Geocaching September 2022

The month of geocaching started off with an easy find in a commuter parking lot, The perils of Commuting (caps in original). The lot is under construction, so the possibility of professional muggles was high. I managed to hit the sweet spot in between commuters parking and workers working, making the find without any unwanted observers.

The cache is not buried

I found Opportunistic Placement after donating platelets at the nearby Red Cross donation center. It was a fairly easy cache and dash without the usual light post shenanigans.

Not a view of the parking lot

The Caballero was a fun fund in a business park. The hiding spot is very original. I found the cache on a Saturday morning so nobody was around to see me searching. The name is a reference to the hint.

The only car was mine

Off in a quiet little neighborhood is Blue Duct Tape, so named for the red bucket camouflaged with blue duct tape. The bucket was hanging on a tree, so I spotted it from a distance, though that does bring up the question why blue duct tape as camouflage. The area is fairly isolated so no muggles will happen upon it by accident regardless of the color.

Civilization isn't too far away

In a quiet little industrial park I found Belay without delay, a reference to a nearby wall-climbing gym. The cache was so small that I couldn't get the log out of the container. I will have to start carrying needle-nose tweezers.

A different part of civilization

On a shopping trip we found Road's End Rain Garden. The cache is an earthcache, a location with geologically-interesting features. This particular spot is set up to filter run-off water. Various plants, stones, and such are placed to slow the flow of rain water from the neighborhood. The water sinks into the ground, filtering out pollutants before the water gets into the Magothy River (which feeds into the Chesapeake Bay). The kids were along and enjoyed playing in the small park.

Matching shirts!

The Valentine Cache... is another quick hide in a parking lot. It was a good way to fill in a calendar hole on a rainy day.

More than one hiding spot in this photo

After a couple of did-not-finds (leaving some days open on the September calendar), I found Abbott's Park. The cache container was open and the log was too wet to sign. Hopefully the cache owner can do some maintenance!

Even the baggie couldn't protect it!

The nearby trees (and the end of a power line)

RAKMD11:do yard work for a neighbor is another in the Maryland "random acts of kindness" series, though you'd better be careful what kind of yard work you do for your neighbor. Trimming trees may not be desired! Maybe it's better to ask than to be random.

Out in the woods, no neighbors in sight

Another cache had me climbing a tree to make the find. Highlight & Climb is a mystery cache that is very easy to solve but very hard to sign! I was nervous up in the tree and had a very sketchy signature in the log. The cache write-up recommends not dropping the lid of the cache container. Bringing a pen with you is a must!

Can you spot the cache?

Here's a closeup

The next find was more down to earth, all the way down to the water! Boxie's Beach is off of one of the myriad Columbia (Maryland) trails. The beach itself is not much to look at but it is a quiet spot. I saw a deer nearby. It was too fast to get a picture. The container is a classic ammo-can style that had lots of swag inside for swapping. We've been trying to pare down our swag collection, so I left a couple of items and took nothing.

May be a turtle's ideal beach?

I saw this cute guy later on the walk

An easier mystery cache is "A New Beginning" - Littleblkdog's Retiring. Littleblkdog is a geocacher in the area who has hidden a lot of caches and found over 11,000 caches. The cache was placed by MrsLittleblkdog and the write-up for the cache says that Littleblkdog is retiring from the US Navy in October 2022. Whew, he's not retiring from geocaching! The cache container fits thematically with the name of the cache, making it a fun find.

Sorry, you can't see the cache, you'll just have to go there

We need the rain is by the Patuxent River just as it feeds into a reservoir that two local counties use for drinking water. If the water levels are high, that's good news. When the cache was placed in 2008 the water level was down ten feet, so they definitely needed rain then. This cache also had a critter nearby, though not as cute as the bunny above.

View to the water, not much to see

Crossbreeding wasps and spiders should be illegal!

A group of geocachers meet every Monday morning for coffee at a nearby shop. One member hid Coffee Crew Word Search with, surprise, a word search that reveals the coordinates for the find near the cafe. We made the find fairly easily. I would go to the coffee meet-up except (1) I don't really like coffee, (2) I don't get up that early (5:45 to 6:30), and (3) I am an introvert.

I think the coffee shop is over there

I dragged the kids to find Virtual Reward---- Odenton (sic) which is near an unused train spur. The cache is a virtual cache, meaning there's no container to find. To prove we were there, I had my daughter take a picture of us guys on the rails.

The serious photo

Making silly faces

After a run to the county dump, I found Turf Valley Multi. Finding the clue for the first stage was very easy, letting me find the final coordinates before I even arrived. Since it was early on a Wednesday morning, no one was around to spot me searching for the cache, though a leaf-blowing guy came by just after I put it back in the hiding spot.

A sunny, fall day

The Most Embarrassing State Gemstone? is another earthcache off the trails in Columbia, Maryland. The state gemstone is the Patuxent River Stone, which was assumed to be agate or fossilized dinosaur bone. Gemologists complain that it's just quartzite, a fancy bit of sandstone. So maybe it's embarrassing? At least it is only found in the Maryland area and it's not so rare that it can't be found. The cache location is a sand bar in the Patuxent River that has plenty of stones. I could not find any Patuxent River stones when I was there (go to the cache page link above if you want to see them). Still, it was a fun spot to visit.

Proof that I was at the cache location

The river

My final cache for the month was another easy mystery cache, X marks the spot, or does it? a LOB. I am not sure what "LOB" stands for, but the find was easy enough. The find is near a pharmacy, so maybe Rx marks the spot?

View from the cache area, railroad tracks nearby!

I end September with only three holes in the calendar, so definitely under the goal of fewer than ten. The cumulative count is 138 for the year (a new high) and 664 altogether. A good month!