Jump to content

Quality Logs


AustinMN

Recommended Posts

I've been seeing a lot of comments about a good log being as much or more thanks than a favorite point. But what is a good log?

 

Post one or two examples of your own logs that you consider examples of really good logs.

 

Note for new cachers: Don't think you have to measure up to these...consider them something to aspire to instead. Just try to avoid the "tftc" that seems to be so common.

 

See This Log of mine at East of Aidan.

 

Austin

Link to comment

Here are logs from some of my milestone finds:

500: ANX: The Angle of Eternity, Saturday, 24 March 2007

1000: Refuge Roundup, Saturday, 17 December 2011

1500: Lagoon Tour, Saturday, 21 June 2014

 

I tend to write longer, more detailed logs for "destination caches" like this that I plan a geocaching trip around. I'm also more likely to include photos with my logs for "destination caches".

Link to comment

I'm glad that you added that last bit for new cachers. While I do enjoy a nice long log and good story, all I hope for (especially these days!) is a unique sentence or two. Whenever these discussions arise, there will be somebody that complains about "writing an essay". I really don't think that anybody is asking for that.

Link to comment

I'm glad that you added that last bit for new cachers. While I do enjoy a nice long log and good story, all I hope for (especially these days!) is a unique sentence or two. Whenever these discussions arise, there will be somebody that complains about "writing an essay". I really don't think that anybody is asking for that.

 

Most of my own logs are only a couple sentences. The one I linked to took a couple hours (round trip) and three attempts, so there's something to talk about. It takes a fairly boring cache to get me to throw letters at it, and I have learned how to not look for those in the first place.

 

My own caching aspiration is to add quality photos to every log, but I'm not there yet either.

 

Austin

Edited by AustinMN
Link to comment

A recent log for a cache I liked:

A fine day for a long walk in the old quarry. Nice stage 1. Quite creative. A busy dog walking place today. When we got near the final I spent some time watching about 10 frogs floating in the pond area. Nice to see them out and about. The ground at the cache was spongy but not muddy. My coords were about 14m off but it was an easy find with geosense. Liked that the logbook matched the container and the theme. Nice work TorreyNoaTaia and N8trlvr. Left a shrink plastic zipper pull. A favourite point for creativity, a swag size cache in good shape, a good place to walk my dog, and a peaceful location at the final.

As a hider, I hope for a log that actually mentions our cache. A couple of sentences is fine. But please, not a cut n paste about xxx number of caches found that day to qualify for a challenge, with a generic thank you to all of the COs that provided a smiley.

Link to comment

Not my log but rather a log on one of our caches:

 

Logged from my phone using the Geocache Navigator by Trimble.

One of the disadvantages of paperless geocaching is that you don't see all these pretty maps you see when you're logging the cache. Parked, got out, walked to the edge of the ravine, said screw it and went back to the truck and had some lunch. Then walked into the park, checked out the furnace, found a trail and off we went, till - water hazard.... FAIL! Across the woods we went, and back to the main road. Cross the bridge to the other side and across the swampy area we went, till... Mehhh... FAIL again :o( Back out to the main road - back into the park for another try.... along and along we go making good progress until.... ding ding ding ding - you guessed it! Another water hazard. Well by now I've had about enough - let's see if fat guys can fly.... Across the water hazard I go... careful... careful... SPLOOCH.... CrAp! A soaker.... grrrrr...... OK, well that's over.... off we go.... of course debug being of the skinny folk clears the water hazard with dry feet.... So we FINALLY find the cache in a pleasant enough spot. i walk back out of cache central and debug says "where you going?" I said "You know me - I always take the hard way in and find an easier way out" - so I tested my theory - sure enough - there's the dang trail.... A nice little stroll and look at that. 10 blasted feet from where we ate lunch is where that stupid trail comes out and neither of us saw it.... grrrrr... again!! This had to have been the penalty cache for the day - we much have angered the cache gods or something! Well, I think we could say it was still an eventful trip, and for the rest of the weekend we vowed to walk further down the trail to see if there is an intersection before venturing into the plumage - that actually paid off a few times for us later in the week! SL TFTC and the adventure.

