Titansfan

7 FTF's!

2012-01-29T17:26:00.003-06:00

A few days ago, dalls called to inform me that he has placed new caches off Deep Gap road in a Tennessee Wildlife Resource Area. I told him that I was pleased and especially pleased to hear most were regular size caches. I told him that I would look at my schedule and determine when I would go after the new caches.

I emailed pcsenn of the new caches and after looking at my schedule, I saw I could go after the caches on Friday, where I would work part of the day and take annual leave the rest of the day. Met with pcsenn that morning and he rode with me as I conducted a visit at a contract agency. After the visit, he headed towards the new caches. The caches had been published a few days and since there were no new logs, we figured we had the chance for the First to Find.

South Fork Haunted Hollow, a multi was our first. When we found the finally, we noticed that no one else had attempted the caches and we should have FTF on all the caches. Next was Raccoon Hideout. Took a bit to ind and retrieve the cache. Then we went after Deer Trail, a micro in the woods, but was an easy find. We ventured to the outskirts of the TWRA land and found Turkey Crossing. The best and my favorite was Bobcat Hangout. At this point I was very thankful I wore my Goretex waterproof boots. Even though I was not used to the extra weight of the boots and took a toll on my knee, I really didn't wet feet. I made the climb to the cache and found my boots are slick. So I crawled up the tree. Signed the log and headed back down.

Pcsenn told me at one point to jump, but remembering my ankle injury I suffered last year, I decided to take my time and come down the safer way. Pcsenn was happy to color in another difficult/terrain grid on this cache on his way to the Well Rounded Cacher. Our last find in the area was Possum Hollow. Cache was easy to find, but retrieving cache was very difficult. We headed to Over the Deer V.2 and wanted pcsenn to log that find. However, he was nervous about it and he decided not to attempt it.

On the way out of the woods, we met with Abiecto who was going after the FTF's. He reported that he drove up and saw a truck in the parking lot with a geocaching decal on the windshield and Operation Iraqi Freedom tags and knew it was me.

After caching south of Jackson, we ate a late lunch at Buffalo Wild Wings. This was his first visit to this establishment. I told pcsenn of a few events that were held at this location.

On the way back home, we grabbed the last cache, another FTF at White City-Friends Welcome-Strangers Too.

Concluded the day with seven First to Finds, the most I have ever accomplished.

Caching with GEO.JOE

2012-01-25T15:06:00.002-06:00

Typically, I have something to do on New Year's Eve Day, but this year I had no plans to reign in the new year and thought it would be nice to make a cache run. GEO.JOE placed several new caches in the Shawnee National Forest and offered to head up a cache run. I posted on the RVG page on Facebook that I was interested. Being the meeting was at 10 am in Paducah, I knocked out It's on Track! Are You?. It's a really difficult hide and worked a while to find it. Two muggles noticed my struggle and after I took their pictures at the locomotive, they assisted in finding the cache. From there, I met the crew at the Pilot Truck Stop located off I-24. GEO.JOE offered me a ride, in which, I gladly accepted. We drove onto the forest and met scoutpaddle and Bubba95 who had camped at the parking area.

First cache was: Splatterstone Falls, probably my favorite of the day, very nice waterfall. Coordinates were way off and GEO.JOE adjusted the coordinates while we were there. We stopped to take a few pictures. Mine are posted on my Facebook profile.
We found more caches in the canyon, another one of my favorites was Heart Arch. By this time in the run, I began to get ahead of the group. I found the cache and in the time it took for the rest of the crew to arrive I ate my lunch. After Heart Arch, next stop was Above the Boulders, again, I had left the group and made a beeline towards the cache. Nearing the listed coordinates, I began to worry that the cache would be located on top of the ridge line and would be embarrassed to see the rest of the crew on top of the ridge and me below. I persisted and went to the listed coordinates and climbed onto the rocks. Thankfully, the cache was not on the ridge top. Coordinates were about 30 feet off but my geo-mojo found the cache. I waited another 20 minutes for the crew to arrive once again. This time, I had the cache signed and replaced.
I took the time to rest and drink lots of water while the others looked for the cache. We headed off for the next cache, Filmy Fern Cave. Getting to this cache was hazardous by climbing over and through rocks. After this find, we headed to the last cache, Go With the Flow. This time, the crew had thinned down and two of us signed the log. Regnad's son was with us, the others left the trail, one had twisted a knee.
Was one of the best adventures of geo-year 2011 and what a way to end the year with a hard hike with friends.

Crew consisted of:
GEO.JOE and his wife Fairy Flirt
Adventuretrekker
Regnad and his family
scoutpaddle and his son Bubba95

Ashland City Trail

2012-01-17T19:50:00.002-06:00

In 2006, Pharmd93, brickbat66 and myself cleared the caches on that trail while on bikes while I was on a warpath to reach the 1K. I have wanted to return to the trail.

While attending the 1K event for Sunshinegirl42017 in Murray, KY, dhrnrcpa mentioned about hitting the long trail where over 50 caches were placed prior to tax season where his employment as an accountant will slow down his caching. After some weeks of preparation, a group gathered Paris and Clarksville and I hit the trail once again. I decided not to bring my bike along since there were cachers placed nearly 528 feet from each other and getting on and off the bike were become tiresome. There were too many caches to keep count and all of us ended up setting new daily find records. I managed to knock out 57 finds. My GSAK stats noted 58 finds, but after further research, I had double-logged a find and that has been corrected.

It was a great day of caching and on the way back home we stopped to eat in Clarksville where I purchased the meal for Chicontater and his son since we took his truck from Dresden.

All who made the hike were:

Orion_13 and his family

and the one who got the cache run going, dhrnrcpa

Record Breaking Year

2012-01-01T18:56:00.002-06:00

Had a record breaking geo-year in 2011. A year that had me find caches in new states and a district: Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Washington D.C. for a total of 23 US souvenirs. The biggest highlight was completion of the Well Rounded Cacher and finding two Fizzy Challenge caches related to the WRC. Completion of the WRC placed me in elite company, where around 14 cachers in Tennessee have completed the 81 category grid.

Had 738 finds, out doing what I did in 2006, which was 640. Found 738 finds over 167 cache days, marking 13 consecutive months with double-digit cache days. With the high number of finds, I also increased my terrain rating from 1.64 to 1.71. Increased my regular (ammo can) find rate from 24% to 26%.

Hiked many miles of trails over the year to include over 50 finds on a trail outside of Ashland City, TN. Also visited a new area for me, the Shawnee National Forest in Southern Illinois where some extreme hiking was conducted. Completed a few kayak adventures, one in Clarksville, TN and another in Mississippi.

Another recent completion was the Finds by Each Day of the Year. I set a goal to complete 95% of the grid by the end of 2011. Thankfully, caches were placed near my home area. I was able to complete the challenge despite some stressful days in May.

What will geo-year 2012 bring? What are some goals?

With completion of the WRC and other challenges, I want to keep the game interesting for me. Numbers are nice, but I feel numbers bring burn out, which I believe resulted with some friends giving up the game. Therefore, to keep the game interesting for me, I have the below.

I plan to revisit the Shawnee National Forest.

Make an attempt for the Mississippi Fizzy Challenge cache.

Hit the north end of the Land Between the Lakes.

Attend Geo-Woodstock X in Sellersburg, Indiana.

Uphold the above 25% find rate of regular (ammo can) size caches.

Attempt to make more kayak runs.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle

2011-12-27T11:17:00.003-06:00

Making plans for the Ashland City trail run on 12/26/11, I knew that some of us would drive right by Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle cache located in Clarksville. I had noticed this before but didn't pay much attention to it since I figured it was like some other caches in reference to the movie "Teenage Mutan Ninja Turtles". Those that I have found were nothing more than an uninteresting magnetic keyholder at a storm drain. The last few months, I began to study this cache and pay particular attention to the 3 difficulty and 4 terrain star ratings. Later, pictures were posted and got a much better idea of the cache. Since the cache had over 20 favorites, I shouldn't be disappointed.

Being that a group would travel from West Tennessee, I couldn't pass up the opportunity for this cache. We arrived at the cache site and began to study the approach. About that time, scoutpaddle comes out of the tunnel and said he found the cache. Yet, after scoutpaddle came out of the tunnel, we were still standing around. I got tired of it, turned on my Surefire tactical light and led the way into the tunnel, followed by chicontater, pcsenn and dhrnrcpa. After getting into the tunnel I found scoutpaddle's footprints and followed them. Made a left turn and soon the footprints were gone! I saw some light and went for the light and could finally stand up. There were several of us in the small area where we could all stand and we were under a storm drain and GPS told us we were in the right location. After shinning the lights around the cache was spotted. We signed the log and made our way back to the entrance/exit of the tunnel. We got out of the tunnel with all smiles. Couple of minutes later, Orion_13 showed up and chicontater's son volunteered to go with Orion_13 into the tunnel where he signed his first 4-star terrain cache!

This was a lot of fun to begin a long day of cache. Prior to departing, I visited the nearby store for refreshments and the employees were inquiring what was going on outside. I told them about our game.

Mopping up Hwy 68/80

2011-12-23T15:44:00.002-06:00

Due to my mistakes in bookmarking the caches along Highway 68/80 of the LBL, I didn't have two caches on my GPSr'. The reason I have gone to bookmarking instead of a general pocket query is that I am using a Nuvi for auto-routing and having so many caches on the Nuvi creates a huge amount of clutter.

Last Sunday, minnie mouse and myself wanted to take a bike ride on the LBL Greenway and part of the agreement is that I clear the caches I missed and then take the bike ride. Our first find was Indian Access, this cache was not published at the time of the November cache run, but for us, it was an easy find. Next up was Beach in City of Canton, this cache took a truck with high clearance to make it down to the parking area. After a long search we came up with the cache. A missed cache from the November run was This one's for the birds,... , minnie mouse had a good laugh as I made the tree climb to grab the container. After grabbing the cache I tossed it to minne mouse so she could sign the log. After climbing the tree, I was in no mood to climb down to sign and then climb back up. Minnie mouse signed the log and tossed the container back to me.

Last find in the LBL was LBL Greenway East - Maybe Wet, which is officially the first find while using the mountain bike that I purchased for myself while home on leave in 2010. We rode about 2 miles on the greenway before minnie mouse got tired. She had a good time riding the bike and we plan to return on a warm sunny day and ride the round trip of 5 miles.

Highway 68/80 run

2011-12-04T06:43:00.002-06:00

Since my return from deployment a year ago, I had not ventured into the Kentucky side of the Land Between the Lakes. During this time, I watched the amount of caches along Highway 68/80 grow and grow and had been tempted to make a cache run of the area.

Being there were so many caches to go after, I posted on GOWT and RVG sites on Facebook that I would make a run of the area the Friday after Thanksgiving. The Friday after Thanksgiving has traditionally been a free day for me and have used the day to be geo-aggressive. My aggressiveness paid off with 29 finds. All my caching partners set new daily find records and cleared at least two Fizzy terrain/difficulty grids as well.

The highlight caches of the day were:

Turkey Bay ATV Series # 1 The Silo and Turkey Bay ATV Series # 2 Edsel proved to be the most physically challenge with steep hills to traverse. Both are 5-star terrain caches, requiring an ATV. Neither of us had ATV's and we did it the hard way by hiking. Thankfully, we found the caches before the ATV's were on the course.

Mt. Everest, another physically challenging cache, we parked .10 away and hiked straight up the hill.

!!! BE PREPARED !!!, a clever hide. I had found two caches like this in my geo-career and wanted to show chicontator of the work some cachers will put into a cache. The cache container was missing. We ended up taking the entire device apart and repaired the cache. Cache is located in secluded area of the LBL were many duck blinds could be seen.

One of the most unusual experiences was at Bogard Cemetery where dhrnrcpa found a pentagram on a headstone and we were all a little freaked out that someone buried here was a worshiper of Satan.

We also found caches on a brand new LBL greenway. I plan to return with my girls when the weather turns nice for a bike ride. Most memorable of those caches was: LBL Greenway East Duck Island/End of the road took a lot of effort but we found the cache.

Recent Challenge Caches

2011-11-17T18:58:00.003-06:00

Since my return from deployment I have been watching the placement of Challenge caches near Jackson, TN. At first, I wondered about the high difficulty rating. I reflected on one of my first challenge caches, Special K. Special K required that to log this find, one must have 1,000 finds. I drove within a quarter mile of this cache many times before I could actually log it. With that in mind, I think the difficulty ratings on the recent challenge caches are appropriate.

My recent Challenge cache finds:

Challenge: Complete 6 new 'challenges': While attending the recent cache event in Paris, I was made aware of 3 challenges that I could complete while in Paris. The "Challenges" are something new in geocaching. Most of the challenges are simple and something like the old locationless caches.

TN---12- 'Souvenir' Challenge: I have over 20 souvenirs, being I have cached 23 states/district and one province in Canada. Now, I await souvenirs for my cache finds in Iraq and Kuwait.

States that border West Tennessee- Challenge: Another easy find for me since I have found caches not only states that border West Tennessee, but all the states that border Tennessee. I have finds in all the former Confederate States. Delaware is the only state south of the Mason-Dixon line I don't have a find.

a 7-Challenge, Challenge: This one took a little bit of work and had to complete a few challenge cache to sign this log.

TN I-40 WB 14-Caches In A Day Challenge: Since my return from deployment, I haven't had many days with large numbers. A trip to Marion, IL managed this one.

Well Rounded MO Cacher (Fizzy Challenge): Grabbed this one on the return trip from Marion, IL. My second Fizzy find. Now I will go after the one in Mississippi.

Going after the challenge caches have been fun. With nearly 7 years of caching experience, the challenges are giving me something to look forward to.

Murray cache run

2011-11-12T15:24:00.002-06:00

With some time on our hands, minnie mouse and myself headed to Murray, Ky to grab a few caches. Since my return from deployment, I had not hit Murray. One issue with Murray is that it's not an easy drive from home.

We begun the day with Arboreturn, a really cool location. It's an easy find, afterwards we looked around at the Murray State University facility. A short drive later, we found The 1,000,000th Cache!!!, we chatted with some new cachers while at this spot. Backyard BBQ was the next stop. I figured it would be a commercial style cache and was amused when we arrived.

We swept much of western part of Murray, finding Back to the 80's" series #2 "Hell is for Children". When I find these caches regarding the 1980's music, I attempt to give some of my viewpoint or experience about the group/singer or music. Couldn't give much about this song, since I was not much of a Pat Benatar fan. We also found Rock Solid. Later we visited the Murray State University campus and found Sole Mates, a really cool location, but was annoyed that the coordinates were over 200 feet off.

With the end of the cache day nearing, I agreed with minnie mouse, we would only cache to lunch time. I headed out for I See the Light since it was favorited a number of times. Minnie mouse spotted this hide. We then opted for a difficult cache survivor. This was a return trip to the Clarks River Recreational area, a great place for caches. I was concerned about this cache since it was listed with a 4-star terrain and would have a 9-year in tow. I scouted the initial trail and decided to go after this cache. It earned the 4-star rating with very difficult terrain to transverse. Thankfully, the river was down and the hike was uneventful. We found the cache after some searching. A great cache, with so few signatures. Minnie mouse commented, that not all cachers are as tough as she.

We picked up Skip Skipping these Skippers just before lunch and needed this break after survivor. We headed for Pizza Hut for some lunch and grabbed Back to the 80's series #4 "Burning down the House".

Ranger Rick series

2011-10-23T17:54:00.000-05:00

On the 15th of October, I saw the Ranger Rick cache series being published. The Ranger Rick series is a set of caches on the Pin Oak Trail of the Natchez Trace State Park. I had caught wind of the series when the series was mentioned on the Facebook page of JAG (Jackson Area Geocachers). After the publication, I joined in on the conversation and mentioned that I would go after the caches on Saturday the 22nd if the weather was going to be pleasant.

On the 22nd, I awoke at 5:30 am and was on the road to the state park a little after 6 am. Picked up some breakfast, water and gas along the way. Arrived at the state park before 8 am and there was fog near the lake areas. Began a day with a DNF, which was a park and grab cache. Thankfully, it would be my only DNF of the day. Drove up towards the lodge and grabbed Big Cedar in the fog. By the time I reached the lodge, the fog had lifted. Went to the front desk and inquired about the 'passport' required for the cache series. Immediately, I got the deer in the headlights look from the person behind the counter. I waited patiently so as she made a phone call and I could smell the breakfast buffet. I had thought about eating breakfast at the lodge before the cache run, however, my body is not inclined to skip or delay breakfast more than an hour after waking up. She caught on to what I was seeking and pulled an envelope from under the counter; with passport in my possession I was on my way.

First stop was Decontaminate, which is located in a camping section of the park. Made the quick find even with the morning sun in my eyes. Then another quick grab at Out on the Range. After that cache at the archery range, I hit the Ranger Rick series. I intentionally began on the south end of the trail, I assume the cache owner wanted cachers to begin at the lodge end. However, since I wanted the two caches on the south end of the park, starting at the south end was more convenient for me. I did notice the high difficulty and terrain ratings of the caches on the south end verses the north end of the trail. I suppose the cache owner wants cachers to find all the caches in one setting and be rewarded with high ratings. I have noticed from my power trail in Wingo, Kentucky that cachers who pass by, only get the one in the parking lot and maybe one or two on the trail, instead of getting all of them. Maybe this theory of the higher ratings will work? For me, the ratings were of none issue since I have already completed the 81 terrain/difficulty grid. While I am impressed with my 1.76 difficulty and 1.71 terrain average, I don't have intentions of bring those averages up since I hit many park and grabs. Thus the higher than normal average won't stay. I do focus on the high number of regular cache finds, which is 851 finds, just over 26% of all finds.

I had fun with the series and will keep an eye out for other series at Natchez Trace State Park or other state parks. Maybe with enough series like these, state parks can host events during off seasons and cachers stay at the parks overnight?

Upon reaching the lodge office at the conclusion of the trail, the worker behind the counter had the bonus cache ready for me. I then re-walked the 1.5 mile trail in 22 minutes to get my truck, returned to the lodge for a great lunch buffet.

Caches found were:

Ranger Rick Pin Oak Trail 1
Ranger Rick Pin Oak Trail 2
Ranger Rick Pin Oak Trail 3
Ranger Rick Pin Oak Trail 4
Ranger Rick Pin Oak Trail 5
Ranger Rick Pin Oak Trail 6
Ranger Rick Pin Oak Trail 7
Ranger Rick Pin Oak Trail 8
Ranger Rick Pin Oak Bonus Cache

PYLE!

2011-10-03T20:46:00.001-05:00

With cannotreadgps wanting to attend the case lot sale at Ft. Campbell, I negotiated a deal where I could drop her off at the sale when she wanted to be there and I would go out and cache. I had been to the case lot sale once before and had no desire to stand for three hours again.

I picked out some caches that I wanted to find and to also stay away from the park and grabs since morning rush hour would be a hazard. My first choice was Gomer Pyle USMC. The cache is located near the grave of Frank Sutton who played the part of Gunnery SGT Vince Carter in the 1960's TV show. I recall the show when it was syndicated on local television and was amused by the relationship between Gunny Carter and Pvt. Pyle. While the show had a military setting, its creators avoided the controversial topic of the Vietnam War.

After finding the cemetery cache and paying my respects to Frank Sutton I went to the nearby Rotary Park. Again, I wanted to avoid the park and grabs due to traffic and being this was a weekday, there would be few muggles in the park. Arrived at the park and except for a few people I had the park to myself.

My first find was MTCSBA Cog Dist Adventures of Scouting #9. At first I intended to stay on the trails but soon learned the trails were not taking me in the direction of my arrow and bushwhacked to the cache. Took a little effort to find the cache since the coordinates were not tight. Next find was Down by the Old Creek Cache, another one that required bushwhacking due to my ignorance of the park's trail system and my time was running low. Last find in the park was Off the beaten path. This one was just across an open field.

I hope to return to Rotary Park and find some of the remaining caches, I really had a good time. During my first year or two of caching, I had noticed a cluster of caches in the park and later a tornado hit the park and the caches were placed on the inactive listing.

In Search of George Owen Cash

2011-09-26T20:15:00.001-05:00

Couple of weeks ago, jackthebear posted on GOWT Facebook page he was interesting in hunting In Search of George Owen Cash and wanted to know if others were interesting in hunting the cache with him. I expressed my interest and gave some dates I could be available. A date was picked, the night before I loaded up my kayak onto my truck so I could leave Dresden before 5 am and head to Hernando, Mississippi.

