An 'FTF' Weekend

Well I woke up this morning, checked the email and saw that there were four brand-new geocaches that were offering up the ability to collect an FTF (First To Find) for each one. Armed with this information, I decided to wake up the sleeping 'Mama Bear', knowing that the possibility of so many FTFs and a geocoin hiding in one of them just might get her up and going with gusto, even on a Sunday morning.

The views were awesome and Nature was in full bloom.

Here we are, it's 7:30AM and we already found the first cache. Luann is dutifully signing the logbook of this 'pineapple' cache. You can tell by the orangy light and the long shadows that we definitely got up early.

Here is the second one hiding up in a tree. The sun is still a bit low on the horizon...

For the next one, we had to do a little bushwhacking to get to it and when we got there, we were welcomed by this big plastic iguana.

The next one was located near a small dam on this flood control canal. There were a bunch of birds everywhere.

In the description for this cache, there was something mentioned about beaver dams and chainsaws and concrete. As usual, it didn't make sense until we got to the cache and saw this little guy attached to the top of the container...

This was the bridge we had to use to cross over to the other side of the canal in order to find the cache.

This is a closeup of the falls coming off the dam. Small, subtle, yet peaceful and serene.

It looks like we were up so early even the moon didn't have time to go to sleep yet.

On the way back, we saw a bunch of things worthy of a photographic moment.

After picking up the four FTFs, we checked our email again using the PDA, and saw that yet another FTF opportunity popped up on this trail. Well, we just had to go for that one too, you know?

And here it is, just a bit easy to locate, don'tcha think?

After finding that last FTF, Luann noticed yet another one was posted in our email, but it was over by work. Since it was owned by a cacher we know, Luann wanted to see if we can find it before anyone else. As luck would have it, we met up with another cacher looking for it too.

Say hello to Seminole Neil. This was his third attempt to find this ammo box cache when we came up (before the sun came up - NOPE - with a magnetic tool - NOPE - and now). The funny part was, when we joined up with Neil, Luann simply walked over to where she thought it might be and said; "There it is!" This has to be the smallest ammo box we had ever seen...

Actually, Seminole Neil is holding the ammo can in his hands in this picture! Since we had already found five FTFs and Neil had put more time and effort into trying to find this one, we told him to log it as his FTF. No co-FTF or some such thing, it was fun to come out all this way and see that cute little ammo box...

You can see from today's events why we really enjoy geocaching. Ah, the memories...

A Geocaching Easter

We decided to spend Easter with Karen and boy, did we have a good-ole time!

As an Easter gift, we gave Karen a denim geocaching shirt with a Red-Riding-Hood logo embroidered on it. Her reaction when she saw it was priceless. We're so pleased that she liked our choice of design. (It coulda been, "Swing, & A Miss", if you know what I mean).

And here is her lucky shirt in action. The first cache we were looking for, she picked right up on it.

And she picked it up too. Ok, so it was pretty big and kind of obvious. Don't worry, many of the geocaches we go looking for won't be as easy as this one.

The funny thing is, Karen could have hopped in her canoe and paddled over to this cache from her back yard, it was so close to home. It's funny how you find out about your neighborhood while geocaching...

This cache was a multiple-step one that made us walk from one side of this nature park to the other side. The first part wasn't too bad of a walk, but the coordinates were a little strange. Karen spotted it about 20 feet from where our GPS units said it was. Next, was a long hike of 4/10ths of a mile through some soggy trails to get to the monster ammo box.

Along the way, nature put on quite a show. Quite a few docile bees were seen hanging around these thistle-like plants with huge purple flowers.

Ah, the goal is finally in sight! The description for this cache said that the container was so big that it could be spotted by satellites in outer space... If it wasn't camoflauged in the underbrush, that is...

I reached in and dragged out the box so we could check it out.

Looks like this cute rat bobble-toy is going home to live in Karen's geocaching collection basket. Now, what movie was this guy from???

