Geocaching September 2023

More adventures in geocaching!

Interested in trying something new, and as part of a Wheel of Challenges souvenir, I found an adventure lab cache called Savage Adventure. The adventure labs are based in a separate app from the geocaching app but the finds count in geocaching stats. Adventure labs show up on the geocaching app's map but not on the website map. I am not sure what the thinking is behind that. The Savage Adventure takes one around to the historic buildings of the town and gives a little history of each. When I was close enough to each location, a link would pop up on the adventure lab app asking a question based on the location, like the date from a plaque or cornerstone. It was fun to wander around and only took half an hour to finish.

View from Carroll Baldwin Hall to Church

After completing the adventure lab, I decided to go for the bonus cache since I had the coordinates and it wasn't too far. Savage Adventure Lab Bonus Cache provides the physical finding and logging experience the lab itself does not. It was not far from Savage Mill.

View of Savage Mill

Kitty Stamp (not that bad for summer) is a letterbox-hybrid cache that I needed for the Wheel of Challenges. Following the clues to the letterbox hide was easy enough. Letterboxing is an older game by over a hundred years--it uses no technology, just a starting point and some instructions to find the hide. 

View from the cache

To round out the Challenge, I found an earthcache and a virtual cache on the last day of the challenge. The earthcache was Greenbelt Lake at Buddy Attick Park, which is about how the lake, along with the Greenbelt neighborhood, was built in the 1930s and the impact that had on the local environment--turning it into a wetland!

The lake!

The virtual cache was NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. The only requirement was to take a picture at the visitor center's rocket park, which I duly did while my family enjoyed the outdoor displays.

The rocket and me

I drove the rest of the family to a bike ride on the Crescent Trail in Washington. Since I was driver, I had a bit of time to find a geocache. I found Ghost Bike, a multicache that starts at a bike painted white. The bike is a memorial for someone killed or hit on the street. Info from the bike led to the final find nearby.

A sad memorial

I finally finished the Clemens Crossing Navidad series by finding #4 - Nature near the Mall in Columbia. The find was a little worrying because of the location. The view from the location is nice, especially in dry weather.

Rain, rain, go away!

The next day I found Random Wiki Puzzle: Egeskov Castle which required some on-line research to answer questions and get the proper coordinates. The find in the field was fairly easy which was a good thing since the area has gone through a heat wave.

A less interesting view

An even more fun find was Gnometown, hidden in a yard that has a set of little gnomes. The hide is right near the village.

You think you are from a small town?

Less cute was the aptly named Rock Pile, where one of the rocks was fake, i.e. it contained the geocache log.

View from the rocks

I found A Special Day, a mystery cache that I had solved so long ago, I don't remember the solution. But I did have the updated coordinates and the business park was empty when I visited it on a Sunday.

Empty loading docks

I attended another geocaching meet up, Remembering September 11, 2001: Never Forget, which was much more social and much less somber. Like the last time, I didn't get a picture.

The next day I found Marcus's Dinosaur Cache which was a classic ammo can hidden under a bridge. It was very satisfying to find but a little muddy.

Aren't bridges for trolls, not dinosaurs?

Dead end lemon was a cache that was indeed on a dead end. That made it a quiet spot to search.

View from the dead end

Next up was Random Wiki Puzzle: Musgrave Park Hospital, a mystery cache that involved a little online research to get the final coordinates. GZ was a place I had been to before but in the back by a drainage pond.

A different part of the parking lot

My next find was No Bloody A, B, C, or D, a mystery cache with a Star Trek theme. The title is based on a quote from a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode. I was able to answer a few questions off the top of my head but definitely needed to access the Starfleet Database to get some answers.

Not a very Trekkie view

Back at the Mall in Columbia for a blood donation, I found Team Gremlin, a multi-cache that required some information from some steampunk statues.

These are not the statues you are looking for...

My next fine, perhaps appropriate after a Star Trek cache and a Star Wars joke, was Empty Space, which was hidden at this empty lot on a local highway. There's no sign of what was here before or what might come in the future.

The final frontier? A new hope?

After dropping my wife off at the train station, I found Sky View, though the early morning hour did not give such a great view.

Lights of the airport in the distance

I found a bunch of geocaches at University of Maryland the next day. I started with Huey, a multicache that required information from a helicopter on the campus! It was donated by the Maryland Air National Guard to the Aerospace Engineering department. A new student tour was in the area, so I didn't get any pictures. Nearby, I found The Engineers Cache I on the side of one of the engineering buildings. From there, I was near the start of mystery cache I Got The Geocaching Blues. The coordinates were accessed by discovering a bluetooth device! It was cool, but the final destination was on the way out of campus, so I left the last stage for later. Then, I went to Finding the Rainbow Connection, a virtual cache by a statue of Jim Henson, creator of The Muppets and an alumnus of the university. The campus had a lot of construction going on, so I was only able to find two locations for the campus Adventure Lab, including the university mascot. People rub his nose for luck. When I was there, someone left other offerings. I went back to the car and found the second Lab location at the farm (yes, part of the campus!). I drove out and got the last stage of the bluetooth, which was very satisfying.

Celebreties and me

Campus celebrity

Farm at UMD

Cenosillicaphobia #10 is another in a long series of brewery-based mystery caches. I solved the mystery with help from the internet and made the find on a rainy Saturday. The rain was bad enough that I didn't get a picture.

Not too far from there, but on the next day, I found Maryland's Hardest Multi, a two-stage cache that required more brain power than foot power. The first stage is in an office park parking lot, so going on a Sunday meant no muggles to spy me out.

View from the car

I solved another mystery cache, You Can't Go Back. The puzzle was tricky but the hide was not. My biggest challenge was vegetation by the car, not by the final location. The same day I found the nearby PBWB.... for which the name was inexplicable to me. There was more vegetation involved in this GZ.

Obstructed view from the car

Bend It Like Z is hidden near an indoor soccer field. The find was easy on a rainy weekday morning. Unfortunately, signing was not easy--the log was soaked!

Didn't sign this one

I made it to a 30-day streak and the 900th overall cache with Random Wiki Puzzle: Gerry Armstrong (footballer) and Random Wiki Puzzle: English Ship Dainty (1588). Both are near a dance store where I had to pick up some new ballroom dance shoes. An additional bit of randomness was this bamboo by one of the caches.

Nearby trees

Continuing the streak, I found Deep Concern and the Late Portlywalker Birthdays..., a quick hide in a business park with lots of athletic statues that are clues to a set of mystery caches in the same area. I found TYGR 402: Football using the football statue. Since the clue is on the statue, I am not posting a picture of that, though I am of the container. It is a small vial and I don't carry tweezers with me, so I couldn't sign the log!

Didn't sign this one either

My final find for the month was 2000 Favorite Point (50+) Challenge, requiring me to have found caches whose favorite points add up to 2000, only counting caches that have 50 or more favorite points. There's a checker that looks the information up for you and I qualified a long time ago. I finally made the find and logged it on September 30th. No picture here, either.

I end the month with 903 caches overall and 47 for that month (a new high for a month). I waited too long into October to update this log post, so the stat board is off.

Click to enlarge