Like a Breath of Fresh Air

It has been a little while since I've last posted on here; forgive me?  I have no excuses to offer.  I simply haven't been caching or blogging as much as I'd like to.  

I did go geocaching today with a friend of mine, and I was able to accompany him on three of his first four finds!  It's always good to introduce someone to the hobby of Geocaching.  He's got the bug, and he even ordered a new GPSr on one of those extremely popular shopping websites.


The weather has been a challenge lately; when it's not raining, it's hotter than fevered snot.  This makes geocaching in short bursts the idea of the day.


Here's to hoping that you all have a great Independence Day, and that you don't forget what this upcoming holiday is all about.  



Cheers.

Joshua Tree National Park

After my business in California was completed, I was able to spend a few days with family. We took a day to drive through the Joshua Tree National Park, and we had a great time. There were plenty of wildflowers blooming, and some of the cholla cacti were blooming as well.

A couple of days later, I was able to hit a few geocaches in the Yucca Valley and Joshua Tree area; most seemed to be placed simply to place a cache, but one was at the Joshua Tree Inn, which has a bit of interesting history to go with it (click here).

A day before departing to come back to Okinawa, I had the pleasure of accompanying my father on his first geocaching experience. He found his first cache after a brief search, and he's now a genuine geocacher.

Here's a few pictures from the Park:

Ocotillo plant in bloom

Overlooking the cholla cactus garden in JT National Park

Cholla in bloom

Beaver tail cactus in bloom

Ramble On

My job, by design, keeps me somewhat on the move. My wife and I are pretty skilled at packing up and moving to a new place. I've also had the opportunity to travel on a few short trips in between moves.

I get to head out tomorrow on another such trip, this time to California. Time to do a pocket query, and load the 500 caches that are closest to Camp Pendleton into my GPS.

I love the scenery of the SoCal coast, and I hope to grab some great pictures while I'm there. More importantly, I'll get to see my parents, my sister, and even a friend or two.

Updates to follow...

What Model of GPS Would You Recommend?

A buddy of mine is looking into getting his wife a GPSr due to her new found interest in geocaching. He asked me for advice on what to buy. I thought I would put the question out there in this venue, since I get zillions of readers every day!

I use a Garmin Colorado 400t. Garmin doesn't make that anymore, but I like its features.

It seems that the Garmin GPSMap 60CSx is the tried and true workhorse, but it doesn't have all of the bells and whistles that the Oregon and Dakota have.

I don't know enough about the Delormes to comment on them, but I like the list of features.

What say you all?

Nice Day for a Track Meet

My son had his weekly track meet today and my wife and I enjoyed a nice day in the Chatan and Awase areas. We spent the morning in Chatan for the track meet, then came home after lunch. We then took our daughter to Comprehensive Park near the Awase area. It was a fun day, and we got some neat pictures.

Amazingly enough, I left the GPS at home. I have already searched for the cache at Comprehensive park, and was discouraged by the amount of refuse near ground zero. I think that one can stay undiscovered for me. That's the cool thing about geocaching; somebody else will probably have a great time finding that one and we all play the game differently.

---

At the sea wall near Chatan. I love the look of these pilings

Graffiti on the sea wall

Kelp farming near Comprehensive Park

Danger! Cigar-smoking pigs in the area!

200 Finds

I had to run some errands today, and I was able to squeeze in some geocaching while I was at it. My wife and I stopped in the vicinity of the Tengan River, and made three finds there. Then it was off to a park near a power plant, and then to Nakamura House, which is a well restored house in the Nakagusuku area.

Nakamura House is typical of a 15th century, wealthy farmer's home, albeit a little primitive. This was also the site of my 200th find.

One of the caches near the Tengan River is called, "London Bridge Cache." It's very appropriately named, since the bridge appears to be slowly falling down.

It was a nice day out today, and I was able to go 5 for 6 today. There was a 7th cache that we were going to try for, but it was a playground with moms and kids. Since we didn't have any kids with us today, we would have looked a little suspicious.

Cape Zanpa

I took the whole family to Cape Zanpa today. My daughter and I found a neat cache at an athletic park in Yomitan. The young baseball players were fascinated with my daughter's red hair...Grrrrr!

I DNF'd a couple of caches, mostly due to muggles. When a stranger is sitting almost on top of where you need to search, it's a bit tough to search for a hidden container.

There was a neat multi at Zanpa beach, and there was a wedding party at GZ! What are the odds? It was still a neat day at the beach.