 

It seems that he had an adventure to write about... so he did. Kudos to the author!

Link to comment

This is one of my most favorite logs I have read in a long time -- the first time I have heard of a near-death doughnut.

 

The log's quality is proportional to the awesomeness of the cache against which it was posted (the cache is PMO -- don't click the link to it if you are flying under the audit log radar).

 

2.pngzanna found 8.gifChallenge: Ironman 365 Consecutive Days

 

This cache was found on day 4 of my most recent road trip adventure. Starting off in Atlanta, GA, I put 6,275 miles on Lil' Bird (my new car) over the course of 18 days while finding around 550 caches across 16 states and 5 provinces. This journey helped me complete two special goals I'd been working on, and I can now happily say I've visited and cached in all of the lower 48 states and 10 Canadian Provinces.

 

I kicked things off by myself, making my way to Michigan where I picked up Mrs. I hunt for fun. We then traveled together for a week and half caching our way to Montreal where we were joined by my muggle husband. We spent 5 days exploring our way to Halifax where IHFF departed for home. The hubby and I continued on to Cape Breton for visits with family and friends before a 3 day marathon drive home. It was an absolutely amazing adventure that I'll surely never forget.

 

Soooooooooo. Where to begin. I guess I should just come out and say sometimes I make bad decisions. Going for this cache after a day of rain was one of those decisions. We struck out at the other 5/5 challenge along the trail so I really wanted to get this one. I put myself in some serious danger trying to get to that ammo can as every step I took was a muddy wet mess. Trying to go the last 20 feet was unbelievable. I was literally hanging onto a small root for dear life as I tried to pull myself up enough to reach the cache. After reaching it, I had to balance just so to scratch out our names. The bad decisions just kept piling up, as I decided to go UP the rest of the way to the car. I got stuck with nothing left to hang onto and luckily had enough sense not to go any further. Back down the muddy slope of death it was. After a couple of small panic attacks, I made it back to solid ground and burst out of the woods like a wild woman coming forth to civilization for the first time. Parents shielded their children, kids looked on in horror, and I trudged past them all to the car where I promptly drove to the closest Tim Horton's for a near-death doughnut.

 

My proof can be found on my profile. I did a streak of 500 days that I ended a couple of months back.

 

TFTC.

 

Even the accompanying photo is awesome:

 

c2a11203-5d8e-46c1-b05f-c0d63398c3ee.jpg

Link to comment

I was just a few minutes ago reading some old logs on my favorite caches. Here is our crew's logs for GCG0BJ way back in the day (2005)...

 

