geocaching event

Block Party is almost here!

July 22, 2015

For those of you who geocache, you likely know that this year’s Block Party is the final one. With that in mind, three of us are embarking on the cross-country trip to go to the event, as well as others surrounding it.

And I’m getting quite excited.

The trip is going to be five days of some serious fun, at least I hope. My true hope is that Mother Nature gives us some good weather for the time we are out there.

Anyway, the plan is to fly out on a Thursday morning and arrive mid-afternoon in Seattle. After grabbing the rental car, and checking in at the hotel, it’s into Seattle for the first event.

The pathtag I have for my Northwest trip!

The weekend continues with some historical geocaches (on a side trip to Portland), some cool other places, and a baseball game. Unfortunately, the Mariners are on the road, so I am going to catch a minor league game.

Now, don’t get me wrong, but though this is a geocaching trip, I am hoping to see some other things. Am I going to be able to do everything possible? Probably not. But I want to be able to visit the Space Needle and the Sky View Observatory. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get to the outskirts somewhere and get a photo or two of the Seattle skyline.

I’m sure a brewery or two will be on tap (ha! See what I did there?) too, which will be fun.

That being said, there are some great geocaching items planned.

We’ll be attending the final Block Party at Geocaching.com’s headquarters. Also, there’s a trip back to HQ on the following Monday to get a hosted visit, which I think will be a lot of fun. The HQ GeoTour looks like a blast and I think we are planning on doing that on one of the other days (not Block Party day) to hopefully get a chance to do them without a game of “pass the log.”

The Friday trip to the Portland area is going to net us the original cache stash plaque, as well as some other old geocaches. I’ve been looking at a few of the caches there and I think it’s going to be pretty cool to grab some of those historical ones and know I’ve done them.

There are three webcam caches that I am hoping we can nab over the course of the weekend, too. Considering how few of these are around, it’s nice to be able to get them when you can.

On Sunday, a trip to the spot of the “Ape” cache that is no longer there. So, unfortunately, I won’t get the chance to get that icon on my profile, but the Snoqualmie Tunnel is open. This tunnel is part of the rail trail and is an old railroad tunnel. It’s very cool and is a round trip hike of a little more than 5 miles (on level ground, if I read right), so that’s pretty cool. On the other side are some historical geocaches, so that will add to the experience and the day.

There’s really not a lot more I can say about this trip, without breaking down day by day. I think in the overall scheme, it will be a fun trip. I’m looking forward to grabbing a few new states on my profile as well as finding some old caches. I’ve also created a pathtag for the trip to the Pacific Northwest, so that is cool to have and hopefully trade along the way.

I’m definitely excited about seeing a few things, getting to go to a baseball game and, of course, geocaching. It should be a heck of a fun experience and I’m looking forward to it.

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog@gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook!

Hall of Fame Picnic 7 grows with perfect weather

August 14, 2014

It seems like yesterday that I went on my first day of geocaching. Two of us went on March 1, 2008 in search of these Tupperware containers in the woods or elsewhere.

We found five that day, which was a cold but sunny winter afternoon.

I soon became addicted to this game and have loved doing it ever since. One other thing I have always enjoyed was the events. The first I went to was in May of 2008. That fall, three of us worked on an area event with the idea that it would grow over time and be a yearly things.

The seventh rendition of our summer picnic event.

It’s done that and then some.

The Hall of Fame Picnic was born out of the idea that we had two Hall of Fames (at the time) within 30 minutes of each other – the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown and the National Soccer Hall of Fame in Oneonta.

Alas, the Soccer Hall has since shut its doors, but the name continues.

Over time, we’ve held it at a few different parks – Neahwa in Oneonta, Glimmerglass in Cooperstown and Fortin in Oneonta, which is where we’ve kind of settled in as our “home.” Maybe down the line we’ll move it around somewhere again, but the Grove Pavilion at Fortin Park has become a great spot for us.

Year 7!

This past weekend we held the event for the seventh consecutive year. It’s hard to imagine seven years have passed by with this wonderful event. Seven years. In a few more years, we’ll be hitting 10.

