After two days of a three-day weekend spent inside feeling like crap, I woke up feeling much better today. I decided to go out and find a couple of caches and try out GeoScout, the new software I downloaded for caching with my iPAQ Mobile Messenger 6955. All in all, the software was much better than using PocketStreets, GPXSonar and a hand-made map/details page because all the info was in one spot. I just had to toggle the tabs between the cache info and the navigation part of the program, so it’s pretty well laid-out. I did still make and print out a map of the general area with the little balloons indicating where each cache was.
I wonder if I’ll be able to make the leap to full-on paperless caching, as the idea of not even having the map seems a little daunting – how would I know where to go and which cache to visit next? I don’t particularly trust the maps the program downloads, but I haven’t fully learned how to use them yet without picking a cache to view/navigate to first.
I only had time to look for two caches – Kaymar at Rumble and Sportsfield Hide – before Tracey got off work. I spent a while at the first cache, trying to orient myself to the new software and the transition from decimal degrees to degrees decimal minutes. It doesn’t sound like a huge leap, but when you’re still new at something, the smallest changes seem like curveballs! It was located in a cute little ravine park with a tiny creek flowing down the middle of it. I’m sure it’s a nice little walk when it’s not raining. It started drizzling while I was there and, due to the tree cover, I had a hard time getting the GPS to give me an accurate reading. So, after about 15 or 20 minutes of wandering back and forth, I read the hint to find where the cache was located. After two days of feeling like crap, I couldn’t very well leave empty-handed on my first attempt! So, I found it, signed the logbook, snapped a picture and walked back to my car.
I headed to the next cache – Sportsfield Hide – and it started drizzling in earnest when I pulled up into the parking lot of the park in which the cache was located. There were several soccer games in progress and I walked around the perimeter of the park to the general area where the cache was supposed to be hidden. Again, I had a helluva time getting the coordinates to come up right and I checked out a few spots in the trees near the area. Since most of the caches I’ve found to date have been hidden around the bases of trees, I naturally assumed that since I was close, the cache would surely be hidden at the foot of one of the clusters of trees nearby. WRONG! After about 20 minutes of walking back and forth and wondering why the closest I could get to the right coordinates put me smack in the middle of the trail, I re-read the cache description which said the cache container was a spaghetti sauce jar. Right away, I started looking around and had noticed these plastic poles sticking out of the ground earlier which are placed just inside the edges of the trail. So, I looked into the one that had no cap on it and then decided to try the caps of a couple of the other poles and sure enough, one of the small poles’ caps came off and EUREKA! The spaghetti sauce jar was tucked inside the pole. I took it out and, in typical jar-opening fashion, had to tap the lid on the bleachers to get the sucker to open! I examined the contents, signed the log and took a quick photo for documentation. I headed home satisfied with my ability to take a hint and find the damned cache after all! lol
I came home and Tracey and I went to Mr. Ho’s for Chinese food. I really like their food – it’s still not in the ballpark with Golden Dragon, but an acceptable substitute given the commute to Denham Springs! :-p We went by IGA and Shoppers Drug Mart to pick up ingredients for the cheesecake Tracey wanted to make for me and some reading glasses for her.
We got back here to realize that Tracey had lost her cell phone along the way somewhere. After checking in the car and all the other obvious places, we drove back to the spot where we parked when we were at Mr. Ho’s. Sure enough, the phone was lying at the curb where we had parked. It was raining so still not sure if it got damaged or not.
We got back home and I uploaded all the pictures I’ve taken of the caches I’ve found so far. Nothing great – the PDA’s camera is definitely not great, but better than nothing in a pinch!
Speaking of pictures…I had taken a couple of quick shots of Tracey when we were getting our hair cut a week or so ago and one of them came out REALLY creepy. Something weird happened to the lighting and it made her look like she was dead and that someone was doing something to her head. I looked at it a few times after I took it and was totally creeped out by it! I showed her the pic and told her I had shown it to Deidre and Laina and she freaked out on me saying she didn’t want to be entertainment for my friends. I told her it wasn’t for entertainment, it was to have someone to share thefact that it creeped me out so badly with. You can’t really explain something like that to people – you have to show them for them to be able to get what you’re talking about! So, we got into a little spat about that. She’s so insistent about me apologizing for things when she thinks she’s right. I just don’t react to the same things as her and certainly not in the same way and she doesn’t seem to understand that I can only make decisions based on how I would feel or react to certain things, rather than reaching into the next galaxy to try to fathom what things she might react to and how strongly. Long story short, I apologized. Told her I didn’t think about how she would feel about me sharing a picture like that with anyone else and told her I wouldn’t do it again in the future. And she made me delete the pic. It’s sitting in the recycle bin of my computer. I sort of want to keep it because it’s so odd and spooky (unintentionally so). I don’t intend to send it to anyone else, so why should I delete it? I’ll think it over, I guess.
Watching “You’ve Got Mail” on cable now. To my credit, it’s on a premium channel, so there’s really no difference between watching it on TV versus getting up to put the DVD in. I’m getting much better about that! I don’t know why I love those sappy romantic comedies so much. I can watch them over and over again.
That’s enough of a volume for today!