FANTASTIC CACHE and #600 for ADS1!!! Could not have had a better cache to log on this day!!! We found the cache eventhough stage 2 was missing (Area was clearcut). Thanks to TrkDoc and Super Squid for their assistance in getting us on to stage 3 so we could complete the cache. It took about 4 hours to complete the cache, but it could be done in 3 hours without if stage 2 was intact. This cache was so much fun, especially with rwillet, pushmataha. pork king, and super squid. We will all remember this one for a long time. Left a White Jeep, one of my favotite John Deere 8220 Tractors (alias John Deere 9420) and a signature item. Nothing Runs Like a Deere! What more can I say but "Thank You".
This one has been on the radar for a while now. I met up with PorkKing and ADS1 at 5:30 this morning for the drive to Carthage. ADS1 was kind enough to let us burn his fuel for the trip. In Carthage, we met up with Rwillet and SuperSquid himself at the Hitchin Post restaurant. After a hearty breakfast we were all ready for a nap, but the Mystery Cache was calling us. We got to the park right at 8:00 and set out to solve the mystery. The first stage was easy enough, but the second stage presented a problem. I was first on the scene and found recent logging activity in the vicinity of the cache. After a thorough search, we were pretty sure that we found the stump that was at one time the home to this stage, but no container. We concluded that it must have made the trip to the sawmill. At this point, we started drawing on all available resources, which were pretty slim considering the lack of cellular service in the area. PorkKing was finally able to get TrkDoc on the phone with a few pointers, and we used SuperSquid's memory of the cache exhaustively. It took a while not having any coordinates to use, but we finally found stage three. Now we were back in the game! PorkKing, Rwillet and I visited the site of the old whiskey still while ADS1 and SuperSquid rushed to the next stage. At this point our water supplies were running low, so PK tried the creek. When we all re-joined at the next stage, PorkKing impressed us with his new-found knowledge about UTM coordinates. The next stages dropped pretty quickly and the final mystery was solved by 11:50. I was certainly thankful - as I'm not sure we would have finished this one without the tremendous team effort. I dropped off a WG$1 and picked up a tape measure. After the find, we drove back to the Hitchin Post for lunch, before we parted company with the central Mississippi guys, and made our way back north. Shoeless Joe, thanks for a great cache!
Definitely a "Top 5" for me. Team work was absolutely the word of the day on this cache. Pushmataha dominated the lead until the snag at stage 2. After calling TrkDoc for some helpful hints to the next stage, we got to an area that SS thought looked familiar (all woods look the same when you are looking for a cache!), so we went from there. I was almost ready to throw in the towel. Of course we let each member of the team search for the stage before it was pulled out of hiding. ADS1 was taking a bit too long, so I gave him a helpful hint (I believe it was, "There's the #@*& thing right there, let's get moving!"). All last week I studied up on UTM coords just for this cache. It came in handy. At the moonshine still stage I was a bit dry and no moonshine to be found (note to self: on caches that tend to take 3+ hours, NEVER forget to pick up some water.), so I sampled the creek water. No telling what kind of intestinal ne'er-do-wells are crawling around my insides right about now. As the 3 "young'uns" (me, Push, Rwillet) sat at the creek waiting on the Oldies to catch up, they came in over the radio "Come in, Pork King, we are at the next stage site, over". We hacked our way over to them. It seems some wisdom DOES come with age, they found a much better way to the site than we. On to the next stage. Push and I beat the rest there and sat pondering the final stage clues. Greeeaaat, the one day I left my Trig book at home (what was it? The square of the mass of the earth divided by the gravitational pull of a black hole added to stage 3 coordinates?). 5 guys sitting around, most of them out of school for a looong time, trying to get the final stage coordinates...it took awhile. Anyhow, we soon "rounded home" so to speak and found the final cache in its "highly vegitated" surroundings.

I TN, left one of my new WWII warbird TBs (P-38L Lightning).

Up at 4am and off to pick up Super Squid. Up the natchez trace and breakfast at Carthage. Meet up with ADS1, Pork King and Pushmataha. Golden Memorial Park opens at 8am and we were there promptly and ready to search the park. Off we went to solve this mystery thing. With a team effort and a lifeline the mystery was solved. I reccommend this cache as a team effort. Thanks SJ for all the effort put into this cache. This cache artifacts will go in my memory book. Please put out another difficult cache that requires a team effort. Left a yellow jeep travel bug for all those who still don't have a YJTB icon on their stat page. Looking forward to meeting you.

 

Ron Willett

Flora, MS

 

By the way, if you read my log about the intestinal ne'er-do-wells, I did indeed come down with a case of cryptosporidiosis the next day.

Edited by Pork King
Link to comment

Posted to an Event cache:

 

Our CM team came to Plante's Ferry Park for some geocaching and the Meet and Greet but what we didn't realize is that there would be free beer and wine and dancing with a live band.

 

We reveled on but, man, this really cut into our cache machine production for the day. We didn't complete the route until 2:30am. I think that was because our hired designated driver didn't know what he was doing. I mean, how hard could it be to get to the next stop when you have four people giving very explicit instructions all at once? Or maybe it had something to do with the fact that we kept falling out of the car at each stop. One member could only crawl to each cache but his name will not be mentioned on these pages.

