I finally got to do some geocaching yesterday. I have found only two since the first of November. The holidays are very busy and there has been a lot of work to do but I found myself with a couple hours yesterday so I took advantage of it.

First one is on the back side of a pond near our former residence.

They added the pond while we lived there. I remember when we first heard about it. The city sent a notice that they planning on building a “detention facility” and was seeking public comment. We got a little excited. I thought they were going to build a jail in the neighborhood. Turns out it was a detention pond. That’s better.

Here is the first cache I found.

I had tried last summer to find it. It was easier to find this time because much of the undergrowth had died. Still it took a while to find. The owner had wrapped artificial leaves around it.

Another one was in a small patch of woods between a cemetery and the Creek Turnpike. Geocachers love this little pieces of leftover land. We are the only ones whoever go in these tracts. Except for the little kids playing war and the bigger kids smoking. Still this was pretty remote. The cache was inside a small garbage can.

The next one was right of the biking trail of the Creek Turnpike. Just sitting out in the open. The container is the little hint of red on the lower left hand corner of the photograph. It is a plastic coffee can wrapped in burlap.

This last one was only about two feet off the same biking trail. It the stump in the shadow to the extreme left. I can’t believe that it hasn’t been “muggled” by somebody. To geocachers muggles are those people who are’t aware of the sport. Muggles tend to “muggle” caches, to steal or vandalize them.

Placing a large cache so close to muggles without them finding it is hard to do. SuperPizzaBoy have a cache in plain sight (“Boys Night Out – City Center“) in downtown Tulsa that has been found 99 times in the last year or so but never muggled. As one of the recent finders put it:

“Found this one before work. I had looked for this a couple days ago but didn’t find it. But thinking about it later, I walked right to it this morning. I didn’t even bother with the GPS. And yes, I will admit I looked in the phone box the first time, too. This cache is a great testimony to the absolute cluelessness of the average downtown walker. Hands shoved in their pockets, eyes to the ground staring at their shoes, the average guy observes almost nothing. Once you know where this is, you would think it would stick out like a sore thumb. Great hide of a regular cache in the urban jungle. Thanks!”

(Goes to show you one parallel between geocachers and bloggers, we both love thoughtful comments!)

So now I have found 880 total caches over the years. My goal is to get to 1000 in 2010. I’m told that when that happens then my hair will grow back, I’ll get better looking and smarter, plus I’ll be able to wear 34 waist slacks again. 2010 could be a good year for me.

Anyway I had a great time finding those caches. What have you done recently for fun?