I picked out a few caches to complete on the way since the meeting at the posted coordinates wasn't until 9 am. I stopped at the I-40 Westbound Rest Stop and picked up I-40 WB Rest Area Walkin' and Stretchin' and TN I-40 WB 14 Caches in a Day Challenge. The challenge cache interested me and had completed 14 caches in a day recently. Was a bit challenging to me in that I don't rack up big numbers on a daily run. After I got into Mississippi, I grabbed DeSoto Trail #6 Southhaven and May I see your License?. The DeSoto trail cache was an easy ammo can find and when I drove up; I recalled that I had been to this cemetery once prior for a cache. Was a little interesting at May I see you License, in that a Hernando Police Officer drove up when I was heading back to my truck. He saw my GPS and knew what I was doing and asked if I had any problems finding the hidden box. We chatted a little more about geocaching in Mississippi.

I was the first to arrive at the posted coordinates and immediately saw that using the entrance to the law enforcement would not be suitable for parking. I parked at a nearby business and waited. It wasn't heard to spot me when others drove up in that I had a kayak on top of my truck. After everyone showed up, we (jackthebear, prontopup, part of nelms3 and pcsenn) walked to the posted coordinates and obtained information for stage 2. We all drove to stage 2 and more information was obtained.

After going to the incorrect point, we all finally arrived at Hernando Point and met with chimps8mybaby who had an extra kayak for nelms3. Arriving at the point, I was horrified to see the wind kicking up and seeing some white caps. We placed the kayaks into the water and off we went. I went into the water first and attempted to stay around for others to get going. But I found the best way to deal with the wind and waves to get moving. I found myself doing a zig-zag motion in the water and not allow a wave to hit me broadside. I guess it work, when I arrived near the cache location I didn't have much water inside my kayak. I did observe at least one cacher beach his craft to dump the water out. With my zig-zag motion I saw it was best to keep clear of other cachers so we wouldn't ram each other.

About 1/2 way to the last stage, we found an area of water near a point that was calm were I rested and took some pictures. After the resting, some of the cacher went straight for land and walked the rest of the way. I was tempted but jackthebear and myself stayed on the water and beached about 400 feet from the cache. We hiked the rest of the way and we arrived about 10 minutes before the overland party. After signing the log, we rested and took pictures. None of us were in any hurry to get back on the rough water.

The trip back was again against the wind, except for the last leg. I found going with the waves and wind was more treacherous since my kayak wanted to go broadside in the trough of the waves. I began to use braking motions to keep the bow straight at my destination and rode out the waves. When I arrived, I then poured out a few gallons of water.

Overall, this was an experience and will probably be the last kayak cache run of this year. It was good experience to hit the rough water and know what rough kayaking is like. This was nelms3 first experience on a kayak and he seemed to be a trooper about the trip. This not prontopup's first kayak trip but when he arrived at the landing, he was worn out and commented it was his last kayak cache run.

Giving back

2011-09-12T14:43:00.002-05:00

Soldiers from my unit, the 1171st Transportation Company of the Tennessee Army National Guard have expressed interest in geocaching from time to time. While at weapons qualification in Tullahoma, I had an afternoon for caching and took along three soldiers. One, Bellesrecruit, was already a member of the website tagged along for about 2 and 1/2 miles of walking. We did mostly micros near the base. Bellesrecruit recorded her finds, but since not being a premium member was unable to log one of the finds. We did manage to add a puzzle cache (Waitin' on the Car) to her profile.

A few days later I found myself overnight in Smyrna and the new prospective cachers went for a nearly 6 mile walk on a greenway and netted about 1/2 dozen finds. The new cacher, Chicontater soon began to log his finds. We enjoyed our long walk and saw many wildlife.

This past weekend, I sold my old Garmin 60csx, since I know have a Garmin 62s, to chicontater and he and his family are off on their own caching.

When ever we deploy or go off on mission or training, I have a couple of soldier-cachers to count on to be partners.

Shawnee National Forest

2011-08-15T16:37:00.002-05:00

Due to health issues discovered since my return from deployment from Operation Iraqi Freedom/New Dawn, I have made several trips to the VA medical faculties, including the hospital in Marion, IL. The last trip to Marion I decided to stay the night since I was ordered to take measures to 'clean' out my system. Prior to the trip I decided to take a route that would take me into the Shawnee National Forest. For years I have read on the River Valley forums about the forest and I had a desire to go after those caches. However, distance is a problem; a hour and half to two hours just to get to the forest, hike/cache and then at least two hour drive to return home.

On the way up I went after Ghost Dance by GEO.JOE, which would test many of my limits. Overall, it was not far from the parking coordinates, but the terrain was extremely complex. Crossing a creek, crossing the same creek again. Finding the correct trail was a huge challenge. More than once, I found myself in the wrong area only to backtrack and start over. Arrived near the cache coordinates, spent another 15 minutes negotiating how I would get to the cache. After some climbing the cache was found. Returning to the parking area would prove as much a challenge as the hike to the cache.

The following day I grabbed a few caches in the Marion area before going to the hospital. Scouting around too was fun in that I met a park employee that had questions about the game. After my CT scan at the hospital I had lunch and began my drive back home. I stopped along the way at Bluff Trail another cache by GEO.JOE. The terrain was not nearly has tough as the previous day and was a very enjoyable hike.

Ghost Dance and Bluff Trail was my first experience in the Shawnee National Forest and hopefully won't be the last.

Frozen Flight Scuba Cache

2011-07-19T21:23:00.001-05:00

Received notice on Facebook that a caching team from Memphis would be at Mermet Springs, IL to conduct their open-water check dives and invited to go after Frozen Flight Scuba Cache. I accepted the invitation and check my equipment. It had been a couple of years since my last dive and except for some cleaning, my equipment was good. I also planned to rent anything else I would need.

Upon arrival, I registered and went to the rental section. One of the staff saw my shirt with the geocaching logo and knew exactly what I would be seeking. I was fitted with a 7mm wetsuit and hood. Met up with bitbrain, Tiger130 and their family. Since Tiger130 was going through her check dives, the cache would have to wait. After the family went into the water for their instruction, bitbrain and myself prepared for the deep dive. Thankfully, bitbrain was more rehearsed in diving and aided my setup. After reviewing the map we hit the water and swam to the buoy for the 65 foot platform. However, I was not able to descend at all. The added layers of the wetsuit made more for buoyant. Bitbrain attempted to give me a 2-pound weight that I dropped. In disgust, we swam back to the dock where I got out of the water, took off the equipment and rented 10 pounds of weights. With the added weight we hit the water once again, swam to the buoy. I let the air out of my vest and sank like a rock.

We descended down to 65 feet, which later I would see my gauge was at 68 feet, this would set a new personal dive record for me. We swam around in the cold dark water and finally found sunken Cessna airplane and found the cache. We signed the log and then I noticed bitbrain was not wearing dive gloves. I knew how cold my hand were and I had gloves. I helped him close the cache and we gave ourselves a thumbs up and ascended back to the surface.

When I reached the service I noticed my air gauge, I was at about 1,200 pounds of air. I began with 3,000! We took a break while on the surface for 30 minutes and did a shallow dive of 20 feet to wrap of the dive.

This was an awesome experience and with this, I plan to dive at least once a year to keep my skills up to speed.

Joining the Fizzy Club

2011-07-07T20:00:00.002-05:00

Over the holiday weekend I hit a major milestone, I chose Well Rounded Cacher (Fizzy Challenge) to be my 3,000th find. Having the morning of the 4th free, I left home a little after 5 am to head to the cache location. Upon arriving, I recalled the area from a previous cache hunt, 2 years earlier after a kayak run of the Ghost River. Found the first stage easily and a few minutes later was signing a log for a cache I have wanted for over 3 years. I was delighted to sign this log and joining the Fizzy Club. Browsing the statistics of many cachers in the West Tennessee, Northern Mississippi, Western Arkansas and Southwest Kentucky, I have determined that about 1% or less of all active cachers have or will hit this mark.

After making the find, I headed to the landing area of the Ghost River, where I unloaded the kayak and found Up the Creek with Half a Paddle. This was a challenging cache since I had to paddle up river, something that I have not had much experience. After dodging some downed trees, I paddled within 40 feet of the cache, got out of the boat and made the find.

Civil War Tour

2011-06-28T18:30:00.002-05:00

After receiving confirmation that I would attend the Advanced Leadership Course at Fort Eustis, Virginia, I began plans to look for Civil War related caches in Virginia. I had a very long trip the first full day on the road covering over 600 miles from Middle Tennessee to Winchester, VA.

Along the way I found where General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson is buried in Lexington, VA and also visited the grave of General Robert E. Lee and his horse Traveller. I also visited Robert E. Lee Travel Bug Hotel which is located inside the Visitor's Center. I was disappointed that there was not a geocache at Lee's Chapel, I understand that a traditional cache could be a problem, but a virtual at the location would be awesome. Resumed my trip and picked up three more Civil War caches. Visited Chestnut Ridge where Confederate General Turner Ashby was killed. A monument to the exact location where he was fatally shot is the starting point of a waypoint projection.

Later, I found Old Valley Pike: Bloody Ceders the site of the New Market battle. I would end the day in Winchester and the next morning I would find the Winchester's Third. This was a great cache in a city park with lots of walking trails. In 1864, a Union camp was located near the cache location, the pits were still visible.

In the late morning, I found myself in northern Virginia and picked up a virtual called small park for a big battle. It was part of the Battle of 2nd Bull Run. Moving further south, I finally managed to get to I-95 and heading towards Richmond. Traffic was terrible in this part of the country despite being a Sunday morning. I was also hampered only using a Nuvi instead of nRoute. A week before my trip, the laptop that contained all my Garmin software died, leaving me with tunnel vision of the Nuvi.

As I made my way towards Fredericksburg, VA and decided to go after a virtual that I really wanted, Stonewall Jackson's Arm. The plot where the amputated arm is located is near the Union Headquarters for the Battle of the Wilderness. The Battle of the Wilderness fought in 1864 was very near the battle of a year before at Chancellorsville. I went by the Visitors Center at this location also and learned more about the battles. I also wanted to see the Wilderness since my ancestor was in this battle. After the battlefield tour, I got back onto I-95 and later visited Guinea Station where Gen. Jackson died about a week after being accidentally shot by his own troops.

Leaving Guinea Station I headed back towards I-95 and saw another cache pop up on my Nuvi, I decided to go after it and this turned out to be my favorite of the trip, The Curse of the FTF #2, Ghosts of Battles Past. Auto routing my my Nuvi took me to a cemetery where there were hundreds of Confederate graves. This men died in the Battle of Spotsylanvia Courthouse. It was a humbling moment for me as I found graves of men from the 2nd South Carolina Infantry Regiment, that was the same regiment, my great-great grandfather, PVT John Hudson Goodwyn served. I pondered to think that some of the men buried there knew my ancestor. I found the cache and paid my respects. My last find of the day was on the battlefield where Major General John Sedgwick, the highest ranking Union officer killed in action, was shot by a Confederate sniper at a range of over 800 yards with a Whitworth rifle. I made a quick tour of the battlefield and after returning to a internet connection and reading the Confederate Order of Battle, I walked around the trenches where my ancestor fought.

Middle Tennessee Trip

2011-06-08T15:01:00.002-05:00

This past weekend, I had a trip to make up June drill and attend a Suicide Intervention class at the National Guard Base in Smyrna, Tennessee. During that 4-day span I had 25 finds. Some caches of interest:

GPS Adventures Maze Exhibit at the Adventures Science Museum in Nashville. I have been reading about the Mazes from Groundspeak and was delighted to attend the Maze in Nashville. For my muggle Facebook followers of this blog, this exhibit may explain the sport to you.

Bunny Box TB Hotel in Murfreesboro. Was nice to see a regular sized cache located in a parking lot. It was physically challenging since there were steep grades of terrain to cover. It gave my ankle a good test after my injury in April.

"The Hang Out", I had driven by this one back in January and passed it up, was a fun find and good to see a regular sized container in such an urban area.

Towards the end of the weekend, -boatman- gave me a call to come by and visit him near Bell Buckle. I arrived and he said lets go for a ride. We attempted a difficult cache in Shelbyville to no avail. Later, he took me back to downtown Bell Buckle, the former side of the Geo-Woodstock that I attended. The town looked much different since it was minus 5,000 cachers roaming about. I picked up, The Treasure of GeoWoodstock Mountain coordinates for that cache are located in the Geo-Woodstock coin that was given out at the event. I also picked up Mission 13: Crawfish Bottom (Project Monkey Cache) by finding the geo-trail. Was really cool to find such large caches in a city park. Later we retired back to the -boatman- residence and spent some time firing a AR-15 rifle.

On the last day, I set out for what I really wanted, jeffbouldin's D/T Bingo Challenge Cache (Tennessee). The biggest challenge I had for that cache was finding the correct trail head. I had to follow the arrow to the end to find the trail head due to the heavy growth. It was nice to grab a challenge cache, something I don't get too many opportunities.

Passing through Nashville, I picked up Going Gibson. This cache caught my attention due to the many favorites it has received. Took a bit to get to the cache location since auto-routing took me to where I could see the cache, but couldn't reach it. The guitar store was closed but I had heard of it from a Visa commercial from years back and one of my favorite band's Motley Crue have visited the store.

Changes to Tennessee Delorme Map

2011-05-09T20:37:00.001-05:00

Recent trip to the REI store in Brentwood, I picked up a new copy of the Tennessee Delorme Map. I retired my old map prior to deployment since it was over 10 years old and marked up. I immediately noticed many significant changes that could affect the Tennessee Delorme Challenge Cache.

First of all, the old map showed grids 13 to 71. The new map has 6 through 79.

Where the old map has half or partial grids from Stewart County all the wall across the state, the new map are all full grids. This could make the completing the cache easier. There are three partial grids located. One located southeast of Elizabethton, TN, where I-40 enters Tennessee at North Carolina and the eastern part of Polk County.

Currently, I have doubts that I will continue working on the Delorme Challenge due to the changes and that 39% of all my finds are now archived.

Completion of the WRC

2011-05-01T13:09:00.002-05:00

Last weekend, I joined a small elite group of cachers who have completed the 81 terrain/difficulty grid towards the Well Rounded Cacher. I begun my quest by targeting Stop at the Ball Park on September 26, 2008. At the time I had over 20 grids to accomplish. Over 2 and 1/2 years later, it was completed with West Fork Waterfalls on April 23, 2011. I joined the company of two West Tennesseans, bitbrain and Tiger130, who finished the the quest years prior.

Accomplishing this goal take more effort and energy than another other challenge. Racing to the 1K and completing the West Tennessee Mega Multi were a walk in the park. I used my year long deployment to spend time on the site targeting the caches I needed and doing the research. Special equipment is needed, such as a kayak to get to the 5-star terrain caches. Cachers who are concerned about numbers, may need not to be concerned with the grid. After a day on a kayak getting a few caches, one is too tired to go after the park and grabs on the way home. Some of the grids I completed alone, some I have the luxury and benefit to cache with others. Yes, sometimes one has to play well with others.

The most memorable part of completing the WLC will be the next to last find for the grid, that being Peace and Tranquility I. My log will speak for itself.

West Fork River Geo-Kayak cachepedition

2011-04-24T18:58:00.004-05:00

With completion of the Well Rounded Cacher getting close and my urge to get the kayak out, bitbrain and myself discussed and set up a cachepedition of the West Fork River, that contained the two remaining category grid requirements. Once, Peace and Tranquility I and the West Fork Waterfalls. I invited every cacher that was on my Facebook friends list and others were invited by those I invited. The will attend and may attend numbers changed through the weeks and in the final days, some dropped out due to various reasons. I became quite concerned when bitbrain dropped out since he had a device to do the West Fork Waterfalls, a cache that is a whereigo.

I drove up on Good Friday and knocked out Peace and Tranquility I and did a recon of where to put in the boats. A later blog post will reflect my not so peaceful experience.

Morning of the 23rd arrived and I drove to the park and awaited the cachers who would join me. While waiting I knocked out a Boy Scout cache that is required for the Middle Tennessee Boy Scout challenge and went for a stroll to get Billy's Backside. Soon after returning to the truck, cachers began to arrive with canoes or kayaks on top of their vehicles. Kodiak62 arrives with a trailer in two. He explains to the group he found a put in place on the south and west side of Tiny Town Bridge. With his long trailer, we dismount the boats and reload onto the trailer. The group that left the park and went onto the river were: Kodiak62, MVP Doodle, scoutpaddle, Bubba95, shan7on, lizzie60 and adventuretrekker.

We found 7 of 8 on the river. Most were at or near the river bank. Some we had to get out of the boats to retrieve. The cache West Fork Waterfalls was very high on list, since finding it would complete the goal for the Well Rounded Cacher. We all pulled up the boats at the waterfall and got out to look around for the cache. With the opportunity to grab the last grid for the WRC, I jumped out still wearing my life vest and backpack. I paid close attention to Bubba95, who's iPhone was the only whereigo device that was functioning correctly. I could see how challenging any whereigo could be. After some searching, shan7on laid eyes on the cache and a sigh of relieve could be heard throughout the group. Even if this cache could be retrieved from overland, it would be an easy 4.5 star terrain.

This adventure was my fourth geo-kayak trip, my second trip that was a small river. Some observations, unlike lakes, I didn't have to paddle as much, I used the current to propel me. Wind was not a factor. However, with the swifter current, it made finding caches very difficult. I found that when the boats converged near the posted coordinates, we ran into each other. Lesson learned, when about 200 feet away, slow the boat down and begin scanning where the cache could be located. I consider myself inexperienced with a kayak and paid attention to adventuretrekker who is a veteran with the kayak with 3 times as many 5-star terrain caches as I. Other observations, scuba diving boots are not a great substitute for hiking boots, but did make do. They were better than those with sandals who were exposed to poison ivy.

I am thankful for all those who participated in the cachepedition and those who didn't attend but could advise through Facebook and phone calls. This was an awesome trip and encourage others to make the trip.

Natural Selection vs. Targeting?

2011-04-17T07:31:00.002-05:00

Recent conversations with -boatman- we discussed the issue of finding caches to complete the 81 category grid for the Well Rounded Cacher. -boatman- is lacking finds in the 5 and 4.5 difficulty range. He prefers the high terrain rated caches, hence his 1.74 terrain average that exceeds my 1.69 rating. I expressed to complete the grid it would require to solve the puzzle/unknown caches at home. As for most everything below the 4 terrain/difficulty rating, I used natural selection. Just going on a cache run and signing logs and not concerned about the rating. The last several I have had to complete where were in the 4.5 and 5 range, I had to be selective of what I want after, solving puzzles long before I left on the run.

Another cache, Abiectio, the Evil One? (Challenge Cache) requires the cacher to create a bookmark showing they visited a regular size traditional cache in every West Tennessee County. Find an earthcache and virtual within the grand division. Also, a puzzle and multi that at least a 3 difficulty or terrain. For many of the seasoned caches and especially those from the Jackson area, this one should not be difficult. But for the less seasoned cachers from the corners of West Tennessee, such as Lake, Henry, Shelby and Hardin counties, this one will be a difficult challenge.

My purpose of the cache requirements, that unlike the Tennessee County and DeLomre Challenges, where any physical cache will do. For the Abiectio challenge, I want the cacher to experience everything West Tennessee has to offer. Such as the small towns, cities, trails, parks and geological features. For the seasoned cacher, natural selection of the years of caching will accomplish the goal. For a newer cachers, it may require being selective.

Camp Beauregard

2011-04-12T14:58:00.002-05:00

Being a Civil War buff, I had heard about Camp Beauregard near Water Valley, Kentucky. I wanted to place a geocache there however, I didn't know the precise location of the camp that is now a cemetery. A cache was placed there and I took the opportunity to find and visit Camp Beauregard. I took a few pictures and saw many Confederate soldier graves. The camp provided the right flank of the larger base at Columbus on the Mississippi River and when Confederate troops retreated from Columbus, the camp near Water Valley was abandoned as well. For most of the soldiers buried in the cemetery near the cache, very few if none every saw any combat. Disease claimed the lives of many enlisted teenage boys and young men in their early 20's. I wanted to tell about this cache since this is the 150th Anniversary of the War Against Northern Aggression. Cacher or not, the place is worth a visit.

Trout Fishing Fun

2011-04-10T19:17:00.002-05:00

While in Mountain Home, Arkansas we visited the trout hatchery at the base of the Norfolk River Dam. We ended up spending a lot of time seeing the fish, where both my girls had fun feeding the fish. I looked for the information for the virtual Trout Fishing Fun. I knew the plaques were moved inside and we went there to find where the trout are hatched from the eggs. Was amazing to see how the fish develop. We spoke to a US Fish & Wildlife employee and he showed Carolina more details of the fish. He saw my GPS and he knew what I was seeking and pointed me in the right direction.