 

Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes. We really enjoyed the lunch and we plan on donating an amount equal to 15% of our bail fees to the WSGA-IEC for the great time that was had by all. We sort of got in trouble when we broke into the Timber Creek Grill Buffet for the CM dinner event after the route was done. Cross my heart and hope to die, we really thought Travis had booked the place for an all-night party. I guess we were wrong.

 

So thank you IE Chapter for this wonderful event. You guys really rock over here.

 

Edit: Names removed to limit unsolicited legal advice.

Link to comment

.

 

An excerpt from one of my favorite logs posted on one of my caches ...

 

"... Found the 6th stage and had to head back home. I rushed to find the most direct path to my car, and think I wandered onto the private farm. I met 2 ladies and their dog out for their morning walk. Since I may have looked odd riding an orange mountain bike, wearing a purple helmet, bright blue cycling jersey, with a headlamp (it was now daylight), they asked if I might be lost. I told them I had a GPS, topo map, compass, and aerial photo of the area, and yes, I indeed was lost ..."

 

.

Link to comment

Anything longer then TYFTH and shorter then a book. It would take to long to find my examples but I would say I tried to say something about my day, who I'm with, where I'm heading, what exciting thing happened or any misshaps happened on that day. On some big days I can't remember all the caches so sometimes I copy and paste and add anything about the cache that was interesting. This is why caches should be either in an interesting place or be a memorable cache. Caches that are too repetitive are boring. But hey I can say alot about a cache in a trashy spot.

Link to comment

I'm not one to write a novel when I post a found-it, but after stumbling across a Munzee and checking that game out, I've resolved never to log a "TFTC." Not knocking munzee, but it's a very different play style, and just not as much fun as far as I'm concerned. I figure if I'm in too much of a hurry to actually say SOMETHING, I might as well just run around scanning QR codes and racking up a score.

Link to comment

This thread also reminds me of a cache I found Sunday. A 5-leg multi, 4 difficulty, and an absolute blast to find. I ran into another cacher at leg 1, and without tagging along with him, I would never have gotten it (though I did spot leg 1 first, made me feel like at least I wasn't dead weight!) Turns out this cache is part of a friendly grudge match between the guy I was with, and this cache's owner.

Four days and some hours have passed as I write this, and the cacher I found it with has still not logged his find. There's no way he forgot. He must be drafting a very special found-it for this one!

Link to comment

I'm glad that you added that last bit for new cachers. While I do enjoy a nice long log and good story, all I hope for (especially these days!) is a unique sentence or two. Whenever these discussions arise, there will be somebody that complains about "writing an essay". I really don't think that anybody is asking for that.

I'm gona go find some Knowschad hides. Sign the log GRUNT, UGH, PHTTTT, AHHH!

Link to comment

I am glad that there was a reference to Oregone - it's a pity that he deleted many of his logs, but I was inspired by what he wrote. I tend to write steams of consciousness if there is something that triggers it. Otherwise it may be a couple of sentences that come to mind. But one of my caching accomplishments is never having cut and paste a log.

 

I was trying to find some other logs that I remembered liking, but these appeared first. A cache by Lake Marie in California, using the name of a John Prine song, that gave something to riff:

 

Oh Lake Marie. I could almost taste the Italian Sausages on the grill or remember what it was like to feel her next to me, humming Louie Louie as we fell to sleep. I did not have to worry about the darker side of what may be found in the woods or by lakes - my clients might know about some of those things - but those images are not important when there were memories of her, the lake, what it was like to be young - when Louie Louie was enough. That was more important than sausage.

 

Who hasn't thought about the sisters along the lake? Who hasn't looked into the lake and remembered the blackness of her hair and the depth of her eyes? Who hasn't lost their imagination go with the radio on, looking for another station? Louie Louie. Her touch. Baby we have gotta go.

