Pushing the Limits

In July, I helped a friend create some geocaches that she took home to Belgium.  A couple months ago, I helped with a couple more caches that she planned to take home at Christmas time. One of those involved a plastic ammo can with a doorbell, and another was a maze cache, both based on concepts by a local geocacher.

A few days ago, I was doing some cleaning in the shop and decided to make another cache for her if there was room in her suitcase. It's made from a piece of 2" PVC pipe about 18" long. She said she had room so I put some left over pieces to work to create a puzzle cache. Again, this was modeled from a concept by another local geocacher.

When she picked it up, we chatted about possible TSA questions. I didn't glue the collars on one end of the cross pieces so that it wouldn't take up as much space and so that would be easier to inspect.

This morning, I got this message. I'd totally forgotten about the ammo can with a door bell hidden under a false bottom, but the camo on the plastic pipe probably didn't help any.

Now that she's through security, she should be good to go.

Here's hoping that geocachers in Belgium appreciate their Christmas gifts from the U.S.

And from our house to yours, please remember the reason for the season!

Just Because

For a number of years now, the unique little town of Quartzsite has been home for a few weeks early in the year. This year, I made a quick trip in late November in preparation for the new year.

Quartzsite is known as a winter residence for many RVers. It's home to a world famous RV show in late January, but rigs were already starting to gather, picking out the best spots for their winter boondocking.

Every year, immediately following the Big Show, the Escapees Geocaching Birds of a Feather gather for a few days of fun. Each year, in addition to many experienced geocachers, we also host folks who are exploring what Geocaching is all about.

Last year, I realized that while Quartzsite has thousands of traditional caches, there were some types of caches that were very rare or missing entirely.

Now, there's a new short series of simple (and hopefully fun) caches so that we can introduce new cachers to all of the caches types that incorporate a physical log.

The caches have been active for several weeks now, and I've been somewhat surprised to see that some are perhaps not as simple as I'd expected. On the other hand, perhaps those who struggled with some didn't read the cache descriptions.

They're all in place, waiting for the chance to serve as learning opportunities for new or not so new cachers.

A Bit of Barry Goldwater

It was an 'o dark:30 departure as four of us headed to a part of the western section of the Barry M. Goldwater Bombing Range. The Goldwater Range covers a very large part of southwestern Arizona. A permit is required to access the range.

By the time we got there, the sun was up. The Devil's Road has a reputation that dates back centuries and we weren't sure what to expect.

I was expecting miles of wash-boarded road, but discovered a large portion where we were the first tracks other than the pair of road graders which we eventually caught up with and passed. Most of the road was relatively smooth, but soft sand.

The desert was amazingly beautiful with the brittlebush blooming after recent rains.

Through the day the cloud cover varied, changing the shadows on the mountains.

We stopped for one cache at the beginning of the section we intended to do, and then drove to the south end and worked our way back towards town.

Many of the caches we were searching for were in bushes or occasionally trees. In spite of all the potential, we didn't leave much DNA on the thorns, but did manage to sign 82 Wherigo cache logs and 23 traditional cache logs.

We stopped a couple times for snacks and to rest our runners, and managed to catch a little mugging for the camera. We saw a couple Border Patrol vehicles and a Fish & Wildlife guy, but no one stopped to quiz us about what we were doing.

A couple points along the way we spotted fake tanks that seemed to be targets, and in one spot, the remains of a flying machine of some sort. We even enjoyed a couple low passes by some fast movers from the Marine base.

The sun was creating a fiery sunset as we approached home. 400 miles, 12 1/2 hours, lots of fun,

and mission accomplished. There are literally thousands of geocaches on the range, most along the roads, some that require hiking to access, but we got the ones we went for and a few others along the way. I've never met DizFiz, but somebody loves'em.