Calvertcachers

ALL CACHERS ARE INVITED TO ATTEND this very special event in Washington, D.C. Event Cache Page Join us on Saturday, March 9, 2013 from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. If you didn't get a chance to attend the first event a few years back, this is an amazing event! The tour of the inside of the House of the Temple is awesome! In the coming week, we will be making an announcement about a special guest so stay tuned! Please post your "Will Attend" so the folks at the Scottish Rite - House of the Temple can prepare for the event. Parking is limited so please car pool or take Metro. The event is a few blocks from either the Dupont Circle or Cardozza Metro Stations.

ALL CACHERS ARE INVITED TO ATTEND this very special event in Washington, D.C. Event Page Join us on Saturday, March 9, 2013 from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. If you didn't get a chance to attend the first event a few years back, the tour of the inside of the House of the Temple is amazing! You get a chance to see the archives and exhibits of notable Masons of the past. In the coming week, we will be making an announcement about a special guest so stay tuned! Please post your "Will Attend" so the Masons can prepare for the event. Parking is limited so please car pool or take Metro. The event is a few blocks from either the Dupont Circle or Cardozza Metro Stations.

The Maryland Municipal League Geotrail 2013 Celebrating Maryland’s Cities and Towns! Kick-Off Events Greenbelt GC413V6, Perryville GC415B8 & Hancock GC415BW MML Everyone is invited to join us on Saturday, January 5, 2013 from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. in either Greenbelt, Perryville, or Hancock, Maryland for the launch of the 2013 MML Geotrail! Come on a journey to discover Maryland - America in Miniature! Are you ready to Explore Maryland? Visit cities and towns along the trail and learn about the rich history and culture of Maryland. The trail provides opportunities for you to experience Maryland through visitng many towns across the state. Caches will be located in museums, parks, and towns throughout scenic Maryland! The Maryland Municipal League (MML) Geotrail will launch on January 5, 2013 with over 45 caches placed in 10 MML Districts across Maryland. A trackable geocoin will be awarded to the first 200 geocachers, while supplies last. Join us on January 5th for complete trail details and to get a copy of the passport! Whether you are an experienced geocacher or want to learn about geocaching, Everyone is invited to join us for the launch of the new Maryland Municipal League Geotrail! Want to learn more about some of the towns, municipalities, parks, museums, and historical areas located along the MML Geotrail? Come on out and join us! This event will feature displays and exhibits from local municipalities and museums along the MML Geotrail. Cachers will have the opportunity to pick-up a copy of the MML Geotrail Passport, trail requirements, and at the end of the event cachers will be provided with a listing of caches along the 2013 MML Geotrail! Light Refreshments, Door Prizes, Kids Activities, and more! Stay tuned for more event details! Everyone who attends the event will receive 1 ticket into the door prize give-away drawing. Stay tuned to the MML website for a special announcement for a MML Geotrail photo contest. Be sure to carry your camera along the MML Geotrail and take those pictures! Prizes will be awarded! Be sure to visit the MML web site MML or the Maryland Geocaching Society web site MGS for up to date information. Happy caching, Calvertcachers

Join us on Saturday April 14th in Onancock, VA for the expansion of the Capt. John Smith Geotrail! http://coord.info/GC2F41Q We are pleased to announce that we will have exhibits from the National Park Service, the Chesapeake Conservancy, the Maryland Geocaching Society, Magellan, National Wildlife Refuge, and much more! The day will be filled with great geocaching and we are happy to announce that we will have 11 new CJS hides and local cachers are placing bonus hides for everyone to enjoy. The expansion of the CJS Geotrail will take you to beautiful locations, rich in history, along the MD & VA Eastern shore. There will be four CJS hides in MD and seven in VA. Many of the facilities have donated items for our door prize giveaway including the Barrier Island Center which has graciously donated a beautiful Wayne Fulcher wildlife painting valued at over $125.00! Our fine friends at Groundspeak & Magellan have also donated some great items! Everyone who attends the event will be given 1 ticket into our door prize giveaway. Also, the first 50 people who sign the log will be given a special Eastern Shore of Virginia pathtag donated by Banshee74. We hope everyone will be able to join us on the 14th for the special event! Thanks, Calvertcachers

Yes, coins are still available for both the Star-Spangled Banner and the Capt. John Smith geotrail!