 

As the hike progressed, it seemed that dreams were lightning, and thunder was desire. There was an old house that burned down a long time ago. And when we got to the end of the day, not quite an illegal smile but a smile nonetheless. Ah, Lake Marie and its peaceful waters. There is a lot hidden here besides containers.

 

A cache near Sugarhouse Park in Utah:

 

I thought about how Joe Hill was shot and killed just across the way, at the old Sugar House prison in 1915. Some say he was shot because he wrote too many songs that were being sung by working people in Labor Halls across the nation. Perhaps. His last will encouraged his ashes to be spread about to enable things to grow, but I knew that they did not help the wetlands here because the ashes were taken elsewhere. Joe did not want to be caught dead in Utah.

 

So as I was telling my daughter this story and teaching her about Joe, a wind blew a thunderstorm through the Hollow, rain came down, adding wildness and magic to our visit.

 

Perhaps Joe's echo could be heard through the storm. After all, as the song says, he never really died.

 

Or a cache in the dunes of Death Valley. The CO turned this log into haiku:

 

Whether Tatooine or the sands of Arabia, a place to let the imagination fly. Walking along ridges, and over rises, sand and mountains. A place of beauty and power.
Edited by geodarts
Link to comment

What cache owner doesn't love a log like this one recently posted for one of our caches:

 

"We found this one earlier today, but I'm just posting now because my boyfriend used your geocache to propose to me!!! His brother secretly went to the cache before we did to hide the ring box in it! And when I looked inside I found the best swag ever! Remember: "couples who geocache together, stay together!" Or something to that effect! TFTC and for being part of our love story!"

 

:D

Link to comment

I'm glad that you added that last bit for new cachers. While I do enjoy a nice long log and good story, all I hope for (especially these days!) is a unique sentence or two. Whenever these discussions arise, there will be somebody that complains about "writing an essay". I really don't think that anybody is asking for that.

 

Most of my own logs are only a couple sentences. The one I linked to took a couple hours (round trip) and three attempts, so there's something to talk about. It takes a fairly boring cache to get me to throw letters at it, and I have learned how to not look for those in the first place.

 

My own caching aspiration is to add quality photos to every log, but I'm not there yet either.

 

Austin

 

You can come up here and do my caches anytime!

Link to comment

Not my log but rather a log on one of our caches:

 

Logged from my phone using the Geocache Navigator by Trimble.

One of the disadvantages of paperless geocaching is that you don't see all these pretty maps you see when you're logging the cache. Parked, got out, walked to the edge of the ravine, said screw it and went back to the truck and had some lunch. Then walked into the park, checked out the furnace, found a trail and off we went, till - water hazard.... FAIL! Across the woods we went, and back to the main road. Cross the bridge to the other side and across the swampy area we went, till... Mehhh... FAIL again :o( Back out to the main road - back into the park for another try.... along and along we go making good progress until.... ding ding ding ding - you guessed it! Another water hazard. Well by now I've had about enough - let's see if fat guys can fly.... Across the water hazard I go... careful... careful... SPLOOCH.... CrAp! A soaker.... grrrrr...... OK, well that's over.... off we go.... of course debug being of the skinny folk clears the water hazard with dry feet.... So we FINALLY find the cache in a pleasant enough spot. i walk back out of cache central and debug says "where you going?" I said "You know me - I always take the hard way in and find an easier way out" - so I tested my theory - sure enough - there's the dang trail.... A nice little stroll and look at that. 10 blasted feet from where we ate lunch is where that stupid trail comes out and neither of us saw it.... grrrrr... again!! This had to have been the penalty cache for the day - we much have angered the cache gods or something! Well, I think we could say it was still an eventful trip, and for the rest of the weekend we vowed to walk further down the trail to see if there is an intersection before venturing into the plumage - that actually paid off a few times for us later in the week! SL TFTC and the adventure.

 

It seems that he had an adventure to write about... so he did. Kudos to the author!

 

Funny! I think we've all had experiences something like that.

 

And he logged it from his phone!! So... it IS possible!!