We set a record this year with more than 35 geocachers (at least names) attending. The number of actual people is higher as some teams have two or three people under one geocaching name. Some stayed most of the day, some came and went and some made brief stops. But it was all good in the end as we had a good turnout – our best yet.

Our first year was, obviously, our smallest. We had 17 legit attendees (there were 35 who logged they came, but three people unethically logged the event caches as a will-attend to get finds – and not being the “owner,” I couldn’t do anything about it). The numbers fluctuated over the following years, but stayed in the 20s until this year.

Some of the medals for the top three in each event.

We’ve had a lot of fun with it, too. I always strive to find something different to do. We’ve done a photo scavenger hunt twice, a regular scavenger hunt, had potluck picnics and, this year, did the GeoOlympics.

What an event the GeoOlympics was.

We had five events where cachers competed and earned points and medals. We had an FTF Dash where we gave the person the coordinates and they had to go sign the log and return. We had a micro toss and an ammo can toss. There was a closest to the pin, as well as speed container – where they were timed decorating a geocache container. (Side note: these containers will all be released as live caches, with the person’s name as part of the title. I’ll just go through and “clean ‘em up” if needed before placing).

There was plenty of food, chat and other geocaching fun. And, honestly, I’m not sure we could have asked for better weather.

Our overall top three!

What was really nice is that we had people travel from all over for this event – from an hour or so away to spots in other states, such as Pennsylvania and New Jersey. I had the chance to meet some new faces and catch up with those I already knew.

Doing the in-depth games are fun, but sometimes it takes away from the event to the point that every year or two, it’s worth doing just the picnic and having people hang out, eat, play some “yard games” and have a good time. Maybe next year. We’ll see.

In the end, it was a fine time and people seemed like they had a great time. I always enjoy hosting events and coming up with different ideas, so this all worked out well.

I truly do believe this was our best summer picnic yet. It was perfect weather, some fun activities and people stuck around, which was nice. There are some early talks for ideas for the next couple of years, so hopefully we can continue to grow the event as we march toward 10 years in 2017!

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog@gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook!

Even at night geocachers prove to be simply crazy

October 10, 2013

Crazy geocachers come out for a night event!

For the second straight year, I opted to hold a night geocaching event.

Mind you, this wasn’t anything special. It was basically an event to see who would be nuts enough to come out to a geocaching event in the middle of the night.

Last year, I held the event at 1 a.m. in a Walmart parking lot.

See? Nothing special.

We had a pretty solid turnout with people actually doing a little traveling to get there. This year, I opted to go a little earlier — 11:30 p.m. — to see if that helped.

Again, a good turnout.

One thing was for sure — the weather this year was much better. Last year, it was brutally cold. This year was quite nice, though rain arrived and chased us all away about 45 minutes after the event started.

It truly does make me smile to know how nuts of a community geocachers are.

As I said, there was absolutely nothing special about this event. It was a simple meet-and-greet in a Walmart parking lot. Nothing more, nothing less. Though one cacher did bring some eats — leftover stuff from a party she had done earlier! Sweet!

Including me, we had 19 people this year, which is two more than last time. So it’s a steady improvement. I’ll have to see what I can do to get things rolling for next year.

Games were mentioned, so I’ll have to come up with something clever to have for people to do. I don’t want to do the normal geocaching bingo or anything, so I’ll have to figure something odd.

I’m sure I can come up with something.

Until then, another late-night caching event is in the books and I’d call it a success!

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook!

On the geocaching trail: Planning a fun weekend

July 18, 2013

I’m ready for a weekend of geocaching… and hopefully many finds occur!

Hey folks.

I know I’ve been pretty hit or miss for the past several weeks, but with work and softball and everything else, I’ve had no drive to blog. I’m so beat at night thanks to this crazy heat we’ve been having.

Blah.

Anyway, for the first time since starting the summer gig, I have a few extra days off. I put in for this weekend as it’s the Berkshire Geobash, a mega event in its second year. I went last year and wanted to hit it up again.

