. Then finally determined that we would be too late if we did not get rolling.

I worked the magic on the way and 190 caches suddenly magically appeared. >>poof<<.  Then I realized a horrible mistake that I had made.  I was watching them all.  So every cache find was going to send me an email until I finally got home and could turn them off.   Drat i had started with 200 emails in my inbox.

Jacob then pulled out his laptop and created and loaded a  pocket query for the area, so that he would be ready. I had cheated a little, and had made the query before I published it.  I sent a copy to the host, but I did not give it to him before we left.  I made him work for it.

Arrival

We pulled off and into the driveway.  We were not sure we were in the correct place, but I remembered getting an email from one of the event hosts so I pulled out my phone ans sure enough it matched the sign  >woohoo< we were there.

I stopped and talked at the entrance with one of the hosts and eventually went upstairs where everyone was eating and finishing loading the caches to head out on the adventure. Crap.  Mistake #2.  

If I had thought about it I would have waited, so that I could have visited with a few people for a while.  In the end that was probably a good thing.  We chatted with a few people, and people were heading out the door so off we went.

The Musical Highway

We headed off on the journey. I tried to stop and say hi for a minute but the rest of my team was off and in the car by that time, so I figured I better go.  I got out and off we went.  We were the back car in the driveway, so we were first or second to get out on the road.

A breakdown of the caches...
There were a few large ones.
A handful of smaller ones.
Pill bottles
Marker tubes
DNA tubes.

Some were pretty easy to find, others were evil  If you head out the difficulty rating does not always follow how difficult we found it.  The marker tubes drove me nuts.  many were painted, some were in holes in the fence a  number of them were original in how the containers were hid.  All in all it was great.

The day wore on and the train of cars diminished.  Some had to leave at 4pm others 6pm.. The temperature was near 100 and I was surprised that no one had any car trouble.  We would shut the car off at some hides, turn of the AC when we were out of the car.

The day did drag on, after an hour or two I remember thinking.. crap we are only about 1/4 of the way. I thought something like that many times during the day.  We gathered at around the halfway point to talk as a group - we were bunched up looking for one of the unfindable ones, and the cache owner showed up.

The number of cars slowly diminished so that by the end there were 4 cars.. 10 people finished the trail.  At this point I was glad I did not schedule to sit and talk earlier in the day.  The sun was going down on our evening. We snapped a parting shot as a group, and headed off.  We were taking an old train road north, and everyone else was heading back to get the night cache. that we hit earlier in the day.

Return

The return was uneventful.  Jacob placed two at two old rail town/stops that were nothing but dots in the sand. I found a place that I placed my disco inferno cache.  It seemed fitting there was a fire in the distance in some of the hills, and finishing the trail.  We headed up through minersville past all the pig farms. On to beaver and home.  But we did make it on one piece.

We finally crawled home at about 12:30 or a little later. Thanks Wildrills and Ironbuttwings for the fantastic day, and all the cachers for putting up with the four strangers from the north invading your desert country.  I dont want to forget my trip, caching companions, Mortys, Princess Daisies, and Jacob, for making the day and the trip fun and possible.

 

More on the way.

After a weekend of many many caches (over 200 Saturday) I am logging. 

I hate (actually despise) cut and paste, so I am trying to go through and leave notes.  I also forgot to take the 200 caches off my watch list.  I started doing that this afternoon.  Then I had to delete about 800-1000 emails from the cache list without loosing the important ones.

I will find a way to screw it all up.

So I am running slow, and getting around to fixing all these really slow.  But i am up to 1714 logging with lots lots more to go.  So more will be on the way about the trip, but not right now.

Todays Buzz

I went to the zoo today.. to see fruit bats. Yep apparently.  I also went to see the Lions.  I did not see any.. any.  Are they still there? and I remember the penguins as having 20-30  this time I saw 6.  What is the deal?  I felt ripped off.  Tons of parrots.  Why?  apparently every pet owner drops off their parrot when they cannot handle them.  They get lonely and neurotic and start eating your house.

No caching today. Though I did prepare for a 190 cache series to be listed.  I just need to reach the time and hit the magic button.

I did list a few today, but they were ones that I was working through with other cachers. 

Sadly I finished archiving about 1oo caches.  About 75% were because the caches were to close to others.  Another 20% were because they just needed to tell me where they lived, so I could make sure they could maintain them, or give me some maintenance info because they lived a ways away. and the last 5% were a mix of small issues.  In National Parks, Wilderness, etc and never got around to moving them.

So live goes on. Tomorrow I should have a small group ready to go. Yes.  the fun will begin in earnest. and a caching trip with friends.  Lets enjoy the day, a holiday even.

NEEDS ARCHIVED!!

