Question for Richard Johnson....

[Jason Moore]

I was scoping your profile and it says you are into Geocaching...what is that?

[Mako]

Richard was logged in 30 minutes ago but didn't respond so...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geocaching

[bobO]

I think that's where somebody hides something,you are then given a set of coordinates, these lead to another set ect. Till you get to the prize.IMHO

[Jason Moore]

Thanks guys...:)

[Firehand10k]

My wife read about this in a magazine and coem home telling me about it.

http://www.geocaching.com/

We plan on getting a GPS and playing after her son gets in country next year.

[Richard Johnson]

For me, Geocaching is a combination of:
treasure hunting,
orienteering,
hiking,
boating,
exploring.

It basically started as an accident, someone put a time capsule someplace and someone else dug it up, added soething and replaced it.

So I (Team Tucson Pagan Paddlers) buy an old ammo-case, fill it with junk and hide it somewhere. Put the Lat/Lon on the geocaching.com site and someone else searches for it, logs their visit, trades some junk and so on.

All of our caches are water-centered.
Cerridwen's Falls is by the waterfall she went over while knitting at Lake Patagonia.
Batman's Retreat is at Canyon Lake hidden deep ... too much info there..
Joker's Revenge II is also at Canyon Lake ina side bay.

When we search, we usually find them but there are some we have made try after try and still are searching.

Next week I am going to Africa and Ireland (which is why I cannot bid on anything right now) so I will be hunting the local geocaches while there.

Our Team is anyone my daughter and I take with us and we do have tales...
like the time we spent two hours climbing this cliff after a kayak race and came face-to-face with a bull who didn't want us near his cows.
Or the time we fought through ocean caves to find the remains of someone's hand that a shark had eaten.
Or the time we climbed a cliff overlooking the Salt reiver only to find that Gary had forgotten to tie his boat off and it was rapidly drifting downstream....

It's fun and gets us outdoors.

[Richard Johnson]

That I didn't discover geocaching until near my Air Force career. Think of all the caches I could have foud in all the countries I visit over my 26 years in uniform!

[Mako]

Cerridwen's Falls is by the waterfall she went over while knitting at Lake Patagonia.
Knitting?? :-O

[Richard Johnson]

MNy daughter is a sports star. She inherited that from her mother as I am a total klutz.
So she tells people on the Knit-harlot blog when she sends them pics that she only stops knitting for Class-III rapids.

The waterfall wasn't bad enough for her to stop, only about a 30' drop at a 45 degree incline so ... well, she lost my pirate flag but saved her knitting so I put a pic of her knitting down the waterfall into the Cerridwen's Falls Geocache.

ok, so we are Irish which means crazy! We do stupid things like this.
I've paddled a tippy kayak to a cliff, ited it off so it wouldn't drift away and then stood up to climb the cliff without gear to find a geocache, then climbed back down and enterd my kayak. ...
... and I cannot swim.

see, insanity! Probably got it from my kids.

[bobO]

And I thought I had good kayaking stories,Man.You got to put up the picture of your daughter paddling and pearling. Thanks for sharing.LOL

[Richard Johnson]

When we go someplace, we intend to look at one thing that is touristy..
When I go to Ireland next month, I look up the Geocaches and WOW!
To find a Cache I have to go places I never knew existed, see things I woulod have passed by without a thought.

So Geocaching also forces me to slow down anmd actually admire the scenery and find places that are often overlooked by the locals and tourists.

Like when I gave my daughter her Ranch for graduating college... we decided to geocache along the trip and at Dragoon, we found an old Stagecoach Way Station AND a Civil War cemetary, neither of which are on the tourist maps.

Of course I had to build a road to get out of that area and a 4-wheel drive saw me in my KIA building that road and they turned around and went away.

[Sairon]

did you get a pic of the hand or is that fake? cause if it's real I want to see it then barf=P~.

[Richard Johnson]

pic of what hand???

[rene144]

the hand you went looking for in your cave geocaching search haha

[Richard Johnson]

The one in San Diego that we found on the beach?

Tye life guard says it was a seal but Shea is a Surgical nurse and can be expected to know more about human anatomy than some kid with a summer job.
But the lifeguard did bag the hand to, hopefully, give tothe police.
Unless he uses it as a paperweight.