Next to the hatchery was a flowing stream and we could see the trout in their natural habitat. This virtual was educational and fun. One of the reasons I would like to see a return of the virtual geocaches.

Gorilla Stash

2011-04-07T05:49:00.002-05:00

At the end of my girls spring break from school we headed for Mountain Home, Arkansas. My goal was to find the Gorilla Stash. One part of the Missouri Fizzy Challenge is to find a cache placed in the year 2000. After running a search, the cache in Arkansas was the closest and it was just over 200 miles from home. We enjoyed the Ozarks and countryside along the way.

It is nice that when I run my GSAK stats, I have something found in the year 2000.

Late Night Visitors

2011-03-21T19:46:00.002-05:00

This past Friday night I was at home with the windows up, catching the breeze and playing around on the computer. Saw a car pull up in the driveway, went outside and the car was gone. Noticed the halogen headlights of that car go past a couple of times. Continued on with what I was doing and then saw a flashlight in the yard. I knew then they were cachers coming after What I afraid of? I grabbed my Surefire tactical light and went outside the greet the cachers. Turns out they were DrewsephVladmir, The 40 Foot Pandas and 1/2 of FarklinNinjas, a group from Union City, TN. The found the first stag and then went about entering the coordinates for the second and final stage in their high tech phones. We chatted a bit about the phones being used as GPS receivers. Then the group said their good byes and were headed back to their cars. I asked them to check their receivers and then they noticed the cache was in walking distance. I watched them trying to find the final using the phones that didn't seem to have an arrow screen. One of them ran out onto the highway to re-gain satellite reception. We spoke more about the phones and I mentioned that once their caching careers take them into areas with high tree cover such as Land Between the Lakes, they may want to think about a GPS with better reception.

We had a very pleasant conversion and hope to run into the group again on the trails.

New PT test

2011-03-13T20:34:00.002-05:00

While at Ft. Campbell, KY several days ago, I browsed the headline of a Army Times of the new Army Physical fitness test. Regrettably, I didn't purchase a copy. Searches on the Internet of the new test have not come up with anything concrete, the best I found was this You Tube Video. The new test is supposed to be Army wide by this October. Asking a few people, including AGR's and technicians at this weekend at drill, I discovered I knew more than they.

Current test includes three events. Push ups, sit ups and a two-mile run. Due to a knee problem of a floating knee cap, I have a profile and substitute the 2.5 mile walk that I have to complete in about 36 minutes. For the most part, I start working out about two months prior and use a treadmill. I have noticed the PT test does not equal combat readiness with some much emphasis on running in shorts and t-shirt. It doesn't prepare much for a long road march with body armor, a weapon and ammunition.

The new test will be seven events. Thankfully, the sit up is gone. Since information is sketchy, it's hard to say what the events will be like and how to complete the test. I did notice in the video parts of the test were in PT uniform, others in battle uniform, including body armor and weapon. This leads to a argument, as a member of a transportation unit of the National Guard, we carry the M-16 which weighs 7.8 pounds and is 39.625 inches. My active Army counterpart carries the M-4 which is 6.36 pounds and 29.75 inches when the stock is retracted. Regarding training for combat, it would be better to carry the weapon one will carry in combat. But for a test that is scored and a soldier will be in competition for promotion, the field should be even.

Some other events that I know of; are a casualty drag and an ammo can shuttle run.

I will have to do more to prepare for these events, like carrying a pack while hiking the trails with more water than usual. The geo-kayaking I have planned for warmer weather should help my upper body strength as well.

26 Smilies

2011-03-03T15:52:00.003-06:00

Last weekend I returned to the southern LBL and found seven caches and one DNF. After entering my finds and pulled up the map, I noticed 26 smilies on the map with 11 to be found. Number has increased this week with the addition about five caches.

First pulled up to Homestead, a nice area for a cache with old buildings, but couldn't find the cache again. Will return sometime. Next was Meteorite Rock, where I redeemed myself a DNF about 2 years ago. I don't see where I went wrong, but it was found. Next was Lickity Split, not being a fan of micros in wooded areas, I was impressed with the hide technique. Thankfully, coordinates were on the dot. Had it been back in the Garmin Legend or Etrex days, it would have been a cache I would have passed up.

I really wanted to get Nuts About Dreadlock Tree since I was in the area. But, I couldn't get close to the cache due to high water on a creek I needed to cross. Looking at my topo map, I didn't see an easy way. Went onto Lake Shore a 3 terrain cache. The road to the cache fit the rating. Parked about .10 from the cache and had an easy walk to the find.

At this point, I began to look at the downhill side of this cache day. I drove up north and worked my way down. Found Welcome to Model, TN, a great cache and great location. Owner did an excellent job researching and setting up the cache page. On my nRoute, I saw how close the cache was to the Trace and wondered about the 3 terrain rating. After a good climb up the hill, I appreciated the 3 star rating.

Now the highlight of the day. Went after Roundtop. Made excuses for myself and was concerned about the 1 mile hike each way and my knowledge of the terrain of the LBL. The hike was much easier than anticipated. Ran into a Boy Scout troop on the way and return trip. Chatted some about the geocaching merit badge. Was a nice hike. Ended the day on the Bear Creek Loop Trail. Found MTCBSA COG Dist Adventures of Scouting #5 and Bear Creek Loop Cache. Prior to hitting the trail, I was tired and hungry, I found the caches and went to a nearby McDonalds in Dover and headed home. With more energy, I would have hiked the entire trail and posted the trail online.

Maybe another time.....

Over the Deer v2

2011-02-16T15:58:00.003-06:00

This past Sunday, I hooked up with -boatman- for one last cache adventure before he leaves West Tennessee for Middle Tennessee for good. I have always enjoyed caching with -boatman- and didn't pass up this opportunity.

The cache I wanted was Over the Deer v. 2 by dalls. I didn't get the opportunity to go after this cache prior to deployment since I am rarely in this area on weekends. I really detest the traffic along Highway 45 By-Pass in Jackson and don't want to travel it when I don't have to. I spoke with -boatman- and we set out for the cache after church. Thankfully, I didn't have any delays leaving Dresden and traffic was light. I arrived at the parking location to find -boatman- already there. We prepared ourselves for the hike. I had not been to the river's edge but have been to this area a couple of times before and didn't know what to expect. I made a couple of calls inquiring if special equipment was necessary and one told me the equipment he used was the cache owner! I really wanted Over the Deer v.2 due to it's unique terrain/difficulty rating. We set out with our packs, hiking poles and I put in a rope in my pack. We first found Bigfoot's Territory. On the way to this cache, we spotted the first snake of the year, a Garter snake sunning himself. It was in the area and I wanted the 4-star terrain rating. I already had it's difficulty/terrain rating but the 4-star would look good on my stats. Besides, if I fell in the river at Over the Deer v.2, I wouldn't be in the mood to make another find, only to get to my truck before hypothermia set in.

We ventured over to Over the Deer v.2 and studied it for a long time of how to approach it. I tied a rope around myself in the event I feel in the river, -boatman- could pull me out. I scooted and straddled across the large tree that was almost parallel with the water below. It took everything I had to remain calm and when the wind kicked up, I just waited for the wind to die down. After several minutes, I had crawled to the cache location and it was just out of reach. -boatman- said, dalls meant for the cacher to stand up. I refused to do that and besides I am taller than the cache owner. I reached and reached and pulled the container down. I could sense -boatman-'s relief that I had it in my hand. I signed the log and in the process dropped the log protector and -boatman-'s pen in the river. Replaced the container and then discussed the return trip. Had pictures of myself on the tree which I posted on my Facebook Account. I scooted across the tree backwards (opposite the way I went to the cache) and asked -boatman- to pull on the rope slightly to give me some momentum and direction.

Hiked back to the parking lot and after some discussion I went home. Only had two finds that day and it didn't matter to me; I was happy to get another Well Rounded Cacher grid number colored in.

Now my magic number for the Well Rounded Cacher is 3 and my terrain avg. is up to 1.69.

5 Icons in a Day

2011-02-10T14:37:00.002-06:00

A couple of weeks ago I noticed 5-ICON "In a Day" Caching Challenge I-40 RS East and figured I had that one in the bag since I had a 5-icon in day in July 2008 while caching in Michigan and Ontario. However, after further reading, I had to do this 5-Icon in a day all over again since the cache page reads that my busy day has to be after December 1, 2009. I had cleared much of my surrounding area and but I am keeping some caches in reserve for easy finds to color in a day on my 366 days of caching stats. I pondered what to do; this would be a difficult task. I did notice a Mega event near Mt. Vernon, IL coming up in March. I could get a two-fer with a Mega and Event cache the same day, near same location but different times. Looked around, there is a wherigo cache, but I am not equipped for those, thus I don't much attention to those types of caches. Noticed a mystery nearby but it requires a GPS that can pick up the chirp device, so I am not equipped for that either. Only the Garmin Oregon and 62 with correct downloaded software can pick up the beacon.

While caching with pcsenn and Pharmd93, I informed both of them that after the events of the day, they would be only one icon short of the goal and suggested the earthcache at the Hatchie River National Wildlife Refuge. Turned out Pcsenn had already completed that earthcache. At least Pharmd93 could get the 5-Icon challenge. But after some researching after the event, there was a short multi, Old Wagon Trail in Collierville. We all competed that cache, which was fun and interesting. On the way back we found the 5-Icon challenge. Which by the way, is the third cache that has been placed on that end of the rest stop on I-40, the fifth total at the stop. On the way home, we picked up West Tennessee-Silt 'loess' Deposits-Earthcache. While signing the log, we had only 4-icons, we knew would get the cache since a DNF at an earthcache is highly remote.

"You did them all?!"

2011-02-07T19:12:00.002-06:00

Teamed up this past weekend with pcsenn and Pharmd93 for a cache run in the Collierville area. I had set my sights on Flip Dizzy Loves Jelly Beans for the unique terrain/difficulty rating. I also set my sights to complete all the caches in that same park as well. When I arrived at the events for 76Stinger and Jaybirder, I were asked "How many did you get?", the reply was "got them all" and jaws dropped. They knew and we would find out on the trail why the jaws dropped. The terrain and unforgiving, the trails, if they could be called trails didn't have a pattern and were more of ruts than anything else.

I have been to the park once before, grabbing Caching A,B,Z's and More Fun than a barrel of monkeys and knew that park has a paved and unpaved trails. As we ventured further into the park, we did much bushwacking, wading through water and trying to find one trail after another. The cache De-Hydration took a lot out of us getting through the brush. After finding that cache we found a trail and continued to head west. Prior to De-Hydration we found Wild Turkey without any trouble. As we continued west, we found Mirror, mirror. With that find came the most difficult task of navigating to The Saga of the Frozen Dozen. I was having second thoughts at that point but we continued the mission studying the terrain we could see, using the high ground and the topographical map on my GPS. Crossing water was the biggest challenge. Pharmd93 noticed a long 2X4 laying around and we put it across the water and crossed it. Where my 2X4 came from, who knows.... Found The Saga of the Frozen Dozen and then went onto Penny's Worth of Trouble. With that cache having a rope can in handy once again. After that cache we wanted to head towards the parking lot, pscenn noticed the sewer covers in the area and noticed the easement. We headed south and found a better path back to the parking lot picking up the mystery Say What? . My military experience was useful to solve this cache.

After that agonizing nearly six miles of hiking, we picked up Silo Mentality. This cache was fun, but it was an open area and we really felt the cold wind trying to find this one. With 45 minutes before the events, we drove over to LPS001 where pscenn and Pharmd93 had the honor to place their names on the oldest geocache in Tennessee.

After the event, I set my sights on a multi. Story of that will be continued......

Saga of the Frozen One

2011-01-26T15:02:00.002-06:00

Over the past three years, each Martin Luther King Holiday weekend in January there have been organized cachepeditions led by bitbrain and Tiger130 and called themselves the Frozen Dozen. The 2009 adventure was at Walls of Jericho in Alabama, 2010 was Virgin Falls in Tennessee and this past year the hike were near Stone Island State Park in Tennessee. I have been invited to these cachepedition but for one reason or another I have been unable to attend. Unlike the group effort, I went about this cachepedition finding three category grids, solo.

This past weekend I had a long trip while not intended to be in Arctic conditions, my caching was in the snow and ice. My first significant find was Stumpy's Path, which was near the end of a 1/3 mile long paved trail. Normally, this is just a walk in the park, but the snow and ice made this a little more difficult. I found the cache and went to the end of the trail to view the spectacular water fall. Later in the day, seeking more difficult terrain cache, I sought and found Ensor Shower. This was a major accomplishment since it was rated a four difficulty. Thankfully, with the frozen conditions, I found the cache with ease. Had it been a recent hard rain, this cache would nearly be impossible to retrieve. I kept on hiking and found No Ships or Loose Lips Here. I had been to this park in 2006 and didn't go after this cache even though I was just about 600 feet away. I recall when I found the nearby earthcache, it was pouring down rain.

The next day the roads were in better shape however, there was still plenty of snow and ice on the ground. I made my way to the one of three caches I wanted, Love/Hate Relationship Redo. While deployed to Kuwait in 2010, I spent much of my idle time looking for caches to complete the Well Rounded Cacher category grid. The original Love/Hate Relationship was missing and became archived. The redo cache was placed in November and made my plans to find it. Arrived at the parking location, took some pictures and found a nearby cache. While my walk was only about 400 feet, I was freezing. Being I had a little less than a mile hike with elevation changes, I put on another layer of clothes. The temps were below 20. Made my way to cache location taking my time and with small steps due to the icy conditions. After doing some crawling around, I spotted the hiding location and was elated to find this cache. Signed the log and took a long time getting back up to the parking location, a change in nearly 300 feet of elevation. I figured this would be the most difficult and exhausting cache of the day, I would be correct.

Later in the morning, I made my way to Basket Case. I studied the satellite photos of this area and the weekend prior I made a light recon of it from the nearby 4-lane. I got an idea of what I needed to grab this cache by calling the cache owner and took his advise word for word. I must have looked strange carrying so many objects from the parking lot and across the bridge. I spotted the cache right away. Completed setting up my gear and retrieved the cache without incident. Signed the log and then went after Down Below. This one turned out to be the most hazardous since I fell on the icy rocks and nearly smashed my GPS. Thankfully, I was uninjured and GPS only suffered a small scratch. I was going to give up on the cache but after looking from a distance, I spotted what I thought was a hiding place, regrouped and found the cache.

Left that location feeling tired and worn out and elected not go after anymore in this area, I went after the last find for category grid, Protector of the Great War. I had solved this mystery while in Kuwait, studied photos too to figure how I would retrieve the cache. A few days before I was set to return to the United States, the cache was archived. It seemed like a punch in the gut to see this one archived since the nearest 4.5 terrain/4.5 difficult was almost 200 miles from home. After conference with the cache owner, he explained why he archived it and told me I could still find the log the find. I parked nearby and quickly made the find.

The next two days, I paid for the adventure with a sore knee and strained calf muscle.

It was an awesome day, knocking out three caches of the 81 category grid and now my magic number is at five.

Caches on target are:

Flip Dizzy Loves Jelly Beans, a mystery that is about 95% solved, close enough to that I think I can find it.

Over the Deer V2 located in Jackson, TN.

Peace and Tranquility I, located in Clarksville, TN.

Hi Ho Silver, located near Franklin, TN.

Legal Only by Boat Nashville Secrets #1, located in Nashville, the only cache left for the category grid that requires a kayak.

Upgrades to Groundspeak

2011-01-10T14:55:00.002-06:00

I've been using GSAK stats on my geo-profile for many months and still plan to keep using the feature. Recently, Groundspeak updated their website to install, a Favorites, Statistics and Souvenirs sections. I really like what the folks at Groundspeak have done and will be watching when more information are installed in the Statistics and Souvenirs sections.

Been paying a lot of attention of the statistics section saw where my 1.74 difficulty average is at or very near the norm while browsing the profiles of many cachers that I know or have passed through TF territory. My terrain average, I find to be a disappointing 1.67. While it's ahead of a few who have completed the Well Rounded Cacher requirements and also tops a reported runner. Heck, I've completed the West Tennessee Mega Multi, kayaked to several caches and no stranger to the trails at Bartlett Park, Shelby Farms, Natchez Trace State Park and Land Between the Lakes. This year, I am going to strive to reach a 1.7 average, which may mean less park & grab and more hikes in the Land Between the Lakes. Also plan to get the kayak out far more this coming summer.

When the Favorites sections was introduced, I went through my completed caches and favorite'd 146 caches. I am going to exclude events and CITO's and most that are archived. Bridge, No Bridge, thus far is the only cache favorite'd that has been archived. Currently, I own one cache that has been favorite'd four times, that being Cache Raider. However, I adopted that cache, the original owner Canoe Guy deserves the honor of having the high rating among peers.

Received many emails from Groundspeak where I received Souvenirs, all of which are from the many states that I have cached. I did noticed that Groundspeak is awarding the state souvenirs in the order the US states were admitted to the Union. Have noticed the art work on the souvenirs is great. I am only awaiting the state of New Mexico. I figure Groundspeak will produce souvenirs for the countries I have cached, which are Canada, Kuwait and Iraq. Time will tell.

Hiking in the New Year

2011-01-03T09:01:00.002-06:00

The day of New Years Eve, I pondered where I wanted to go cachin' and selected the southern part of the Land Between the Lakes, a hiking trail near Piney Campground. I got up around 6 am and left just before 7 am heading for Kentucky Lake. First stop was at Wave at Hank, a geocache near the lake, where the cacher has to pass by the home of Hank Williams Jr. This was before 8 am, I had doubts that Mr. Williams would be up, I chose to go after the cache and not make a visit.

Arrived at the parking coordinates and headed for the hike. I had hiked this trail about 10 years ago and knew where to enter the woods. I turned my tracks on the GPS to record my travel where I would later upload the trip on EveryTrail.com. There was much rain the night before and I would later find that many intermittent streams were flowing at a large and fast pace. This made crossing the streams a delicate operation. My first find on the trail was Murray's Cache; took some time to find the cache since the coordinates were off by more than 30 feet. Since I was tracking myself, I elected to set down the GPS and not track all the circling, back and forth, ei cache dance that comes with the game. Found the cache and had just as much a difficult time to finding the trail. I would have another difficult time finding the trail and then began marking where I left the trail to find the right spot to resume the tracking.

Next find was Where's the Door, a cache at a small burial plot marked with stones. Very interesting location. Next cache was Sadee want to cache, too, that one took some hill climbing. Staying on the trail I sought 20th Anniversary then found Volunteer, followed by Micro in the Tennessee Woods. Micros in the woods are not my favorite caches but this one was spotted very quickly and coordinates were dead on.

After returning home, I uploaded the tracks and can be found here.

Returning home, I drove through Puryear, TN grabbing Audrey's Cache, Is anybody home? and ended the day with State Line Evil Micro. I will have to return to Puryear and avenge a DNF at Is anybody home yet?, I DNF'd the cache even through I could see the container. About two feet of water prevented me from retrieving the cache.

Shelby Farms re-visited

2010-12-29T08:46:00.002-06:00

Hooked up with pcsenn for two days of caching in the Memphis area. Pcsenn was in a warpath to complete the West Tennessee Mega Multi series. We arrived at Shelby Farms and first picked up Ode to Spencersb. Had to beat down the briers to get to that one. We found The Mystery of the Lost Treasure of Beale and then pcsenn found the Up the Creek Up the Wolf cache of the WTMM. We did a lot of work on Cache Obscura, a very evil and ingenious hide. Then finalized with cache finds near the new greenway, The Frank Stockton Cache, The Lady, or the Tiger, Blue Trail???, Greenline- #1 and had some fun with The 385 Cache where pscenn knocked out another grid category.

After nine miles of hiking in Shelby Farms we headed to the nearby Osprey Park where pscenn found another WTMM, Osprey Nest Platforms. We also found West Lake, Lake or Pond? and walked across the new footbridge over the Wolf River to find Rusty's Trail.

The next day, pscenn completed the West Tennessee Mega Multi and I picked up a few park and grabs on the way home.

Overall, successful two days of caching, hiking over 12 miles and thankfully my knee didn't give me any trouble.

2010

2010-12-18T08:29:00.002-06:00

The year 2010 is coming to an end in a couple of weeks. While my geocaching numbers way down due to a deployment to the Middle East, I did accomplish some goals. Managed to work off a few category grid finds, added the state of New York, countries of Kuwait and Iraq to my geo-profile. One noted stat is that I increased my cache to cache miles by 36,000 miles; know I have over 95,000 cache to cache miles. Since my return home, I have only gone after simple park & grabs due to the weather and lack of time.

