Geocaching March 2023

The month started with a find near the Columbia (Maryland) town center. Songs of Symphony starts by the new Merrifield shopping district, leading to the outskirts of the area. I had already done the first part of this multi-cache and had the final coordinates. The find was not too hard, in a low, swampy area.

A nice bridge

The dammed stream

Another fun find was Dinosaur Bones and Snowden Iron Ore, near the Dinosaur Park in Laurel. The area is (locally) famous for dinosaur finds and as a source of iron ore, but the location of the cache is a drainage pond nearbhy. I had tried to find this when I found Bog Iron Boulders back in October. With the vegetation not back yet, it was a much easier find.

View of the pond

Another long-named cache is 12-12-12 Mini Challenge - 12 Different States. It's hidden in the Middle Patuxent Environmental Area, which I have visited before. The find was easy. In order to qualify as a "find," the geocacher needs to demonstrate that they have found caches in 12 different states. We've found caches in 26 states, so we are overqualified!

A forest by any other name would look the same

Geoff the Snail is a cache hidden in front of a retirement apartment. The landscaper was out fixing things up, so I found the container and took it back to the car to sign before rehiding it. I think my suspicious behavior was not noticed!

Poor guy lost his head at some point

A fun mystery cache is TaCo 7327. The puzzle involves an interesting number substitution that I solved fairly quickly.

View from the cache

Nearby is another mystery cache based on a local brewery, Cenosillicaphobia #5. Cenosillicaphobia is, as everyone knows, the fear of an empty glass, presumably empty of alcoholic beverage. The cache is in another bit of forest off a Columbia walking trail.

The log was in this snappy ziplock!

Further down the trail is LoZ Series: Piece of Heart #4. "LoZ" is, as everyone knows, Legend of Zelda. The cache owner has made several series themed around the popular video game franchise. If I find all the pieces of heart (which have a special word on the log), I can find LoZ Series: Faire Fountain. 

Glad I didn't have to cross that

I also found the first stage of A Trojan Horse, a multicache that has a far away second stage. The coordinates were easy to find behind a shopping strip mall.

Nobody was around at GZ

While my son was hiking with a group at Black Hill Regional Park, I went off and found a plethora of geocaches. His group had pizza for lunch; I went to Park Potomac to get something to eat and found three caches in the shopping/residential area. First, I found Blowing in the Wind at Park Potomac which was just off the busy parking lot. It was far enough off that being stealthy was easy.

A view of the cache and the highway

A short walk away is Potomac Woods 1, another hide by a parking lot, though this parking area is behind the shopping. There was a view of construction across the street. Maybe more commercial and residential stuff in the future?

No construction on a Sunday

Potomac Woods 2 is at the same shopping plaza but on the other side, or behind the far side of the stores. I was a little unsure about where it was when a driver's ed car came nearby and did a k-turn. I was worried because the side of the car said it was "cops teaching driving" and what if I looked too suspicious? They drove off and I did make the find in a clever container.

Why hang out back here?

At the park, my first stop was to the former site of the park ranger's building where a multi-stage cache called Ranger Georick is hidden. The hide was a hundred or so feet into the woods, an easy find.

No ranger station here

By the ranger station is another cache, Let's Highlight Some Phyllite! It's an earthcache, so it features some online information about the rock in the back of the picture below (yes, a rock made of phyllite) along with some questions to prove that you were there. I read the information and sent the answers to the geocache owner to get credit for the find.

Standing where the ranger station stood

I drove back toward the entrance to hike the Hard Rock Trail which has several caches. My first find was Shenanagan's Spiders and Snakes which indeed involved finding spiders and snakes at the cache site. Luckily, they were all plastic.

Hidden somewhere in there

Next, I found Your friend Andy...., a letterbox cache inspired by The Shawshank Redemption. In the movie, Andy hides a treasure for Red to find in a field, just in case Red ever makes it out of Shawshank Prison. Red does, makes the find, and has a happy ending. The cache has a very similar ending, at least it did for me.

Not part of the cache, but an interesting tree nearby

Yet another medium size loc-n-loc is not very imaginatively named. After making the find, it sure looks like it hasn't been found in a long while.

How long has this been out here?

My last find of the day is the much more colorfully named From the belly, to the mouth, to the feet of the beast. The cache had several different previous incarnations, this one being merely the feet of a difficult beast, I guess. 

More nondescript woods

The epic day was a lot of fun, thanks to the good weather and the good hides.

The month ends with a full set of days on the grid of calendar days cached, 24 caches this month, and a total of 785. Will I break 800 next month?

Another month completed!