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Our 1st Road/Day Trip..and What I Learned


Team Abarth

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Little back story...last weekend there was a "meet and greet" event in St. Joseph, Mo, about 80 miles from us...so the wife and I decided to do a day trip out of it along one of our favorite drives, and get some geocaching in, while exploring a possible route for our local car club. I knew I would have to space them out, but we wanted to explore some old cemeteries with geocaches (for some reason...we really like these), and do a few "bridge" ones that were just around the corner. I also picked what looked like easy park and grabs along the route. We had a window of 6 hours to play..plenty of time..the actual drive time was like 2-3 hours. Man was I wrong.

 

Our first 2 were easy park and grabs, but when we hit the park in Leavenworth in what looked like another one, we spent well over an hour there, not only getting to it and back...but just enjoying the views and our time together. Never knew this park was there..and driving by you wouldn't think there was one, so I can see why the last time someone found this GC was 8 months prior. Moved onto the next...and logged a DNF, then another easy park and find overlooking the penitentiary. Onto our 1st cemetery, then a bridge. I had planned on be-bopping back and forth along K-7 into Atchison doing cemeteries...but after these 2, I realized we would be pressed for time..and we still had to hit the 4 state overlook in White Cloud, and the 40th parallel on the Kansas/Nebraska border...2 of which were a must hit on our list.

 

We hit those 2...plus one other (I'm proud of my wife making it up to the 40th parallel one...it was pretty steep..but she soldiered on and made it), but skipped the rest to get to the meet and greet.

What I've learned is to space them out even further, and just do ones that are right along our route, barely off the road. There's never enough time. Also...when we go back to hit all the other cemeteries, take the suv. My little bambino did fine on the back country roads, but some had me a little concerned I might not have enough clearance. We still really enjoyed ourselves...met some great people at the event, and most importantly..spent some great..and some much needed quality time together.

 

I share this not only for other newbies who might be doing geocaching they way we're doing it, but also to help make me have a "mental note" as I plan some geocache stops as we make our way down to Arkansas for our car event this Thursday. Plan on doing a couple at Peel's ferry on either side, plus one or 2 others along the highway southeast of Springfield.

 

Sorry for the long post..but wanted to share. Peace and Long Life to everyone.

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Little back story...last weekend there was a "meet and greet" event in St. Joseph, Mo, about 80 miles from us...so the wife and I decided to do a day trip out of it along one of our favorite drives, and get some geocaching in, while exploring a possible route for our local car club. I knew I would have to space them out, but we wanted to explore some old cemeteries with geocaches (for some reason...we really like these), and do a few "bridge" ones that were just around the corner. I also picked what looked like easy park and grabs along the route. We had a window of 6 hours to play..plenty of time..the actual drive time was like 2-3 hours. Man was I wrong.

 

Our first 2 were easy park and grabs, but when we hit the park in Leavenworth in what looked like another one, we spent well over an hour there, not only getting to it and back...but just enjoying the views and our time together. Never knew this park was there..and driving by you wouldn't think there was one, so I can see why the last time someone found this GC was 8 months prior. Moved onto the next...and logged a DNF, then another easy park and find overlooking the penitentiary. Onto our 1st cemetery, then a bridge. I had planned on be-bopping back and forth along K-7 into Atchison doing cemeteries...but after these 2, I realized we would be pressed for time..and we still had to hit the 4 state overlook in White Cloud, and the 40th parallel on the Kansas/Nebraska border...2 of which were a must hit on our list.

 

We hit those 2...plus one other (I'm proud of my wife making it up to the 40th parallel one...it was pretty steep..but she soldiered on and made it), but skipped the rest to get to the meet and greet.

What I've learned is to space them out even further, and just do ones that are right along our route, barely off the road. There's never enough time. Also...when we go back to hit all the other cemeteries, take the suv. My little bambino did fine on the back country roads, but some had me a little concerned I might not have enough clearance. We still really enjoyed ourselves...met some great people at the event, and most importantly..spent some great..and some much needed quality time together.

 

I share this not only for other newbies who might be doing geocaching they way we're doing it, but also to help make me have a "mental note" as I plan some geocache stops as we make our way down to Arkansas for our car event this Thursday. Plan on doing a couple at Peel's ferry on either side, plus one or 2 others along the highway southeast of Springfield.

 

Sorry for the long post..but wanted to share. Peace and Long Life to everyone.

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Thanks for sharing your story. Many of us can relate to your experience. I hope you share this kind of story in your logs. Welcome to the 'game".

My logs are pretty short since I really hate trying to type on my phone. Sometimes I'll try to go back and edit my log

 

Right now we're in Arkansas hosting a national car event that I put together (thrown under the bus to do), and it's our first time. We got some caching in on the way down, but once we hit Peel's Ferry...we were getting tired and hungry, and just wanted to get to the hotel. The guy that caravanned with us thought it was "neat", but don't think it's for him. I wanted to get some caching in today while I go drive/do some recon on the route for Saturday, but it's a 4 hour drive alone, and think it's probably best I just focus on making sure the event goes smoothly and everyone has a good time.

 

I'll save the geocaching for the next time my wife...Her Majesty The Queen....and I are down this way just the 2 of us. The roads down here are amazing...so definitely have to get back on our own.

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My logs are pretty short since I really hate trying to type on my phone. Sometimes I'll try to go back and edit my log

I'm not sure how you're all set up (whether you have a laptop, desktop, etc.), but something you may want to consider is Field Notes. When you find the cache (or DNF, or whatever), you'd create a Field Note rather than submit a final log, often just making brief notes about your experience as reminders to yourself. This Field Note acts as a placeholder but isn't a full log. When you get home, or to your destination, you could then go on the website and convert each of these Field Notes to a full-fledged log by typing on a normal keyboard.

 

Related to this is that when you submit a brief log from your phone and later edit, the CO will only get an email on the initial brief log. They'd have to go look at the cache page later to find out that you've edited and expanded your log. If you use Field Notes, no log is submitted until after you convert the Field Note to a log, so the email the CO gets will contain your final, full-fledged log.

 

Edit to add: One caveat I just thought of is that the new Geocaching® app doesn't yet have Field Note capability. I believe most of the third-party apps do, though.

Edited by The A-Team
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