Within Maryland and the Mid-Atlantic, we have several Geotrails currently underway. These include: Star-Spangled Banner (SSB) Geotrail. A National Park Service and Chesapeake Conservancy initiative. The Capt. John Smith Geotrail is a follow-up to the SSB. SSB Geocaching Account Profile SSB Passport & Trail Information. The Park Ranger Challenge is the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission (M-NCPPC) Ranger Challenge. M-NCPPC Ranger Challenge M-NCPPC Ranger Passport Information. CAM refers to the Maryland Geocaching Society (MGS) Cache Across Maryland (CAM) event/challenge that is held each spring. You can read more about CAM and all of the Geotrails on the MGS site Here Hope this helps!

Hi Rookie49, We hope you are enjoying the Capt. John Smith trail! As you can imagine with a project of this size, getting park approvals, etc... can sometime take a bit of time. Therefore, not all the caches were ready on June 4th. Plus, the Chesapeake Conservancy and NPS hope to continue to add caches along other rivers later this summer/fall, and expand the water trail component. So, be on the lookout for more caches throughout the summer and fall. To earn the coin, cachers need to find, log and post a pic at 15 CJS locations. Given the current economy and gas prices, we lowered the number to 15 since the rivers are spaced a good distance apart. We wanted the trail to be do'able As it stands right now, cachers can visit two rivers to obtain the 15 required caches. Hope this helps. Happy caching!

We are just hours away till the launch of the Captain John Smith Geotrail! The event starts at 10:00 a.m. tomorrow morning GC2F414 and over 40 caches throughout MD, DE and VA will publish a bit later. You can download a copy of the passport from the project website: SmithTrail.net Also, be sure to carry your camera along the Capt. John Smith Geotrail! The NPS & Chesapeake Conservancy will be having a photo contest with some nice prizes! Visit Smithtrail.net for all of the details. Thanks.

On Friday, a beautiful banner ad for the Captain John Smith Geotrail began running Geocaching.com. The ad will click through to the official website for the trail. http://www.smithtrail.net/things-to-do/geocaching.aspx Beginning next week you will be able to learn more about the trail through the site. But to give you a sneak peak…. The Captain John Smith Geotrail will highlight the explorations of Capt. Smith and his travels on the Chesapeake Bay and its tributary’s. The trail will have over 40 caches within Maryland, Delaware and Virginia. The trail will focus on 5 rivers; the Susquehanna, Potomac, Nanticoke, Rappahannock, and James (including the Chickahominy branch). Cachers will be required to find, log and post a pic at 15 CJS caches to earn the coin. Come show your support to the National Park Service and join us for the kick-off event on Saturday, June 4 at the National Colonial Farm GC2F414. We will have printed copies of the passport, a list of CJS caches and a chance to win some nice door prizes! The National Park Service has gone the extra mile by preparing a history write-up for every cache location and for obtaining permission to place caches at untouched/uncached locations. Each cache page will include a special history piece to give cachers an idea of what they will discover at the cache site. I have to admit, I have learned a great deal working on this project and am amazed by the history. Truly fascinating! Below is a sample of some wonderful history you will discover along the Captain John Smith Geotrail! Enjoy. A recently unveiled wayside exhibit interprets the connection between the river, the Chickahominy tribe, and the English colonists. The Chickahominy were powerful enough to remain independent of Powhatan’s paramount chieftaincy until after the arrival of the English. The cypress trees in the swamps provided lightweight, rot-resistant wood for dugout canoes. They skillfully harvested plants such as wild rice as well as fish, birds and mammals from the “breadbasket” marshes in the river’s many meanders, as well as hunting and gathering on land, to supplement their agricultural production of corn, beans, squash, melons, tobacco, and other crops. They traded corn with John Smith when he sought to keep the colonists from starvation, contributing to the survival of the Jamestown colony and later taught the colonists some of their agricultural practices. As the settlers began to prosper and expand their settlements, the Chickahominy were crowded out of their homeland. In the treaty of 1646, the tribe was granted reservation land in the Pamunkey Neck area of Virginia, near where the Mattaponi reservation now exists in King William County. Eventually, the tribe lost its reservation land, and the tribal families began a gradual migration to the area called the Chickahominy Ridge, where they now reside. Today, the Chickahominy tribe consists of approximately 840 people who live within a five-mile radius of each other and the tribal center. Several hundred more live in other parts of the United States. The tribe was granted official recognition by the state of Virginia in 1983 and has been working towards recognition by the federal government since 1996. Current tribal lands of about 110 acres are in the tribe's traditional territory, present-day Charles City County. The tribal center on the land is the location of an annual Powwow and Fall Festival.

