350.org (River of Action) CITO

This morning we went to Lego Laws and Wolf Spider's CITO event.
Even though we didn't go paddling down the Kansas River, we had a great time. Jacob and I each won a geo pin and a geocoin in the drawing.

October 24 is 350.org's International Day of Climate Action. Events were held around the world. We picked up trash along the Linear Trail and around the boat landing. The group that went paddling down the river also picked up trash along the way. There were 11 new caches hidden along the Linear Trail. Even though we didn't go boating, we enjoyed the crisp fall weather and we were able to find a few caches; and even snagged a co-FTF with Jadefalcon!

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=eb0b3068-4c87-457f-b758-24c13ba5c089

Thanks Lego Laws and Wolf Spider, we had a great time! Oh, Angela...I think Jacob has a little crush on you...he told me he had a great time picking up trash with Mrs. Lego Laws and then he blushed and giggled! :)

LAME Geocaching Event in Topeka

Jacob and I attended the LAME geocaching event on Friday night in Topeka. We had a lot of LAME fun! Lots of great conversation, heard lots of stories (tall tales included!) and ate some pretty good subs.

In May 2008, Jeff had just gotten back from a deployment in Iraq. He told me about this game type thing with a GPS and that is was like a treasure hunt. I was a little skeptical, but figured since he'd just spent 15 months away from us, I'd go along with his idea of fun. Jeff did the first couple of geocaches while I was at work and told Jacob and I what fun it was. I kind of raised my eyebrows at him and thought, "Fun? This is going to be fun?" A few days later, Jeff and I spent the day geocaching. I was hooked. It was fun! We have seen some awesome places during our geocaching travels and we've met some wonderful people. I had such a good time talking with everyone on Friday night. Thanks for taking the time to make this event happen!

Rock City

It has been a LONG time since my last post... We've had a few changes since August, which have led to less geocaching than usual. Mr. Diecast (aka Jeff) has left for a year-long deployment to Iraq. Mrs. Diecast (that's me) changed jobs and is no longer teaching 1st grade; but is instead teaching 2 classes at Kansas State University and also hard at work on her (my) doctoral degree in Literacy Education. So that leaves far less time for geocaching. :(

The days are starting to get cooler, and the colors are changing across Kansas. Jacob (aka Buggywasher) and I loaded up the Prius this morning and headed to Rock City for Nicoole and Debbie's Earth Cache. On our jaunt this morning, we saw signs that winter will soon be upon us. When we moved to Kansas 5 years ago, I used to think the fall colors here were such a let down. This year I really appreciated them...they aren't vivid yellows, reds and oranges like the fall New England colors. They're more subdued, quieter...Kansas colors. I love the mustard yellows, the browns, the rusts, the dark reds that look almost purple. The yellow orange, the tans, the russets, the greenish yellows. This is the first year that I've really noticed the landscape. It's taken me 5 years to appreciate what we have here.

We did a couple of caches before and after the Earth cache, but I must say the highlight was Rock City. The rock formations were amazing! I've said this over and over again, but if it hadn't been for geocaching, we would never would have visited this spot. Geocaching has brought us to some amazing places along the way.

Geocaching Pictures

Largest ball of twine! Jacob got to add 30 feet to it!

This is for you, JJTally!

Geographic center of the lower 48 states.

Echo Cliff

There is a geocache under the phone booth, but Jeff had to explain to Jacob about phone booths! You don't see many of them anymore and Jacob was amazed that this actually was a working phone!

All tuckered out after a day of caching!

The Delorme Challenge

We are in the process of completing the Kansas Delorme Challenge. I've written about this challenge before...Delorme has created a map book (see the picture above) for each state. The Kansas map on the back of the book is broken down into 65 grids, and each page of the book is one of these grids. In order to complete the Delorme Challenge, goecoachers must find or hide a geocache in each grid. This isn't an easy challenge...Kansas is a large state...it is about 400 miles long and 210 miles wide, covering 82,282 square miles, making it the 15th largest of the 50 states. (http://www.netstate.com/states/geography/ks_geography.htm) The eastern 2/3's of the state are pretty populated and there are lots of geocaches to be found. However, the challenge becomes more difficult in the western part of the state...some of the grids only have 1 or 2 caches!

At the same time, we're working on the Kansas County Challenge. This challenge is similar...you need to find a cache in all 105 counties! Again, this can be difficult since some counties only have 1 or 2 caches in them!
We have gone on 2 geocaching treks lately...the first was on 12/13 July and the second on 7/8 August. The first trek was 2 days, 878 miles across 2 states. We found 59 geocaches and completed 15 grids on the Delorme Challenge. The second trek found us driving 837 miles across 2 states. We found 62 geocaches, set 3 of them ourselves and completed 14 grids (all with temps above 100!)
We are sooo close to being able to join the Delorme Challenge Club! But, we are still so far away...14 more grids are left for us to do! All in southwestern Kansas...and another 800+ mile trip!

Geocaching has now become an obsession for us! :)

Iconic Challenge

On Sunday, we made a geocaching trip to complete the Iconic Challenge (http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=91a789d5-98d3-45f0-9517-5eb29ab2274b&log=y&decrypt=). It took a little bit of planning, but was lots of fun! Mr. Diecast did most of the planning...Ok, almost all of the planning...I helped a little!

With the Iconic Challenge, there are two different versions...version 1 has you finding six different cache types in one day. Version 2 has you finding 10 different cache types in one day. We chose to complete version 1...version 2 is very difficult to complete! So we had a choice of caches to do...

This is what we found:

• Virtual Cache (KSARNG Aviation History Lesson)
• Mystery Cache (A Christmas Story)
• Earth Cache (Echo Cache)
• Regular Cache (Jason's Cache)
• Multi Cache (Mount Hope Multicache)
• Letterbox (Welton Grove Park)

We had planned several backup caches in case we couldn't find one...in fact, we had to use one of the backups! We had planned to use Twisted Lines as our Mystery Cache, but we had the wrong coords! So we ended up using A Christmas Story to satisfy that requirement. Good planning on Mr. Diecast's part to have a backup!

Speaking of A Christmas Story...(http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=60afb1e2-013b-433b-a80f-8b69c5a62f45)

It's a funny story...we had a dickens (ahahahha...nice play on words, huh??) of a time finding it. Jeff was giving it one last try and went into the wooded area by him self. He crashed thorugh the trees and bushes and scared a coyote away! In the middle of Topeka! Then he heard something walking through the bushes and thought the coyote was coming back...instead, Larry 739, Team Snoot and Saucytoad came around the bend looking for the same cache! What a relief to have found the cache!

All in all, we were successful and had a great day! This was a fun challenge to do. We saw some interesting things that we would never have seen if we hadn't been geocaching!

See you on the trails!