Newest Milestone!

As we have been caching now since Sept 2010, we have had to space out our finds to make it to 100. With my Fibro flaring up really bad in the winter, I can't cache as much as I would like to when it gets cold. The weather has been so beautiful this past week however, we were actually able to do a massive cache run!

So as we said in our last post, we hit 100 the 31st of January. Well, yesterday we hit hit 200!! That is 100 caches in 19 days! We couldn't have done it without the amazing warm weather that pushed in and then yesterday was a great event!

Yesterdays event at Beaver Dam Lake in Gloucester, Va was so much fun! We met some more amazing cachers and had a great lunch and even won some door prizes, how can you beat that? Well, afterwards, we decided to team up some other great cachers and do a team cache run through the park! It was one of the most fun excursions we have been on. Being with a group was a new experience for us, as we have only teamed up with 1 other cacher and that was my best friend as I sucked her into the sport! This time we were with about 9 other cachers (both adults and little bits) and it was such great fun! We are so blessed to have met such great people and to be a part of this community.

This is definitely an addictive sport but I have to admit, with all the trails we have hit the past couple of days, I can feel the muscle in my legs starting to get back in shape! So now as we turn from one milestone to a new one, we can begin to set a goal... Get out as much as we can now that the weather is breaking, well except for Sundays as that is NASCAR day!! Now I have a new reason to keep going to races, now I snag, bag and tag the caches at the tracks!!

~Kesara~

Quick Grabs

Now that the weather is getting cold now, I get less chance to go on longer caching hunts and the hikes that go with them. Since we had to go to the store anyway, we decided to grab a couple of park and grabs in the area of the store. Well, that 1 stop turned into 3 stops, 2 caches and getting my mom involved...

First off, we actually did get to the store that we went out for. (It would have been a bit awkward if we forgot that) We decided that we would go ahead and snag a quick cache in the parking lot of the store next to the one we just came out of. Well, after we logged that, we shopped around there, buying some cool holiday stuff.

As we were then heading home, we decided to snag the one that is behind a Home Depot. (As if we needed another excuse to check out stuff in there too) We drove around to the back and this time my mom got out to help look. Of course, I should have probably stayed back and let my mom actually find this one, since it has become apparent that I have a "sixth sense" when it comes to locating caches. I though I would just poke around the location and "hopefully" let my mom be the finder, just to spark her interest in our new hobby. Well, I should probably have stayed in the car then... I walked right up to it and with one single motion found the dang thing. I swear, within less than 5 seconds...

So now I get the label of *human GPS* and my mom can still grumble that I won't let her find one. I guess this means that we all get to go out and find some more caches together. I think she will get the bug, as long as I let someone else have some fun once in a while...

Since we are so close to our 100th find, I would really love to be able to snag that accomplishment before the end of the year.

Caching With A Friend

One of the best things that one can do is introduce another person to the joys of caching. Well, we got to do just that with a great friend.

JuliaDarling, whom I have known for years, decided to join us on a caching adventure. We decided to try something that would be fun and a little easier than some of the higher difficulty caches that leave you wanting to pull your hair out. So our first stop was a local petting zoo, Blue Bird Gap Farm. There were a couple of traditional caches and a puzzle cache there, so perfect place to start.

Well, we immediately found ourselves thick in with briars and generally painful thorns. After walking around in circles we decided to go on a hunch that Julia had from what she remembered from the description of the cache and low and behold grown zero!

The next cache was creepily near a small cemetery that I honestly never knew was even in the park and was a quick find. However, the puzzle cache that we were working on finding all the answers to as we went, proved to be a little more difficult... As in Brody figured out the correct coordinates as we were driving out of the parking lot! Nice, right? So we chose to hit that one at another time, we were NOT going to turn back.

Gathering a few more finds at another local park, we officially determined that we had made a convert as well as a caching partner. This will benefit all of us since we just had a blast being out there with her.

As the weather is turning cold, the amount of caches that we hit will probably be more sporadic but we know one thing... No matter what season, as long as we have a great friend with us, we are sure to have fun and maybe even cause a ruckus. After all, isn't that what friends are for?

Caching At Sandy Bottom

This past Tuesday, Kesara and I decided to go caching in Sandy Bottom Nature Park, a scenic little stretch of woods nestled in between Newport News and Hampton. Having spent the previous few days getting the hang of urban caches, we thought it would be a good idea to get out into the great outdoors and get a taste of geocaching the way it was meant to be.