The event page is now published GC2F414 I am pleased to announce that we will have some great door prizes for the CJS Kick-off event. Everyone who attends the event will get one ticket into our free drawing! We would like to send a big thanks to Groundspeak and Oakcoins for donating geo-goodies, and to the fine folks at Magellan who said they will be sending us a GPS to giveaway in our door prize drawing! There will also be exhibit and display booths from the various parks and historic sites along the CJS trail. The Maryland Geocaching Society and Northern Virginia Geocaching Organizations will also have an exhibit and will be giving geocaching demonstrations for new folks. And of course, we will have several new caches in place, including CJS trail hides, for this event! We certainly hope that everyone will be able to join us for this special event!

Captain John Smith Geotrail With the success of the Star-Spangled Banner Geotrail, the Chesapeake Conservancy, the National Park Service and the Maryland Geocaching Society are pleased to announce the Captain John Smith Geotrail! The new trail will launch on Saturday, June 4, 2011. We will host a special and exciting kick-off event (listing to be published soon) on the property of the Accokeek Foundation, National Colonial Farm. Be sure to save the date and we hope you all will join us for this exciting event! Stay tuned for more details! Here is a little taste of what you will discover along the Captain John Smith Geotrail...... Are you ready to follow in the wake of Captain John Smith? Visit sites along the National Historic Trail and learn about the native cultures and the natural environment of the 17th-century Chesapeake through the Captain John Smith Chesapeake Geotrail. The Trail provides opportunities for you to experience the Bay through the routes and places associated with Smith’s explorations. Caches will be located in museums, refuges, parks, and towns in Virginia, Maryland and Delaware along the rivers and creeks that Smith and his crew explored four centuries ago. Over four hundred years ago, Englishman John Smith and a small crew set out in an open boat to explore the Chesapeake Bay. Between 1607 and 1609 Smith mapped and documented nearly 3,000 miles of the Bay and its rivers. Along the way he visited many thriving American Indians communities and gathered information about this “fruitful and delightsome land.” In December 2006 the U.S. Congress designated the routes of Smith’s explorations of the Chesapeake as a national historic trail—the first national water trail. Additional Resources: National Park Service Smith Trail.net Trail updates will be posted on the Maryland Geocaching Society website. Click here: MGS

There are several Geo-challenges currently going on in the region such as the Star-Spangled Banner Geotrail, the M-NCPPC Park Ranger GeoChallenge, and the MML Geotrail. The MML trail has a few (less than 10 -15) coins left but there are plenty of coins still available for the other challenges. I post updates on the various trails on the Maryland Geocaching Society website at: My link If you need any help, feel free to send me a message. Happy caching!

Announcing the Star-Spangled Banner Geotrail Photo Contest Sponsored by the Friends of Chesapeake Gateways and the National Park Service. http://friendsofchesapeakegateways.org/photo-contest/ Did you snap a great shot at Fort McHenry National Monument and Shrine or capture a sunset at Point Lookout State Park? Did an eagle or a heron catch your eye while you were searching for a geocache at Caledon Natural Area or Mason Neck State Park? If so, please considering entering your photos in the contest at our flickr page, http://www.flickr.com/groups/ssb_geotrail Images will be used to promote the Geotrail and other programs around the Chesapeake Bay supported by the Friends of Chesapeake Gateways and the National Park Service, including a new Star-Spangled Banner National Historic Trail website just in time for the Bicentennial of the War of 1812. We’ll select 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners in each of our four categories. Those chosen will get a Star-Spangled Banner / Chesapeake Bay Gateways Prize pack that can include a special edition cap, shirt, blue crab tote bag, water bottle, pin and more – see full rules and prizes for more information Honorable mention will receive a Star-Spangled Banner lapel pin and a certificate. All submissions to the contest must be uploaded to the Star-Spangled Banner Geotrail Flickr page http://www.flickr.com/groups/ssb_geotrail Once uploaded, be sure to tag your photos to ensure their consideration in the correct category – see categories and tags below. Also, when you upload the photo, please let us know how you would like to be credited. Contest Categories Geocaching(tag: SSBGC) Images of you and your family and friends searching and finding geocaches along the Trail. War of 1812 (tag: SSB1812) Images of battlefields and other sites directly associated with the War of 1812 or of people enjoying and exploring these sites. Think of cannons, forts, historic re-enactments, people dressed in period clothing, etc Outdoors on the Bay (tag: SSBCB) Images of the Chesapeake Bay and its rivers and people (and wildlife) enjoying life on or near the water. Fishing, paddling, sailing, swimming etc History and Culture (tag: SSBHC) Images of interesting and historic places along the Trail like lighthouses, cemeteries, plantation homes, ships and more! You can be creative here. Did you see a lighthouse at sunset for example. When uploading your entries, remember to tell us something about when and where the photo was taken. Entry Period June 15 - September 30, 2010 | Winners Announced: October, 2010 Full Rules & Prizes http://friendsofchesapeakegateways.org/pho...les-and-prizes/ How to enter http://friendsofchesapeakegateways.org/pho...to-use-flicker/ Flicker.com http://www.flickr.com/ FAQ http://friendsofchesapeakegateways.org/ssb...to-contest-faq/

