Lunch with Robby, Alison, and Cory

About the biggest thing in our lives today was lunch with Robby, Alison, and their friend Cory. We all met at Chiles on Metcalf. I had a create your own Veggie burger. It was really good.

Today's Stats:
0 Geocaches.
1271 Steps Today - .6 miles.
0 Aerobic Steps.
48 Calories Burned.

Installing New DirecTV DVR TiVo

I've been putting off for a week installing our new DirecTV DVR TiVo model #R10 unit. I've been installing my own satellite receivers for over 10 years, but this thing whipped me. I can not make it work with our dish antenna. I guess we're going to pay a technician to come out and make it work.

Today's Stats:
0 Geocaches.
1433 Steps Today - .67 miles.
0 Aerobic Steps.
34 Calories Burned.

Orienteering at Monkey Mountain

This morning we served as the Registrar for the Monkey Mountain Orienteering event. It snowed last night and everything was just beautiful this morning. I was really surprised at the number of people who came out orienteering today. We had a lot of scouts show up today. Thank goodness we didn't have too much wind. It was a very nice day for orienteering.

This afternoon we worked on the newest geocache in town named "How Does A GPS Work?". We ran into Larry202br at the first cache site and had a good time solving the puzzle with Larry and Susy. It was a nice evening for caching.

Today's Stats:
1 Geocache.
3389 Steps Today - 1.60 miles.
0 Aerobic Steps.
115 Calories Burned.

Cache Repair

This afternoon we spent some time fixing and checking on some of our caches around town. It seems that folks regularly don't put our caches back where they found them. After a few people decide they know a better place for the cache, then we can't even find our own cache. I guess we're going to have to start tying them down. It was a nice day to drive around town.

Today's Stats:
0 Geocaches.
4918 Steps Today - 2.32 miles.
0 Aerobic Steps.
205 Calories Burned.

Message to thc

thc if you are watching, I can not reply to your comment. I don't have your email address.

You can learn all about geocaching at About Geocaching.

Go to Wal-Mart or somewhere like tvnav.com and get yourself a GPS and join the fun.

Today's Stats:
0 Geocaches.
3058 Steps Today - 1.44 miles.
0 Aerobic Steps.
125 Calories Burned.

Finally, Our 2000th Geocache Find

We've been trying for a couple weeks to find our 2000th cache. We went over to Lawerence, Kansas to find a couple new caches. This got us to 1999. We were discussing how we could get someone to put out a cache in Kansas City as we came back to town so we could find our 2000th cache. I decided to see if there were any new caches in Kansas City using Robby's Sprint PCS Data Card. To our amazement the "Just Restin'" cache had just been released. We immediately headed to the cache site and were lucky to be the First To Find the Cache. We found it at about 9:20 p.m. It is located in a Pre-Civil War Cemetery near Worlds of Fun recreation park. We took a Bee and left a Silver Dollar City Coin.

Today's Stats:
3 Geocaches.
5157 Steps Today - 2.44 miles.
2806 Aerobic Steps.
232 Calories Burned.

Geocaching West of Topeka, Kansas

Tonight we started caching in Savannah, Missouri. We failed to find the cache after a hard search. From there we went to the "Uniontown Gold" cache west of Topeka, Kansas. We found Guitar Nutz & Jamz had already beat us here. It was a very dark and scary walk back into the woods of a conservation area to find this cache. We were tired and decided to skip the two new caches in Lawerence, Kansas on our way back home. We got home after 10:00 p.m.

Today's Stats:
1 Geocaches.
7859 Steps Today - 3.72 miles.
4476 Aerobic Steps.
359 Calories Burned.

"Going To See My Cousins" Travel Bug

Tonight we grabbed the new "Riverfront Heritage Trail" cache in Downtown Kansas City. After the cache find we delievered the "Going To See My Cousins" Travel Bug to CCDAWG in Liberty, Missouri. CCDAWG treated us to dinner at his CiCi's Pizzi place in Liberty. He also gave us some tickets to movies and free meals at CiCi's Pizzi. We were thrilled to have helped deliver the travel bug.