We started by learning a small but important lesson when it comes to geocaching: Following the GPS is important, but looking away from it long enough to read trail signs helps too. We found ourselves 30 feet from the first cache of the day in no time. Too bad those 30 feet were through a pond. A quick detour later, we made our first find of the day.After a short hop, skip, and a jump later, we found our way to cache number two for the day. In addition to what is probably the coolest cache so far, we also learned our second lesson: Tree canopies tend to make your GPS bounce like a second grader on a sugar buzz... After giving up on following our coordinates and deciding to follow our guts instead, we found this:

So far, this journey has only taken us about 30 minutes. Our next cache (our first attempt at a multi) tacked on another 90. We had a good idea of the area it was in, as it was our favorite place in the park. We approached with an obscure hint and more than a little confidence. Turns out that confidence was painfully misplaced. An hour and a half later, we were still empty handed and running out of daylight. We finally gave up and finished the circuit around the park, feeling much better after logging two more caches in the next ten minutes. On the walk out, we learned one more important, if somewhat more personal lesson: All the terminology Kesara has coined for when we go geocaching were swiped from assorted Syfy shows. I'm sure she'll be willing to share a few of her geekier moments if you ask her nicely...
~Brody

Busy Few Days

So the past few days has been very busy. All starting on Monday.

We decided to do a nice little walk to some local caches that weren't too far from the house... Well, that short little jaunt ended up in a VERY long walk around the area. Needless to say, we were so tired by the time we got home that we just collapsed and didn't even think about anything other than sleep.

We did, however, snag a cool Travel Bug. This particular TB, which is the grommet from a flag that was retired with honors in Florida by a Girl Scout Troop and is trying to make it to all the National Cemeteries. We picked it up at the St. Johns Church cemetery in Hampton, Va. We plan on getting a picture of it at the Yorktown National Cemetery and then dropping it in a cache at the Cold Harbor Battlefield. It is right beside the Cold Harbor National Cemetery and just a short distance from Arlington. (You can read more about this TB as soon as I get the Travel Bug page up and running soon)

~Kesara

Night-Time Cache

Tonight we snagged a cache that we had accidentally marked the first run. So I officially deleted the log and decided that we would go ahead and snag it since it's close-by and we just felt that it really needed to be done anyways.

I had really wanted to get this one because there was a geocoin in there but we weren't quite quick enough to the cache and it had already been snagged. Oh well, that gives me more time to work on getting things set up so I can make up some swag bracelets for the caches. Plus, I want to make up a special page to post pictures of the geocoins that I get. This way I can always have a visual log of what I found before I send them on their way to to another location.

I wish I could post pictures from this cache but it was just a quick jaunt and it was at night anyway. This was definitely a quickie cache. But I can at least show off the swag that I will using for trades.

These bracelets will be the same weave just in different colors. They are really quick to make so I can have a nice amount to have with me at all times. I hope to either make or have made personal coins that I can use as well. I really want to keep the quality of the swag at a higher standard and that way make it more fun for those who find the cache after us.

First Cache

Well today was our first adventure. We decided to go and scout out a cache that was within walking distance to our house. This one cache turned into 2, since as we were marking off the one as found, we saw another that was just a short walk away.

The first one was at a small local park. Not really much there but a small playground and some benches. We found this amazing tree with a hole in it...Kinda cool, huh? I kinda had a feeling it was there but I have to be honest, I really didn't feel like sticking my hand into a random hole. So I made hubby do it. Well I was right on and we found our very first cache!

So after we marked this one off our map, we saw that just a hop, jump and a skip away was another spot. We decided since it was really close by, we'd go ahead and snag, bag and tag it.

This one was at a library and it was also snuggled nicely inside a Myrtle Tree.

This one was fairly small about the size of a medicine pill bottle.

All in all, it was a very fun excursion and gave us both some great exercise. We can not wait for the next adventure.

~Kesara and Brody

Welcome To The Hunt

Welcome to the adventure!!

We are a husband and wife team who love adventure and this is our journal of the encounters we have seen... Okay, Okay, so we just found out about geocaching and have decided it would be some fun.

I am Kesara, I enjoy nature and exploring. I enjoy the hunt and thrill of finding hidden "treasures". My other half would be my husband, Brody. Together, we will hunt down and share our cache along with the beauty of the area in which it was hidden.

So if you love the taste of adventure, follow us on our journey.

Happy Hunting,
~Kesara and Brody