Next year I should reach 3,000 finds and hope to complete the requirements for the Well Rounded Cacher.

Destination Afghanistan II Travel Bug

2010-10-17T01:07:00.002-05:00

While attending the 1st Annual Jackson Area GeoRace/Challenge, Tiger130 handed me a travel bug, Destination Afghanistan II since everyone knew I would be deploying to the Middle East in a few months. I informed the travel bug owner of my pending deployment and asked me to hold onto the bug and take it to Kuwait. Generally, travel bugs should only be held for about 2 weeks. While in Texas, I dropped and picked up the bug in a cache to give the bug 1.047 miles and another state. A few days before I was scheduled to depart, I was held back for a medical condition and I handed the bug to soldiermama and she took it to Kuwait and once I arrived in theater, I grabbed the bug from her. I dropped the bug in Mr. Mister, probably the safest cache in regard to muggle raiding. Airroster took the bug to a cache at Ali Al Salem for a better chance of reaching the final destination. Ali Al Salem in the entry and exit point for many service members that rotate to Iraq, Kuwait, Afghanistan and other countries in the region.

I am happy to report that on June 8, 2010, the travel bug made it to it's destination, a cache called Dragon Village in Afghanistan. Since then the bug has been bouncing from cache to cache in the war zone.

WRC & Bingo

2010-10-04T11:23:00.002-05:00

In 2008, I begun to work on caches for the Well Rounded Tennessee Cacher and needed around 17 finds for all the category grid. Two years later, I have knocked that number down to nine. With four of those finds during this year 2010, even though I have been busy with military matters. I have plans to complete the requirements for Tennessee and Missouri WRC sometime in the year 2011. I think one of the most difficult parts, in regard to the Missouri WRC, will be finding a cache that was hidden in the year 2000. I do have a bookmark of caches on my target list.

Came across an interesting challenge using the game of Bingo, a cache by jeffbouldin. I already see I have completed the vertical and horizontal cards for this cache and debating, do I want to go after all three cards? The last being the diagonal. I do need a 4.5 Difficulty and 4.5 Terrain to master this and I only need Protector of the Great War cache by JoGPS.

R&R Part Four: Final

2010-09-26T04:06:00.002-05:00

Final post of the two weeks of leave from Kuwait and this blog post will focus on some of the caches I liked. My caching begun when my R&R process begun at Ali Al Salem airbase and my favorite was Cache, Log & Email where I introduced two soldiers to the sport. I ended up with five finds before leaving Kuwait. Arrived in Memphis, Tiger130 and bitbrain were there and transported me to Jackson. A couple of the clever hides was in Union City, Water Water Everywhere, But Not a Drop to Drink and Skirt of a Different Color by TeamKC. Spent a couple of days with relatives in Olive Branch, MS, picking up some park and grabs and later two category finds in Overton Park. The following week, I headed to New York. Stayed the night in Ashland City, TN picking up hanging out a wally world and that afternoon I found my first New York cache What a Visita. Those two cache finds on one day, broke my old record of 440 cache to cache miles to about 800. While in New York, the most impressive cache was The Empire Strikes Back, a virtual on the 86th floor observation deck on the Empire State Building. I also liked Riftstone in Central Park which was within sight of The Dakota where John Lennon was shot. One thing I noticed about Riftsone, it's a physical cache with well over 1,000 finds, something I don't run across very often.

Giving Kailee an opportunity for some driving experience, she drove to McKenzie where I preformed cache maintenance and then we went onto Parker's Crossroads Battlefield for The Force was Divided. The weather was not the best that day, but we did walk the battlefield.

On my last day in the United States, pcsenn drove me to the airport in Memphis and we found Aerotropolis TB Hotel and while in Atlanta, a US Navy Officer and myself found A Different Species of Big Silver Bird.

That concluded my R&R trip with 73 finds, adding two to my category grid, kayaking, bicycling, a new state (New York) and caching by subway.

R&R Part Three: Caching and Kayaking

2010-09-19T05:59:00.004-05:00

This is a continuation of a series of blog entries from my R&R leave in August 2010. While home on leave, I extended my consecutive days with a find to 18, shattering my old record of 11 and did amass 73 finds during that time. The finds were in Kuwait, Tennessee, Mississippi, Kentucky, New York and Georgia. During that time I cleaned up my kayak and made one cache run with pcsenn where he borrowed a kayak and we went after Half Moon Island which turned into more of an adventure than expected. Using satellite imagery, we were going to launch the kayaks from Devil's Elbow on the LBL side of Lake Barkley but construction had closed that part of the LBL. Launching from Devil's Elbow would have been a short 1,200 foot paddle. However, we found a public landing near Ode to lil pirate where we paddle just over a mile to the island going broadside with the current and wind. The cache was missing and with permission from the cache owner, I replaced the cache with a .50 caliber ammo can and locked it to a tree. It should be safe from future muggles and flooding. We went back to the landing and then went after Little River/Goat Island cache. We paddled about seven tenths of a mile for this one and didn't fight the current and wind. We did see some goats on the island.

We settled to clean up the caches at Lake Barkley State Park, where I found, barley's bush, Hanging Bridge at Barkley, Blue Springs Trail Cache and Barkley Fitness Center Trail. We also enjoyed a good lunch at the state park. We returned to Paducah, KY to return the kayak and grabbed a few park and grab micros along the route. Upon returning home, I winterized my kayak for next year.

Stayed tuned for the next part of the series.

R&R Part Two: New York

2010-09-11T05:46:00.002-05:00

Since deploying to Kuwait in late February of this year, I had been in correspondence with a friend of mine in Long Island, New York about making a trip to New York during my R&R Leave. With my dates set; I purchased an airline ticket through Southwest Airlines on April 30th.

Began my leave on August 16th and after a week at home I drove to Nashville, TN on the 21st for an early morning flight. The flight had a stop in Chicago, IL and landed in the rain at LaGuarida Airport in Queens, NY. My friend was there to pick me up and he drove to the village of Sea Cliff, NY to visit his home and lunch in a small restaurant and then spent the rest of the afternoon at Sagamore Hill, the home of former US President Teddy Roosevelt. Learned that even though President Roosevelt was a progressive politician, he did not embrace new technology at home disliking electricity, automobile and the telephone. I was intrigued with President Roosevelt's collection of animals from his African Safari's. While at Sagamore Hill we did walk down to the water's edge and see Oyster Bay. Afterwards we returned to Sea Cliff.

We got up late the next day which was on purpose to avoid the morning commute to Brooklyn, NY. We arrived and spent some time finding a place to park. This was not my first visit to one of the largest cities in the world and didn't take long for me to appreciate the country life of West Tennessee. After parking, I marked the car's position on GPS which would aid us some that evening. We walked along the Brooklyn Promenade and took pictures of the Manhattan skyline and Brooklyn Bridge in the light rain. We walked across the nearly two miles across the Brooklyn Bridge and took some time to view the awesome sights from the bridge. After getting soaked by the rain, we walked to Chinatown where I saw Columbus Park which was once the location of Five Points which was the setting of the movie Gangs of New York. While in Chinatown we stopped to get of the rain and have lunch at a Vietnamese Restaurant, where I enjoyed Chinese type food with a French flavor.

After lunch we walked to the World Trade Center site and saw the construction of the Freedom Tower and wanted to visit the site of the 9/11 attack. We continued walking and hiked towards the Hudson River and into Greenwich Village. In the village, we boarded a subway and traveled to 72nd street and walked to The Dakota. Took pictures and saw the location where John Lennon was shot. We walked across the street to visit Central Park, find a geocache and see the memorial for the Ex-Beatle. We once again boarded a subway and made our way toward the Empire State Building. During the visit to the 86th floor observation deck, I felt we were one of the few Americans on the floor and my friend might have been the only New Yorker. After the Empire State Building we once again boarded a subway and traveled to Brooklyn. We arrived back at Sea Cliff and dined at an Italian Restaurant.

The last day we visited local sights around Sea Cliff then back to Queens for my flight home via Dulles Airport in Baltimore/Washington D.C.

R&R Part One

2010-09-05T04:24:00.003-05:00

This is the first installment of a multiple part series of my R&R leave that began on August 15 and ended on September 3. This part will be about time spent with family. Later parts will reflect on travels and geocaching.

We left Arifjan sometime after midnight on the 15th of August for Ali Al Salem where we went through more briefings and instructions about leave. In between briefs, I did manage to find a computer at the MWR and send messages to those who would transport me once I arrived in Memphis, TN and let them know the latest news. About mid-day the lockdown process begun and I went through security and customs. Wisely, I choose not to have any checked bags and only a carry-on. Much of the afternoon was a hurry up and wait. In the early evening we boarded buses for the airport in Kuwait City and then onto the Freedom Bird that took us to the United States via Shannon, Ireland, sleeping much of the way after taking a Tylenol PM. We had a stop in Ireland and I took advantage of the duty free shopping to pick up a few small items. Took off from Ireland and took another Tylenol PM and went back to sleep. Awoke near Atlanta and landed there around 7 am EST. After making calls of my arrival, I proceed to hear another briefing and went through customs....again. Didn't take long and found the kiosk for Delta in an attempt to find an earlier flight. Everything was booked and took my chances on a stamd-by. I was told of a flight to Memphis that was leaving in about 45 minutes. Immediately, I headed for the gate and was able to get on the flight.

Arrived in Memphis about an hour and half-later where fellow geocachers from Tennessee were there to greet me and transport me to Jackson, TN. bitbrain greeted me in the airport lobby and Tiger130 drove me to Jackson where I met my wife. From Jackson, we went home where I saw the remodeling of the house. Much of the work I liked. Since I arrived before school was dismissed, I drove to Dresden High School and picked up my oldest daughter, Kailee. From the high school, we drove to the Elementary School and visited with my youngest daughter, Carolina.

During my stay at home, we did make a trip to Olive Branch, MS to attend a wedding and visit some of my cousins. While in Olive Branch, I treated the family to a dinner at a Japanese Steak/Sushi Restaurant. We also visited the Memphis Zoo and Brooks Museum located in Overton Park in Memphis, TN. I visited Carolina at school, ate lunch with her and spoke to her 2nd grade class about Kuwait and about what we were doing in Kuwait and Iraq. Did take the girls out on a couple of bike rides, one in Wingo, KY and another on the Brian Brown Greenway in Martin, TN. I was also home for Carolina's 8th birthday and did participate in her party. While at home, we attended church at Dresden First Baptist and stayed for the Homecoming celebration.

Stayed tuned for more, which will be of my trip to New York and kayaking on Lake Barkley.

Geo-Stats

2010-08-01T06:13:00.003-05:00

For the most part of my geocaching career, which has spanned 5 and 1/2 years, I have used different statistics program such as itsnotaboutthenumbers, GSAK and my geocaching profile. The itnsoutaboutthenumber site was closed and I do miss the site. The site has the coolest map displays and since I could look up my many friends and my one nemesis alike, I was able to see what others were doing, especially in the quest of the Well-Rounded Cacher. Currently, I am 11 catagories shy of the quest. With my R&R leave two short weeks away, I hope to knock out three of the catagories. Those being: Giving Back #3 Here you go Memphis!, get the kayak out for Half Moon Island and I have solved the puzzles for: Flip Dizzy-The Monkey Comes In and Overton Park Mystery Cache.

Regarding stats, some of inquired why I have not found and logged 7 Mile by my friend airroster. There are two reasons. 1) I want to rack up cache to cache miles. Having a cache to find once I return from R&R will give me another 7,000 cache to cache miles. Currently, I stand at just over 69,000 miles. 2) Since I don't have a find on September 4 or 11, finding the cache on either day will accomplish that goal. In the next month I may have the opportunity to log 16,000 miles.

Also, I have plans to set up 2-3 caches that will be 4.5 and 5 star terrain caches. Cachers, you have been warned!

Update 8/8/10:

Have also solved two 5-star difficulty puzzle caches. (5) Sudoku Series and (1) Sukoku Series.

Camp Adder

2010-07-11T02:33:00.002-05:00

Recently, I volunteered to go on mission to visit a country that I have not been to since late 2003 and add another country to my geocaching profile, Iraq. On the way north, we stopped at Camp Buering and with some time on my hands, I managed a few finds. History on the Walls was an easy find very close to where we parked the bobtails and stayed two nights. I found that one just before midnight and found Cold Frappe' and a Hot Spot after midnight with a group from our convoy who wanted to obtain some coffee from Starbucks. The next afternoon, we began to head out and after picking up Class I supplies (Snacks, Gatorade, Ice), I picked up Camp Buehring TB Hostel a large ammo can very near the staging lanes that sets right under the noses of hundreds of muggles that pass by.

Our trip took us north to FOB Kalsu where there were no geocaches. FOB Kalsu did seem to have the best DFAC (Dining Facility) in theater. Leaving Kalsu, we arrvied at Camp Adder in Southern Iraq, the based used to be called Tallil. In 2003, I was based nearby at Camp Cedar II and visited Tallil Airbase on occasion. There I made my first geocache find in Iraq with ground flare #3 (incomming). It was an easy find that required climbing an old Iraqi bunker. I was in the area visiting the Organizational Maintenance Shop to replace a tire. The following day, after getting some direction of where the PX was located I picked up three more caches. Israel, which was interesting that it was located near ancient marshland. Mikaaiyl, a walk and grab nano on the way to the MWR and finally Transient Altoid Tin-Tallil which is located near the MWR.

The trip added a fourth country to my profile and recently had a patch made for myself "Combat Cacher".

Franklin Mountains

2010-05-16T10:01:00.002-05:00

The 1171st Transportation Co. flew to Fort Bliss, TX on December 4, 2009 and soon as I got off the plan I saw the Franklin Mountians and immediatly wanted to go caching in the mountains. I did manage to get away a couple of times to cache with two trips into the mountains from El Paso, TX.

After completing training, the last group was at Ft. Bliss awaiting a flight to Kuwait, the motor sgt. arranged for a group outing to take a trolley up one of the mountains (Ranger Peak). We took the trolley, a couple of people were a little nervous but we were safe and arrived at the scenic platform. Four of us immediately set out to find Take a Hike OR Get taken for a Ride. The GPS was going nuts with all the metal and antennas on and around the platform and we searched and searched. A ranger noticing we were searching for something inquired what we were doing and I told him about the geocache. He remembered something about a geocache and called the office at the bottom of the mountain and turned out the cache was located in the gift shop that was closed. After contacting the cache owner of our issue and showed pictures of us on the mountain with GPS, he allowed us to claim the find. With that aside, the views from the top were breathtaking.

Being held back again, this time for a medical issue I saw my friends leave again. This did give me one more chance to visit the mountain range. The last full day before departing for Kuwait, I went after Backyard Fun. This cache gave me a solid workout and I was huffing and puffing on he way up the mountain. Found the cache after some searching and sat to admire the view of El Paso from high up.

10 Years! -Kuwait!

2010-05-04T11:31:00.003-05:00

Was deployed to Kuwait in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom in late Feburary, my company, the 1171st Transportation Co. had already been in Kuwait about 6 weeks prior to my arrival. I started caching at Camp Arifjan the first week I was in-country. Later, after reading the 10 year birthday party events being set up back home. I came up with an idea to create an event in Kuwait. After a few emails with the region reviewer, I set up 10 Years! -Kuwait. Just after listing the event, Airooster posts a will attend. I sent invitations to other cachers who had been visting Arifjan, some would attend, some could not, due to being on missions, R&R leave or re-deployment home.

The event was fun with many stories about geocaching and making friends. I soon found that one of the Chaplians of the new brigade that recently moved in is also a geocacher, chapredeb. Two US Navy officers showed up, having just arrived at Arifjan 45 minutes before the event. One of them, jeepnjudy has visited two Geo-Woodstocks.

The following day, I revisited the most of the geocaches at Arifjan; the 3rd time for Zone 6, with jeepnjudy and I found 3 that I had not found. After the archiving of one cache, I have found all at Arifjan. We ended up walking 3-4 miles and on the way back to Zone 6 in the rain, chapredeb saw us and gave us a ride after seeing us with Garmins hanging on our necks.

TF's Civil War Geocache Series

2010-04-08T12:03:00.002-05:00

Upon reading an article on MSNBC website that the State of Virginia has proclaimed April as Confederate History month, I decided to use my blog to describe the geocaches that I set up in reference to the American Civil War or as some call it, the War Against Northern Aggression.

Northwest Tennessee didn't see the heavy action as did parts of Virginia and Middle Tennessee. Soon after the fall of Ft. Donelson, the fort at Columbus, Kentucky was abandoned and Union forces occupied my hometown of Dresden and West Tennessee. During the war, there were some skirmishes by local militia and cavalry raids conducted by General Nathan Bedford Forrest.

My favorite hide is Forrest Raids Dresden. It's a difficult cache to find in that the terrain is very difficult and with that, there have not been many finders of this cache. In December of 1862, Gen. Forrest made his first West Tennessee raid to cut the communication of Union Gen. Grant has he moved south towards Vicksburg, MS. Gen. Forrest was successful in his raid cutting all railroad communication for the rest of the war, forcing Gen. Grant to rely on the Mississippi River for supply. My geocache is located next to an opening next to the railroad bed. Visitors to the cache can go inside the opening and see the several stumps with axe marks left by Confederate soldiers.

Charge 'em both ways is located at the battlefield of Parker's Crossroads. The Confederate line was near what is now the westbound lane of I-40 and during the battle Forrest was surprised from the rear. When a junior officerr asked Gen. Forrest what to do, he ordered the force to charge both Union forces. The action prevented the a defeat and allowed the CSA forces to leave the area and return to Middle Tennesse.

Battle of Lockridge Mills is located between Latham and Palmersville, TN and saw the largest combat action during the war where a patroling Union force from Iowa was defeated by a large Confederate force.

Skrimish at Shades Bridge is located between Greenfield and Skullbone, TN. During this engagement, Confederate militia failed to prevent a Union force from crossing the bridge over the Obion River. After the Union force crossed the bridge, the militia returned to burn the bridge.

Unknown Confederate Dead is located in Union City, TN and judge from the logs is one of the most popular and found cache that I own. A monument to the unknown soldiers sets in a residential neighborhood next to the old railroad bed. Over 20 unknown Confederate soldiers are buried here.

The Charge is the only geocache that I own in reference to the Civil War in Kentucky. The Charge is located just across the state line in Dukedom, where a historical marker and kiosk inform visitors of Gen. Forrest 2nd West Tennessee raid and into Western Kentucky. Gen. Forrest's troopers passed through this area on the way to and from Paducah, Kentucky.

The last two geocaches in reference to the Civil War are not locations of any combat action. When I joined the Sons of Confederate Veterans I obtained permission to place a geocache at Bonnie Blue Travel Bug Hotel which is in Greenfield, TN. Later, I assisted in the placing of a huge Confederate Battle Flag in Trimble, TN and was asked to place a geocache near the location to bring attention to the flag and called the cache St. Andrew's Cross. On that cache page I borrowed a poem from Dr. Michael Bradley, "I am their Flag". I have had the honor to actually hear this poem repeated by H.K. Edgerton in person while attending a Lee-Jackson Banquet.

In 1861, when they perceived their rights to be threatened, when those who would alter the nature of the government of their fathers were placed in charge, when threatened with change they could not accept, the mighty men of valor began to gather. A band of brothers, native to the Southern soil, they pledged themselves to a cause: the cause of defending family, fireside, and faith. Between the desolation of war and their homes they interposed their bodies and they chose me for their symbol.

I Am Their Flag.

Their mothers, wives, and sweethearts took scissors and thimbles, needles and thread, and from silk or cotton or calico whatever was the best they had even from the fabric of their wedding dresses, they cut my pieces and stitched my seams.

I Am Their Flag.

On courthouse lawns, in picnic groves, at train stations across the South the men mustered and the women placed me in their hands. "Fight hard, win if possible, come back if you can; but, above all, maintain your honor. Here is your symbol," they said.

I Am Their Flag.

They flocked to the training grounds and the drill fields. They felt the wrenching sadness of leaving home. They endured sickness, loneliness, boredom, bad food, and poor quarters. They looked to me for inspiration.

I Am Their Flag.

I was at Sumter when they began in jubilation. I was at Big Bethel when the infantry fired its first volley. I smelled the gun smoke along Bull Run in Virginia and at Belmont along the Mississippi. I was in the debacle at Fort Donelson; I led Jackson up the Valley. For Seven Days I flapped in the turgid air of the James River bottoms as McClellan ran from before Richmond. Sidney Johnston died for me at Shiloh as would thousands of others whose graves are marked "Sine Nomine," - without a name - unknown.

I Am Their Flag.