After concealing the container, we headed back along the trails, using Luann's hickory walking stick to vault several small bodies of water to get across, then at one particularly deep and wide 'water hazard', we had to place some aluminum channels that we found next to the trail down so we could tiptoe across them without taking a mid-calf dip. Needless to say, we all ended up with damp, 'squishy' shoes when we stepped on the improvised bridge and it settled down into the water by a couple of inches below the water's surface (this was a problem for coming and going). On the way out, we came across this unusual frog. He jumped into the 'water hazard' as we came walking up. With that pointy snout, he looks more like a native of South America than Florida.

Continuing down the trail with our soggy shoes and wet pant legs. Even then, this was still a nice hike with everything there is to see in Nature.

Like this plant with yellow flowers. I don't know what kind of plant this is, but I don't have to know its name to appreciate it.

At this point, we were exiting the park and Karen picked up some trash on the way out of the park (it's what we call CITO. Cache In, Trash Out). When she tried to make it through the fence rails, her backpack got caught. Seems like it wanted want to stay behind or something. Too funny...

We headed for yet another cache and after some serious bushwhacking, Karen finally made the find. Here she is, signing the logbook of her prize.

Actually, this cache was located by this light pole at a beach-front park. This picture was when she was searching for it. The place was swarming with people, who were enjoying their Easter holiday by soaking up the sun, salt and sand. Before walking over to this spot, we stopped by a nearby eatery for some ice cream (Mmmmm, Ice Cream).

Here is what her prize looks like before it was opened and signed. Karen was determined to get this one before we left, so she was plunging her hand into the grasses and weeds, checking every little spot. Finally, she said; "I got it". Out it came, with grass strands and dirt everywhere. You can see by the look on her face, she was proud of this find. You go, girl!

Well, this was the last cache of the day, so we decided to head back to Karen's house to post our finds on the Geocaching.com website and decide what was next. What happened next, was a complete surprise. We were driving along, working our way out of the beach-front parking area and were coming up to an obviously drunk female pedestrian on the right-hand side. As she was about even with the front of our car, she attempted to adjust the canvas-like, tent-flap of a halter top she was wearing and pulled down on it. Well, this only succeeded in popping one of her 'puppies ' out of the 'kennel' and she was oblivious to her visual infraction. Not only that, she had on this pinkish-orange lipstick and her clothes were so tight that her 'muffin-top' hanging over her waistline was only superceded in size by her puppies, which were obviously losing the fight against gravity. We were laughing so hard as we passed her, that she swung around to look at us, and sure enough, I could see in the mirror that we hadn't imagined the breach in her 'kennel'... (how muuuch for that puppy in the window, Arf-Arf??)

When we got back to Karen's place, we decided to head over to the Brew Company in Ybor City for dinner, which was a nice, peaceful way to end our Easter holiday. The most exciting part of the visit to Ybor City was after dinner and we were strolling down the sidewalk on our way to the parking garage, when we came across a huge gay bar that was having a transvestite show. You could actually see the stage from the front walkway, so a little education for Katrina was in order. It was interesting to watch this big, over-endowed black woman strut around, doing a dance routine. When she finished up, she took a bow, then pulled her wig off to reveal a big, bald-headed black man was the driving force behind all of that energy, which was accentuated by a huge, effervescent smile. Now, that's entertainment!

Uhm... yeah...

Well, that's what we did for Easter Sunday, so how was your Easter?

We Went Geocaching - But This Time, With Karen!

Karen joined us for some geocaching fun Saturday morning at a park located between us. She brought Kylor along and we had a grand old time!

Click on a picture to see an enlarged version of it. Most of the pictures on this blog can be made larger for a better view, or to see more detail.

Ahhhh, Saturday morning, and the geocachers congregate in order to partake of a breakfast spread, a couple of gallons of coffee and to hunt for the many geocaches hidden in Lake Park.