Link to comment

This is one of my most favorite logs I have read in a long time -- the first time I have heard of a near-death doughnut.

 

The log's quality is proportional to the awesomeness of the cache against which it was posted (the cache is PMO -- don't click the link to it if you are flying under the audit log radar).

 

2.pngzanna found 8.gifChallenge: Ironman 365 Consecutive Days

 

This cache was found on day 4 of my most recent road trip adventure. Starting off in Atlanta, GA, I put 6,275 miles on Lil' Bird (my new car) over the course of 18 days while finding around 550 caches across 16 states and 5 provinces. This journey helped me complete two special goals I'd been working on, and I can now happily say I've visited and cached in all of the lower 48 states and 10 Canadian Provinces.

 

I kicked things off by myself, making my way to Michigan where I picked up Mrs. I hunt for fun. We then traveled together for a week and half caching our way to Montreal where we were joined by my muggle husband. We spent 5 days exploring our way to Halifax where IHFF departed for home. The hubby and I continued on to Cape Breton for visits with family and friends before a 3 day marathon drive home. It was an absolutely amazing adventure that I'll surely never forget.

 

Soooooooooo. Where to begin. I guess I should just come out and say sometimes I make bad decisions. Going for this cache after a day of rain was one of those decisions. We struck out at the other 5/5 challenge along the trail so I really wanted to get this one. I put myself in some serious danger trying to get to that ammo can as every step I took was a muddy wet mess. Trying to go the last 20 feet was unbelievable. I was literally hanging onto a small root for dear life as I tried to pull myself up enough to reach the cache. After reaching it, I had to balance just so to scratch out our names. The bad decisions just kept piling up, as I decided to go UP the rest of the way to the car. I got stuck with nothing left to hang onto and luckily had enough sense not to go any further. Back down the muddy slope of death it was. After a couple of small panic attacks, I made it back to solid ground and burst out of the woods like a wild woman coming forth to civilization for the first time. Parents shielded their children, kids looked on in horror, and I trudged past them all to the car where I promptly drove to the closest Tim Horton's for a near-death doughnut.

 

My proof can be found on my profile. I did a streak of 500 days that I ended a couple of months back.

 

TFTC.

 

Even the accompanying photo is awesome:

 

c2a11203-5d8e-46c1-b05f-c0d63398c3ee.jpg

 

Where is the "Like" button?

Link to comment

I'm glad that you added that last bit for new cachers. While I do enjoy a nice long log and good story, all I hope for (especially these days!) is a unique sentence or two. Whenever these discussions arise, there will be somebody that complains about "writing an essay". I really don't think that anybody is asking for that.

I'm gona go find some Knowschad hides. Sign the log GRUNT, UGH, PHTTTT, AHHH!

 

That would be an essay for some. :rolleyes:

Link to comment

I'm glad that you added that last bit for new cachers. While I do enjoy a nice long log and good story, all I hope for (especially these days!) is a unique sentence or two. Whenever these discussions arise, there will be somebody that complains about "writing an essay". I really don't think that anybody is asking for that.

 

Most of my own logs are only a couple sentences. The one I linked to took a couple hours (round trip) and three attempts, so there's something to talk about. It takes a fairly boring cache to get me to throw letters at it, and I have learned how to not look for those in the first place.

 

My own caching aspiration is to add quality photos to every log, but I'm not there yet either.

 

Austin

 

You can come up here and do my caches anytime!

 

I had to check your caches to see if I might have already. I'm in Anoka County, so going down to where you are just to go caching is a stretch but not out of the question. We've been down that way before.

 

Austin

Edited by AustinMN
Link to comment

The one thing that keeps me coming back to caching, despite occasional lulls in my interest, is that it gets you to places you'd never otherwise find. In this particular case, the schoolhouse where my grandmother first taught, in 1933-34. It's rarely the cache itself I much care for (though sometimes), but I sure like that it makes you take one road and not the other.

