So I’m watching old episodes of Terminator: The Sarah Connors Chronicles on HULU and at 37:45 minutes into the show I behold a geocache being discovered! How cool!
Okay, maybe it wasn’t a geocache but when they pulled up that ammo can I instinctively reached for my pen to sign the log!! LOL
Geohashing? What’s that, you say? Check it out HERE.
I heard about this activity while listening to PodCacher - Show 205.0 to be precise. This a very well-done podcast, by the way.
Geohashing is a method for visiting a randomly generated set of coordinates. Each day a fresh set of coordinates are computed for each and every 1° X 1° graticule worldwide. The basic goal is to see if you can get to these coords. The Coos Bay graticule, for example, is represented by all coordinates starting with N43 and W124. See the link for a map of that graticule. Today’s coordinates are N43°23.736, W124°43.726 and if you copy/paste them into Google Maps you’ll see that it falls waaaaaay out into the Pacific Ocean! So, I’m going to call up Bad Duck and see if he wants to take me out in his island hopping boat - uh, but ONLY if he remembers his whistle this time!!
I like how their website describes it - Spontaneous Adventure Generator. It’s spontaneous because you can’t plan days in advance - just decided whether or not to go for this days coordinates. In regions where several people are geohashing it serves as an opportunity for a “meet-up”. Much like our geocaching events but extremely last-minute! No points, no smiley faces - just the satisfaction that comes from being able to actually get there and a chance to meet up with others. In fact, as a standing rule, they designate saturdays as “official meet-ups”. In some areas where there are lots of active geohashers they coordinate their “spontaneous adventures” on a Facebook group.
They created an iPhone App for quickly looking up the days coordinates - love my iPhone!
Nobody appears to be active in our area - closest active group of geohashers are in the Eugene, OR graticule. Will it catch on? Who knows - I am intrigued enough to give it a shot one of these days (when the coordinates actually fall on terra firma!!). In reality, the next graticule to the east (N43, W123 - Roseburg) will provide the greater opportunity to geohash.
Are you a “Well-Rounded” geocacher? Test yourself against the definition in THIS challenge cache. It is a copycat of the original “Fizzy” challenge cache in California named in honor of a geocacher named FizzyMagic.
During the last three months, I found caches with two more D/T combinations - Living waters and Chemical Monkey.
This brings my progress to 61 of 81 combinations complete.