Today's Stats:
1 Geocaches.
1712 Steps Today - .81 miles.
0 Aerobic Steps.
60 Calories Burned.

Return Trip from Arkansas

We left Little Rock about noon today and made a few stops to pick-up a few geocache sites. We tried hard to make 2000 cache finds today, but after 4 DNF's in Clarksville we gave up. I guess we'll settle for the 49 finds that we made successfully this weekend. It's been a great weekend with the kids and the grandkids.

Today's Stats:
14 Geocaches.
9106 Steps Today - 4.31 miles.
1517 Aerobic Steps.
408 Calories Burned.

Caching in Little Rock, Arkansas

Scott, my middle son and Mike Halpine, Scott's father-in-law wanted to go caching with me today. I told them to be ready at 7:00 a.m. They were up and ready to go to my surprise. We headed to the closest cache (Brodie Creek Booger) and found it. We cached hard all day with the most of our caching in Burns Park in North Little Rock. About 4:00 p.m. Mary and Laura and all the grandkids joined us in Burns park. We finished the caches there and headed downtown for a few more. We ended up out by the Little Rock Airport and caching in the dark. The grandkids got a kick out of me pulling out my headlight to find a micro. It was a long 12 hour day and a lot of fun.

Today's Stats:
24 Geocaches.
17365 Steps Today - 8.22 miles.
1568 Aerobic Steps.
803 Calories Burned.

Caching In Our 100 Mile Circle

This morning we got up early in Nevada, MO and started caching in our 100 mile circle. We found about 8 before we had to head toward Little Rock, Arkansas. We still lack about 12 to clean up our 100 mile circle. We picked up a couple more on our way to Little Rock.

Today's Stats:
11 Geocaches.
12041 Steps Today - 5.70 miles.
2391 Aerobic Steps.
557 Calories Burned.

Geocaching from Cameron to Nevada, MO

We started our day in the Comfort Inn in Cameron, Missouri. We waited until about noon to go try retrieve our van from the boat dock at Grindstone Lake outside of Cameron, Missouri. Dufer, a geocaching friend, picked us up at the motel and took us back the the lake. Dufer had arranged for "Bob the Tree Man" to be at the lake to pull us out if neccessary. Bob had made several trips up and down the hill. The temperture was over 40 degrees and Bob's BIG truck did a good job of breaking up the ice. We drove out without any problems.

We had arranged for a vacation day tomorrow so we headed out for Arkansas this evening. We made it to Nevada, Missouri where we found a couple caches and spent the night at the Super 8 Motel.

Today's Stats:
5 Geocaches.
5279 Steps Today - 2.49 miles.
0 Aerobic Steps.
212 Calories Burned.

Stranded at Grindstone Lake Near Cameron, MO

We decided to catch up on some of the caches up north this evening. We did good until we reached the "Bump and Grind" cache North West of Cameron, Missouri. I went down a hill where the road was covered with ice. BIG MISTAKE. I could not get back up the hill. We ended walking out and calling for help. Dufer, a geocaching friend came and took us to the best place in town and bought our dinner and then took us to the Cameron Comfort Inn where we spent the night. Read our cache log of the event.

Today's Stats:
3 Geocaches.
2094 Steps Today - .99 miles.
0 Aerobic Steps.
92 Calories Burned.

New Kansas City Caches

We spent our evening out geocaching until about 9:30 p.m. looking for the newest Kansas City Caches. We found 3 and gave up looking for the 4th one. CCDAWG did us in again. When will I learn not to go after his caches at night. Sometimes I can't even find them in the daylight.

Today's Stats:
3 Geocaches.
5138 Steps Today - 2.43 miles.
0 Aerobic Steps.
224 Calories Burned.

More Van Problems

Our 1999 Dodge Ram Van has over 112,000 miles on it (mostly geocaching miles) and is showing the signs of its age. We spent over $800 last week to fix problems that caused the Check Engine light to come on and a squeal under the hood. We took it back today with the same symptoms. It would not squeal for the mechanic and they said the number 3 cylinder misfire is causing the Check Engine light to come on. They wanted to do a $1500 valve job. It’s running fine so we told them, “no thank you”. Lee looked the trouble code up in his book and said there were about 15 things that can cause the Check Engine light to come on with that trouble code, one of which is a sticky valve. I guess we’ll just wait until we’re broke down out somewhere and then we’ll get it fixed.

