Completed 20 years of service

Yesterday on Friday, Oct. 5, 2007, I reached a personal milestone, in which, I have completed 20 years of military service. At paygrade E-6 and were to retire upon receiving my 20-year letter, I would have to wait until age 60 to receive my retirement pay, which would be about $700 a month. For now, I do plan to stay in the Guard.

My military career began in August of 1985 when I left Memphis for Great Lakes, IL for the US Navy. After basic training, I was trained as an Aviation Support Equipment Electrician at NAS Memphis. I received further training at NAS Jacksonville. While stationed in Florida, I had my first chance to swim in the ocean and visit Disney World. After training, I was transferred to Roosevelt Roads, Puerto Rico. I worked at the airfield and maintained equipment that kept the planes flying. Toured much of Puerto Rico, including the beaches and San Juan. Also during my time, visited St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands twice. Upon discharge from the Navy, I returned to Tennessee and began attending the University fo Tennessee at Martin. During that first semester, I did enlist into the Tennessee Army National Guard in the 1174th Transportation Company. The first year in the Guard was uneventful, but in November of 1990, the unit received orders for active duty. The next nine months were at Ft. Campbell, KY and flown to Saudi Arabia. During the 1991 Gulf War, I did visit Kuwait and Iraq.

In 1992, I took a break and remained a civilian for 3 years. I was told of a Military Police Company in Murray, KY. I joined the 438th MP Company. While with the MP's, I did visit Ecuador and Panama. Also participated in state active duty for the Kentucky Derby, various concerts and security in the Paducah area when the Ohio River flooded the region.

In 1999, I transferred back to the 1174th Transportation Company. During that time, I have visited California, a weekend in Las Vegas, NV, Fort Knox, KY and Fort Stewart, GA. In 2003, the unit was again placed on active duty and I re-visited Kuwait and Iraq. Returned home in 2004 and remained on active duty for medical problems. Medical problems were remedied and released back to the 1174th. After Hurricane Katrina, the unit was placed on federal active duty and I visited the ravaged New Orleans.

The National Guard was re-organized, the 1174th, became the 1171st and in order to be promoted, I took a position with the 1175th Transportation Co. in Humboldt, TN. Today, I am with the 1171st Transportation Company and plan to remain there.

Intro to Geocaching at the Big Cypress Park

On Saturday over 30 geocachers that included cacher families attended the Intro to Geocaching a the Big Cypress Park located five miles outside of Greenfield, Tennessee. Salamander60 and I co-hosted the event after months of planning and discussions. It has been observed that the event has been a huge success. The same weekend, a new cacher family from Sharon, Tennessee begun caching. And due to the media exposure prior to the event, many Fall Festival participants were aware of the sport and asked some very good questions. The event began at 10 am with a presentation by myself after an introduction by Salmander60 whom is the President of the Friends of the Big Cypress Park. Presentation including the history of GPS where the military was first to use the technology, various types of handheld GPS receivers, who GPS can be used on a laptop with voice directions. The presentation went into the history of geocaching and explained the sport.

Cachers came from all over to attend the event in the beautiful day where the temperatures were in the 80's and no rain. Cachers were from GOWT, JAG and non-associated with any organization. Attending were: cannotreadgps from Dresden, TN, Salmander60, is daughter Lil Sal and wife Sweet Thang from Greenfield, TN, Penfencer from Montevallo, Alabama, Cataluna Woods and RaevenDarkWings, UT Martin students, yogi & dolphin of Yuma, TN, BigdaddyD of Scotts Hill, TN, dalls of Beech Bluff, TN, RiverNWick drove in from Parsons, TN, cachestalker and minnie mouse of Dresden, TN, Pharmd93 and Sherlock121 of Martin, TN, 1998volsfan of Greenfield, tnwoodturner from Paris, TN, Williefan of Bruceton, G-T-Martin came in from Kenton, TN, 76Stinger and Poohbear94 of Munford, TN, Leavarock of Clarksville and gleasondad of Gleason, TN. Lost-n-tn became cachers that day and logged the cache page.

Good times were had be all in attendance. Cachers enjoyed the new caches in the park and speaking to the muggle audience about our obsession. Cachers witnessed a Bird of Prey presentation by the Reelfoot State Park employees, there were Arts and Crafts on display, a nature trail to walk, Civil War re-enactors and their campsite to view.

