Geocaching September 2025

The month started in Washington DC at the Earth Day Park Bioswale, an earthcache about the importance of little green parks in big cities. We were visiting a museum that day anyway, so it was a nice two-for-one trip.

Non-spoiler picture

Closer to home, I found BEATLES: THEY LEAVE THE WESTCHESTER BEHIND,  BEATLES: BY THE BANKS OF HER OWN [POOL], Catonsville Adventure Lab Bonus Cache, and Don't Dine with Dead Men in Catonsville. 

Not sure why the bike is in the tree, it is definitely not the cache

Creepy Cache Container

Back in DC on another trip, I solved The Actor Really Did Break a Leg at Ford's Theater, Expanse of Freedom by a fountain not running, Mile Zero at the national Christmas tree location, and General of the Armies by a statue of a general.

At the house where Lincoln died

Where's the water?

Worst Christmas Tree display ever!

Next, I went out in local woods to get A Capitol Puzzle, a mystery cache where I caved in and used Google Lens to identify state capitol buildings. The park was picturesque!

Not a bad stream crossing

I took a lot of zooming to get this photo

The same park has Getting Around - A Counties Challenge Cache in a classic hiding spot.

Stick marks the spot

Over in Virginia, I logged CCT - Positive Attributes - Challenge Cache Trail while also signing some of the challenges on the trail, the ones I am very close to completing. 

On a Sunday we went into DC for some museum time and I discovered the earthcache Smithsonian Castle, all about the iconic stones that made the castle red. On the same day, I found Wisdom Mural while doing maintenance on one of my hides in Laurel, Maryland.

Downtown DC

Downtown Laurel

On a trip to Annapolis, I found a bunch of caches: Random Wiki Puzzle: Iris Meredith, Amazing View from a Bench, The Dreaming Tree, Festival of Lights: Night Three, and The Annapolis Taxi Drivers Mural.

Another mural!

Back at home, I found October 30th Is National Checklist Day (maybe I should have waited a bit on finding this one), The road to nowhere..., and Wilde Lake Channel Repair. The last is an earthcache by the dam that made a milde stream into Wilde Lake.

The dam

Cool tunnels under a bridge

I participated in the kickoff for a new geotour celebrating the United States 250th Anniversary next year (2026). I found five of the official caches on the first day: 1 Historical Society of Carroll County, 2 Ellsworth Cemetery, 3 Carroll County Farm Museum, 4 Union Mills Homestead, 5 Taneytown Library. Also in the area, I picked up The Apocalypse Watch and Westminster's War Memorial. 

Apocalypse Watch found!

Town War Memorial (or big chip on my shoulder)

Can you guess which one is the cache?

Union Mills mill wheel

Carroll County farm equipment

Ellsworth Cemetery

The next day I went to the Geocaching HQ Block Party Celebrating 25 Years of Geocaching in the DMV just north of Frederick, where I found two caches on the way, both at the same location! Jug Bridge is a virtual cache about a bridge that used to be here. The same memorial is also an earthcache 9 Jug Bridge and Lafayette, another of the geotour caches. The bridge was nicknamed "Jug Bridge" because it was rumored that the builder hid an actual jug of whiskey inside the memorial. No one has put in the effort to x-ray the stone to see if there's something valuable inside. Maybe 200 year-old whiskey is not valuable?

Memorial with a secret stash!

At the actual block party, I found a couple of caches: 13 Snook Farm (another geotour find), Name Your Game! (by the sports fields), Dairy Barn (by one of the outlying buildings), and Snook Farm Ag Center (right in the middle of the farm). 

The meet-up (there were a lot more people there)

One of the presentations was by "the Bomb Guy," and FBI bomb disposal person who is also a geocacher. He gave advice about how not to decorate or hide a geocache so that law enforcement mistakes it for an explosive devise. He had a lot of pictures and videos of bombs that look very similar to many geocaches. He even brought what was left of a lamp post skirt (a popular hiding spot for caches) when it was blown up by the leavings of a non-geocacher.

Yikes!

The next presenter was a guy describing how to build gadget caches, with a lot of wires, batteries, and other things that the previous speaker warned us against!

The Snook Farm House

Back home the next day, I found Orange You Glad I Didn't Say Banana Again?. I also took credit for CCT - Special Attributes - Challenge Cache Trail since I had enough geotour caches to cover what I was missing!

We went over to Potomac, Maryland, for the Glenstone Museum. While in the neighborhood we found Grumpy Stumpy, Guard Rails of the Rich and Famous #1, and Tricksy in Travilah. The rain was coming so I didn't get any pictures.

Rounding out the month, I made some last finds: CCT - Permission Attributes - Challenge Cache Trail, A Challenge for Non-Millenials...Challenge, and Cacheton BWI (by the airport). 

I end the month with 45 finds and a grand total of 2074. I'll probably break into the 2100s next month!