geocaching

Geocaching Update

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Not only can you discover hidden canisters full of trinkets around the globe, half of the appeal in Geocaching is hiding caches yourself and watch others enjoy your discovery. It’s fun to see people sign the logs, grab a trinket, take a trinket and add images to the cache’s digital logs.

Sadly, however, things happen to these hidden caches such as weather or muggles (non-players.) I had to archive another hide this morning so now I am only down to two. I have a few more hides I need to scout locations for and create but I am waiting for other things to happen first.

Only two left, not counting the virtual caches I have created (not shown)
This little sucker has traveled almost 1,200 miles!
GeoDenbow’s Globe-trotting Travel Bug #TB2AEXR
A sneaky hide underneath a highway guardrail

Geocaching
Geocaching is a treasure hunting game where you use a GPS to hide and seek containers with other participants in the activity. Geocaching.com is the listing service for geocaches around the world.
Geocaching

Human Feeders

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I think it was Kleon who used the phrase “human bird feeders” to describe those places that attract and feed us. A Little Free Library certainly counts as a feeding place. We ventured out for some geocaching after lunch today and had a 2-for-1 special in that while we were looking for a hidden cache it was inside the LFL. Bonus: I found a title that is currently on my “to be read” list called Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. Now I can scratch that one off of my public library hold request list.

I can also check two more geocaches from local hiding places. Love it.

What are some other “human bird feeders” that attract us and make us pause?

Sneaky hide
Easy grab and go cache hidden under a rock

Mojo Island (GCA06T7)

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With my friends joining me, I have claimed an island in the middle of the Arkansas river as my own and renamed it “Mojo Island.” After verifying GPS coordinates, I placed a container full of treasure and a log for those intrepid explorers who follow me. From the geocache description:

This geocache is rated as a  5/5. Not everyone may be able to attempt this cache. It will require walking down rocks, wading, or possibly swimming in river water currents (not suggested) You may have to use a canoe or kayak to access Mojo’s island. Either way, you need to understand that you assume the risk. Myself, nor Geocaching.com/Groundspeak can be held responsible for your decision to attempt to retrieve this cache. You are looking for a container on the island itself. It could have a tendency to leak, especially in high water, so if you cannot sign it then a photo of you and the container will qualify as a smiley in your log. Due to the nature of the terrain and difficulty level, photographic proof is required in addition to the signing of the log. Please send images to me directly instead of in the geocache log. Good luck and stay safe out there as there are potentially sharp rocks along the shorelines. 

– Geo Mojo, host of Mojo’s Island

I’ll be headed back to Mojo island as soon as I have found a more suitable container, more treasure to add to it and even a human skeleton that I will chain to a tree as a waypoint for future explorers to discover.

A Different Path

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Lately I am having issues with my ankles turning while on a dirt trail or geocaching. I think city hiking for a while is a good alternative. Future walks will include paved trails, parks, desire paths and green spaces.

More wandering, more flanuering. These evoke freedom, serendipity, and encounters with city life.

Long walks (nothing like Craig Mod’s expeditions across Japan though)to explore, quantify, document, record and archive my discoveries.

In the future, I will acquire a Garmin watch to help track and quantify these urban excursions. I believe they will do a better job than the Apple Watch currently on my wrist with a third-party app.

GC9Y41Q

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A new Geocache hide has been placed that overlooks the city of Tulsa from the Midland Valley Trail. This will be my third stash and is currently submitted, waiting on final approval. It will be loaded with a log, pencil, trinkets and a travel bug.

“Skyline View”

**UPDATE**

This has been ”muggled” by someone and is no longer there. I’ll have to buy a nano container to replace it and try again.

GC9XPFR

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I recently placed and submitted for approval a new geocache at Geocaching.com. This one is titled: “The One Dedicated To Tracy” at nearby Tracy Park. This is the second geocache, loaded with trackables, log, pencil and trinkets I’ve placed out into the wild and loving the interaction from the GC community so far.

**UPDATE**

Due to my cache placement being in close proximity to an Adventure Lab cache, one that is virtual, my submission was denied. I’ve had to relocate my hide and it was approved. Frustrating that my physical cache had to make way for a virtual cache.

GC9XF0J

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After eleven years of geocaching, I finally have submitted my own hidden cache into the wild.

Geocache #6 (GC9XF0J) is located east of downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma and is currently pending review on my submission. But it is placed and ready to go!

Hidden in plain sight
or is it?
Log, pencil, game token and a travel bug to circulate around the globe!

Map Quest Revisited

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After amassing about a thousand images of neon, murals and geocaches it is past time that I curate them into a searchable database. This is one of those “shoulda done it sooner” moments but who knew my latest photographic passion would have carried on this long?

I’ve looked around for some inexpensive, do-it-yourself software but I’m coming up with a lot of fluff. For now, I’ve settled on Google My Maps and Google Earth. I hate this.

Every photo taken with a GPS-enabled camera is geo-tagged in their EXIF file. This helps tremendously when my memory fails. GPS coordinates are great when importing/exporting data to the map layer overlays.

My current issue is documenting these locations whilst at the same time snapping more images almost daily to the database. It is a self-inflicted labor of love that only I can appreciate but to me it is worth it.

Each My Map will have a separate genre for neon, one for murals and the other for geocaches.

After those are complete, I will export the .kmz files into Google Earth as a master database wherein all waypoints will be tagged, mapped and displayed.

Google Earth alternative suggestions are welcome. Please!

Incomplete map of neon cities so far
My Maps screenshot
Google Earth screenshot

Map Quest

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Over the past couple of decades I have acquired a lot of images and have failed to document them properly. Now I want to take on the enormous task of mapping my finds.

Just getting started

There are three categories I want to photograph, map and geotag for future reference:

  • Geocaches
  • Murals, wall art and sculptures
  • Neon signs

Geocaches

I’ve looked around a bit for an alternative to Google Maps and Google Earth but the fact remains- they have the best open-sourced mapping platform than anyone else. I can’t stand Google but damn, they make a good map system.

For plotting my found geocaches, I’ve downloaded all the .gpx files from geocaching.com and uploaded to Google Earth which can then convert to .kmz files for a map view of discovered caches. But, because importing and exporting data between two systems is hardly ever efficient as advertised, I am still doing some tweaking to format the data as I need to.

Murals, Street Art & Sculptures

I wish I was as organized as I want to be when out in the field. From here on out I promise myself to document names of the murals, artists, coordinates and any other bits of info to document. Because now I need to go in and add waymarkers to the map manually. This means going to Google My Maps, upload my image and plot it to the corresponding location.

36.16024, -95.99597

Neon Signs

Just like the street art images, I need to plot the waypoints of my neon images on to a map by hand. I have almost 500 images of neon so this may take awhile.

New Orleans, LA 29.95752 -90.06677