With ammunition gone they defended me along the railroad bed at Manassas by throwing rocks. I saw the fields run red with blood at Sharpsburg. Brave men carried me across Doctor's Creek at Perryville. I saw the blue bodies cover Marye's Heights at Fredericksburg and the Gray ones fall like leaves in the Round Forest at Stones River.

I Am Their Flag.

I was a shroud for the body of Stonewall after Chancellorsville. Men ate rats and mule meat to keep me flying over Vicksburg. I tramped across the wheat field with Kemper and Armistead and Garnett at Gettysburg. I know the thrill of victory, the misery of defeat, the bloody cost of both.

I Am Their Flag.

When Longstreet broke the line at Chickamauga, I was in the lead. I was the last off Lookout Mountain. Men died to rescue me at Missionary Ridge. I was singed by the wildfire that burned to death the wounded in the Wilderness. I was shot to tatters in the Bloody Angle at Spotsylvania. I was in it all from Dalton to Peachtree Creek, and no worse place did I ever see than Kennesaw and New Hope Church. They planted me over the trenches at Petersburg and there I stayed for many long months.

I Am Their Flag.

I was rolled in blood at Franklin; I was stiff with ice at Nashville. Many good men bade me farewell at Sayler's Creek. When the end came at Appomattox, when the last Johnny Reb left Durham Station, many of them carried fragments of my fabric hidden on their bodies.

I Am Their Flag.

In the hard years of so-called "Reconstruction," in the difficulty and despair of years that slowly passed, the veterans, their wives and sons and daughters, they loved me. They kept alive the tales of valor and the legends of bravery. They passed them on to the grandchildren and they to their children, and so they were passed to you.

I Am Their Flag.

I have shrouded the bodies of heroes, I have been laved with the blood of martyrs, I am enshrined in the hearts of millions, living and dead. Salute me with affection and reverence. Keep undying devotion in your hearts. I am history. I am heritage, not hate. I am the inspiration of valor from the past. Look Away, Dixie Land!

I Am Their Flag.

Trip to Camp Buehring

2010-04-02T02:21:00.002-05:00

My first trip outside the “wire” leaving Camp Arifjan was to travel to Camp Buehring which is also in Kuwait. I have been to the camp once before in the fall of 2003. Back then it was called Camp Udari and I participated in training in close quarters marksmanship and convoy operations. This trip was to be simple trip to sign for new body armor. I had the geocaches in the camp loaded onto the Garmin and hoped to get a find or two. Our time was tight and after obtaining the body armor, we drove near the DFAC for lunch. I attempted to grab One Degree of Separation and unable to find it. After lunch we boarded the bus to head back to Arifjan, which was about 1:30 in the afternoon. The guards at the gate would not permit us to leave without an escort. We then drove near the PX and waited several hours to finally leave the camp. During that time, I introduced another soldier to the sport of geocaching finding diecast64 and PT- Good for you, good for me. Having the new geocacher was helpful on the last cache since he is a few inches taller than me.

We finally managed to leave the camp near dusk and later arrived at Camp Arifjan about 9:30 pm. I have been caching for a little over 5 years and have ran across many light pole, guardrail and storm drain caches. But in a the warzone, barrier caches are popular.

Cachin' in Kuwait

2010-03-04T09:28:00.002-06:00

I have managed to carry my hobby of geocaching across the pond and have grabbed three finds at Camp Arijan in Kuwait. Being a fobbit for the most part, I will be limited in my caching opportunities throughout this region. One thing I discovered, I will not cache alone with the high presence of muggles. This has given an opportunity to give others in my company a chance to see what the game is about first hand. Thus far, with three geocachers within the company, about 10% has witness the hunt in action and over half have verbal knowledge of the game. A few others have shown interest. The negative part of showing others; is that I am unable to pick a good cache, such as a regular size container or an interesting location. Being a military base in a flat desert, there is not much I can do about it.

My first find was on the way to the motorpool with a mechanic. The cache page indicated a small container and we found a altoids container next to a tent. I waited a couple of days for my next find after scouting out the location. Being in the location of the female barracks, I waited for a female cacher to go with me on this hunt as to not give the idea I am stalking around the female barracks. Soldiermama had attempted to find this cache twice before and thought the cache was missing. After a good search and thinking outside the box and remembering similiar type hides, I found the cache. After that find, I found another cache within Zone 6. Currently, I have two more caches to find in Zone 6. There are other caches to be found at Camp Arifjan and will go after them in time.

I will be hosting a cache event on May 1, to celebrate the birthday of Geocaching.

Tale of a Flight

2010-02-26T12:50:00.002-06:00

Finally arrived in Kuwait this week after being on training hold and later medical hold at Ft. Bliss. Last Friday I was informed there would be a flight leaving Ft. Bliss on Monday; my information was taken for the manifest. Packed most everything and was ready when I received the call at 11 am on Monday to have my bags in the parking lot to be transported to get my weapon and proceed to the airport at Ft . Bliss. I was informed that I would be a tag along with units.

In my military career I have found that flying on chartered aircraft brings or awaiting a flight can bring about some drama. In 1991 our job completed in Saudi Arabia, our company was split with half going home, leaving the unmarried, higher NCO's and officers back; there dealing day to day of how we would get home. In 1998, trying to leave Equador our flight was delayed a day and stayed the night in an Equadarn Army base. In 2003, our flight to retrive my company in Kuwait was delayed by weather on the US eastcoast. With no real place to sleep, some of us stayed up all night and I had the opportunity to try out a Cuban cigar.

These time around the plane was not able to take off due to ice on the wings. Cold fuel was added to the plane and it was unusually cold in El Paso, TX and I slept on the floor of the airport terminal. Next morning the flight took off without any trouble and proceeded to Hahn, Germany. Landing in Germany, I added this country to my European list that already included: Belguim, Italy and Ireland. While in Germany in the terminal, I purchased an hour of internet for 8 Euros. Money well spent since I was able to use Skype to call someone in my section to gather last minute information of what zone and building number and also alert the company that I was on the way.

With 22 years of experience in the military and making my 3rd overseas deployment I had the odd feeling that some would go wrong (a Charlie Foxtrot was in the making). We arrived at Kuwait City International Airport and the escorts for the buses informed me that we would all go to Camp Arifjan. I got some sense of relief and boarded the bus after dealing with the baggage. Got in a short nap and awoke looking around and the location was no longer familiar. I pulled out my GPS and saw that Ali Al Salem Airbase . I had downloaded a pocket quarry of all the geocaches in Kuwait and knew I was heading the opposite direction of Arifjan. Like I told my 1st SGT later, can't fool a geocacher. We went to the airbase to check in and there I was informed I was on my own and to get on the 1830 bus to Arifjan. I did not have time to find a wi-fi and make another attempt to call anyone in my company. Arrived at Arifjan bus terminal and it was just a set of benches. Met other service members and they asked if I knew my way around. I told them that may last visit to Arifjan, most of the roads were not paved and building were underconstruction, that was 2003! They pointed the way to another bus that moves about from zone to zone. My feeling continued to sink due that I was hauling over 300 pounds of gear that included body armor and a rifle. Leaving any of my bags unattended was out of the question. Arrived at my zone (Zone 6) and thankfully there were two soldiers on the bus who recognized my patch and knew where my company was located and helped me get to my baracks. I entered the building to the surprise of everyone that I made it from Ali Al Salem totally on my own.

Continue to stay behind at Ft. Bliss

2010-02-10T14:19:00.004-06:00

My company, the 1171st Transportation Co. has been in Kuwait for about three going on four weeks. The purpose that two parts clerks and myself staying behind was to attend a convoy live fire training. Attended the training which was more less a waste of time and not realistic to current Iraq. I was given live rounds, but didn't chamber a round or fire my weapon. Unlike in 2003, where I kept my rifle pointed out the window, current up-armor does not permit this since I am protected by armor and the gunner takes out the target. I felt the training was a joke since we kept driving through the hostile area, which is fine, if we were military police or infantry. But being transportation, the gun truck role is to engage the enemy and keep engaging until the convoy passes. I was the truck commander since I am a Staff SGT, one of the parts clerk was a driver and our gunner was a Texas Army National Guard infantryman, at least his training was realistic.

Since I had been at Ft. Bliss for nearly two months, I was required to go through SRP (Soldier Readiness Program); it was discovered that my hearing loss in both ears was not equal. This hearing test occurred last August. I visited an audiologist and concluded the findings and sent back to SRP. From there, I had to visit a medical case worker and informed that I may not go to Kuwait this weekend. The case worker and other medical staff are concerned my hearing loss could be a medical problem, possible tumor. I am guessing the problem is from constant ear infections in the left ear. I guess we will see after the MRI and seeing the Ear/Nose and Throat specialist.

I will again watch my friends board a bus for the airport and will be left behind. This is really bothering me. In 1990, preparing for Desert Shield/Storm, I saw about 10% of the company stay behind for various reasons. I held much resentment after I returned home in May of 1991 and saw the held-backs still in the Guard. I have always felt that if one can not deploy, it's time to leave the Guard. Saw some of the same again in 2003 but not the same amount as 1991.

This time, it's me that held back and feel I have let my friends down. Prior to deployment, worked on three of my known medical problems: back, knee and feet. I also lost 15 to 20 pounds to make myself more physically fit and now a hearing problem!

Will continue to post updates.

EDIT: Feb. 18, 2010

Have been cleared by the Ears/Nose/Throat Specialist and will rejoin my company in Kuwait in the coming days.

Christmas Leave

2010-01-17T10:24:00.002-06:00

When I was called in late November that the 1171st would officially be on active duty on December 1; was informed that Christmas leave would be from December 23 to January 1. Being I didn't have the money for a plane ticket, I first thought about using the leave to visit relatives in Lubbock, Texas. However, a charter bus was worked out and took the bus home for Christmas. 23 miserable hours were endured on the crowded bus that had air conditioning problems. I did manage to grab a couple of caches in Texas to add that state to my geo-profile. At one cache I did introduce a young soldiers to my sport. The cache was a simple park and grab skirtlifter.

Arriving home I did spend a lot of time with my family attending Christmas service at the Methodist Church in Dresden. Completed some geocaching and returned to the Land Between the Lakes hiking to Fence Line and working the hard terrain at Panther Creek Spring. Also picked up a cool location cache Standing Rock Bridge.

On New Year's Day, I once again said goodbye to my family boarded the bus for another 23 hour trip.

Staying behind at Bliss

2010-01-14T21:06:00.003-06:00

Returning from Christmas leave, I attended a 2-week computer course at Ft. Bliss, TX to become more acquainted with the SAMS-E computer which has everything to do with dispatch, equipment, work orders and parts. A school I have been seeking for over two years.

Return to the 1171st Transportation Co. at Camp McGregor, was informed that I will be return to Ft. Bliss with about 16 other soldiers to make up training that was missed.

On a positive note, during the trip back to Camp McGregor, I introduced two soldiers to the sport of geocaching and the cache Along the State Line was the most interesting where we took time to take pictures.

IED training

2009-12-18T19:28:00.002-06:00

My unit, the 1171st Transportation Co. arrived at Ft. Bliss, TX and after in processing we moved to Camp McGregor (apart of Ft. Bliss, but just across the border in New Mexico). Being that most of unit completed mobilization training in Tennessee there has not been a lot to do until this past week. Beginning on Tuesday the entire company participated in IED training that lasted 3 long days. We had classroom training in the morning and then moved out to the range for field training. All the time wearing the new helmet, body armor that includes plates designed to stop 7.62mm rounds and our individual weapon. We learned the types of IED's to include command and victim detonated types of IED's. Those include radio controlled, cell phone, infrared and pressure plate. We saw the indicators of IED's to look for something different and trails "ant hills" that hide the command wires. Also, we learned the types of electronic countermeasures to defeat the remote controlled IED devices.

The third day was the day of our battle drills which was broke apart into dismounted and mounted. Being that my squad leader was sick in quarters I took over the squad and during the dismounted section, I was the troop leader. This was a challenge for me in that I have not been in charge of that many people (19 total) and didn't have a lot of infantry experience. We used the wedge formation, which included point people to scout for IED's and other trouble and a stagger-two formation in the rear for support. I was fortunate to have outstanding people in the point where most of the IED's and UXO (unexploded ordnance) were found. We did run into trouble with a sniper and the observer-controller intended to take me out, but I stayed low to the ground low crawling to the radio. It was a learning experience and we got a "GO". In games such as Medal of Honor, I and my squad get killed more often than complete the missions.

The second part of the course was the mounted version where we drove gun trucks on a presence patrol. I played the part of the (TC) Truck Commander of an individual Humvee, thankfully not the convoy commander. My truck was the third of eight. My job was to man the radio relay messages to the gunner and passengers that would dismount. We did succeed in our mission, the lead truck had an experienced TC who served in the Fallujah and Ramadi areas during the height of the Iraq War. The TC and gunner spotted all the IED's before they drove up on them.

Back on active duty

2009-12-05T16:17:00.002-06:00

On December 1, my National Guard company, the 1171st Transportation was placed on active duty in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The first three days were spent at the armory in Dresden, TN working on packing several items. On the 4th we flew to Fort Bliss which is near El Paso, Texas. Prior to leaving Tennessee, we were provided an escort by the local and state police and the Patriot Guard.

We arrived to see snow capped mountians and some snow on the ground. Training will intensify in the coming days.

On vacation

2009-11-27T20:07:00.002-06:00

Since my return from Annual Training with the National Guard, I remained on vacation from DCS since there was little I could do in the department with 8 working days and my caseload needed to be transferred prior to going on active duty on December 1.

Been spending time with family with a great Thanksgiving, putting up the Christmas decorations and geocaching. Since the end of Annual Training I have amassed 77 finds to include 35 in one day with pscenn on a run through Arkansas and returning home on Hwy 51. Day was very long leaving home at 5:30 am and returning after 7 pm and accused of being online as Moderator 4 on the GOWT forums on that day. Moderator 4 is someone other than Titansfan.

At the end of 2008, I decided not to have any major geocaching goals for 2009 since deployment to Iraq was upcoming. Dates were pushed back and I was not selected to go on 10% in June, thus giving me more time for caching. But, I did have many home projects I wanted completed and all those were accomplished. Prior to Annual Training I picked up my pace with a far reaching goal of hitting number 2,500 by December 1. That goal will not be reached but I have had fun regardless.

My first run was through Union City and to Tiptonville, sweeping all of Lake and Obion Counties. My next run began in Murray, KY and went into the Land Between the Lakes. I really wanted a cache run in the LBL since it's one of my favorite places since it's remote and forest. Will miss the forest and see a lot of desert in Texas, New Mexico and Kuwait soon. My favorite find of that day was Geocache by Imperitus which is maintained by GEO.JOE. It's one of the oldest geocaches in Kentucky. I pretty much stuck to staying on the Trace in the LBL since I am in need of new back tires for my Dakota.

The next run was for numbers through Dyersburg to Alamo. Best cache of that day was Cemetery Walk by Bashful. Chores at home kept me close for the next days but did manage to find the new caches on the Brian Brown Greenway in Martin; a greenway that had just opened to the public. I have made three trips on the greenway, two for caching. On the last trip, I took my daughter minnie mouse and she rode her bike about 2.5 miles.

A numbers run was made with pscenn and cached around Blythville to Marion, Arkansas. We crossed the Tennessee River at Memphis, delivered Girl Scout peanuts to a fellow Guard member and proceeded up Highway 51. The most fascinating find was Three Monkey's #3 - The Stacks. This place was weird and odd, being it was once a foundry where the high smoke stacks are still intact. How this cache never made my radar I can't figure out but I am glad to have found this cache and see pscenn's attempt to hurdle a gate.

What's Shaking? Series

2009-11-17T19:47:00.003-06:00

A cache series called What's Shaking? has caught my interest. The first cache I found of series was in Memphis near the armory of the 1174th Transportation Company at Holmes Road. I have discovered after finding four caches of the eight, the caches are extremely easy to find, however, the cache owner is the Central U.S. Earthquake Consortium and the geocaches are there to education people of the earthquake danger presented by the New Madrid Fault. Reading some of the logs, the cache pages are brought along awareness.

Thus far, I have found four of the eight. Memphis, Hickman, KY, Metropolis, IL, and most recent at Reelfoot Lake in Tennessee. Metropolis was the most interesting, the cache being on the courthouse lawn and within sight of the Superman statue. I found that cache on a busy Labor Day weekend and not being seen by many muggles in the area. The cache at Reelfoot is located at the Discovery Museum one of my favorite places to visit.

Other locations and I have yet to visit are: New Madrid, MO, Tunica, MS, Blytheville, AR and New Harmony, IN

Edit: I found the What's Shaking cache in Blytheville, AR on 11/24/09.

Preparation for next deployment

2009-10-05T19:43:00.002-05:00

Currently, my Tennessee Army National Guard unit, the 1171st Transportation Co. is preparing for another deployment to Iraq. This will make my third combat deployment in my 22 year military career. Unlike the other two deployments, we have known of the mobilization for several months and there has been time to prepare.

I completed many of the yard/home projects in the past few months and still have a couple left to do such as cleaning out the gutters. I also want to cut down a dead tree, but I fear my lack of professional experience with a chainsaw, the tree won't go down were I want it and do more harm than good.

Also have completed much of what I wanted at my civilian job (DCS) with my caseload down, touching up files and letting clients know of my military status.

Some of my preparation as been in what will keep my busy while deployed. In the 1991 deployment, I brought along a few books and a Walkman. Read the books the Walkman, a device that I owned since high school didn't to the end, sand took it's toll on the cassette player. During that deployment we moved often and the best of accommodations was having plywood floors in the tent and electric lights. As for communicating home, there were several phone centers. The toughest part was relying on a compass to find the company area in blackout drive.

My second deployment in 2003, I did purchase a portable DVD player and already owned a Garmin GPS receiver and felt the GPS would help in navigation to and from the phone centers. However, during the 2003 deployment the phone centers were not as numerous. We did have a digital telephone in the TOC, a phone that I despised even though I was the communications person for the company. Placing a call to the United States was a painstaking ordeal of calling an operator in Europe to connect one to a center in the US and then use the AT&T phone card. Thus my phone calls home rare. But, we did have one computer in the company that was hooked to the Internet and I was able to email home just about everyday. When I found myself in Kuwait (Arifjan, Udari and Victory), there were pay-as-you-go Cyberzone computer centers where I was able to email and begin to use MSN Messenger with the web cam to communicate. Some people used pre-paid cellphones while in Kuwait. Later a cell tower was built at Cedar II, using cell phones did not come cheap.

This deployment I feel I am better prepared. Will be taking my laptop where I have installed Skype. I elected to purchase my own phone number where I can make and receive calls once I have an internet connection. Have also begin using Facebook, which may be my primary communication and using email for private use. I do plan to upgrade my outdated MP3 player to something a little more modern. I do like the iPod Touch, but with the unlikely event that Wi-Fi's being available at the base, it's took expensive in my opinion just to store song. A 19" HD TV at Wal-Mart with a built in DVD player has caught my eye, but I might wait until I arrive in Iraq and visit the PX and yard sale.

Visit to Nashville

2009-09-15T16:03:00.002-05:00

When the Titans moved to Tennessee, it will suited me since I have been a Houston Oilers fan since the 1970's. I have managed to see a few games from time to time. On September 10, my sister-in-law called me and asked if I wanted tickets for the Titans-Packers preseason game which was that night. I told her yes and made arrangements to pick up the tickets.

Unable to find anyone who wanted to make the trip on such short notice and during the work week, but when I got home I showed my daughter, Kailee the tickets and she got ready quickly for the 2 1/2 hour trip to Nashville.

Since I had taken up geocaching, I have rarely not made an effort to select some caches to go after. On game day I had no time and really didn't want to fool around carrying a $500 GPS to the football game and explain to security why it's in my possession. We parked on 3rd Avenue and began walking towards the stadium. Showed Kailee some of the tourist sights along 2nd Avenue to include the Hard Rock Cafe. We walked to the river and turned towards bridge that would take use across the Cumberland River and ran across Fort Nashborough, a replica of the first fort in Nashville to guard against Indian attack. I knew of the Battle of the Bluff virtual but didn't have the cache information. I took mental notes of everything and looked around the fort. I had visited this fort during a high school trip to Nashville. The following day, I looked at the cache page and had the information required to log the find.

Was a good day, logged a find, increased my cache to cache miles and saw the Titans defeat the Packers.

My Glob grows

2009-09-07T18:44:00.002-05:00

My recent cache run into Missouri during the Labor Day weekend netted another county, Dunklin to my overall glob of 116 counties. A glob is where I have found geocaches and colored in the county using the itsnotaboutthenumbers stat website. With Dunklin County, I have colored in the boot heel of Missouri and made my first visit to that county.

