EscapeFromFlatland

Spent Christmas eve getting in to an ice and snow covered Dallas, TX. Christmas Denny's in Dallas. Woke up Christmas day and had some time to search online while drinking my coffee. Got the closest cache to the hotel before taking the shuttle to the airport to fly back to Kuwait. Now I'm waiting to head back in to Iraq.

Sometimes my geocaching goes hand in hand with heavy drinking. Does that make it wrong in your eyes?

I had planned to hit 100 caches before I deployed, but with getting my life ready for hiatus and family visiting, I got to around 80. Once I deployed my goal has been at least 1 cache a month. The last few months I've had more than 1, and now my goal for leave is to hit 50 caches in 2wks, 100 would be awesome.

What if we see 99 red balloons, not 10?

Got mine reserved. 1 for me. 1 as a gift to the caching family that got me started on geocaching. 1 for my aunt, the biggest animal lover in my family, on the board of directors of Alaska Malamute HELP League.

Right now: My other rides:

I've exchanged trackables with a trackable that was placed in one of my caches before.

Sinterklaas with the Krampus!!!

The only downside to hiking for caches in rainy weather is when you get a DNF. Then it seems like the rain is colder and you are wetter.

This is an issue that is happening rather quickly. In 9 months the number of US forces in Iraq will drop by 50%, and several bases will be handed over and others shut down. My thought is to contact both the cache owner and the reviewer that the cache is on a base that has transfered ownership or shut down, and let them decide the fate of the cache. I can't give any details, but I've got Operation Coin Return happening shortly to hopefully rescue the trackables on a base that is shutting down sometime soon.

Trying to figure out if I can take any home from here.

Not geocaching, but taking pictures outside of tourist season.. got stopped by Homeland Security in 2 different states on the same day. While geocaching: at various times have been followed/watched/observed by 2 types of aerial surveillance, private security components from 2 nations, and security components of every military branch. Have not been stopped yet, but on several caches have gotten self-conscious enough to stop trying to find the cache. Luckily I take my camera with me and take pictures of random things. If I get stopped I'll show the pics and my canned line that my chain of command will let me take pics of anything as long as there's no security risk involved. Hence the 100s of pictures of desert plants and pieces of scrap metal. :-)

When I'm home and plotting a cache run my cat snuggles up next to me and the GPS. And when I get back with swag or trackables- he has to investigate.

I've cleared expired coupons and fliers for events that already happened out of caches before. In Iraq I've experienced finding little travel packets of hand sanitizer in caches. Unexpected and appreciated, though I didn't need to take them- I carry a small bottle of sanitizer in my pockets. I could see the packets getting squished in a cache and making a temporary problem, but the alcohol would probably make it dry out fast.

Altoid tins dont work in the desert when monsoon season hits. Checked up on a cache while at a different base the other day, it was placed at the end of August, already completely rusted over.

The biggest issue with caches on bases in Iraq is with the draw-down creating massive changes on some of these bases. Some posts have shut down, others are being shut down, some are being transfered to the Iraqis. I'm watching info on certain areas so I can update the CO when the base is no longer part of US forces.

Really? You get back and have downtime and you want to stay on base to geocache? I mean, really? I'd be like "F- this! I have X hours until I need to report back and only need X-Y hours of sleep. Time to hit the road for Y hours of caching!" A lot of the local nationals wear 1970s-era tight disco pants and man-blouses. And as for planting my geocache over here: everyone in my chain of command knew I wanted to place one and saw the ammo can I painted to bring with me. They knew it was just a matter of time before I found a good hiding spot and started asking if I could hide my can. Just a few more months before I replace the can with a bison tube and send the can back home to be used in the states.

I wonder if I can use that 150ft rule to archive a few dozen geocaches located near the light rail and streetcar lines in Portland... because obviously the streetcar has a right-of-way halfway thru the city block!

I'll be able to say yes or no on my interest after the points of concern by drneal and Eartha are addressed. Any chance to get it with the butt blue?

My geocache GC1N973 Step Right Up, Folks! has either a 99 stair ascent or an 88 stair descent to reach. Rated it a 2-2, but with the multi-story condo building nearby it could be a difficulty 2.5.

I decided I'm going to use POP on the forums now.

If someone found one of my caches and couldnt log it because I had it marked as Premium Members Only and they contacted me, I would be nice enough to change the listing for them to log. Plus the main reason any of my caches are PMO is because I am currently away from the area. Decided now that the weather is cold and wet again maybe I'll change the PMO status.

None taken. Besides- there's almost no vegetation to yank out where I'm currently at. I even went so far as to put a "stay off the grass" warning on my latest cache as it is near the largest grass patch on our base, the size of a manhole cover.