Quest for the 1K

Begun caching in February of 2005 and never considered that two years later I would be receiving the 1K Coin and Golden Ammo can. Caching career took off slowly using an outdated Garmin without any map software. Later as I advanced in technology and experience, my numbers began to pick up. When I began caching, there was only one geocache in all of Weakley County and just a handful within 25 miles of home. But I had an advantage. My occupation places me on the road, sometimes up to 3,000 miles in one month! My occupation takes me to Somerville one to four times a month. Other destinations have been to: Memphis, Nashville, Pikeville, Hohenwald, Knoxville and Maryville. Also to my advantage, I spent two weeks on National Guard annual training in Smryna, which is cache saturated. The above picture of cached counties of Tennessee will illustrate where I have been.

After a year of caching, I stood at 420 finds. The majority of those were using a Garmin Legend, with maps, but no auto-routing and not paperless. In the next couple of months, I went paperless and began using auto-routing. In February of 2006, I set goals for the next year.

1) Reach 1K on or before February 17, 2007

2) Complete the West TN Mega-Multi

3) Complete the KTAG Multi

I failed to complete the Multi challenges. The distance of the multi cachers from my home has been a huge barrier for me. But I did complete one part of my quest and reached my 1,000th find on December 1, 2006. In the final months of my question, I took advantage of every opportunity to cache when I could. Cached on a hot July day with -boatman- and cachestalker94 in South Memphis and northern Mississippi. Cached in the pouring down rain and cold on my way to Fall Creek Falls State Park. Cached in good weather, cold, rain, snow, wind, day and night, just about when and where ever I could. In the last full month, I really turned up the heat, I was in a dead heat with sskaysee and Tuck Sackett. On a daily basis, I was checking their profile to see where they stood. I was not able to get out on a cache run on the Friday after Thanksgiving but did make a trip to Tullahoma on Sunday afternoon. I was instructed to attend a class at the Correctional Academy and spent the Sunday afternoon caching along I-24, Monte Eagle, Winchester and Tullahoma, netting over a dozen finds. But I was not where I wanted to be and contacted WildThing73 and ask if he could be assistance one of the evenings. The next day on Monday, thankfully, I did not have homework, I met with WildThing73 at his home and we went out caching in the dark. Counting the morning and that evening, I think I found 13 more caches. To my disgust, I found myself doing homework every evening, thus I changed my tactics. Being that I had to be in school at 8 am, I choose to get up at 5 am and go north to Shelbyville and cache 2-4 caches each morning. I did that, for three mornings. Thursday night, I was two caches short of my goal. Two classmates wanted extra instruction and wanted me to come in early on that Friday. I told them that I would and looked at the nearest caches. I saw that there were two in Winchester that I could go after but would have to do those in the pre-dawn darkness. I chose not to go out that morning, thinking my luck will run out and end up with two DNF's. I went on to meet with the classmates that morning, only to find that both were late!

Friday, December 1, was the final day in class and the schedule had the class ending at noon. I had decided to take Highway 64 on the way home. To my horror, the class ran over and was not released until 2 pm, leaving me about 3 hours of daylight and will be facing the sun all the way! Number 999 was the cache in front of the Jack Daniels Distillery. That would have been an awesome milestone cache and could have done that, if I had gone to Winchester that morning. Number 1,000 was an parking lot cache in Lawrenceburg. I felt the relief when I my fingers found the nano, signed the log and couldn't wait to call my caching friends to let them know of my accomplishment. On the way home, I stopped for only one cache and that being a virtual by Monkeybrad in Pulaski. The virtual being an important part of American History would have also been a great milestone and proud to say it was number 1,001.

Sskaysee reached the 1K before I did and Tuck Sackett found his 1,000 cache a few days later. Both cachers I have extreme respect for and had the honor of having sskaysee host my 1K event and I hosting Tuck Sackett's event.

Lake County

When I discovered geocaching in Feburary of 2005, one place I set my sights on was the area of Lake County; the scenery is one of the best for geocaching. Even though, geographically, Lake County is less than 40 miles from my home, it does encompass a long drive on a winding highway to arrive in the county with little in between to stop or see.

In July 2005, Brickbat66 was in town and we decided to load up the car and hit Lake County. Cannotreadgps drove, Brickbat66 was in the front seat with the only Auto-routing GPS, Cachestalker94 and I rode in the back. The auto-routing came in handy more than once during the trip. Finds for the day were: The Great Bald Eagle, Reelfoot Lake, Blue Suede Shoes-Small Town USA Series, Reelfoot Airpark Cache and Civil War Battle for Island #10. We had a DNF at what later became Reelfoot Lake, BoardWalk(New).