Today's Stats:
0 Geocaches.
1792 Steps Today - .84 miles.
0 Aerobic Steps.
67 Calories Burned.

Geocaching with Brian & Carlin

Today we find ourselves geocaching with Brian and Carlin from Liberty Missouri. We started our day caching in Jefferson City, Missouri and finished the day in Columbia, Missouri. We followed Brian & Carlin most of the day and had a wonderful time. Thank you Brian and Carlin for a wonderful day of geocaching.

Today's Stats:
11 Geocaches.
14094 Steps Today - 6.67 miles.
4086 Aerobic Steps.
641 Calories Burned.

GeoBingo

Today is the day for the big event in Jefferson City, Missouri. We started the game at 12 noon in McClung Park. We checked in and started the game. We have util 6:00 p.m. to check in and find as many of the 38 GeoBingo cache sites as possible. We did good until the very last cache site and we could not find it. We verified with Brian and Carlin Yonke the it was indeed missing. They had found it earlier in the day.

Today's Stats:
43 Geocaches.
8500 Steps Today - 4.02 miles.
0 Aerobic Steps.
368 Calories Burned.

Off to Columbia, Missouri

Finally it's Friday again. We're off to Columbia for some more geocaching.

Today's Stats:
13 Geocaches.
11291 Steps Today - 5.34 miles.
856 Aerobic Steps.
512 Calories Burned.

Van in the Shop

Today we took the van to King's Auto for some much needed repairs. Robby and Alison were very nice to loan us their Mazda.

Today's Stats:
0 Geocaches.
2012 Steps Today - .95 miles.
0 Aerobic Steps.
72 Calories Burned.

Eating out with Robby and Alison

Tonight we went out to eat with Robby and Alison at Applebee's. We had a good time together.

Today's Stats:
0 Geocaches.
1793 Steps Today - .84 miles.
0 Aerobic Steps.
74 Calories Burned.

Personal Travel Bug

I've been working on a project for some weeks now to bring Mary and I's personal travel bug up to date. Our goal is to drop it off in the first cache we found in Fort Scott, Kansas and follow up by dropping it off at every cache site that we have visited since then. I now have a GSAK spreadsheet with all our found caches on it and have begun to log the travel bug in each cache. Tonight I logged another 30 or so out of the nearly 1900 that we have found. This project will show the airline miles we've covered since we started geocaching in June 2000. This project may take a few months to complete.

Today's Stats:
0 Geocaches.
3505 Steps Today - 1.65 miles.
0 Aerobic Steps.
135 Calories Burned.

New Cell Phones with Camera & Bluetooth

Cingular offered us a deal we could not resist. We received new V551 Motorola Bluetooth Camera Phones this eveing. Now I don't have time to do anything but read the big manual. I spent every spare second reading and still, at bedtime, don't know how to send a picture or comunicate using Bluetooth.

Today's Stats:
0 Geocaches.
2997 Steps Today - 1.41 miles.
0 Aerobic Steps.
107 Calories Burned.

Webby Cat Caches

Today we started in Fort Scott, Kansas. We went south to Crawford State Park to get 5 new Webby Cat Caches. We found all 5 of them and one that someone had put almost in her front yard. Crawford State Park was a great place to visit. Nice lake and nice trails.

We headed north to attend the Winter Fiesta Event in North Kansas City. We stopped off to grab the "Trading Post Cache" north of Fort Scott. This was a hard cache that only Guitar Nutz had found last August. After much study of the ExpertGPS topo's and Aerial photo maps, we had success. I didn't get my feet very wet. There were swamps all around the cache. I found a way in on dry land.

Today's Stats:
12 Geocaches.
7495 Steps Today - 3.54 miles.
0 Aerobic Steps.
339 Calories Burned.

Monkey Mountain Caching

Geocaching at the "Tanks for Ladies" in Nebraska.