It's 8:00 and everybody is 'bright-eyed & bushy-tailed'. Yeah, right! You can see us off to the left talking to one of the cachers about some of the neat hides in the area. That's one of the things we like to do at these meetings is to talk about the great ones we have found, and 'the ones that got away'...

Karen & Kylor showed up soon after the opening events and she got herself a cup of eye-opener. This is really all you have to wear to go geocache hunting, and the long pants and sneakers are highly recommended (you can see people wearing shorts in the pictures above, but when you're searching around saw palmetto, cat's briar and blackberry, you will definitely spring a 'hydaulic leak' with that stuff on). The walking stick might come in handy if you need to poke at something in the underbrush, happen to stumble and twist an ankle on the trail, or want to do a Charlie Chaplin 2-step on a floating dock.

It looks like Katrina isn't much of a morning person, look at those eyes... But here she is, ready for the hunt. Actually, she isn't feeling too well, so she has a doctor's appointment later.

Here we are, positioned at the closest cache by the geo-meeting location, where Karen and I go over a map of the caches in the park that I printed up. Florida Sandpiper (Earl) stopped by to say 'Hi', because we have gone hunting together a couple of times, since he lives close to us. This guy is 73 years old, has retinal detatchment problems with his eyes, and yet he goes all over the area, finding caches as well as the best of them.

One of the things you can do with geocaching, is watch for the posting of a new geocache and run out real quick in order to be the first one to find it. This is called an FTF (First To Find) and many times, we have come across 'Florida Sandpiper' or 'Lost Alot @ 70' either having already found the new cache, or sweeping the area trying to find it first, by the time we arrive on the scene.

Speaking of FTF, this is the very first geocache Karen went looking for. It seems there was another cacher looking for this one when we arrived on the scene (she had been there looking for it for 15 minutes prior to our arrival) and as we began searching, more cachers showed up. Karen turned out to be the smart one though, because she stood back and asked me to read the description and the hint of this cache to her so she could get an idea of what it was, and perhaps where, to look for it.

When I read off the hint for "Harry Potter - Hedwig's Roost" (the clue is in the name) she knew that Hedwig, Harry Potter's white owl in the movie, must like to roost up in the trees. When she looked up, there it was, a white plastic owl with a container mounted in the bottom of it hanging in a pine tree. I saw it was suspended by a string, so I followed the string's path to a couple of trees nearby and unspooled the line in order to lower the owl into her hands.

When she opened the container and handed me the logbook, I was surprised to see nobody else had signed it yet.Yep, Karen found one of those elusive FTF caches and it was the first cache she looked for and found. It is such a competitive thing, that many cachers won't get an FTF until about 6 moths to a year of searching for geocaches, and here she did it on her first find (dat's my Cuz what done dat!). After the ceremonial signing, I told the crowd around her that this was the first cache she went looking for and she just got the FTF! The started clapping and making a general ruckus. One guy even asked if he could take her picture with the cache container. It turns out, he was the one that hid it and wanted a picture of the FTF'er when it was found (another rarity).

I explained to Karen later why this was such a big deal to geocachers, and then it made sense why she was treated as something of a celebrity and somebody would point her out and say; "there's the first-timer who made an FTF on her first find!"

By the way, what's with the 2 and 3 fingers? Has the old 'thumbs up' dealy gone out of style after so many years?

After getting surrounded by so many searchers in the geocaching 'herd' on that last one, I told Karen we needed to break off from them and search for caches on our own so I could show her some of the techniques of hunting for geocaches and the styles of the hides. This one here is an ammo box that once held 7.62mm rounds in it. I believe Kylor is enjoying himself, what do you think?

This cache is a water tight aluminum cylinder that was used for holding welding rods to keep them dry. It also had a travel bug in it, which was a white Matchbox rescue truck with a dogtag chain on it. Since Karen is still new to the hobby, we decided to leave it in the container for the next searcher to move along to another cache. For a minute there, I thought Kylor was going to get his hand stuck in the container. There were a bunch of neat things in there, and kept digging stuff out of the container.

