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In August 2016, Geocaching is doing a series of souvenirs based on "missions" premium members receive as puzzles the week before the mission.  Non premium members just receive the answer the weekend of the mission.   The first puzzle was VERY simple, so simple that many were overthinking it. The bottom of the first plate gives you the hint to solve this - "A six is G" A= 6 letters after A = ABCDEF G C= 2 letters after C = CD E N= 1 letter after N = N O Continuing with the next 3 plates until you have the code to type into the page linked in the email, where the mission was revealed.  The answer had to be entered completely in lower case, I think that may have been more confusing than the actual puzzle. :-) On the 3rd plate, for W6 - you go back to the start of the alphabet.  So it was WXYZAB C If you completed the mission, finding a cache with more than 10 favorite points that week-end, you received this souvenir: For us, this meant traveling a bit, since we've ...

This weekend, to complete the first Geocaching Mission Assignment for 2016, we needed to visit a cache with 10 favorite points.  Since we've found all the caches in our area, this meant at least a 40 minute drive, but we found a cache with 28 favorites and made the trip. It was an ammo can in a driveway.  A very nice ammo can.  It was under a very nice tree.  But it was an ammo can in a driveway.  In a crowded residential area.  You could spot the cache when you got out of the vehicle.  28 favorite points.   So with that experience in mind, here are some of my all time favorite caches.  My favorite in this general area has only 19 favorite points, which makes me so sad when you remember that an ammo can in a driveway somehow merited 28. My favorite caches are usually favorites for one of 3 reasons. 1. It took me to an awesome location. 2. It was a creative container.  Or 3, it was a gadget cache.  I so love gadget caches. These are ...

https://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC4JGFV_seattle-you-sank-my-battleship?guid=0a24bd76-ce69-47f2-bc30-ccc38b0dbfca This was by far the most unique, and probably the most frustrating, wherigo that I have ever done.  We spent a good hour or more walking around an empty grass field playing virtual battleship.   From the cache description: " You must sink all battleships before your ammo runs out. To start the game, stand in the middle of the field and select the "Start Game" item. The ships will be hidden from view until you damage one. To shoot where you are standing, select the caliber shell from your inventory and click the "Fire!" button. All ships within the shell's area of effect will be damaged. To win the game, you must sink all five ships before your ammunition runs out." The location takes you to an empty field, bordered by trees, across from a very popular lake with busy walking trails.  Even though this is a VERY popular area, we had the pat...

https://www.geocaching.com/play/geotours/hq We were able to visit Geocaching Headquarters, and complete the HQ geotour, while in Washington this year. Each of these geocaches is well thought out, and well done.  This is all urban caching, but geocaching is so common and familiar in this area that muggles are not really a problem.  The first cache we did was so obvious, it was near impossible to show any true stealth.  But like the WVTim caches in West Virginia, it just wasn't really necessary to hide what we were doing. The passport for the caches can be found here: https://s3.amazonaws.com/gs-geo-images/b1b051c4-3050-43ef-adb6-61c27f2fadd6.png We did not have the passport with us, and we didn't have access to a printer.  Neither did another group we ran into several times that day.  That was no problem, we both used paper we had with us and groundspeak had no trouble accepting that from us. The caches are all pretty close together.  But the hills are prett...

2017 Update We've still only found the one chirp cache, they are not something we see around here.  So Datruck bought one to hide nearby.  In placing it, we were having some issues with how the Chirp app displays the cache.  We figured out that by putting the coords in the note section it's easy to bypass, but while figuring that out, I also found a new app that I think works just a little bit better.  https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.wolffire.chirpwolf Both apps work pretty much the same way. Search for nearby chirps, click on the chirp cache listed, it will give you coordinates.  Quick and easy. The chirp cache we found is called Birdy, in Spokane WA. We had never found a chirp cache before, so while my husband got the gps ready, I did a quick search for a phone app. I found this : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=nl.wlsoft.chirp All I had to do was open the app & choose "turn chip searching on". Walk to the coords, and a scree...

  Two of my biggest hobbies are geocaching, and genealogy. So when a cemetery puzzle cache comes up, it's always one of my favorites.  And yet, as much as I love searching for both geocaches, and for find a grave entries, driving around a cemetery to look at another cachers families stones, and then doing math and entering new figures into the geocaching app is just not my favorite thing.  In general, I prefer to solve puzzles at home and use geochecker before heading out.  Unless they are really fun field puzzles, like actual PUZZLES ( Mr Data Goes Caching ) at the stages, not just math problems. :-) Most cemetery geocaches can be solved without stepping out my door.   Step One: This applies to most puzzle caches.  If you know the basic location (in this case, exact cemetery) and the puzzle is completely letters, it's pretty quick to solve the first few. Example: AB CD.EFG HIJ KL.MNO AB & HIJ are easy solves.  They are probably the same as the fak...

Lately, it feels like all of our date nights are on the rocks.  Or on the rock piles at least. We've been spending a lot of time geocaching lately.  And it's pretty amazing how many ways there are to turn a rock into a geocache. Dan has made a few of the real rock caches - rocks he drilled holes into to insert bison tubes into them.  He bought two drill bits  - a pricey diamond encrusted one ($20) and a regular mason bit ($3.50). The diamond one did not work well. The $3.50 one has been great.  Go figure.  A 5/8 bit works well for a half inch bison tube. My least favorites are the "needle in a haystack" caches.  A rock, in a pile of rocks.  These are a couple of my logs from one needle in a haystack rock cache near us: Didn't find it 04/02/2016 Day #683. Spent another evening skulking behind a convenience store sorting through trash strewn rocks. The container continues to elude us. Our children believe we've gone mad. We may have. Gave up the sea...