That's our van out there in the distant. I'm on my way to the cache.

We started our day geocaching on Monkey Mountain. Monkey Mountain is up above St. Joe, Missouri. The hardest part here was the drive up the Mountain. I got a running start for about a mile and missed the top by about 20 feet. I had to back down about a mile and try again. I gave it every thing I could in our old van and barely made it. Then I had to walk a mile back on the mountain to find the cache in the ice and snow. The adventures of geocaching never cease to amaze me.
We caught a couple caches in Nebraska and the headed down south. We ended the day in Fort Scott, Kansas.

Today's Stats:
6 Geocaches.
6279 Steps Today - 2.97 miles.
2456 Aerobic Steps.
339 Calories Burned.

Geocaching in Lawerance, KS

This afternoon we went over to Lawrence to find a cache on the back side of Clinton Lake. It turned out to be a multi-cache. I found the first stage (a peanut butter jar) pretty quick. The second stage really tripped me up. After an hour or so I gave up. Mary and I had made several calls for help but nobody responded. I was a few hundred yards away when Guitar Nutz called. What a relief. He gave me the encouragement I needed to go back and find the cache. I walked about 4 miles for this cache.

After the cache in Lawrence we went up to Leavenworth to be the FTF on a new cache there.

Today's Stats:
2 Geocaches.
9890 Steps Today - 4.68 miles.
5603 Aerobic Steps.
430 Calories Burned.

Applebee's with Rob and Alison

We met Rob and Alison at Applebee's this evening. After dinner they came over to our place. Rob helped me work out some router problems on my DI-624 Router.

It was very cold today. I don't think the ice melted any from the trees.

Today's Stats:
0 Geocaches.
4105 Steps Today - 1.94 miles.
0 Aerobic Steps.
176 Calories Burned.

Ice, Sleet, and Snow

Today with the ice, sleet, and snow our whole team did a work at home day. We used the Conference Bridge, Netmeeting, and Windows Messenger to collaborate. It was really nice to work from home and not have to get out on the slick streets. The only problem with this arrangement is I didn't get any exercise.

Today's Stats:
0 Geocaches.
475 Steps Today - .19 miles.
0 Aerobic Steps.
11 Calories Burned.

Ice Storm

I came home early this afternoon because the rain was falling and the temperture was hovering around 30 degrees. As the evening progressed everything begin to ice over. They are predicting up to an inch of ice tonight.

Today's Stats:
0 Geocaches.
3481 Steps Today - 1.64 miles.
0 Aerobic Steps.
153 Calories Burned.

Shopping for the Ice Storm

The weather man said an ice storm is coming so we went to the store to get some supplies. We went over some emergency preparedness just in case. We have K1-Kerosene for our Kerosene heater. We can use the 400 watt inverter in the van to run a few things. I guess we're as ready as we can be.

Today's Stats:
0 Geocaches.
3682 Steps Today - 1.74 miles.
0 Aerobic Steps.
152 Calories Burned.

Return from A Great Caching Weekend

Sometimes I have to get in weird positions to find a cache. This was one of the hardest micro caches to find.

We spent a big part of the afternoon making our way back to Kansas City after a great geocaching adventure in Oklahoma City. We found a total of 105 new caches while caching in OKC and it took us to a lot of neat places. We saw and spent some time at the OKC Bombing memorial. A very touching experience. There's a virtual cache in the middle of the memorial. Bricktown was a very nice place. It's the entertainment district for downtown OKC. Bricktown has a river walk similar to the one in San Antonio. The Botanical Garden was another very nice place with a cache in the middle of it.

Today's Stats:
26 Geocaches.
7999 Steps Today - 3.78 miles.
0 Aerobic Steps.
361 Calories Burned.

Geocaching New Years Day

We're still in Oklahoma City tonight. We cached hard all day. We had our worst day ever with 6 DNF's. We're staying at the Comfort Inn tonight at the Founders Tower. I felt very tired most of the day. I began to perk up late this evening.

Today's Stats:
32 Geocaches.
9436 Steps Today - 4.46 miles.
0 Aerobic Steps.
408 Calories Burned.