Of course it’s supposed to be hot this weekend, which kind of stinks. I was hoping for some partially sunny skies with a high of around 70. I would have been stoked.

But no…

Mother Nature doesn’t seem to want to cooperate, of course.

For Saturday (from the National Weather Service):

Showers and thunderstorms likely, mainly after 2pm. Some of the storms could produce small hail, gusty winds, and heavy rain. Partly sunny, with a high near 84. West wind 8 to 10 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New rainfall amounts between a quarter and half of an inch possible.

For Saturday night:

Saturday Night Showers and thunderstorms likely before 9pm, then a slight chance of showers between 9pm and 3am. Some of the storms could produce small hail, gusty winds, and heavy rain. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 63. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New rainfall amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch, except higher amounts possible in thunderstorms.

Seriously? I get a weekend off and I have to deal with this? Of course Sunday looks nice and Friday (when two of us are heading down) look decent. But Saturday…

Ugh. Hopefully that will change some.

Either way, I have a lot of caches planned. I haven’t sat down and planned a caching trip like this in a while, so it’s been pretty fun. I have the lists broken up into days and such, so hopefully we’ll be able to get most of them. There are more than 100 on the list for two days, so we’ll see.

Some of the highlights include:

Seeing nine covered bridges (four in New York, five in Vermont);
Two events (originally three or four, but we’ve opted to skip one or two for other items);
Several puzzle caches, which have already been solved;
Some challenging caches with different terrain/difficulty ratings;
A few cooler caches with more than 50 favorite points.

I’ve also continued the releasing of my coin collection (I’m creating proxy releases as the originals stay in the collection, but they are out moving and such) and will have more than 15 I am releasing this weekend. That’s one thing I’m truly excited about. I’ll drop them in different spots throughout the weekend.

In the end, I’m looking forward to getting away and doing some geocaching. It hasn’t been a great summer for caching for me as I had eight finds in June and I’ve had one in July.

One.

So I’m looking to make amends.

Last year, this event was quite fun. There were quite a lot of things to do and I look forward to the same this year. I hope there are good vendors to check out and, of course, great caches.

I’m also planning on taking a bunch of photos (I rented a lens) with my regular camera as well as with the iPhone, which I’ll be posting to Instagram, Tumblr and Twitter throughout the weekend. Feel free to follow me on any of those networks!

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog@gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook!

The good outweighs the bad when it comes to geocaching

November 1, 2012

Not too long ago, I posted about the bad side of geocaching and the reality that geocaches, sometimes, get stolen.

I guess it’s more of an unfortunate side.

Either way, there is a lot of good with the game and I wanted to share those things in this post.

The morning of the event was a magnificent, fall day.

A couple of weeks ago, I hosted an event at a local park. For those of you who are not geocachers, among the types of caches you can find are events. It’s basically where a group of geocachers gather for chat, food and whatever else. Some events are in-depth with other things to do, while some are low-key and just meet-and-greets.

Both can be fun, but the meet-and-greets really allow you to chat and visit with people.

I’ve been to events all over. I really enjoy the atmosphere and meeting new people. I’ve met a lot of people I call friends today through these caching events and I’ll look forward to many more of them in the future.

A few years ago, a small group of us headed to Canada for an event and a weekend of caching. It was something different. We met some cool people and I have some great memories from the event.

A couple of weeks before my event, one of the people posting a will-attend was one of the Canadian cachers we had met. Two of them were going to attempt to come for the weekend. That was quite cool. We had met with the two cachers the day after the event to chat and they gave us each a large ammo can to bring back.

The one I had received, I painted and was set to place. But it was a special cache, so I waited for a good time to place it.

Morning fog and fall colors made for a wonderful surprise before the event.

This was the perfect time with our Canadian friends coming to the area.

Block Party is almost here!

Hall of Fame Picnic 7 grows with perfect weather

Even at night geocachers prove to be simply crazy

On the geocaching trail: Planning a fun weekend

The good outweighs the bad when it comes to geocaching

hoohaa29

P.J. Harmer