I recently was asked by someone why one cache was archived quickly and another is archived weeks later after someone placed a needs archived note on them. I thought I would take a moment to shed some light on my thought.

I should say that I save every needs archived email that I get.  I narrow that into four categories.

1. Are you kidding?  This category is for odd or dumb things.  Cache appears to be cracked, you saw a snake near it.  The cache is still there, and perhaps deserves a needs maintenance.  I usually ignore these altogether.
2. hmmmm maybe.  You report the cache as missing. Perhaps you are the first one. Or it is a high difficulty.  With these I place in a folder to look back on them in the future.  Seeing if there are more needs archived notes, or if the owner responded. 
3. Looks missing.  In this case we have an active owner or a number of DNF's. Perhaps the NA note was placed some time ago, and the owner has not responded.  These usually mean I will place a note for the cache owner to take a look at the cache or it will be archived.
4. Gone.  This category is for those that people have checked back on, is not there, and the owner is not active.  Poof.  the cache will go away.

All of these can be adjusted by certain factors.  Difficulty, number of DNF's, did experienced people visit or new cachers, has someone visited that found the cache before, type of cache, is the owner honest (yes some lie to us - shocking), etc.  All of these can adjust things.

Note:  if a cache is archived it can be revived.  I bring back a few each month that a cache owner has went out and fixed.  It is subject to a re review, so  it has to meet the current requirements.  (that is why virtuals, webcams cannot be unarchived). 

Hope that helps? any questions feel free to ask. (no specifics please)

Piles of caches - and What to watch for.

Wow.. today was one of those days.  Once and a while I get a ton of caches to review. Usually it consists of 5-10 people putting out 1-3 caches each.. and maybe one with 6-7.  So a heavy day is made up of 35-40 to go over.. and about 30-35 will get listed.

New people seem to have the most trouble.  That is expected.  Usually it is missing home coordinates or too close to other caches.  Less often are caches that I catch that have a business in the name.  They pop up because people think it is cute to use a nearby business, if it is a bigger company I usually catch it.

Today was one of those days.  It seemed there were 20-30 people or more listing many caches.  In the end I think I counted 52 caches that were listed with a lot that were waiting to have a few fixes by the cache owner.  That is a lot. More than I normally do.  Outside of times people were putting out a power trail this appears to be the biggest day.

So how can you get you caches listed?

The process is pretty simple.

1. Proximity.  Make sure there are no other caches around you.  Load them in your gps.  Then when you get back home do a search for the coordinates.  If you are not a premium member when you do a search it will pop up. it will not tell you its coordinates, but it will tell you SW 522 feet. Remember 528' is the rule.  There is no longer a "across the river/freeway" exception. There are some that are given, about 1-2 a month.  Usually for something dramatic, or they are a few feet to close to a puzzle, or be new. 
2. Avoid homes.  If you are publishing in a residential area, expect questions.  GPS units can be 50-70 feet off.  Are there clear hints? Is it your home? Are the neighbors aware (remember 50 feet off can be on their porch).  Do you mention you have their permission.
3. Colleges.  Every college student wants to place a cool ammo can labeled "grenades" on campus.  Welcome campus police and bomb squad.  They should know, use a clear container, or make it a micro, oh and label it.
4. Commercial.  Pizza Hut cache, or Zion's Bank Cache will not get listed without permission from groundspeak.  If you place those in your cache page you will get a similar result.  You will get tied up waiting for permission.
5. Challege caches.  Did you complete it? or is a number of people able to.  Prove it. Put the info in your description.  Oh by the way, it cannot be a list of Bobs, or your own caches.  Unless Bob has 300 and you want people to find a small number (but not your own).
6. No travel bug Prisons.  Travel bugs are not yours, THEY ARE NOT TRADE ITEMS.  Did I say THEY ARE NOT TRADE ITEMS.  You cannot say take one, leave one.  You can ask, but not tell them.  Personally if I run accross a prison, it is time for a Jail break.  If you are carrying 20 of them around, please set them free.  That is the goal, not for Bob to carry them.

That is pretty much the major things I run across.  Hopefully these help. Oh by the way there is one thing that you should remember.  Patience.  If I have a question or a problem I move on.  Why have a load of caches waiting because someone wants to hide a camo taped pvc pipe in a the bushes by the courthouse 300' from another?  I will spend time writing it up, so I move on. 

I may have some concerns and I email another reviewer for their opinion, or put it on the reviewer forum for all of them to give their ideas.  I also may not review for a day.. or two. I do have a life and go caching, or get out of town.  So a delay may be for a few issues.

Emailing every 120 minutes will not help.  If there was some issue, please post notes on the cache page.  If in a few days no response is coming along email me.  Give me the GC code so I can find it.  I have over 350 caches on hold right now (some waiting to be published others for issues).  Yes I do need to clear them out.