 

Indian Valley Road

 

* * *

 

A year or so after my grandmother got her teaching certificate from San Francisco State, my grandmother accepted an offer to teach at the one-room, 15-or-so student school located on Indian Valley Road in southern Monterey County. Although she was later the librarian at both Lafayette Grammar School and Stanley Middle School in Lafayette, CA, the 1933-34 school year was the only year she taught.*

 

Now, as it turns out, by the time my grandmother had moved to the Bradley-San Miguel metroplex, she and my grandfather were dating -- or he was courting her -- or whatever one did in the 1930s short of a proper but preordained engagement. I am sure as hell it was not “hanging out”, or whatever those crazy young people do today. He was friends from Berkeley High with her brother, although I don’t quite know the whole origin story. So while he worked as an apprentice printer in San Francisco, she was off in the southern Monterey County marches.

 

And before the internet, before cheap phone calls, people actually wrote words on paper in such a way as to express thoughts and emotions. Nary an emoticon to be found. My sister (who owns the house in which our grandparents grew old together) recently uncovered an entire year’s worth of letters. I haven’t read through them yet, but I am assured that the bulk of the letter is my grandfather suggesting he should come for a visit and my grandmother accusing him of being “a devil” for his suggesting it.

 

I don’t believe he came to visit. Of course, I’m sure grandpa would have had to sleep in someone else barn, because grandma lived with a Mr. Curtis, who was some sort of official with the school board and who owned much of the land there. Now, Grandma was a single lady of decent morals and, back then of course, the right thing to do was to board with a family of more tolerable morals (than what? Well, at least more tolerable than my grandfather’s devilish designs, thank you *very* much!). I now need to find out how the story ended.

 

Will grandpa get to use his devlish charms on grandma? Will he leave a solid trade in San Francisco to win over grandma? Will Mr Curtis chase him down Indian Valley Creek with pitchfork and shotgun? (Yes, but not yet; not a chance, it was the Depression; and -- I sure hope so. Because that would be awesome. Stay tuned.)

 

With all of this as background, about a month ago, my Dad and I scheduled a work meeting with some folks in Santa Barbara. My Dad thought it might be fun to visit her old school house -- something he hadn’t done since the summer of 1946, when they took their first vacation since the war. While my grandfather was in strategic industry (and then in his mid-thirties) he avoided service, there wasn’t a lot of time, money or gasoline for such an adventure. I had always thought grandma had taught in Coalinga, but it was indeed southern Monterey. Turned out the car broke down on that car trip and they stayed a couple of days in Coalinga getting the car fixed.

 

So Dad tried to brute force his way through a map, trying to remember where it was. Remembering the road name, but little else. I pulled up streetview and starting working my way down the road. I barely had time to get frustrated with that sort of tediousness when I remembered my odious little hobby of geocaching and knew full well that if there was an old abandoned schoolhouse on a backroad in California, someone necessarily would have placed a cache there. Low and behold, there it was.

 

We brought a stack of the old pictures from her year there (see attached) and were able to confirm that this was the right place. The clapboards were the right size, the window moldings a clear match. Unfortunately, the whole property was behind a locked fence, so we couldn’t get right up to it or make a clean overlay of the old pictures with the new ones, “Dear Photograph” style. It’s a stunning valley down there. Across the way is giant oak tree -- no doubt big enough to be the main climbing tree for the kids 80 years ago.

 

We thought that perhaps we could find someone in the valley that knew a bit more about the school house. We found a sign that pointed to various families there in the Valley, including the Curtis family. Unlikely to be a coincidence. Most of the gates were locked but eventually we found one likely looking house. We knocked on the door and a friendly fellow came out and we chatted him up. He was new to the valley, so he didn’t have much to add, but suggested we try “Margolee” who ran the pick-your-own-fruit place down the road. “The valley historian and busy body -- she has a barbecue every spring and likes people to wear name tags with their license plate numbers on them, so she knows who’s coming and who’s going.”

 

Unfortunately, we couldn’t find her, but we got the number from the fence. I suppose, from the fellow’s description, she may well know some of those kids in the pictures. We’ll be trying to run her down soon enough.

