Geocaching November 2023

November started off with the discovery of another set of Alphabet caches in Columbia, Maryland--see this link for more details!

On the alpha hunt!

By the premier go-kart race track near BWI airport, I found Speed is Irrelevant to Racing. The view from the cache does go into the raceway, but just barely.

Those are not go-karts!?!

On a very busy day, I wound up finding an Adventure Lab at dusk. It is part of a series involving the villages of Columbia, this one being on Lake Elkhorn. We convinced the kids to come by promising them ice cream afterward.

The answer was on the dock

A quick find on another busy day was Shine My Shoes...., yet another Konterra Drive cache.

The road that keeps on giving

I finally finished the Legend of Zelda set I was working on with Forest Temple Boss Gohma. On the way I saw a leftover Halloween direction.

Need a ride?

After the Monday Morning Coffee Event, the group went to Have You Missed Me? It was recently hidden but is way up a tree. One of the geocachers had a folding ladder though we didn't need it since his grabber did the job. We signed as a group. My first experience caching with people outside the family!

I had to pick up some specialty items at Trader Joes, so I found the nearby Kendall Ridge Letterbox which took me on a nice walk along one of the many Columbia trails. The container was off in the woods but not too far. I should have trusted my phone's compass to get me closer to Ground Zero, once I did the find was quick.

Pacifier in a tree...less creepy than the skeleton

Typical forrest

The next day I found Exercise #2 Parallel Bars after I couldn't find another cache. The spot was quiet on a weekday morning.

Workout?

Lamp Post Mania is a multicache in a parking lot that led from lamp post to lamp post. The fourth and final was the home of the log. It was fun to be stealthy among the cars.

The corners of the strip mall are well decorated

I needed another virtual to fill out the calendar. Greenskins is at the Washington Commanders stadium just outside Washington, D.C. Finders are supposed to take a picture with the 30-foot tall statue of a quarterback that is covered in material that converts sunshine into energy.

By Fed Ex Field, home of the Washington Commanders

The next day I did a cache and dash on a dead end that stops at I-95. The cache is called End Game because it's the end of the road. 

Road to nowhere

My Birthday Cache... is another easy find that kept the streak going. I didn't take a photo.

Running an errand near IKEA, I found a nano-cache hidden near the front door. Somehow I Kollect European Accessories, the Nano hasn't been muggled in the many years it has been around. It was first placed in 2008!

Somewhere in there

I went to back-to-back community events. On a Sunday, I attended the Geocaching International Film Festival at the Laurel Library. Geocachers from across the world made short films about the hobby. Most were comedies, with a few tearjerkers and informational presentations. The whole program (eighteen shorts) is a little over an hour, so there was time for door prizes and socializing. The next day, I went to the Monday morning meet-up that has been running for five years where we talked about the films among other geocaching topics. Check out the GIFF 2023 program:

We had enough rainy days in November that I was able to finish off the Adventure Lab called Columbia MD: Second Five Villages, but not the mystery cache that is the final reward. Adventure Labs typically involve going to a location and, once you are close enough to the coordinates, answering a question, usually based on where you are. It's handy to park by the coordinates and answer a question from the driver's seat. It doesn't always work, but often enough it keeps the streak going.

Mill ruins under roadway, near one of the labs

People Tree in Columbia, another lab coordinate

On the day before Thanksgiving, I found Son of A Ditch, which is about a swale that was made nearby. It was fun discovery with the kids in tow. We found another at a shopping center with a lighthouse, A Landmark of Annapolis. 

View from the ditch

Done caching

On Thanksgiving Day, my cache of choice was CAM 2020: "Calling All Cachers" (Virtual 2.0), a virtual cache with a bird theme. I tried to cram in some extra birds at the final stage.

3 birds in one shot!

The next day I got A Cup of Swag... not too far from home. After that, I had a day of three caches. The Woods Are Lovely, Dark, and Deep required a second parking spot since the first one did not have a trail head to to cache. Alas, the log was soaked and unsignable. Happy New Year Cache 2018 Cache... also had a log too wet to sign. I did find a signable log in The 24th of September, a letterbox cache set on the spot a tornado touched down in September of 2001 (just weeks after the 9-11 Attack). The log had an example of its stamp.

Tornado stamp

Maybe the pirate waterlogged this?

No excuse here

Happy after a cup of swag!

With the kids back in school (and another morning coffee group attended), I found a virtual in Baltimore, A Different Type of Key. The information needed is right by a church. Since it was so nearby, I also found the answers for the earthcache Cockeysville Marble, about a native Maryland stone used in making both the Peabody Library and the (Baltimore) Washington Monument.

Historic church

I am between the monument and the library (sort of)

The Ice Breakers... kept the streak going. So did a trio in College Park: Extra..., At the end of the rainbow, and The Engineer's Cache II. I picked up a mermaid from the rainbow cache, no joke!

Maryland in November is no place for a mermaid

Driving range by the Engineer's cache

I swapped out the mermaid for a skeleton at BWI/Rental Car Travel Bug Hotel, maybe not the best deal going. I hope she gets a flight to a tropical island!

Strangers passing in the cache

My last cache for the month, Beer Run #1, resulted in me bringing home a four-pack of Coffee Cake Stout. A delicious end to the month.

I had 42 finds this month with an overall total of 987. I will definitely hit 1000 in December. I am currently running a streak, hoping to make 100 consecutive days of caching. My plan is to find the 1000th cache on the 100th day of my streak!

And only four empty days on the overall calendar...

Good thing next year is leap year!