Thunderbolt of the Confederacy

2009-09-01T18:29:00.003-05:00

I have been an avid Civil War buff since grade school and have studied the stories, tactics and movements of such leaders as: Generals Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, William Sherman and most notably Nathan Bedford Forrest. Gen. Forrest caught my attention since his forces operated near my hometown in 1862 and 1864. Of late, my geocaching has taken me to another charismatic leader, Confederate General John Hunt Morgan. In 2007 while attending a NCO school at Ft. Knox, KY a beginning geocacher went with me and we found two caches on the north side of the Ohio River in Indiana. The caches were in reference to where Gen. Morgan crossed the Ohio River on a long raid of Kentucky, Indiana and captured in Ohio. At the time there were 24 caches on this 1,000 mile raid. We found Morgan's Raid Part 01 of 24 and Morgan Raid Part 02 of 24. I didn't realize until we were reading the markers that we were at a location of such historical significance.

Working more on the Tennessee County Challenge I have run across more geocaches in reference to the "Thunderbolt of the Confederacy". The most interesting was Battle of Hartville Remembered where Confederate force outnumbered but with the element of surprise defeated a Union unit. A neat monument (pictured above) is located in the cemetery along with Confederate dead from the battle. Also found December 7, 1862 a geocache that took me onto the battlefield.

Later in the Nashville area, I stopped to visit a friend of mine in Gallatin, TN whom retired from the National Guard. I had time to kill and had to be at the airport in Nashville at midnight to pick up my daughter who visited the Grand Canyon. We went geocaching in his home town and we found A Circle with Corners. I marveled at the sight in the cemetery, a Confederate garden and when I saw the units the men were assigned too, I commented to my friend, "These were Morgan's men".

I hope that I work more on the Tennessee County Challenge I run across interesting locations as ones I just described.

SRP

2009-08-17T21:12:00.002-05:00

With deployment to Iraq not being too far away (dates will be withheld for obvious security reasons), my company the 1171st Transportation completed the state SRP (Soldier Readiness Program). I completed a pre-SRP in April and wasn't really thrilled to endure another ordeal. Being that our company strength is at about 200 personnel; that makes for a lot of people going through the many stations. The company has grown in strength recently with many command directed people, with many of them young privates.

Being this is my 3rd combat deployment, I am finding SRP to be more difficult each time. More family information is needed, not like it was in 1990 when I was single. Required information is for the files, finance and life insurance. One aspect that is making it more difficult is medical. I am 42 today, while in 1990, I was 23 years old with no medical problems and weighing around 135 pounds. Currently, my weight hovers around 185, a no-running profile for a knee problem, back pain from a wreck in 2002. Fallen arches on my feet are no benefit either. The medics did point out that I need to get my cholesterol down or I am a heart attack waiting to happen.

I managed to complete SRP in one day, knocking out the quick stations and taking advantage of long stations when lines were shorter. Another advantage is that not being a smoker, I don't need the smoke breaks.

First Phase Pre-Deployment Training 2009

2009-08-04T18:06:00.002-05:00

The training that has been conducted for deployment to Iraq is much different than what occurred in 1990/1991 for me in preparation for Operation Desert Shield/Storm and in 2003 for Operation Iraqi Freedom. In 1990 and later in 2003, I received a call to report to the armory and within a few days, we ended up at Ft. Campbell to train for several weeks. For Desert Storm, training took place from November 1990 to January 1991 and later in 2003, we trained from January into April. This time, much of our training is being conducted closer to home either at the Armory (Dresden or Tiptonville) and at the Milan Training Center.

Three weeks of training was recently completed where a number of tasks were performed and tested during battle drills during the last week. Generally, the tasks were centered around infantry skills to include 3 & 5 second rushes, urban warfare, dismounted operations and some mounted operations. Tactics were practiced to deal with direct and indirect artillery fire, ambush, suicide bombers and IED's. There were also classes on combat lifesavor, dealing with chemical/nuclear/radiation/biological threats.

The training did take a toll on me and was difficult. In 1991, I was 22 years old, 36 years old in 2003 and now running around in a field with body armor at age 42 is not as fun as it once was. I do keep in mind that I am at the same age as Elvis Presley when he passed away.

I did attempt to make light of the situation when I could, in that after watching the movie American Pie, I would refer to Guard Camp at "Band Camp".

Being older than many in my unit, I was fortunate to pick a bay in the barracks that was much quieter than the others and some in the bay called our bay 'the ranch', in which I re-dubbed the term and called it the Mustang Ranch; again to make light of the situation.

Fall Creek Falls State Park

2009-07-10T15:35:00.002-05:00

Working in the Juvenile Justice field of DCS, I have the opportunity to attend a few Juvenile Justice Retreats. Two of those retreats were held at Fall Creek Falls State Park located in East Tennessee and regard this park to be one of my favorites. On my two trips I did manage to conduct some geocaching after seminars. My first trip I was unable to find a 4-star terrain cache due to the poor reception of my Garmin Legend. I did manage to find the virtual Smoke Signals. The memory I have of that visit was dealing with a score of dogs at the bottom of the fire tower and climbing to the top of the tower with the wind whipping around.

My second trip to the park, again I attended seminars and the classes lasted much longer in the day and prevented me from venturing far from the park. During lunch, I transported two other DCS workers to the Fall Creek Falls Earthcache and viewed the waterfall. I obtained information for the earthcache and took a photo.

There was one cache about a quarter mile from the inn called Yogi Bear & Boo Boo's Stash Cache along a walking trail around the lake. While the GPS noted the cache was well under a 1/2 mile, the walk was much longer and due to long classes, I hunted this cache at night. I found the cache with aid of a flashlight and returned after reseting the odometer on the GPS. I returned with a Red Jeep Travel Bug that I showed to some DCS workers interested in the GPS game. One worker was particularly interested and wanted to go find the cache. Since I check the distance the night before, I told the worker that the walk would be .75 of a mile. I had known this worker since the days I transported students to the Memphis Group Home and used to be in the Marine Corps and US Army as an Armored Cavalry Scout. We left the starting pointed and walked around the lake. There was no moon and not much light at all. We chatted much of the way and when I realized we were getting close to the place we would leave the paved trail, he abruptly stopped and said "we are here". I asked what his GPS told him, he replied he was unable to see the GPS due to the night conditions and but knew that we walked exactly .75 of a mile. I checked my GPS and he was correct. We found the cache and headed back to the inn. Being that he was a Scout in the Armored Cavalry, he knew how to tell distance without the aid of electronics and counting steps. I did find that amazing.

Ghost River

2009-07-06T14:52:00.002-05:00

Last year I was determined to take geocaching to the next level and work on caches that require special equipment. I tried out an inflatable kayak and succeeded finding once cache with the craft but was not overly impressed with the craft thought about a different approach. This year using gift cards, military discount and tax return, I purchased a 9-foot plastic kayak from Gander Mountain in Jackson, TN. The kayak had it's maiden voyage at Garrett Lake in Weakley County, TN and used it for caching at Lake Graham in Jackson, TN and Kentucky Lake. I had planned to attend the Ghost River Geocaching event on May 2 of this year but was cancelled due to severe weather. The Ghost River is a trail on the Wolf River.

Chimps8mybaby took the bull by the horns and set up a Ghost River cache run. He selected July 3rd to be the date. I set aside that date on the calender. The day prior, pcsenn and I were talking about caching and told him of the Ghost River trip. After some planning, he called me back and finalized transportation plans and that he would share a canoe with Kailuasquid. Pcsenn and I met at McDonald's in Martin, TN just after 5 am and headed towards La Grange, TN to be at the boat ramp at 8 am. We arrived on time and were also joined by chimpsm8.

We put our boats in the water at about 8:45 am and headed west, down stream. Initially, the river calm and no major issues. We paddled a long team on the river admiring the view and getting more experience with my kayak. Chimps8mybaby is far more experienced on the kayak and gave me some pointers. The first cache, Nerodia Sipedon was over 3 miles from the starting location and took some time to get there and would prove to be the most difficult. Having topo maps on my Garmin 60csx and waypoints for channel entrances didn't seem to help. We were unable to find the correct channel to this cache and ended up parking the boats about 360 feet away. The just over 100 yards of overland travel was very difficult dealing with cypress stumps, mud knee high and a lot of water. After much effort and determination, Kailuasquid found an easier route and we waded through swamp water nearly waist high and mud to find the cache.

We moved on along the trail onto Tiger Celebrates and found it with no trouble. At this point, we gathered the boats together for a food and water break. I am thankful we took a break. Chimps8mybaby informed us the trail was going to get rough and will get the feeling of a pinball. We went on downstream and found the Ghost River trail and thought "What have I got myself into?". The entrance was just enough to get a canoe through and we went through a maze of Cypress tress and we constantly banged the trees and limbs. All the time I kept a look out for the water moccasin. We banged around and finally got out into a little more open water and found Legend of Ghost River Howler. I had been in the middle of the pack and saw the canoe with pcsenn and Kailuasquid move away from the cache and appeared to look of the correct channel. Seeing on my GPS the cache was less than 300 feet away, I took a bee-line towards the cache and found it. While signing the log, the rest of the armada showed up.

This being our last cache, I slowed my pace and paddled onto the end of the trail where we gathered to talk about the trip. This has been one of the best adventures I have had geocaching.

Nat's Knob

2009-06-19T21:12:00.002-05:00

On Novemeber 11, 2005, I was off from work and cleared the geocaches in Benton County. My favorite was Nat's Knob which is located in Nathan Bedford Forrest State Park located on the west bank of the Tennessee River. The park is named for the famous Confederate Cavalry general and the Battle of Johnsonville. I consider this cache one of the better caches in West Tennessee and it's low number of finds, one of the forgotten.

I had visited the park many years ago while in the Boy Scouts and hiked the trails. My best recollection was hiking a few miles before my trip to Philmont Boy Scout Ranch in New Mexico. I visited the park again when I covered the county for Department of Children's Services.

Parking at the bottom of the hill, I hiked up to the cache, passing the sign, "Highest Point in West Tennessee" and found the cache. Later, I went to the museum to rest and drink some water. It was November, but a somewhat warm day. The staff noticed my hiking gear and we got into the discussion of geocaching, where I left them a printout of the cache page.

Wingo Trail

2009-06-01T19:51:00.002-05:00

When I first began geocaching in 2005, there were only a handful of geocaches around and debated if I wanted to continue the game. I found a cache that interested and that was The Cardinal Trail which was at an end of a 1.5 mile rails to trails in Wingo, Kentucky. On April 15, 2005, I loaded the truck with my girl's bicycles and along with my two daughters, we hiked the paved trail. On the way, we had second thoughts about pursuing the cache since we encountered teenagers returning from the creek soaking wet with odd conversations. We ignored them and went on about our business besides, this was minnie mouse's first long bike ride and she was enjoying the early afternoon bike ride. We found the cache and stayed a bit at the end of the trail observing the surroundings.

Later that cache became disabled and later archived. After being archived, I wasted little time and returned to the Wingo Trail and set out a power-trail of cache to include Cardinal Trail-Revisited. The trail has seen a lot of activity since placing the caches. Other caches have also been placed on the trail. I returned on New Year's Day of 2009 to find the new caches, Field Trip, The Lighthouse, Butterfly Ridge, Are you serious....A Nano in the woods???? and Gazebo on the Wingo Rails to Trails II . It does appear that Influence Waterfowl Calls is having the same problem with the Gazebo cache being muggled as I did with mine. I did hope he would have better luck than I.

This past Sunday, I visited the trail once again to work on cache maintenance and saw the trail was cleaned up after the massive ice storm.

GeoWoodstock 7: Bell Buckle, TN

2009-05-27T15:51:00.002-05:00

Recently attended GeoWoodstock 7 in Bell Buckle, TN and the experience was far different than any event I have attended. The weekend began with a Meet & Greet in Mufreesboro. Well over 500 cachers were in attendance and I enjoyed the fellowship and put faces to names, including a couple from St. Louis, MO who made a pass through my area a couple of years back. After the event, we retired to dinner at Cracker Barrell and the motel.

The next morning I was excited to be going to my first GeoWoodstock. The pattern of the day would be set early with the first cache find just outside the motel when a cacher from Arizona hunted the cache with us. Later, when we got off the exit for Bell Buckle, we stopped at Road to GeoWoodstock 7, a large amount of people were at the cache and no need to hunt the cache since we we walked up, the log was being passed around. We arrived at Bell Buckle to find small quiet Middle Tennessee town coming alive with outsiders carrying handheld Global Positioning Receivers. Unlike muggle events where directions are printed out, we had coordinates to destinations. We found the town center and attended the opening ceremony with First Lady of Bell Buckle thanking geocachers for their attendance. We walked around the numerous vendors and ended up buying many products to include nifty cache containers. The vendor plaza gave me an opportunity to release several wheresgeorge bills and have had hits in Delaware and Halifax, Nova Scotia in Canada.

We spoke to many more cachers over the day including many cachers from West Tennessee and West Kentucky, whom I knew beforehand. The music was nice and lunch was great. From what I have observed from Internet sources approximately 5,000 cachers from 32 countries were in attendance.

All the geocaches in the surrounding area were also found. We walked up on Louisville & Nashville 3492 cache log being passed around. I did find my first Whereigo cache seeing others retrieve the cache and didn't have it on my Garmin. Would not have mattered anyway, since I need a Garmin Colorado or Oregon GPS to find a Whereigo cache. Later, I walked up the hill to Hazel Cemetery to find a church group from Tullahoma touring the cemetery. I noticed they were at a marker for a US sailor killed in action in the Battle of Midway while serving on the USS Yorktown. Knowing that my regional adminstrator's father served on the aircraft carrier and fought in the battle, I took a picture of the marker for the sailor. Several of the muggle crowd asked about the GeoWoodstock and geocaching. I explained the game and showed them my GPS. Walked onto the cache location to meet a cachers from Long Beach, California. Another cache where the log was being passed around. We talked a bit while walking back to town.

Later in the afternoon, we decided to leave Bell Buckle and travelled to Wartrace, TN. We looked at the town and hunted some of the caches. Locals from the town also asked us about the traffic and all the out of state license plates. We explained the game and what was going on in Bell Buckle. We found the caches with a group of cachers from Utah. We drove onto to Mufreesboro and continued caching. Again, we ran into more cachers, this time from Hawaii and West Virginia. Our caching ended for the day at Midnight Coin Madness Event which was just a quarter mile from our motel. We are not much into the geocoins, but I did enjoy the fellowship.

We left Mufreesboro the following day picking up two park and grabs and headed home.

They Checked Out

2009-05-11T11:39:00.002-05:00

My daughter signed up for a job shadow at Wickliffe Mounds State Historical Park in Kentucky and would work there all day. Being that Wickliffe is over an hour from Dresden, TN; I thought it would be best to just take the day off and geocache the Paducah area.

There was one cache I set my sights on and that being They Checked Out. Since it's placement on July 19, 2007, I have wanted to find this cache and see this historic hotel. I would not be disappointed when I arrived at the cache location in Smithland, Kentucky. The hotel has been around since the last 1700's and two US Presidents and other dignitaries visited the hotel that is situated overlooking the Ohio River.

Coordinates were tight and I found the cache quickly. I took some photos of the building, the overlook and historical markers. Afterwards, I went back to Paducah finding several caches downtown and then onto Wickliffe.

Garmin Nuvi vs. laptop

2009-05-05T07:41:00.002-05:00

I have been using a Dell laptop with Garmin GPS 18 to navigate on the job and for geocaching purposes. It has everything the Nuvi has but also I have the benefit of a wide screen. Set at one mile, I can see 2.5 miles in front of me and 6 miles to either side. This wide screen gives me a distinct advantage while geocaching. The disadvantages if the laptop is bulky with wire running all over the floor and dash. My Dodge Dakota has an area to place the laptop, my wife Nissan has no such room. Unless one is used to using the nRoute feature, it's difficult to train someone while on the road.

Last Christmas, I gave my wife a Garmin Nuvi and it is very simple to use and I am able to send GPX files to the Nuvi; giving me a map and autoroute capability for geocaching. On our vacation that took us through Georgia, Florida, South Carolina and North Carolina, we used the Nuvi and never set up the laptop for navigation. It's compact size and only one wire was great. It was also very accurate. Driving through Atlanta, Georgia, the Nuvi knew which lane were were in and gave us advance warning to change lanes. However, I did find the Nuvi is not up to the challenge of geocaching. It's map feature is not nearly as detailed at nRoute and the small screen gave me the impression of tunnel vision.

Overall, I do plan to purchase a Nuvi for my own truck and use it for on-the-job purposes and would use it for geocaching in some cases. But for a good cache run, I will go with the laptop.

Vacation 2009

2009-04-23T07:40:00.002-05:00

With my upcoming deployment to Iraq, we decided to go on vacation this year during our girls spring break. We debated the destinations and at first looked at visiting our nieces in Ohio. With spring break being the last week of March and weather being unpredictable, we looked at locations further south. We ended up choosing Orlando, Florida.

First day was to be the most eventful. We wanted to reach Lake City, FL and found out that Mapquest travel time and Garmin Nuvi travel time were not the same. Leaving Dresden at 6:30 am, the Nuvi indicated, we would arrive at 7:30 pm. We made very good time and didn't take many breaks. We took a long break at A Peachy Place a nice geocache at an Interstate Rest stop in Georgia. We moved on through Atlanta and into Macon, Georgia. That is when the rain really came down and only got worse. Finally fed up with the weather we stopped in Valdosta, GA for the night. The next morning, I got up early and grabbed a few Park and Grabs in the area. Did find an ammo can in an urban area, that cache at a Boy Scout office, Timeless Values. Being it was an early Sunday morning, I had the area to myself.

We gathered our items and moved onto Tampa, Florida to visit Busch Gardens. We got in free, since I am military. Anheuser-Busch has free admission for military to include National Guard members at their parks. Military and families can visit one park for free, once a year. We found the virtual cache, Typically Floridian . The cache was at the flamingo location. About dusk, we left the park and headed towards Orlando. Got off the Interstate and I found out that I was going to dislike Orlando. At 9 pm on a Sunday night; traffic was horrid. We would face this dilemma every time we went out and I decided to suspend geocaching in the Orlando area.

Monday morning, we endured a time-share presentation in order to receive discount Disney tickets and went onto Sea World. We found the virtual cache, Seaworld Serpent. We didn't stay long at Sea World. The two long days of driving had taken a toll on us and we went back to the hotel.

Tuesday, we visited the Magic Kingdom. This made my third visit, my wife's second and my girls, their first. The park was packed with tourists but we did pick up the virtual at Cinderalla's Castle .

Wednesday, was probably the best day. We visited EPCOT. Back in 1986, while in the Navy and attending schools at NAS Jacksonville, I visited EPCOT but didn't like it. This time knowing what it was about, I enjoyed it and my girls really enjoyed it. We liked touring the other cultures and trying out food from different countries. Picked up two virtuals in the park, EPCOT and a waterfall in Canada. While in EPCOT, I turned my GPS on and saw I didn't have coordinates for the two virtuals. The one in Canada didn't bother me, all I needed to do was find the waterfall. The other required me to call a geocacher whom was near a computer. I contacted Nashville Joe and he saved the day. That evening, we attended a dinner theater at Capone's. The theater was fun and different from what I have seen before.

Thursday we left Orlando for the final destination of Charleston, South Carolina. I decided to take advantage of our situation and see the only ex-Confederate state that I had not visited. First we stopped in St. Augustine, Florida to see the oldest city in the United States. I had been to the beach in the city back in 1986, but this time, we looked at the history. Very nice city and would like to return someday. We found two virtuals, Cathedral Basilica a church with roots back to the 1600's and Hot Shots a fort, reconstructed in the 1700's but roots back in the late 1500's.

We proceeded up I-95 finding an fruit stand and onto Georgia where we met rain again. The rain would torment us through Georgia and into South Carolina. We continued to find a couple fo rest stop caches but the one I was after was H.L Hunley. The rain was coming down on us in buckets and made travel in the city difficult. We arrived at the cache location only to see the custodian closing up for the evening. We did manage to visit the beach in the rain, that being the highlight of the day.

On Friday, we headed back home to Dresden, a very long drive from Charleston, South Carolina. We picked up some caches in South and North Carolina. As we moved into Tennessee, I became more aggressive in my caching finding caches for the Tennessee County Challenge. I picked up Sevier, Cocke and Jefferson counties.

Lake Graham

2009-04-10T14:50:00.002-05:00

With a vacation upcoming and more weekends devoted to my military obligation, I took the afternoon of March 26th off, with supervisor approval and went after the Lake Graham geocaches with my new kayak. Spend the evening prior finding the best way to secure the kayak on top of my truck. That was a chore, but in the future it will become easier with more experience.