During our stop at The Great Bald Eagle, Reelfoot Lake one thing we recall was the mating cottonmouths in the water while walking around on the boardwalk. After seeing the snakes, we decided we needed to make some distance between us and the venomous snakes. We enjoyed the history lesson at Civil War Battle for Island #10. We also liked looking at Carl Perkins boyhood home at Blue Suede Shoes-Small Town USA Series.

This past July en route to Pcsenn's 1K event, Phamrd93 and Minnie Mouse tagged along and found all the above caches except Civil War Battle for Island #10. Time had run out and we unable to run by that cache. This was Minnie Mouse's first caching trip to Lake County and her favorite was The Great Bald Eagle, Reefoot Lake cache. She had a really good time watching the Birds of Prey and the nearby Discovery Museum. We also found the first earthcache in Northwest Tennessee, Earthquake Lake.

At this point, I have found all the active caches in Lake County, a total of six. Lake County has so much more to offer in geocaching with it's history and geological features and hope someday, I can return to the county for another cache run.

Caching in Opelousas

I begun my geocaching career in February of 2005 after finding the website by accident. Being that there was only one geocache within 20 miles of my home, I wondered if this was going to be the sport for me.

Other attempts at hobbies were not as successful. I enjoy Scuba Diving, but in landlocked Tennessee, that sport is difficult and can be very expensive. Still play Paintball on occasion but not has active as I once was. Still own several firearms and shoot on a regular basis. However, with only about 120 feet in my backyard, I am limited just shooting a .22 rifle and small handguns. I have to go somewhere else to fire the .308 Saiga.

I had only been geocaching a couple of weeks before I departed for my long-planned trip to the Florida Keys. Cachers will notice my US map on the itsnotaboutthenumbers site and ask why only one county in Florida is colored. It's simple, I was very new to the sport and looking up caches on a route was difficult.

Returned from Florida and begun to take caching a little more serious. While in Jackson, I stopped at Target and purchased a Garmin Legend. With that new GPS, my production increased with over 30 finds in the month of April.

In May, I was ordered to attend a NCO school at Camp Shelby, MS. This time, I printed off several pages of caches around Camp Shelby. I show up for school with the intention of caching in the evening and then told that this school requires students to be restricted to the barracks. This time has been my longest caching drought since I begun caching. I had planned to visit my cousin in Opelousas, LA when I left Camp Shelby and did have some cache pages printed of the Opelousas caches.

Arrived in LA and met with Jody and he drove me around Lafayette, LA and later we traveled to Opelousas and on the way, we stopped at a Cajun Restaurant. I only stayed one night and the next morning I got up and introduced my cousin Kathryn and Jody to the sport of Geocaching. Our first cache was Jim Bowie Live Oak, followed by Twin Oaks and Fun in the Park. Kathryn and Jody was amazed of the GPS and the game being played worldwide and with geocaches so close to home. Even though I would not have any finds on the way home, I decided that this was going to be the sport for me. Last month, when Kathryn and Jody were in town, I showed them my 1K coin and thanked them for their assistance that morning in Opelousas. Kathryn and Jody have not officially taken up the sport of geocaching but do report to me that they take visitors to the Jim Bowie Live Oak cache.

Visiting Ecuador

Being in the National Guard I have had the opportunity to visit many places that ordinarily would never see. Countries that I have spend time in are: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Panama and Ecuador. En route to and from some of those places, I have landed in Ireland, Belgium and Italy. Also in the Guard, I have been to California, Las Vegas, Nevada and while in the US Navy, I had been to Chicago, Jacksonville, Orlando, Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.

In 1998, I was with the 438th Military Police Company in Murray, Kentucky. The Kentucky Army National Guard was tasked to provide humanitarian assistance to Ecuador which is located in South America. I volunteered to go and looked forward to the trip.

We flew out of Louisville, KY airport to Ecuador. The plane ride was uneventful, except that the crew of the civilian chartered plane did not like the idea of myself and other Military Police soldiers carrying 9mm handguns. We arrived in Ecuador and the rotation of MP's waiting to go home were at the airport. They briefed us on the mission, gave us the keys to the Humvees and a handful of 9mm ammunition. We distributed the ammo, I think I was given about five rounds and drove to the base. It took several hours to reach the base due to the conditions of the roads. The bad weather of the past several months had washed many of the roads away. We arrived in the evening and got ourselves ready for the mission next day. Being Military Police, we were assigned to provide 24-hour security at the sites where the engineers were building schools and clinics.

We rotated from town to town and the most difficult part of the job was keeping the young kids away from the Engineers and US Army equipment. The kids were very partial to the soldiers and liked the MRE's (meals ready to eat). A few could speak a few words of English, learned from previous US soldiers but with aid from soldiers assigned to us from Ecuador, we managed to communicate.