We are also members of the Magellan Insiders Program and have had the unit for a little over a week. We have used it to find 20 or so caches and so far, we have to give the unit 2 thumbs up! There are a few things that will need to get worked out but as others have mentioned, we think it offers a lot of features. We did carry our Garmin's (Map 60 and Colorado) to compare and the new Magellan had very good accuracy. It also maintained signal under a dense pine forest. We did realize that you can just drag and drop the PQ file directly into the gps folder when connected to the PC with the mini usb. Very cool. You do get all of the cache page information with hints & attributes, etc... on the unit. The type/font is a bit small on the screen so I do have to use my reading glasses. The color map screen is very nice. As for the accuracy, it is spot on!!! We plan to use it more this week but overall, I think most folks will have a small learning curve with the unit and would be very pleased.

Everything is set for the launch of the Star-Spangled Banner (SSB) Geotrail for this Saturday, February 27!! There is no snow in the forecast so we should have a great weekend for caching. The passport and project details can be found on the main website at: http://friendsofchesapeakegateways.org/pro...s/ssb_geotrail/ We will post updates on the Maryland Geocaching Society website: http://www.mdgps.org/forum/viewforum.php?f...089d2ceaad4c9af We hope to see you all on the SSB Geotrail!

Hello Geocaching Friends, After a long wait and a great amount of work from many volunteer cachers, I am pleased to announce The Star-Spangled Banner (SSB) Geotrail will launch Saturday, February 27!!! The Maryland Geocaching Society is pleased and excited to announce a partnership with the National Park Service’s Star-Spangled Banner National Historic Trail and Friends of Chesapeake Gateways & Water Trails Network in the development of the new Star-Spangled Banner (SSB) GeoTrail. Come on a journey to remember and commemorate the dramatic chain of events, people and places that led to the birth of our National Anthem. The story of the Anthem was shaped by events in the Chesapeake region during the War of 1812. From early 1813 until early 1815, the Chesapeake Bay and surrounding shores were the center of fierce struggles between the British and the Americans. From the burning of the White House to the Battle for Baltimore and ‘the rockets red glare,’ it’s all here for the geocaching community to enjoy in the Chesapeake region, an area encompassed by the Chesapeake Bay, coastal Virginia and the District of Columbia. The SSB trail will have over 35 caches within Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia. From Ft. McHenry through MD, DC and Northern VA, to Newport News, and the VA & MD Eastern Shores! A trackable geo coin will be awarded to the first 400 geocachers, while supplies last, for locating at least 20 SSB caches. To be eligible for the coin, geocachers must download a passport from either the SSB Geotrail website or Maryland Geocaching Society website. We will have the passports available for download by 2/20. Geocachers must find and log at least 20 SSB finds, record the code word from each cache on your passport and post a picture of yourself at each cache location on the cache page. After discovering the 20 required caches, geocachers may have their passports validated in person or via mail at the Friends of Chesapeake Gateways office. Complete details will be available prior to the launch on the MGS website at Maryland Geocaching Society www.mdgps.org. Updates will be posted to the MGS website as they become available. We hope everyone will join us at the GPS Maze Adventure event on February 20th at the Maryland Science Center (GC22386). The SSB Team will have a booth at the event. They will be handing out passports and will have a sample of the coin on display. The M-NCPPC Rangers, the MML and MGS will also have a display at the Maze Adventure event. We hope to see you all on the Star-Spangled Banner Geotrail! Thanks, Calvertcachers