This cache is the one that was close to the geo-meeting area. We came back after the thundering geo-herd had passed by. Since somebody was sitting in a car parked right beside the geocaching zone (GZ) I first gave a little instruction about how to avoid piquing the curiousity of people who aren't geocachers. We tend to call non-geocachers 'Muggles', just like the non-magical people in the Harry Potter stories. The idea is that if somebody whom is not part of the game watches what your doing and then investigates the GZ after you leave, they could raid or take the geocache and that would take it out of commission, which is what geocacher's strive to avoid. So yes, there is even something of a 'Spy vs. Spy' element to this too, especially the geocaches located in the non-wooded areas, like the grocery store parking lot. I have to admit though, they did a real good job, so the geo-muggle paid no attention to our activities.

This is what I meant when I said earlier that the cane can also be used to perform a Charlie Chaplin 2-step on a dock. This is my most favorite picture of the day's events, because it tells a story all by itself. Karen was trying to make some serious waves on the water by rocking back and forth, and Kylor just stood there at the edge, watching Mom acting silly. Apparently, he has a thing about floating docks, so the best he could muster was standing where he was. At least he was willing to step up on it and watch her from there. This photo-memory is definitely a 'keeper'.

After doing some geo-hunting and having great success at it, we stopped by the geo-pavilion (yeah, I know, everything is geo-this & geo-that...) in order to rest a bit and get something to eat. If you were wondering why Katrina and Luann weren't in the past couple of pictures, that's because they had to go to a doctor's appointment this morning, so they took off, saw the doc and came back. Come to find out, Katrina has strep throat, so keeping her out of the food service booth at the Renaissance Faire this weekend was a good choice.

Since the whole troupe was back together, we sauntered off down the trail to find a couple more caches. As we were walking over this bridge, Karen was telling Luann about how she got a kick out of seeing a posting in our weblog of Luann leaning on the very post that had a geocache concealed in it.
Click Here To See 'Lean On Me'

In this shot, Karen is graphically showing Luann what she meant.

Well, it looks like we found another cache, and look at Kylor go! We're so happy he was having a good time. This container was a big plastic jug with camoflauge duct-tape all over it. When we had passed by this site earlier, there was an arrow dug into the dirt and was pointing directly at the cache site, most likely by somebody in the geo-herd (I know, I know...). Kylor decided to change the arrow and have it point away from the container. That'll show them!

This next cache took us quite a bit off-trail, but that is part of the fun. You can barely see Kylor's red shirt, he's trying to be the one to find it before the rest of us can get to the GZ.

Well, this is the last picture of the day before we had to head out of the park after the geo-festival. Well, that's strange... Will you look at that? I think Karen may have overworked herself this morning... Or, something...

Now, these pictures are from a day later (today), because we decided to pick up where we left off yesterday. That's why the color change in the girl's shirts. We felt we had to pick up a few of the new ones we didn't get because our schedules had us leaving early...

Hey, Mr. Gopher Tortoise! This is one of the reasons we like to go geocaching. We always seem to be coming across critters like this in the wild.

Looks like Katrina found another one. Well, maybe not...

And here is a red-faced, 6-striped skink, one of the few lizard species that are native to Florida. This little guy sat perfectly still, letting me get a nice close-up of him. What a poser...

This was tough cache to find. It's a plastic rock that was caught in a scheduled burn in the park. It really looks like one of Nature's own, doesn't it? Katrina found this one after we had been searching for about 10 minutes.

Ah, scoot the pine needles over and look what was under it! Peekaboo, we found you! This is considered to be a coffe cache, so named because a coffee container was used for the cache.

Ah, the last one of the weekend. This is a 35mm film canister tucked into a palm/palmetto bush. This concealment method is typically referred to as a 'Florida Hide'.

Well, we found a bunch of geocaches this weekend, we're tired and thirsty, so I think it's time to head home now. C-U!