Villages were very primitive as compared to the United States. Electric power was provided by a generator within the village. I recall one village the generator was not working and at night, there were no lights at all. I worked day shift and arrived just at sun up and to see the villagers getting ready for the day. It was not uncommon to see a man leave the village with a single-shot shotgun go into the jungle and return in a few minutes with game to eat. The woman stayed busy with household chores in which laundry was done at the river bank. Men left to work with heavy chainsaws to headed into the jungle. During the week, some children attended school. With the lack of schools and staff, only the eldest child of each family attended school. He or she was expected to return home and teach the younger siblings of the day's education.

Our accommodations were a little better than the villages. We were set up in tent city with concrete floors, showers and a place to eat chow. A laundry tent was also set up. Being that there were very long hours on duty, there was little need for entertainment. Wildlife visited the camp also, that included insects the size of my fist and frogs as large as my foot. Also, one soldier caught a Boa Constrictor and I had my picture made with the snake. I am not very fond of snakes!

With the mission complete and next rotation to relieve us, we travelled to a resort town near the airport. I was assigned to be in charge of the weapon's crew and provided personal security to the battalion commander. We arrived at the Ecuador Army base, I turned over our weapons and ammunition and arrangements with a cab service to take us to the resort town. Are team arrived at the town and found where the other Military Police had found rooms. The hotel was located on the beach were there were numerous places to eat and have fun. I found a steak eatery and after much communication in the little Spanish I knew, I ended up with a plate full of large fried shrimp, rice and vegetables. With two 20-oz. beers the cost was under $7! I made plans to return to the same place for lunch the next day. We spent the evening in the local disco techs and beach bars. The next day, I made an effort to swim in the Pacific Ocean.

Our rotation was over and after a delay at the airport we flew home.

An Evening at the LBL

For the third year in a row, I attended the River Valley Geocachers "An Evening at the LBL" event held by fishinpair. For the third time I was not disappointed. Like the previous events, this year's event again featured a night cache called Midnight Maze (Nightcache). This one had a new twist. Previous night caches, Flashlight Required and Dead Fulks Night Cache, have one starting at one point, follow reflectors to the ammo can. This cache was different. In last year's event, one huge group consisting of 40+ cachers marched around and found the cache. As a group it was easy, just follow the leader. This time, following the crowd would not work. Team work was required, marking dead ends, starting locations was needed. It was a cache to remember. One thing that will stick in my mind is that a hands free headlight was of little value. In the high grass and weeds, the light attracted insects which interfered with looking for the cache. I had to hold my hands free light.

The event went without a hitch, well almost. GEO.JOE asked Pirate of the Cache 'n Carry to bring firewood. We later remember that the front gate at Energy Campground closed at 5 pm. We traveled to Hillsman's Ferry Campground for firewood. While leaving the Energy Lake Campground, we encountered a 5-foot Timber Rattlesnake. The snake was large and was very up happy with our company. Regrettably, neither one of our digital cameras were functioning and were unable to take this classic photo. This marked only the second time in my life of an encounter with a rattlesnake in the wild. The first occurred in 1984 while hiking at Philmont Boy Scout Ranch in the Rocky Mountains of New Mexico.

We arrived at the event and unloaded the firewood and told of our snake encounter. Being that I did some caching along the way in Farmington, Murray and the center of the LBL, I relaxed for a bit and socialized with Airmapper and B&TLand. Later, after gaining some energy, I talked to cachers in the US Army from Ft. Campbell, Kentucky.

The better half of fishinpair hosted the event and she was busy on the grill cooking the hot dogs. She did a great job cooking and being the host. I wish to thank all of those involved in the event and bringing food. It was great.

After the Midnight Maze, cachers separated for other night caches and since I was so close to Honker Hill, we gathered a group for that cache. In the moonlight, we found the parking area and the levee. While waiting for B&TLand to return, we observed a fan boat roaming the shore, I guess they were fishing. Seemed like it was more noise production than fishing, but that's just my opinion. Other arrived and we walked across the levee, up the hill and found the difficult cache in the dark. Afterwards, we walked back and went our separate ways. Pirate of the Cache 'n Carry invited me to stay overnight at his 34-foot air conditioned camper, I did not resist and stayed the night at Energy Campground. Pirate of the Cache 'n Carry being the honorable host that he is, also invited Solarwib to stay the night and saved him the two hour drive in the early morning hours.

The following morning, I chatted with Solarwib and later went home and grabbed one cache in Murray on the way home.