 

Oh, the cache? Easy find. TFTC #2,112.

 

* * *

 

9ece0eca-decc-4dab-9e99-f2918f08fc88.jpg

Edited by Alkhalikoi
Link to comment

Not one of my logs, although I always try to do at least a sentence or two, and more if it's a fun cache.

This is one I really appreciate for a cache I built a couple of years ago just for kids. This log tells me I hit it on the head for kids.

Without a nice story like this, you never know if the cache is working as you intended.

Ms Kitty's Kiddy Puzzler

 

The log ......

 

Great afternoon geocaching with Snaefel and the Kids. Who could believe that in the middle of October we would be eaten alive by mosquitoes :(... OH well! the weather was beautiful and it was a great day to hunt around in nature to find caches.

 

I think that this one took us the longest to actually find. My daughter was the one that found it, and man was she ever excited when she saw it. She quickly went to work on the puzzle with my son chiming in for some of the clues, and we "the adults" thought that hey that looks good all done, try the lock now... ummmm... nope? hmmm why didn't it open, the puzzle is solved. My daughter looked at it and said well no, this goes better with that and so on and she moved a bunch of the tiles around and presto the treasure was opened. I am STILL baffled as to why she thought that certain tiles should be moved. If it was just me and no kids around, i'd still be trying to open it up :s.... LOL

Link to comment

A great log tells what they liked about their experience and the things that went on while being out there. It is interesting to hear what they did and how it went! In one log the family dog had to find the car cause they didn't mark it! That was precious! I want to know they had a great time - cause that is what it is all about!

Link to comment

My logs are rather boring. They usually start by mentioning how I was again walking my dog and decided to take her to a cache. I might mention how the weather is or what else I have done during the day or if I plan to visit other caches. If the cache box is interesting I might say something like 'nice and clever hide' or 'I liked the box and camo' but I try to be ambiguous not to spoil it.

 

My favourite of my logs is one I made to look like a short story by adding some knights and dragons into it. It was so long I had to shorten it to make it fit. I do not know if others liked it though. I have another I wrote into a "funny" story when I found some potatoes near the cache.

 

And once I wrote a poem. Not a good one, I guess.

 

I try to write a log longer than 'I found it, tftc' but honestly, if it is 13 in a dozen hide it is difficult to say anything and then if it is an excellent cache I do not want to spoil it being too spesific in my compliments.

Link to comment

Here are a few of my favorite logs,

 

A nice premium cache about a minute off of Interstate 35. Family friendly and normally geo-pet safe too. While it appears that there could be some bush-whacking required, I happened upon an enchanted pathway that required none.

 

I actually did this hunt in a tuxedo (with tails) and shiny shoes. Apparently my attire appeased the local guardians and I was allowed to pass into Wonderland unmolested. As I made the trek deeper and deeper into this magical place, I observed so many things that tried to distract me. Before I could get fenced in by the Queen and her guards, I spotted the cache and smiling like the Chesire Cat I was. This find will be easy for some, not so easy for others.

 

Fav Point !

 

SL TSLS TFTC

 

Out and about in the Ottawa and Garnett areas today in search of tupperware and other stuff. Lee! and I had quite a time at this cache. We got the opportunity to use the new Leatherman multi tool I got for Christmas from my sister. On the way back to the car to get my multi tool, I dropped my beloved pink bullet Fisher Space Pen that I love to use for caching and have used for years. It got lost in the brome, which is growing nicely. After twice retracing my steps, my man found my pen and I was SOOOOOO happy! He's my hero this afternoon. As usual, you have outdone yourself with another adorable cache container. It's always such a joy to find a KaRue cache. Thanks and keep up the awesome work!

 

It's so much fun to read the story on this one. Lots of thought and time has obviously gone into this! The container and placement are perfect for this story. Great Job!

 

That last log was from a Geocacher's third find ever. I thought it was really noteworthy how much she wrote.

Link to comment

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...