Geocaching July 2023

In July, we were in France and found our first French geocache--[LHAV] Sete - Balaruc #01. It's on a bike path that connects Sete and Balaruc, both on the Etang du Thau, a lake right next to the Mediterranean Sea. The find was easy after I checked the hint.

The non-picturesque view from the cache

In Nimes, I found a virtual cache that included a statue of a matador outside of the Arena. Virtual Reward: Statue Nimeno II is easy to find and taking the photo was rather inconspicuous since everyone else was taking shots too. I had to point out some interesting detail on the statue.

Crazy jacket

Our next country was Switzerland. We stayed in Bern. The first night we went out walking and I found machs na. The name is a phrase used by the architect of Bern's main church, the Munster. The meaning is "repeat my feat," a bit of "top that!" bragging. The challenge was to make a copy of the church in whatever format you can (drawing, baking, sculpting, etc.) and take a picture with it. I did my best with paper and pen.

My lame drawing of the Munster

Gurten Virtual 2.0 is a virtual cache on top of the mountain south of Bern. After going up the mountain (on a funicular train) I had to climb a tower to get a picture with faraway Bern in the background.

Bern with the River Aare in the background

Down by the River Aare, the remains of a tower called "The Blood Tower" is the location of Keine Angst vor dem Blutturm. The tower was part of the city walls. There is no reliable history of prisoners, torture, or executions there. It was used by the mortuary school to bleach skeletons, which drew complaints from locals. The cache was an easy find. I tried to be stealthy but a local sitting on a nearby bench saw me, smiled, and said, "geocache."

View from cache, should have taken one of the blood tower

We took the train to Italy. The first cache I found was a virtual cache in front of the Milan's castle, Castello Sforzesco. The cache is called la conquista del castello. Finders are supposed to take a picture out front and have some sort of "storming the castle" theme. I was just inside the gates, so I said I snuck in like the Trojan Horse of Milan.

Invader rage

I found two caches in the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, a covered but open air mall right next to Milan's Duomo. Le palle del Toro -- Virtual Reward 2.0 is a virtual cache in the middle. There's a mosaic of a bull in the floor where people put their foot and spin three times for good luck. I had a hard time spinning and taking a picture that showed me and the bull.

Some of me, some of the bull

Nearby is another mosaic that has some red marble around it. The marble is interesting because an ancient ammonite is visible in it. The earthcache Milano: Rosso Ammonitico/Ammonitic Red tells about the marble and asks for measurements. And a photo with the roof in it, which is what is below.

The red underneath

A multicache called Milano Curiosa: A.U.F. starts at the back of the Duomo, where one of the blocks shows one of the initials (A or U or F) that marked the marble as "tax-free" since it was part of the church. The cache page lists different coordinates for each letter. I found the correct letter and then the cache near a fourteenth century Catholic Church.

View from the cache

At the front of the Duomo is the start of a three-part virtual cache where cachers need to take their picture with some creatures in art. The cache is CnK: Milano: Due Passi in centro. The first monster is a dragon hidden in the scroll-work next to the main door. It is very hard to see the dragon/dinosaur/snake in the photo below, but I assure you it is there.

By the door of the Duomo

The second stage is in the Piazza Mercanti. It was a shopping area back in the day. A legend has it that the founder of Milan had a dream where he was supposed to find a pig and follow it to the spot where a new city should be built. The Scrofa or sow is a minor symbol of Milan. Again, the creature is small in the picture but there. 

Sow (positioned like a gargoyle) and me

The final stage was to get a picture at the castle with the emblem of the Visconti, the family that built the first castle. The emblem includes a snake with a person in its mouth. The legend here is that one of the Visconti returned from a Crusade only to discover a snake had swallowed his child. He went into the swamp and killed the snake, retrieving the child (who was still alive!) and ending a terror for the locals. Pretty weird.

Emblem of Visconti

My final find was another virtual, this time taking a picture with a painting showing unicorns going up the ramp of Noah's Ark at San Maurizio church. Milano Curiosa: San Maurizio et gli unicorni is a fun cache to find.

Unicorns over my shoulder

I lucked out on our return trip which was routed through Germany. The Frankfurt Airport has a virtual cache named Willkommen am Flughafen Frankfurt - FRA inside it that asks cachers to take a photo with an airplane at a gate and another photo with proof that you are actually at Frankfurt Airport, not some other place. I took a pic at the duty-free to prove the location. Now Germany is added to the list of countries where I have cached!

Duty-free caching

Airport proof (though not our own plane)

Back in America, I found CAM 2023 - Savage Mill Trail, a part of the Cache Across Maryland set that comes out every year. The idea is that cachers make at least ten finds in various counties in Maryland. There's a picnic in June where finders get together and receive a geocoin for the accomplishment. Since I found this in July, obviously I won't be going to the picnic or getting the coin. The trail runs along the Little Patuxent River, the water that powered Savage Mill back in the day.

View to the river from the geocache

Better view of the river

We did some more work on the Legend of Zelda forest series in Fairland Recreational Park. This cache is LoZ Series: Forest Temple Small Key. The kids enjoyed the creek while I located the cache. 

Shoes off does mean wading!

With the final information from the cache, I was able to calculate the location of the "boss" cache, which was far on the other side of the park. Being a hot summer day, I decided against trekking all the way across. We found a much closer cache, Punch Buggy Orange - No Punch Back. Somehow, there's a car in the middle of the park. We were not sure how it got there but it has definitely been there for a while.

