Geocaching Statistics

I was playing over at mygeocachingprofile.com and had fun looking at our geocaching statistics! If you haven't already checked out mygeocachingprofile.com, it's a cool site where you can upload a pocket query from geocaching.com and it creates all these cool graphics with your statistics!  Fun!

 Cache Types We've Found















 

States We've Cached In

Geo Badges We've Earned

 
 
 

 Counties We've Cached In

 

GeoTrip to Kansas City

We took a short GeoTrip on Saturday to Kansas City.  Jeff was leaving for Ft. Lewis, Washington early on Sunday morning, so we decided to drive to Kansas City and stay the night...and of course, cache along the way!  The trip to the airport usually takes a little over 2 hours...about 130 miles, however, we took all day long.  The sun was bright, the wind was blowing (when doesn't it blow in Kansas??) and we had a great time.  We ended our caching portion of the trip at Russel Stover where we ended with a cache and an ice cream cone. 

Ghost Bus on the Prairie

A settler's cemetery tucked away

Great road sign!  Witch Way to OZ

Funny sign we saw in St. Mary's.  I wonder if there is a brain insurance???

Roy II

 We did a cache in Silver Lake and it was like being on the set of Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds."

http://hitchcock.tv/mov/birds/images/birds.jpg

I was so busy watching the birds flying around that I missed the cache!  Jeff found the cache, signed the log and put it back all without my help!  Come to find out, it was one of Jeff's most memorable caches, Lord, Give Me a Sign!  And I missed it...all because of the birds! 

What a great day!  We saw some pretty cool places~

Spring Break GeoTrip

I've been so bad at keeping up with this blog.  Between my other blog (What's Cooking At Jen's House,) school, work, teaching, family and everything else, I just haven't been writing about our geocaching adventures, even though we've been geocaching during the last few months!

All three of us are on spring break for the past week, so we Jeff planned a big geo trip around Kansas.  When we were talking about and planning our trip, we knew that we wanted to combine several challenges...the Kansas 105 County Challenge, the Delorme Challenge and the Virtual Challenge, along with going to a few specific caches.  So Jeff worked for hours and planned our route and the caches along the way.

Early on Tuesday morning, we started out on our trip!  It was a beautiful spring day, all of us were wearing shorts and enjoying the mid 80* temps.  We visited some pretty cool cache sites on day 1.  Marblecake, The Love Shack, Boston Corbett Dugout and the Oil Museum.

Boston Corbett Dugout

Love Shack...I wonder what stories this house could tell...

Hmmm, a totem pole in front of the Oil Museum...Interesting!

Marblecake...the rock formations are amazing!

We stayed the night in Hill City at an awesome Bed and Breakfast.  After seeing what hotels were available in town, we called the B&B and were told to come right over.  The proprietor was so nice and friendly and the old Victorian house was lovely.  We stayed in the Angel Room, which was beautiful and overflowing with antiques and angels!  Our breakfast in the morning was wonderful~blueberry pancakes, sausage, fruit, Costa Rican coffee, OJ and milk.  Jacob told us that was the best place ever!

The Angel Room was on the 2nd floor with the "tower" and the middle window.

Day 2 took us from Hill City to Scott City.  Our caching started in Morland City.  We watched the sun peek over the horizon at the City Park.  Jacob and I played a few games of tether ball as Jeff searched (and replaced) the cache.  We traveled to Hoxie, were we did the Green and Yellow cache.  The cache container was well done!  After caching in Colby, we stopped for a picnic lunch at It's an Oasis.  Let me tell you, it was NOT an oasis.  The wind was howling and we ended up quickly making our sandwiches and eating them in the car!  We headed towards Mt. Sunflower, the highest point of Kansas, and the Colorado border.  We found Crazy Tricycle along the way to Scott City, which is where we spent the night.

 

 

It was really WINDY!

We started Day 3 with the windchill at 14*!  Brrrrrr.  We had the heater cranked, whereas two days before we had the AC cranked!  We started caching in Amy, Ks.  We did a run on KS 4, which led us to 20+ caches in a row.  What fun!  One of the caches in Great Bend led us to the Fuller Brush factory.  We took a 20 minute break from caching while I ran into the factory store.  Grammy Shaw used to buy me brushes from the Fuller Brush salesman.  The Lady Catherine was the only brush that could go through my thick hair.  I was pleased to see they still sell Lady Catherine, so when mine gets worn out, I know where to get another one.  However, I don't think it will wear out anytime soon...Grammy bought this last one for me about 17 years ago...and it's still going strong!

Our last cache of the day (or so we thought) was in Lincolnville, Ks at a cemetery.  Our 49th cache of the day.  It was just getting dark and a thunderstorm was heading our way.  Just as we finished up with the log book, it started to rain and hail!  A big bolt of lightening and the crack of thunder scared Jacob half to death!  So we high tailed it out of there.  It's a wonder that my poor Prius is still has all it's parts underneath as I bottomed out several times on the gravel road out of there! 

Once we made it home, Jeff and I began to log in all of our finds on geocaching.com.  Just after we finished, we noticed there was a new cache in our area...only 9 miles away!  Jeff got dressed and ran out at 10:20pm to claim the First to Find!  The 50th cache of the day, making this our record number of caches in one day. 

We had a great trip.  3 days, 841 miles and 115 different caches. 

900th Find!

Buggywasher and I have driven a few hundred miles during the past week seeking our 900th cache.  We finally found No Girls Aloud in Salina, making it our 900th find! Here's to 900+ more caches!

During the past week, we've seen some interesting places in Kansas.  Beautiful place that are off the beaten path.  I feel a little sorry for the people who don't geocache.  They are missing the real Kansas.  Kansas is much more than the big cities and the views you get from traveling the I-70 and I-35 corridors.  There is a lot of history, a lot of wonderful places and a lot of good times to be had. For someone who dreaded moving to Kansas 6 years ago, I'm very glad we've gotten to see the real Kansas.

We've seen great churches in communities that were thriving 100 years ago and tombstones of immigrants that were so far from their homeland.

 

Jacob has stood on the front steps of a bank that was built in 1900. 

We've seen interesting "art" made out of barbed wire!

We've seen antique modes of transportation, calves along the side of the road and old farmsteads.

Jacob has stood in the doorway of an old jail.

We've seen a lot of old, one-room school houses and the endless straight road ahead.

We've seen how people traveled to Kansas, and have even had a little fun.  

"Wait for me!  Don't leave me behind!"

We've also seen a rather interesting use for bowling balls!

And this is just a fraction of the Kansas we've seen!  These pictures are just from the last week!

Happy Caching!