After coming back from the
California trip, I had a quieter geocaching month, at least in the beginning.
Having found a Wherigo cache in California, I qualified for
OCCT #29 A Pent Up Wherigo Challenge, which requires Wherigo finds in five different states or territories outside of the United States. It was an easy find on the Odenton Challenge Cache Trail.
The next day I found the multi-cache
Projection Practice that had me projecting waypoints from the starting coordinates to get to the final find. I did the projection from home since I did not have to find actual landmarks, just coordinates. Sometimes these caches have specific landmarks (like a nearby sign) from which to project.
Then I avenged a Did Not Find at
A Prime Example of a Difficult Puzzle Cache. When I first sought it last year, I failed. I saw recently that someone had spent an hour and found the cache. Since it was made more easy, I thought I would try again and I came up with the find. I also saw some crazy fungus along the way.
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| Mushrooms in the wild |
I was also qualified for the
Fibonacci Challenge, which requires sets of finds matching the numbers in the Fibonacci sequence.
After several mathematical errors and wrong guesses, I finally solved
It's All About the JOURNEY, a puzzle cache about the rock band Journey and its members. The find was in the middle of a forest with some strange stone piles.
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| What happened here? What still happens here?!? |
I went to College Park on an errand and made two finds.
Peaceful Pond Plot is a mystery cache around a drainage pond. The find was easy even on a hot day. I had solved the letterbox
History on the Way to Happy Hour a long time ago and finally made the find. It was a tricky hide in an old-fashioned parking lot fixture.
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| The peaceful pond |
On a run to the county dump I picked up some caches:
Empty Cache,
Turf Trail Cache,
Atwood Front, and the
Random Letterbox Word Series Bee Happy Vibes Corgi Love. Nothing was too photogenic in the neighborhood. The woods where
Empty Cache is hidden have signs on the edge claiming new construction is coming!
The next day I filled another mystery calendar day with
CAM 2022 - Robinson Nature Center, which required going in to the center to get some missing numbers in the real coordinates. I didn't mind supporting a local nature center.
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| It's on one of those trails |
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| The nature center with a new sculpture outside |
On our way back from a visit to Williamsburg, we found
Twilight Munchies by a
Waffle House and
Duluth Gabbro for This Devil Dog Overlook at the
Marine Corps Museum.
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| The dog and me |
My son had a music camp at Towson University which is at least 45 minutes from home. Rather than drive there and home in the morning and repeating the trip in the afternoon, I stayed in the north of Baltimore area, which meant some new areas for geocaching.
One of the older caches in Maryland is
Ivy Hill Cache (placed in April 2001) on top of, you guessed it, Ivy Hill. The walk up was a bit of work--the trail is called "The Old Ski Slope." Since I had already climbed to the trails, I also found
CAM 2022 Oregon Ridge Park and
St Joes Brownies and Daisies Cache. I had a couple of DNFs on the hill too but probably won't go back for them unless I am really desperate (or the weather is much cooler).
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| The picture does not do this slope justice |
Back in town, I found
Triple 5s (a DNF from last year) and
Any.pbay. T.xrape, both mystery caches that help to fill the calendar. I finished up with
I'm a Little Bent and
John Dunn Ferguson Octavia I - Virtual Reward 4.0. That last one is a virtual right next to the music camp parking lot!
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| The sculpture Octavia I |
The next day, I did the Rainbow Trail Challenge at Liberty Reservoir Park. It has seven regular caches--
Red,
Orange,
Yellow,
Green,
Blue,
Indigo,
Violet--and a final mystery cache based on numbers found in each of the color caches. The final is called
Rainbow Trail - Pot of Gold, though when I took a picture of the pot, the nearby leprechaun said it would not come out right.
The trail was more overgrown than I was happy with and the bugs were plentiful. I didn't see other people or animals on the trails--probably they were too smart to be out in the heat. I did need caches with "violet" and "indigo" in the name for another rainbow challenge which I hope to find in August. These caches also help me to qualify for the
Route 32 Challenge.
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| Small creek crossing on the trail |
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| Liberty Reservoir |
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| The pot of gold! |
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| A butterfly on the trail |
On the way out of the park, I found
Way of the Deer which was just a hundred feet out of my way.
The day after I found a string of caches around Timonium, where I donated blood.
W Padonia PnG,
Just Hangin Around,
New Home, Old Home,
I Love Cemeteries!,
Bird's Eye View,
What?! No Drive Up Window?, and
A Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far, Far Away..... Those last two were right by a library, which meant I could shelter from the heat in an awesome place!
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| The cemetery in question |
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| This is the droid you are looking for |
The next day was much quieter with just
Serpentine Gatehouse (an earthcache) and
Welcome to Baltimore - North Charles Street (a traditional micro cache) giving me some extra finds in Baltimore City. I also had three DNFs trying to get my Baltimore numbers higher. Later, I was at another library and found
Meet me at the Usual place, which had a bunch of wasp nests that were occupied. I managed to sign and put it back without being stung or bit. Some days are luckier than others.
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| By the gatehouse |
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| Proof of finding |
I finished the month with 65 finds and a cumulative total of 1972. I will break 2000 in August I am sure!
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