This buggy was punched a lot

The month ended with the grid for "days cached" full and a total of 844 caches. Hopefully we'll break into the 850s next month! And maybe finally finished that Legend of Zelda set.

Geocaching May 2023

The month of May started off quietly, especially since I only needed to fill two days on the calendar.

My first find was The Ice Cream Comb..., another cryptically named cache. The container did have a fake ice cream cone in it. I'm not sure what the "comb" part was. Ground zero was in some woods behind an office building. I went straight to the tree below, figuring it was the cache site, but it was not. At least it was picture-worthy.

No cache here

My next find was Columbia Dog Park, which is indeed near the Columbia Dog Park next to Cedar Lane Park. The find was fairly easy in middle Spring, but I feel the undergrowth will take over soon!

View back to civilization from the cache

Then I found my 800th cache, an easy find on a roadside near my kids' orthodontist. Holiday Joy Cache... is yet another "..." cache in my area. The weather was glorious.

Nearby road looks 800 years old!

I am near the cache but not near 800 years old!

#801 was A New Year's Gift, a previous DNF (Did Not Find) for me. The cache owner put out a new container at an easier to reach location. No need to go into the cemetery!

A hidden-away cemetery

Also nearby is Ximenez, an easy find after solving the online puzzle. Too bad it wasn't lunchtime or I'd have had plenty of good options for eats!

Sadly, not hungry

Later on, I found two mystery caches whose final locations were in the same shopping center. First, The Mystery Box was a pandemic-era cache that had me finishing a lot (and I mean a lot) of online jigsaw puzzles to get the final coordinates. It took a couple of weeks of ten minutes here and ten minutes there.

View from the cache

Then I found Fun With Syllables, another puzzle, this time matching together syllables to solve clues and get the coordinates. It was more fun that the previous one.

Far from the muggle shopping

On a day off school, I took the kids to Fairland Regional Park to find some caches. We started by the ball fields and found 42(1-31-19 - 10-24-72), a tribute to Jackie Robinson. 42 was his jersey number and the dates are his birth and death. My youngest made the find before I did!

By the ball field, naturally

On a bridge we found Crash's Lunch Time Cache #4. Sadly, I needed the hint to clue in to the right spot for the find.

Hanging at GZ

Further south in the park we found another bridge with an Earthcache, River Bank Erosion. I learned a bit about how rivers and streams get bendy and have different sides in the bends. Then I looked off the bridge and answered some questions about the erosion happening on the Little Paint Branch (which feeds into the Anacostia River, one of the rivers that go by Washington, D.C.).

Looking serious, or maybe hypnotized

Since we weren't far away, we went for LoZ Series: Forest Temple Intro. This is part of the Legend of Zelda series in the greater Maryland area. This set has five caches in the park, though the rest are further north on the opposite side of the Little Paint Branch from where we parked. We will work on the rest of the series another day. The hide was right by a dirt bike challenge area.

Bike park in the woods

Bush Forest Ruins is the home of some ancient (by American standards) ruins. It's a virtual cache, so there is no container to find and no log to sign. I had to collect some information from a memorial stone and take a picture of me at the ruins.

Self in the ruins

The ruins

I finished off the last empty day on my calendar with two caches in Columbia, Maryland. Spot Runs Again! is a mystery cache that has a logic problem to solve in order to get the right coordinates. I love logic problems, so this was a no-brainer (hmmm...that's not the right adjective) for me. The container was rewarding too!

Such a cute container!

A rest stop in the woods

Frank Ryman (Resurrection) is by a grave in the middle of the woods. Wyman was a Civil War soldier who was born in 1838 in Syracuse, New York. He enlisted in August, 1861, and was discharged in June, 1865, while stationed in Alexandria, Virginia. He married a Virginia lady and moved to the Columbia area (though the town of Columbia did not exist at that point) where he kept a farm. He died in 1880.

Frank Wyman grave

Info on the sign (click to enlarge)

The month ends with a full calendar for May and a grand total of 811 finds.

Cute Kid Pix May 2023

More photos that did not make their own post...

The elementary school had a carnival with lots of outdoor games. My son's favorite was the giant inflatable obstacle course.

Finishing his run!

We had a Cub Scout pack meeting early in the month where my son received his Roaring Laughter belt loop. They played games and practiced being courteous. 

Awards and Handshakes

Uno with manners

We went to a local playground that changed since we were last there. Climbing was fun!

Looking over

Twisty climbing

I play the Mystic Vale app on my phone once a day and managed to have the closest game ever. If the score is the same, the first tie breaker is number of Level 3 advancements (on the left of the score), the second tie breaker is number of Level 2 vale cards (on the right of the score). It was almost a three-way tie!

Not a picture of cute kids, alas...

We went to Fairland Regional Park to find some geocaches and found some other interesting things too, like a scummy lake and a pile of snow (in late May!).

Algae!

Looks better from over here

Fun by the creek

Making a snowball

Don't drop the ball!

The park has an indoor ice-skating rink, so we assumed the snow was scrapings from the Zamboni.

We (the parents) had our Summer Showcase performance at That's Dancing which was a lot of fun. The theme was Tinseltown, so a lot of the performances featured classic movie songs or music. We had a tango to El Sheik de Arabia (maybe from a classic western?) and Psy and Suga's That That, which has a very theatrical video.

Merengue to That That

Marilyn admires our tango