Being that Lake Graham is a TWRA lake, I had already purchased a fishing license, lake permit and took a pole with me. TWRA rules require a license, lake permit and fishing equipment. I began my journey from the boat landing. A few anglers were around putting their boats into the water or coming out of the water. Most ignored my kayak; I did overhear one comment that my kayak was suicidal. I shook my head in their ignorance and proceeded with my mission.

Took off from the boat landing and struggled to gain my steering under the bridge. Overcame the difficulties and made a beeline towards B&G-Bluff's H2O Micro #2. Found the cache with ease. Signing it was more difficult since my kayak wanted to drift away. After replacing the cache, I remembered that I had a rope and next time I need to secure my craft to the stationary object. The next cache ended up with a DNF (Did not find). JTP #3-Paradise Lost , two attempts to find this one were in vain. I paddled to the furthest cache at the north end of the lake. I came in contact with fisherman but other than some looks, they paid me no attention. JTP #4- Paradise Found gave my valuable experience with steering the kayak in tight areas. Found the cache without any trouble. Thankfully, I came to this lake in March. Waiting another month, this end of the lake would be infested with snakes. Next on the list was JTP #2-North Island . I had to circle around this island to find a good place to beach my kayak. Giving me some trouble was a Canadian Goose. The bird was sitting on the island and my have been ill. I choose to keep my distance from the large bird and kept an eye on it too. Found the cache and left the bird undisturbed. The last cache find was JTP #1-South Island found a place to beach the kayak and had to struggle to get out of the boat to get on the island. Searched a while and unable to find the cache, but did find many beer bottles and cans. I figure this island is a drunk fisherman's getaway. Giving up on the cache and preparing to replace the ammo can, I found what I was seeking. Signed the log and paddled back to the boat dock.

All told, the adventure took about 2 or so hours and did manage a speed of 4 mph. The lake has many hidden stumps and I found several of them. This journey was fun and rewarding.

Paintball

2009-03-15T14:47:00.002-05:00

Before I left for Iraq in 2003, I was into the sport of paintball. I got into the game in the summer of 1989, while in the US Navy stationed in Puerto Rico. I played at a field near where I lived in Fajardo and really enjoyed the game. When I returned to the United States and attending college, I took up the game and played in a small field in Gleason, TN. I quickly learned that playing paintball on the college budget and lack of spare time, this hobby would have to wait, even through I purchased a pump rifle. After returning from a combat tour in Saudi Arabia, I played sparingly at a field in Beech Bluff, TN, just outside of Jackson. Didn't play as often as I wanted, spare time and distance were enough to detour me. Thinking it was the end of the game for me, I sold all my gear, it was too expensive and not enough spare time.

After one Christmas, I had several Wal-Mart gift cards. Seeing that the prices of guns, gear and paint had really dropped since the last time I played in the mid-1990's, I bought a semi-automatic Brass Eagle gun. Used the Internet and found two places to play, one in Mercer and another in Humboldt. I started playing again. I played in Mercer several times, and really liked the game of speedball. I took the youth from First Baptist Church of Dresden to the field a few times. Later, I got word that a group played in a backyard field in Martin, TN. Got in contact with the ring leader and I was playing many weekends in Martin. I played up to the point I went on active duty in 2003. I had even upgraded my equipment with a semi-automatic Piranha. Returning from Iraq in 2004, I lost contact with the group in Martin and the field in Mercer closed. My gear gathered dust while I took up the game of geocaching.

Since my return from Iraq, I did get asked my youth on occasion about playing paintball again but the only field I found was in Memphis about 2 hours away. I was informed by a church member that a paintball field opened in Paris, TN. Place is called Adrenaline Paintball.

Yesterday, 26 youth and 2 adults from First Baptist Church of Dresden played at the field and had a great time. The field is most unusual that it is all indoors and simulates urban warfare. I found myself in the 3-dimensional battlefield. Oppose forces were above, side to side, in front and behind. The only aspect of real urban warfare missing was movement through sewers. I had to use a rental gun in that my old Piranha would not fire but enjoyed playing. I refused to play inside the building. During the safety brief and tour, the floor was very slick and I risked being injured if I went into the building.

Today, I debate whether or not to re-enter the paintball game. One of the aspects I enjoy about geocaching, I play when, where, most any weather, daylight or dark, alone or with others, at my choosing.

Maiden voyage of the kayak

2009-03-08T20:05:00.002-05:00

With my next three weekends tied up with church activity, National Guard and vacation, I have been itching to get the kayak out on the water. I had studied this site to learn more about kayaking. Today, the temps were good, first day I have been wearing shorts, but very windy with gusts up to 31 mph. Observing the weather on the Internet, the wind advisory mentioned the wind would die down about 6 pm. I headed out to Garrett Lake, about 25 minutes away about 5 pm. The lake is run by TWRA (Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency) and not meant for pleasure craft. I had my fishing license and a fishing pole to please the game warden. Arrived on the south part of the lake and the wind had changed directions from the southwest to coming in from the northeast. Wind were very gusty and making small white caps. I knew that putting in the water there would not be a good idea.

I drove to the north side of the lake and the woods shielded the wind and put the kayak in the water. I used my new GPS mount to observe my speed. This was my maiden voyage with the Pelican . This is the second time playing around on this type of kayak. Last year, I used an inflatable 2-person kayak. My experience with the inflatable is that I got soaked every time I used it.

This time around, I didn't get wet and didn't touch the water. I spend about 30 minutes of so on the water seeing how fast I could go, which was 3.0 mph. The kayak can turn on the dime and was steady even with the wind kicked up. The above website mentioned never to hand onto the kayak in rough water and it was true. Let the paddle settle the boat down.

Overall, I think it was a good idea to head out today and experience the kayak in a somewhat stressful situation. I have some lessons learned. Such as not using my arms so much, rely more on torso to paddle. Also not to over paddle, this created problems with keeping a good heading. Also need to get my confidence up. Attempted to look behind me and felt the kayak loosing control. Need to overcome this problem for long geocache runs since my water/food/supplies will be in the cargo hatch in the stern.

Geocaching after a Winter Storm

2009-03-01T18:09:00.002-06:00

Last night I watched the winter storm roll into the West Tennessee area and viewing the radar; I saw that Madison and Haywood Counties were being slammed. Facebook posts by -boatman- and EverywhereActs1:8 were verifying what I saw on the radar. After hearing a radio announcement that church was cancelled, which was not true, I decided to ready myself for two 4-star terrain geocaches on wondered how difficult they would be in the deep snow. While researching the geocaches, DHCPA29 posted on Facebook that there was little accumulation of snow in Paris, TN.

With the mission a "GO", I went out and crossed the river at Paris Landing to go after the most difficult, The River is Wide. After crossing the river, I turned south on a gravel road. I had been down this way before, summer before last to scout an area to view the 4th of July fireworks. I parked below the cache and looked up the monster of a hill to climb. Just as DHCPA29 reported on Facebook, there was little snow on the ground. I took off after the cache stopping about every 40 feet to catch my breath. Elevation change was just over 150 feet and was very steep. I climbed to the top of the ridge, again for a breather. Looked at my GPS'r and saw I was within 10 feet. Looked to my left and there it was; the ammo can covered in leaves. Signed the log and headed down the hill. My left knee began to give me some problems, thinking I need to take more Glucosamine, but made to the bottom and onto the next geocache.

Next geocache was Lost Creek Cache V2.0. There was a cache on the ridge a long time ago, I found it during my first LBL cache run in October 2005. My military training has benefited me to read a topographical map and I knew where to park to make this cache easy. I parked onto of the ridge line and strolled the .20 mile to the cache. It was a nice and relaxing walking in the woods and enjoyed finding this cache as much as finding the first Lost Creek cache.

I'm ready for Spring!

2009-02-23T16:00:00.003-06:00

During the 2008 Geocaching year, I changed my tactic somewhat doing after more difficult terrain caches including caches requiring a watercraft of some type. I purchased a inflatable kayak and did find a cache using the two-person boat. However, I found the kayak is not designed for what I really want; in that I want the caches on Lake Graham, Wolf River and Cumberland River. Last year I missed the Ghost River event due to schedule problems and lack of a boat. The Cumberland River event fit my schedule but didn't want to arrive needing a ride (or float). A recent visit to Gander Mountain in Jackson, TN; I found exactly a kayak that will suit me. It's a one person, Pelican Pursuit 100. I had a few gift cards and the 10% military discount aided me greatly.

Now, I look forward to a warm Saturday and go after the Lake Graham caches. Also on my radar screen are the two 5-star terrain caches on Lake Barkley.

Great Chase

2009-02-16T18:38:00.003-06:00

Had a trip to Chattanooga this weekend and while researching the geocaches in the city, I thought that finding the virtual geocache The Great Chase #3, would be the most interesting. I would not be disappointed. The geocache is in reference to the Great Locomotive Chase a daring raid to cut Confederate communications between Atlanta and Chattanooga. The virtual is placed within the Chattanooga National Cemetery. Upon reaching the posted coordinates I saw that some of the Union men were buried near the monument and after later research, couple of the soldiers were the first recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor. All the men, that included two civilians whom are buried near the monument were executed by the Confederate government as spies, since none were wearing uniforms.

Columbus-Belmont State Park

2009-02-13T18:40:00.003-06:00

As a teenager, I visited Columbus-Belmont State Park but didn't really grasp the history at the time. When I took up geocaching in 2005, I wondered if my geocaching adventure will take me to the park again. The Columbus Bluff Earthcache was established and on October 25, 2008, I took my girls to the park before winter set in to see the park and do the earthcache. We had a great time that day and didn't find many caches. My girls took advantage of seeing the bluffs and I explained how the position was good for defensive warfare and why Gen. Grant chose an easier target of Fort Henry on the Tennessee River. Thus with the later capture of Fort Donelson, the position at Columbus has to be abandoned by Confederate forces. We toured the little museum and took a picture with a Confederate Battleflag over looking the Mississippi River. The earthcache was my youngest daughter's 300th geocache find. We spend the reminder of the day, watching my youngest daughter playing.

Now that my blog is reaching a far larger audience with it imported to Facebook, some my notice some geocaching pictures using the CSA battleflag. My personal opinion, the flag does not represent hate or oppression but a symbol of southern heritage. I am a member of the Camp 323 Col. Jeffery Forrest Camp Sons of Confederate Veterans and we are proud of my ancestor, Pvt. John Hudson Goodwyn's service to the Confederate Army.

The Charge

2009-02-03T07:39:00.002-06:00

When I developed this blog I didn't have the intentions of writing about my own geocaches. However, in the last couple of months I have become very involved in facebook and found out very recently that I can import my blog notes onto my facebook profile and see that many non-geocachers from my home county are also reading my notes.

On a trip to western Kentucky, I passed through Dukedom, Tennessee and noticed the roadside structure had been rebuilt. I stopped to few the remodeled job and took some pictures and also jotted down contact information. I have wanted to place a geocache here to link Mayfield and Dresden and most of all due to its interesting location. I called one of the phone numbers that I found and spoke to the commander of the Sons of Confederate Veterans camp of Mayfield. I told the commander that I am also a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans Camp 323 (Col. Jeffery Forrest) in Dresden. We spoke about geocaching and that having a geocache at the building will draw visitors. The commander gave me the go-ahead and I immediatly set out for Dukedom to place the geocache.

The geocache (The Charge) is placed and been found by two geocachers. I don't figure to get a lot of hits due to the remote location, but anticipate when western Kentucky digs out of the recent ice storm, the Kentucky geocachers will descend upon it.

Camp Udari, Kuwait

2009-01-30T20:18:00.002-06:00

In the Fall of 2003, orders were going out that our company 1174th Transportation and other companies within Camp Cedar II were being relieved by civilian truck drivers from KBR. However, all the companies were required to go through the marksmanship training offered by retired special forces soldiers and we found the training to be very different than what we were used to at a weapon's range.

We spent the first half of the day learning close quarters marksmanship. Previous training involved shooting from a foxhole with targets ranging from 50 to 300 meters. However, our enemies have learned that they can not go toe to toe with American firepower and have evolved their tactics to be close to American forces and negate the use of artillery and air power. The training consisted of shooting at targets within 20 meters, learning to stand, move and shoot on the move. The stance used is similar to a martial arts stance with neither foot ahead of the other. Elbows are in, holding the weapon in closer to the body instead of out. The idea is to be a smaller target to the enemy and if taking an incoming round, the round will hit the frontal body armor and should not be a fatal wound. There is not firing from the hip, the weapon is raised, releasing the safety for aimed and controlled fire. The fire is controlled pairs, also known as double-tap. The training was interesting and an incident where the training was useful will be discussed later in this blog.

The next training was shooting from a truck. Our job in Iraq was to haul fuel from one location to another. However, prior to deployment, we didn't train for engaging an enemy from a moving vehicle. The second half of the first day of training, we simulated being in a convoy and were shooting from a stationary truck. The driver cradled his M-16 and due to Laws of War could only fire in the semi-auto function. Fire was not aimed, fire from the driver's position was for suppression. The passenger could fire from the 3-round burst mode and if using a M-249, the weapon would be used in full-auto mode. Gun truck crew received training to use the M-2 heavy machine gun. The role of a gun truck to go after and engage the enemy with heavy fire, while the freight trucks pass through.

The following day, we actually went on a road march and put the new training into practice shooting pop targets from a moving vehicle. It was interesting to see the .50 caliber machine guns tear up the targets. Training was intense and real, on one occasion I did hear the 'zing' from a passing friendly round.

A few weeks after the training, our unit began redeployment back to the United States and pulled back to Kuwait. Bear in mind, in 2003 the Iraq War was different that what it became. IED's were not as common, insurgents mainly used small arms, RPG's and mortars to attack our convoys.

A couple of months returning home from the war, I would use the tactics learned at Camp Udari. 11:30 pm on a Sunday night, my wife said that someone was in our drive way. Living in a rural area, I figured that they were using the drive way to turn around. I watched the car came up the drive way and shutting off the headlights. We immediately called 911 and I grabbed a semi-automatic rifle and went outside to greet my uninvited guests. I have the opinion that a visitor coming by my house that late at night is someone in trouble, or someone looking for trouble. I stood in the combat stance with the rifle in a ready position, never aiming the weapon; the people in the car must have seen me and decided it would be best to leave. We gave a description of the car and would hear the police looking for the car on the scanner.

Fallen from the Sky

2009-01-17T22:10:00.002-06:00

Having missed the Walls of Jericho adventure, I debated what I wanted to do today. Not much I could do around the yard, the goat seems to be taking care of the overgrowth in my yard, I wanted to cache somewhere.

I attended the RVG Birthday event completing a couple of micros on the way. While there, I spoke to RVG member who reminded me about Fallen from the Sky and he said it was a neat location. Since I didn't bring anything for the dirty Santa game, I went out to grab a couple of caches on the way home. I selected Fallen from the Sky as the first. I was not disappointed in the cache and really liked the memorial placed in honor of the deceased B-29 crewmen who perished when the plane crashed near the memorial's location.

Abandon Hope

2009-01-06T18:42:00.003-06:00

I have been browsing the discussion on the GOWT forums of the Abandon Hope group cache run, but only just reading. Dalls called me up and asked if I wanted to attend and thought more seriously about it. I saw some advantages. One being it's a 5/5 cache and this opportunity will not present itself very often. Second, being about 10 or so miles, it would be a prelude to test my equipment, conditioning and my knee for the Walls of Jericho cache run that I hope to be apart of this month. I met with with Dalls at the JEA customer service center on Vann Drive, parked my truck there and he left his JEA hat on my dash. We dashed onto the starting point, a Lowes Home Improvement Store and met up with the rest of the crew, endoriders, tinksdad01, Mindless Focus, itcomagic and Hoot Owl. After gathering out gear and group photo; we headed off. We covered just over 9 miles of total hiking, I did reset my GPS as we were headed to the posted coordinates. I had a memorable time and feel like I could write more, but that could give away the number of stages and hide techniques. This was an adventure that I won't forget and the conversations that took place on the trail.

As for the prelude to Walls of Jericho, I found my knee did not give me any pain, taking Motrin (Ranger Candy) prior and during prevented any knee pain. However, Abandon Hope was on soft terrain, Walls of Jericho will be rocky and far more elevation changes. This week I have also begun taking Glucosamine and that should help my knee. I took along 76 oz. of water and had about 16 oz. left at the end of the hike. Temps did reach into the 70's. If temps reach into the 70's at Walls of Jericho, I might be in trouble, maybe I should take water purification tablets with me so I can re-fill on the trail?

This was the only smiley for me on this cache run but that was OK with me. After the hike, Dalls drove on back to Jackson, stopping at Backyard Burger for a pit stop along the way.

Caching in Cape

2008-12-22T15:42:00.002-06:00

Over the last few months I have been looking for new places to cache. This past year, I did cache in Canada, Ohio, Michigan, Missouri, Louisiana, and a little deeper into Mississippi. Pharmd93 called me and wanted to go caching this past Saturday. We decided to target Cape Girardeau, MO. I had been through the city a few times on the way to and from St. Louis to see the Cardinals play baseball. But that was over 15 years ago and I had no recollection of Cape Giradeau. I have thought about caching the city, but knew nothing about the caches with exception of the virtual Cape Rock. Even though Cape Girardeau is within the River Valley Geocaching group, caches in Cape have not been discussed, to my disappointment.

Pharmd93 and myself went to Cape Giradeau and were not disappointed with our trip. Most of the caches we found were quality and in interesting areas and do plan to return. Few of the caches were of the Park and Grab variety and some we did have thrilling views of the Mississippi River. About half of our finds required some walking, a couple needed a degree of hiking from the truck. Consideration in terrain was also required, thankfully, the area was not rocky.

After concluding caching in Cape, we headed south along I-55 and grabbed two caches in small Missouri towns and last, we avenged a DNF in Sikeston.

Hear that Harmonica

2008-12-10T08:49:00.002-06:00

Hear that Harmonica by dalls is one of the must do caches near Jackson, Tennessee. Cache is located in a cemetery where Sonny Boy Williamson is buried. Sonny was a famous blues recording artist.

I found the cache on March 10, 2006 while passing through the area. At the time, I had begun to use a Garmin 60cs and was getting used to the auto-routing feature. I pulled onto the road where the cemetery is located and stopped to change the auto-routing to the off-road feature when a local noticed me. Knowing that I didn't belong there, he asked if everything was OK, I asked if a cemetery is nearby and he pointed me in the right direction and found the cache easily.

Reaching for number 2,000 (Last One Standing)

2008-12-02T13:07:00.004-06:00

Over the Thanksgiving weekend, I found my 2,000th geocache. I reserved a much talked about geocache called Last One Standing in the Land Between the Lakes area. The cache is near an old Catholic church that has been restored. The LBL was once settled area until 1963 and made into a National Recreation area. I picked Last One Standing due to its interesting location and was not let down.
I saw Friday after Thanksgiving would work out for me and planned to go alone when other cachers were unable to their schedules free. Weather turned out to be great. Minnie Mouse didn't want to go caching but didn't want to spend the day with her grandmother and so opted to go with me. I adjusted to what I wanted to go after and limit caches that required a lot of hiking. We begun with a park and grab in Mayfield, then onto Draffenville for three caches in a park. Being that another park and grab was unavailable in Mayfield; we went a sure thing at Confederate Cemetery Cache and then backtracked to Grand Rivers and found 2 of 3 caches just off I-24. I didn't go after a micro since it required a mile of hiking round trip. We hit the LBL and quickly found KL Overlook and then went after the most difficult cache Night Rider Spring. Night Rider Spring proved to be the most physical and a hunter's camp was very close by. We went east towards Last One Standing seeing many deer hunters along the way. As we approached Last One Standing, driving about a mile on a one lane dirt road, a deer hunter was at the church. He told me he was scouting the area, I told him we were caching, and he asked why I was wearing orange. He told me the deer season begins the following day. Since I didn't know if the deer season was on, I wore orange so I wouldn't be shot geocaching. He mentioned that was a good idea.
Found the cache and took some pictures of the area and thankful I chose this cache to by my 2K milestone.

RVG Meet & Greet Event, LBL Night Cache Run

2008-11-12T18:16:00.002-06:00

I have been wanting to complete the night caches in the LBL for quite some time. I had seen that KTAG (Kentucky-Tennessee Area Geocachers) has had 3 Ghost Chase cache runs with good success. With fall approaching and the fall back with the clock in early November, I chose November 8th to be the date. A good cache run would also help me with the disappointment felt on the evening of November 4th.

