Geocaching Trip Labor Day 2010

We took a quick geocaching trip last Sunday and Monday.  It was Labor Day weekend, so Jacob didn't have school, I have Monday's off and Jeff was on leave.  Perfect timing for a road trip!  We packed up the Prius and took off heading southeast towards Dunlap, Kansas.  Since Jeff is from Dunlap, Iowa, we decided to set a cache in Dunlap, Kansas!  Dunlap, Kansas was a small town that in it's heyday, must have been a bustling farming community.  Today, there are gravel roads instead of paved, there are old buildings that are abandoned and in disrepair.  The school is all boarded up.  There is a church, and it actually seemed to be one of the few buildings that looked as if it was well taken care of. 

Burden, KS

Who-who can find me?  Jacob can!

Big Brutus

We continued southeast towards Chanute and Columbus.  Columbus is in the southeast corner of Kansas, near Oklahoma and Missouri.  Once we reached Columbus, we started heading west, zigzagging north and south, hitting caches in particular counties.  We're trying to attempt the Delorme Kansas Challenge and the Kansas 105 County Challenge so we needed to be specific on where exactly the caches were!

Little House on the Prairie

Bossie

We had a great time...  2 day, 706 miles (we only had to fill up once!) and we found a total of 69 caches.  We drove down a lot of gravel roads, traveled paved roads that were more like gravel roads, and saw a lot of small-town Kansas...Big Brutus, Little House on the Prairie (which is a replica of their Kansas home) and Bossie dancing the Bosa-Nova. 

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! :)

DeLorme Challenge and Kansas 105 County Cache

Yesterday, we spent the entire day geocaching. We left at 8:30 am and returned at a little past 7:00 pm. We drove about 350 miles through parts of Kansas we'd never seen before.

You might be asking why... Why would the crazy Miller family drive 350 miles to do some geocaches? The answer is easy. Actually, the answers are easy... The Delorme Challenge and the Kansas 105 County Cache.

So yes, we're crazy. We're participating in both of these challenges. In the Kansas 105 County Cache, we have to find a cache in each of the 105 counties in Kansas. We've done 25 counties so far!

On a side note, why does Kansas have 105 counties while Maine only has 16? In 6th grade or so (or maybe it was 5th) I had to learn all 16 counties of Maine. There was even a song that helped me memorize it. Do kids in Kansas have to memorize all 105 counties??

Anyways, the DeLorme Challenge is similar. We need to find a cache in each grid of the Kansas DeLorme map. There are 65 grids and we've done a cache in 16 of them!

So that's why we drove over 300 miles yesterday. (I'm so glad we have our new Prius and got over 42 miles per gallon!) We did 20 caches along the way and had a great time as a family. Geocaching is fun. We love it!