Mike's Geocaching Blog

Saturday, March 06, 2010

Paddle Caches on Eel Lake

Bad Duck and I borrowed kayaks from Mr. Copper today in order to go for several Mackie paddle caches. Mr. Copper was not able to make it a threesome unfortunately but graciously loaned us the boats.

Our Seven Mile Track Log

Check out THIS VIDEO from the day’s excursion.

It was an awesome day to be out on the water. Smooth as glass when we started. Saw many types of birds.

One interesting discovery was the note left by a non-geocacher at one of the caches. It went something like this…......“Found by ______________ while out on the lake looking for a ‘Love Nest’” Wow! Too much information!

After completing the paddle caches at Eel Lake, we stopped by the North Bend public dock and put it so that I could get Island Adventure cache then hunt a newer cache at the nearby old docks. Darren already found this cache a couple of years ago - a now legendary excursion involving a much less stable boat, a whistle (...er should I say…Lack of…) and a friendly visit with a Sheriff’s deputy! Today we had sleek water craft and with wind at our back for the out trip. Wind at our backs…INDEED! We scooted out to the island VERY quickly - felt like we were surfing in fact! Found the cache quickly then anticipated a rough paddle back to the mainland guessing we’d be pushed south almost to the casino before getting to the shoreline. Surprisingly we were able to keep a straight line west to the old mill docks and didn’t lose ground at all. Wish we could have topped the adventure off with being second to find this water cache but it was missing! Dang!

Hey Darren, kayaks are for IN the water!

Sunday, February 28, 2010

Numbers Run to Grants Pass

Quite the contrast to yesterday’s soggy excursion…..today my feet stayed toasty warm as Bad Duck, emeljay and I decided to make a numbers run to Grants Pass - a welcome change up!

Started off the day by picking off a new cache along Highway 42. Another new one just off I-5 south of Roseburg caught our attention as well since it was advertised as a TB hotel cache - Safe House. Three of us found the “safe” just fine but couldn’t find the key to open it. We gave up after about 30 minutes but did manage to pick up a little poison oak that would later show itself!

Stopped for a few more along I-5 as we made our way south until stopping for some breakfast at Heaven on Earth in Azalea. Turns out a regular part of this restaurant’s Sunday menu is a guest singer of hymns. Today’s performance was really irritating a man at the table next to us and was getting rather rude! Too bad some people are so easily upset! Darren picked up one of their famous “Giant Cinnamon Rolls” to bring back to Lisa - that thing was HUGE!

Bellies full, we head directly to Grants Pass to begin a day of caching fun.

Our Caching Zone - Not many left in the Red Box now!

Highlights from the day include:

Photo Op with a Neanderthal

      *  Bruises from emeljay’s elbows in the ‘race’ to each cache!

      *  Regular application of hand cleanser - especially after seeing the nasty latex gloves Bad Duck found tucked in a rock wall!

      *  The always interesting sites of the obligatory cemetery caches.

      *  The security alarms going off as Darren drove onto an apparently closed museum driveway. Lights! Sirens! Dogs! Oh My!

      *  Caught by a muggle lady who knew where the cache was but WOULD NOT help us one little bit!

      *  Personal single day records for both Bad Duck and emeljay.

      *  Guided by local cacher - Duck - for the final hour of caching

Duck joined the three of us for some dinner at Applebee’s then we headed back to the coast. Fun day and soooooo much better than slogging through sand dune puddles!

Saturday, February 27, 2010

Gettin’ Soggy in the Dunes

As much as I enjoy hiking around in Oregon’s coastal dunes, I was reminded today that doing so this time of year will likely result in wet feet. That’s exactly what happened to Rod of Family Explorer and I as we tackled a few dune caches between Florence and Reedsport.

The day began on a very positive note as we nailed FTF on the newly reconstituted The wedding cache, The old ball and chain II. Just as we were leaving the parking area, we spied a familiar vehicle belonging to a well known FTF addict…....Mr. Copper! Approaching the vehicle we noticed he had company…..Bad Duck. Their collective shoulders dropped in disappointment when they saw us - FTF stolen right out from under them!

With that high note accomplished we headed to Siltcoos Campground to start our dune trek for a group of six caches:

The “wet” theme of the day raised it’s ugly head right off the bat as we made our way to Vehicle Closure - had to broad jump a submerged sand road twice to sign the log - feet wet to just above the ankles! ....It would get worse!

Next cache was Sand Dunes #2. No wading involved at this one, thankfully.

The next two caches (The Firefly Cache and Sand Dunes #3)allowed the boots to dry some more as we made our way along a sand road and into the open dunes where we spotted an ATV class underway.

Minor water obstacles getting to The Firefly Ladies cache…..........then the fun began!

One final cache to get - On the Road to the Sea. Had we known how much standing water was in the sand road giving access to this cache we might have just bagged it and came back during drier times. However, once we were within 500 feet there was NO going back! And that’s exactly where we encountered a two foot deep ‘river’ running down the access road to the beach. We managed to keep fairly dry by skirting the edge of the road but the final 60 feet left absolutely no other choice but to wade right in…..so we did. To make things worse, we weren’t finding the cache right away and we’re sloshing around in the water looking here, looking there - finally spotted it but not before feeling the cold February water soak completely through our boots.

Our return to the vehicle would be best accomplished by heading west to the beach another 500 feet then south one mile. The problem was another 100 feet of deeper water to slog through before getting to the beach! It didn’t really matter at this point so we just plowed right through it and made our way back…..our cadence set to the regular ‘squish’ ‘squish’ ‘squish…...

Despite the water filled boots, we had a good day and chatted about future plans to complete some of our common geocaching challenge caches. At least it didn’t RAIN!