Held the RVG Meet & Greet at Martha's Restaurant and I expected 15-20 cachers to be in attendance. Using the Will Attend logs has my guide. I had called Martha's the day before to let them know who many to expect. I arrived about 10 minutes before the event to see a full parking lot. Went inside and staff told me of the long table and one booth for the RVG guests. Well, over 40 cachers from many different parts arrived and I was extremely happy with the turn out. Cachers from Central Kentucky, Indiana, Jackson, TN, several cachers from Memphis, TN and a host of cachers from the local area of Murray, Mayfield, Paducah in Kentucky and from Paris and Hollowrock in Tennessee. Cachers were from many groups to include River Valley Geocachers, Geocachers of West Tennessee and Jackson Area Geocachers. After dinner and door prizes, we headed outside to form up to caravan to the LBL.

Our first cache was By the Eflin Moon, in which a huge mob descended onto the cache. Cache proved to elusive and quick study by pcsenn, the cache was found. Going after this cache was nice in the fading light and being able to see the lake from the hills. Next, on the list was Pass the Troll-Night Cache. This was a fun walk in the woods but the part I remember most was -boatman- losing his dog, we waited around for his dog to return. Some of the cachers took the opportunity to hunt the nearby multi Hurricane Andrew.

After -boatman-'s dog returned the caravan headed towards Midnight Cow Night Cache. Parking was difficult but thankfully, no one parked in the ditch. After this cache, a few cachers took the opportunity to head home. The next cache was Double Barrel, it as short hike and we were off to the next cache Crickhollow-Night Cache. What I remember the most of this cache was the caravan driving past the cache and to turn around again to be heading in the right direction. Bitbrain, driving Tiger130's truck became stuck, JAG members, Dalls and Leprecon Jr jumped out of their car and muscled the truck back onto the road.

Later, we headed over to the most difficult night cache Midnight Maze. Being that I had already found this cache, I took the opportunity to rest and watch the hunt. I could tell the hunt was not going well, turned out that the cache needed maintenance after storm damage and covered some of the reflectors. Bitbrain and Tiger130 returned and noticing Tiger130 was not feeling well and needed to return to her truck, Solarwib, Kodiak62 and myself escorted Tiger130 back to her truck. Tiger130 recovered and everyone headed to the next cache, Flashlight Required. By this time I was beginning to tire and didn't intend to go along. When I told Pcsenn about the micro on the way to the starting point, he didn't have it in his GPS and I went along. Found the micro and we along with a small group to the starting point. By this time, we were no longer hunting the cache in a large, but divided into small groups. While chatting, we passed the starting point by over 500 feet and walked back. I didn't recall the long hike it was for this cache. Turned out to be about a mile of walking all together. I was in the last group to find the cache, heading back to the parking area, a grandfather to one of the cachers met us and was concerned about his grandson and his friend Turns out both boys were some distance behind us but we could see their lights.

At this point, the difficult caches were completed and went after Dead Fulks Night Cache. This was the most remote of all the caches on a one-lane road. Going down the road, I was really concerned we would met groups heading out. We arrived to see a few vehicles at the starting location but much less than starting out the night. I think Flashlight Required took out the energy from some of the cachers and it was getting late. I knew this cache was not very long and had already found it, I stayed back in the parking lot and rested. The group in front of us had turned out their lights in an attempt to play a prank on the last group.

The last cache was A Creepy Place, which was a short hike and quick find. All of us were exhausted by this time and the group was now to about a dozen cachers. It was a fun night and a night that I will remember for a long time.

Stillhouse Hollow Falls

2008-11-06T14:37:00.003-06:00

When Stillhouse Hollow Falls cache came out and word of it spread on the forums, I put it on my watchlist as a must do cache. With a trip to Columbia, with the cool and nice weather, I went after the cache. Arrived at the parking location and found the micro cache there and after a short break and study of the map, I went for the stroll. Being from West Tennessee, there are not many caches that require hills and climbs over rocks in my area and this hike was everything I was not used to. Going up hills both going and returning from the cache. About 1/2 way to the cache location, I was wishing I brought along some water and hiking boots.

Arrived at the top of the falls and took some pictures. GPS still pointed that I had some distance to cover. Reviewing the topographical map at the parking lot, I knew that I would not be following the arrow until the last 300 or so feet to the cache. I went onto the valley and on towards the cache. I went past the cache location, which is some distance behind the chimney of an old structure to observe the falls. I took more pictures and thankful I took the time to come after this cache.

Went back to the chimney and did more hill climbing to the cache. Found the cache as the Garmin 60csx beeped. Signed the log and took a break to reflect on this journey.

This is one of the best caches and I thank Monkeybrad for setting up this cache.

Caching goals for 2008

2008-11-03T19:35:00.003-06:00

With the anticipation of being on active duty in 2009, I set some geocaching career goals at the beginning of the 2008 caching year.

1) With the huge influx of micros, I sacrificed numbers and went after regular size caches with more determination. I wanted to find a career total of 500 regular size caches and that goal was met.

2) Finding caches by 500 different hiders. That goal was recently reached.

3) Obtaining the Platinum Earthcache Award. That was accomplished this summer with a trip to Michigan and Canada.

4) Adding counties to the Tennessee County Challenge. While completing the challenge will be very difficult, I did manage to add one county this year, that being Sumner. With no future trips to the Knoxville or Chattanooga area on the horizon, I don't figure this goal will be any closer.

5) Finding a cache using a boat or kayak. That was done this year using an inflatable kayak.

6) Logging 2,000 finds. That goal should be reached in November or December.

Caching in Jackson, TN

2008-10-04T09:58:00.004-05:00

Being that my job places me on the road so often, it's hard to ignore the caches in the Jackson area. My job constantly takes me to Henderson, Memphis and Somerville, TN, one to four times a month. On the way to those places, I will go to or pass through Jackson.

When I begun caching in February 2005, I noticed Jackson has some caches. Nothing like amount today. My first find was Waters of Renewal. I chose it to be my first caching in Jackson since I knew exactly what it was referencing to and where to park. However, my first attempt was a DNF since I had no idea what a bison tube looked like. I found it the next trip on March 7, 2005. Since that find, I have found a cache in Madison County for 43 consecutive months.

Even prior to caching, I knew Jackson for the most part, the main roads (Highland, 45-By Pass, Airways, Carriage House and etc). I knew the shopping areas like Van Drive (Sam's) and Old Hickory Mall. However, I didn't know about the extensive park system and the two Civil War battlefields. Thanks for geocaching I think I have seen every park in Madison County and in some cases, multiple visits to the same park.

Prior to 2005, it was common for me to kill time at Sam's, EZ Paintball, Books a Million, Best Buy and Lowe's. Since, it's been more for caching.

Hurricane Relief

2008-09-20T06:56:00.003-05:00

Being a member of the Tennessee Army National Guard, I have twice been called up to active duty for hurricane relief duty in Louisiana. In 2005, my company, the 1174th was called to active duty with a mission to haul fuel after Hurricane Katrina. We were based in New Orleans. Driving to the base of operations and from the base I could witness the devastation caused by the high winds and flooding. We were assigned to haul fuel, but after arriving at the base, civilian truck drivers were performing the mission. We stayed about a week with some members of the company working security for search and rescue missions and guard duty at the base.

This year, my unit the 1171st Transportation Company was called up to active duty to conduct relief missions for Hurricanes Gustav and Ike. Being that the 1171st is a medium truck company with flatbeds we were involved in several missions all over the state of Louisiana. Trucks delivered supplies to New Orleans, in and around Baton Rouge and Lake Charles. Overall, the military response was better organized than it was in 2005 in response to Katrina. But we were not happy to live a day and half at the infamous "Chicken Coops" near the Alexandria airport.

Our stay in Alexandria was almost two weeks and the accommodations were better with air conditioned barracks, but with we were in tight quarters. While in Alexandria, my first cousin Kathryn and her husband Jody travelled to Alexandria to visit me.

Herb Parsons Lake

2008-08-30T10:27:00.002-05:00

For quite some time I have wanted to complete the caches around the Herb Parsons Lake which is located east of Memphis. My job takes me to Somerville at least once a month, but attempting to work these caches on a lunch break is impractical.

On August 2, I decided to attend the Searchingforit nails 1K and we get to celebrate, I took some time to find a few of the caches despite the 100 degree temperature on that day. I hit four caches, the first was most difficult Follow the Leader followed by easier caches Foggy Bottom, Bullfrog Landing and last was Armageddon. Even though I did the easy caches that day, the experience gained that day would pay off later. During the first visit I took pictures of the first stage of Herbie #1 to do the math at home and plot out my course for the August 29th trip.

Returned to Herb Parsons Lake on August 29 with Hoot Owl, Pcsenn and Chimps8mybaby, at least one of the remaining caches would require teamwork to complete. Pcsenn and Chimps8mybaby completed the 4 caches that I found on August 2 in quick fashion. Then we headed around the lake and found Go All the Way Around , MaximusWilliam's Second (Third Published), Blackjack, Pan's Labyrinth, Herbie #1, Lure U N, this is where we ran into a snake on the trail. We went on to complete, MaximusWilliam's First Hide, Let's Go Fishing and end the day with Panda-MOAN-ium.

Panda-MOAN-ium proved to be the most difficult and it didn't help that all of us were fatigued after more than 5 miles around the lake. The cache required teamwork to climb trees and Hoot Owl amazed us with his knot tying skills. This was in impressive hide and I would have never completed it alone. Thanks for all those involved yesterday to make this happen.

At the Corner, another forgotten cache?

2008-08-10T16:34:00.002-05:00

While browsing the caches in the Jackson area, I looked around to see who had been caching after me and to my surprise I see that At the Corner had not been found since I found it on May 25, 2007! This cache is made possible by one of the best cachers in West Tennessee Canoe Guy and this cache should be found more often. The experience offers good scenery and physical challenge.

Johnny's Cash

2008-08-04T15:24:00.003-05:00

Been wanting to find this virtual, Johnny's Cash for quite some time. Been making trips to Nashville on a regular basis and for the most part cached out what I wanted between Dickson and I-40 and Briley Parkway. Began to look further East of Briley and saw this cache, being the grave of the Country Music singer Johnny Cash. Not being much of a country music fan I am still intrigued with Johnny Cash's music.

Prior to the trip I was talking to Pharmd93 on the phone and told him I was going to Nashville and could spend my lunch break caching. We met in Dresden and I drove to Hendersonville, TN and found the virtual. We spent some time taking pictures and found a few easy caches nearby to complete Sumner County for the Tennessee County Challenge.

Day 4: Final Day

2008-07-30T07:57:00.003-05:00

On Sunday, cachestalker94 and I got up early

and after a breakfast from the nearby McDonalds, we headed to the home of Rattrak in Roseville, MI. From his home, we drove to SQ-Workman's Circle, it was a great cache location at a Jewish Cemetery. We noticed the graves were in Hebrew and English. We also saw the memorial for the Jews murdered by the Nazis in World War II. Soon, we headed towards the tunnel in Detroit to take us to Windsor, Canada. First we stopped at St. Mary's Catholic Church and read the historical markers which told about the church being used as part of the Underground Railroad where runaway slaves from the South stayed before finding freedom across the river in Canada. We later visited the virtual cache The Gateway to Freedom, a monument depicting runaway slaves looking across the river to Windsor, Canada.

After the virtual find, we left the United States and drove through the tunnel into Canada. We were prepared with our passports. Thankfully having Rattrak in the car was very helpful since he crossed the border on a regular basis. We grabbed several caches in the Windsor area including two earthcaches. Windsor's Halite a salt mine and Windsor Tallgrass. With the completion of these two earthcaches, I have completed my quest for the Earthcaches Master's program and to receive the Platinum Award.

We completed many caches in the area, mostly along the river front. We liked the view along the river and the Ambassador Bridge. We stopped to shop at a couple of places, one being a Tim Horton's. A coffee/donut shop, there were many of these stores around. The locals call the stores "Timmy's". A stop there, a souvenir store downtown and the duty free store at the border gave me an opportunity to drop a few US where's george bills into the Canadian circulation.

After a delay at the US border, we drove back into Detroit and found CD - Battle of Bloody Run - SQ . The first stage was a historical marker about a massacre during the French and Indian War. Being at this spot, I can say that I have been to at least one battle site of every major conflict East of the Mississippi River. Just short of Rattrak's home, cachestalker94 wanted to try out different food and we found a Middle Eastern place, where cachestalker94 got a lamb gyro to go.

We proceeded to the airport without delay and fly home.

Day 3

2008-07-28T07:43:00.002-05:00

I had initially planned to find 20+ caches on this day since there were so many close to where we were staying. After seeing the traffic patterns, I doubted cachestalker94 and myself would find that many. Begun the day eating the continental breakfast at the hotel and enjoying fellowship with relatives. By 8:00 AM we were off caching. We begun caching near a community college and saw so much area under construction it was difficult to get to the caches. We did find a few caches in that cluster. I saw our time began to run out and we made a beeline to the Clinton River Park. There we found three caches, including the Dodge Park Esker Earthcache which turned out to be my 1,800th find. This one was a treat since it was in reference to a glacier, something that will not be seen in Tennessee. Cachestalker94 and I found two more caches in the park, Easy Green and Wood you not like to find it?. I was very impressed with the park; most of the trails were paved and the park was busy. Even saw a black squirrel. I liked the clever hid of Wood you not like to find it? being the cache was a fake stump.

We ceased the caching after the three finds in the Clinton River Park headed over to Borders Bookstore and later the motel to ready ourselves for the wedding. This was one of the few breaks we had during our stay. After refreshing ourselves, we drove towards the chapel, finding one cache along the way, a simple park n' grab. Attended the wedding and later the reception. Had a good time visiting with relatives and making new friends.

Day 2

2008-07-24T07:48:00.003-05:00

After arriving in Detroit, cachestalker94 and I were shuttled over to the Alamo car rental place where I let cachestalker94 pick out the car and she picked a gold colored PT Cruiser. We immediately got the laptop going and set a course going south to Luna Pier where there was a cluster of caches. I found the How Low can you go in Michigan an earthcache and really liked Your Honor Sir. This cache was at an American Legion building where there was a small monument for a fallen soldier from area who served in Iraq. We found the cache despite that the coordinates were not loaded onto my GPS and when I asked cachestalker94 to route us to the cache, she accidentally moved the waypoint. Found the cache because the container is hanging on the monument itself. At Luna Pier it was cachestalker94's first view of the Great Lakes and she took the time to put her feet in the water.

After Luna Pier, we moved onto Toledo and found a few caches on the north part of the city. It was enough to add the state of Ohio onto our profiles. It was beginning to get hot on us and we put the car back on I-75 and headed north. Our last find was a rest stop cache. I simple micro made difficult by attacking mosquitoes.

Arrived at Utica and found the motel. The drive was long and had the experience of the Michigan Left Turn. I can't say the experience was pleasant.

After regrouping at the motel, cachestalker94 wanted to go to the mall. A huge mall was located a couple of miles away, with the horrid traffic and Michigan Left Turns, the couple of miles took about 20 minutes. Found a cache at the mall and went shopping. Had dinner at Red Lobster and retired to the motel.

4 Days of caching: Day 1

2008-07-22T07:48:00.002-05:00

Thursday, July 17 began a 4-day caching trip that took cachestalker94 and myself to caches in Clarksville, Ashland City in Tennessee to Michigan, Ohio and Windsor, Canada. The purpose of our trip was to attend a wedding for a cousin in our family in Sterling Heights, Michigan. I have family strung about in: Michigan, Louisiana, Texas and Tennessee, I have not had the opportunity to visit the relatives during their high school graduations and marriages. This time, I had the opportunity to attend. As for geocaching I set myself a few goals:

Myself to top 1,800 finds.
Cachestalker94 reach 400 finds.
Find earthcaches in two new states/countries to obtain the Platinum Earthcache Award.

Day 1:

After being delayed with repairs on my truck, we left Dresden after noon to headed towards Ashland City, Tennessee. In Ashland City, we would stay the night at the home of brickbat66 and be less than an hour from the airport instead of getting up at 4 am and drive 2 1/2 hours. Along the way we picked up a few caches along Hwy 79. The best cache we found was Riverview Cemetery by Team Hall-JTSJT. The cache was a simple micro, but I enjoyed looking at the old cemetery and reading the historical markers. We travelled onto Ashland City to a series of caches by jd_stitch in a somewhat new park. We found all the caches in the park even though it was very hot and cachestalker94 let me know about the temperature. After signing all the logs, we retired to brickbat66's home for dinner and relaxation.

Clearing Mayfield

2008-07-07T07:48:00.002-05:00

When I begun caching in 2005, there were only two caches in Mayfield. Not a Pine Box was my first find; what I remember most about that cache was the way to get there. Being from Dresden, I recall making a couple of visits to the town. Much of what I knew about Mayfield was it was the exit to take from the Purchase Parkway going to Paducah. When we moved from Martin to Dresden, I began to make some trips to Mayfield, mostly to the Wal-Mart Supercenter which is south of town. During that trip to Not a Pine Box, I didn't have maps on my GPS and turned and turned again, over and over to get the arrow straight to take me to the hospital grounds north of town near the Purchase Parkway.

Later I returned in the same month to find, Its all right Pizza , which is a skirtlifter and was a DNF my first visit. Up to that time, I was not familiar with skirtlifters. For two years there were no new caches in the Mayfield area. The summer of 2007, new cachers began to place caches on the Mayfield area which suited me very much. First to come was The Pearl of the Purchase and Woolridge Monuments, both of these caches placed by Pirates of the Cache N Carry. The next month came a series of caches by Influence Waterfowl Calls. His caches were different on some aspects and and some were similiar to what I have found in other places. Some of his caches are based on old TV shows such as the "Dukes of Hazzard" and the move "Oh Brother, where art thou?".

In June of 2008, with help from Pharmd93, I finally cleared all the Mayfield caches with Behind the Castle Gate! being the most difficult.

Confederate Ghosts

2008-06-22T19:47:00.003-05:00

While staying the night at the KOA Campground at Paris Landing, I took the opportunity to find the night cache Confederate Ghosts. I am a veteran of night caches, three in the LBL and one in Bartlett, TN. However, this was different, I was alone. Near the cache is a Tennessee Historical Marker which I waymarked which referenced the burial place of the Confederate soldiers who died in battle at Ft. Henry.

I found myself needing more up to date maps, I parked at the historical marked and hiked to the cache in the fading light. By the time I arrived at the starting coordinates, it was pitch black. Saw the cemetery and was in awe. A few patriotic Southerners have take the time to upkeep and mark this graves of these fallen soldiers. Being a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and a 20-year veteran of military service, I said a short prayer and thanked these men who stood their posts did their duty and did what they think was right in the War Against Northern Aggression.

Proceeded onto find the cache and quickly found a set of reflectors. Note this is a night cache where one normally has to follow small reflectors to find the prize. Went on and about 200 feet away, the reflectors end. I tried and tried again and nothing. Finally, when about to give up, I called Regnad and he told me of the problem. These small reflectors, sold in the archery supplies are used by bow hunters to find their stands in the pre-dawn darkness. That was the trail I was on. Not deer hunting tonight, I wanted a cache. Regnad told me to turn the opposite direction and I quickly found the other set of reflectors and found the cache very soon. Regnad also walked me to the access road and I went that way to my truck.

I was elated to find a night cache alone and also such a great spot. Next day, I took my family to the spot and took many pictures which I will share with my Sons of Confederate Veterans Camp 323.

Caching in Germantown and Collierville

2008-06-12T21:24:00.002-05:00

Having a business trip that would take me to Memphis and later to Henderson, I researched some of the caches, I wanted something interesting but not something hard terrain since I would not be dressed to hit the trails and be hot and sweaty. I was surprised to find a tucked away virtual called A Little History Lesson. It was a remarkable virtual and took some time to investigate the park and take many pictures. Many months ago, I created a topic on the GOWT forums to database all the Civil War caches in GOWT, the responses were few and seemed to be little interest. Maybe one of the reasons, this virtual slipped by me. I have been within a mile of this cache. But, it was found today and in the coming days will be waymarked.

Another interesting cache was Superman's Transition by bitbrain. With the reputation of this cacher and being the cache is a micro, I wondered a little bit. However, I also know this cacher will take me to an interesting place and that it did. I spent a good 20 minutes in the courtyard looking and the monuments, history and the battle history. I had recently read where Gen. Sherman arrived at this location when a Confederate raid was in process and escaped capture or death. That would have been something, Gen. Sherman was the best Union general in the West, after Gen. Grant took command of all Union forces. It was Sherman's tactics of avoiding a drawn out fight by outflanking CSA forces in Georgia that led to the fall of Atlanta.

Only had 6 finds on this run and was happy to include the two above caches in this journey.