June Recap | Ian's 1000 | Pathtags | #1500

What a month it has been. I haven't generated the stats yet, but from what I calculated I got 414 caches in the month of June......that is a lot. On the 27th 1/4 Sommer and I headed to Lexington since I'd be going out of town this weekend. He had a record day of 51 caches (Sommer Family had a total of 56 that day because another 1/4 Sommer hit some Michigan caches) and I had 48 caches. those days are always good pushers for the next milestone. It was nice to be in Lexington as opposed to some of the other runs I make. Lexington has lots of earthcaches and virtuals, so more history it seems you can learn from caching around there. The only bad thing about those caches is when logging you spend all the time emailing the pictures and answers to questions and yadda yadda. It isn't really a problem, but I mean if you have a run of 50 caches of virtuals and earthcaches, your sorting out an album's worth of photos and pretty much taking an SAT with all the questions to answer. We got most all of the existing caches in the downtown area and started to spread our venture a little bit. I was supposed to double 1,500 milestone with Slammer47, but he can't really make a trip for anything before the 12th of July, and to keep up with my personal stats and rates I like to keep for myself, I just couldn't do it. I thought maybe I'd be able to sit on a few logs, but a few turned into a handful, which turned into 60 something, which could easily turn into a few hundred. It already takes me a good hour or two to log, so I just couldn't do that to myself. Sorry Slammer, but we WILL milestone together!

I just put out a new cache, Down the Rabbit Hole - GC1DJH5: a 4/3.5 multi cache. I put it out for Ian's 1000, not necessarily for him to get as #1000 as he has debated Freefall 35,000's recently re-activated 4/4 Litte Brother, Big Brother. However, I put the cache out in honor of him and his favorite style of caches: tunnels. It's a 3 part tunnel cache, and I find it very fun. It's the first of 5 multi's I plan on putting out from Alice in Wonderland. the next chapter is "Pool of Tears", where alice is first a GIANT and then is SWIMMING in a pool of tears...if that tells you anything.

Yesterday morning I placed my order for my pathtags. A wonderful woman named Jennifer from Wicks Works Designs made the design for me which I think is VERY cool. I took my normal trade item (my signature guitar pick) and placed it in the background of my tag with a big BTBAM going across it and a geocacing "G" symbol in the corner of the pick. I have the design she made, but I'll wait until I get the blueprint from Pathtags before I load a picture of it, be on the lookout for a new post about it.

On a side note (and only because I know he'll be reading this), Ian bought himself a new GPSr...the COLORADO! I haven't even been able to touch the dang thing; my dream GPS. I always wondered what they were like, but no store has a demo of them or anything for me to mess with. The display screen looks incredible, the icons are small and non-cluttering, it can hold 2,000 waypoints, has the notes and cache pages...it's pretty much incredible and now I need one. One downfall he mentioned was that it eats batteries....but I'm pretty sure I can deal with that. Consider it Wishlisted.

So, this past Sunday I tackled my #1500 milestone. 1/4 Sommer and I finished the 3.5/4 The Forgotten Cemetery Tour III - GCRZ8V. it was a 6 stage cemetery multi, with multiple stages per cemetery. It went through a lot of history about the person's family and other people influenced in the area. It took several hours to complete, and almost an hour getting to the place, which apparently turned out to be right outside of California. The second cemetery showed us why it had a 4 terrain rating, as within a mere 200 the altitude changed by, oh I don't know, 400 feet? It was pretty wild, especially for a cemetery. Anyways, we finished that, and I got one more block on my D/T matrix. Actually,

Sunday alone I got 3 blocks filled in, 3 of 4 that I need to finish up everything within 4/4 (which is pretty exciting to me). I have less than 20 boxes left to completing my matrix: YES!

#1100

Boy has it been a busy month. Graduating, moving into a condo in Northern Kentucky, band, full-time work status....and CACHING! I've managed to go up to Dayton a few times, and just went this past weekend with Abuhhhh and jcklm for another milestone, #1100.

We tackled Ice Pick Man's Cave Multi Cache - GC15Q4B earlier in the day, which was one of Slammer47's favorite caches. It was a pretty fun tunnel cache. Here is a wonderful picture of Ian apparently being chased by the Ice Pick Man.


There is also the wonderful picture of me and my Surefire L2 LumaMax
which illuminated my way.





Luckily, it didn't appear that anyone was following us....but it sure was a loooooooooooong way back out.





A picture of Ian and I at the end of the tunnel. All the information has been snagged - on to the final!







The highlight of our day however (besides the drinks, laughs, and 37 caches on the day) was the milestone, earock 2000finds - GC16GDJ. The following post will have:

SPOILER PICTURES! Please don't read on if you don't want to be spoiled!!!!!!

Just as a safeguard, the first picture will be of our whole team after finding the cache.





It was a very interesting find for the cache. I heard Slammer tell me that you will never find anything like this cache anywhere. It was rated 4.5/3.5. I was excited out of my mind. We get there, and the cache is a small container, just sitting in a tree, maybe 7 feet off the ground. I got very frustrated. There is NO WAY this was the cache. Something had to be wrong. I tried calling Slammer....no answer. I tried calling Pokerbuzz....no answer as well.


We decided we'd atleast leave the cache a little harder to get than we found it. We decided to prop it up with a stick. After looking at that for a few minutes...we decided to go back to the car, and see if we can't get some rope and hoist the thing up higher. I kept calling Pokerbuzz hoping he'd pick up. As soon as we got back to the car, he told me that is NOT how the cache was supposed to be...so back in we went to maintenance.



It was then....when we started working...I got to witness how gorgeous...how simply....amazing this cache truly was.
Slammer told me the tree used to be perfectly balanced in the V of this other tree. Can you imagine? A...60-80 foot or something long tree...perfectly balanced in the V of another tree. For 1) for that to even happen, and 2) for someone to find it to put a cache there. It is just incredible. That, or if like in this picture, the tree was completely leaning the opposite way...and the cache was sitting nearly 80 feet above you. How killer.

The big 1-0-0-0.

Well, after the 900 milestone and the caches I had done prior, I was backlogged about 106 caches. Ian had actually made a list - a map of caches if you will - for me to tackle in his hometown of Harrison. It hit several surrounding areas, and I went one morning trying to get as many as possible. I didn't think it would happen, but I reached the end of the night with a record 53 caches - and that was nearly solo (except for a few going around with Abuhhhh). Anyways, with all those caches, the ones I did while in Anderson, and several here and there around Cincinnati, I had a list. 2.5 hours later (monday afternoon) they were logged and I was ready for a little caching break. I spent the next week only gathering about 12 caches. However - this was a good in leading me up to the next milestone: the Big 1,000.

I knew exactly what I would do, The new epic Tipp City (north of Dayton) multi-cache Mini Me - GC1AW67. Here is my log entry for this cache:

"I knew nothing about Slammer47 until I heard the name in reference to a cache: Evil Easter Bunny. See, the whole idea behind this cache of his was nearly an exact replica of an original (or so I thought) cache idea I had thought of and was getting ready to put out, when my cohort ydissac informed me, "uhm, there is a new cache called evil easter bunny in Dayton that I think is just like the cache you were going to put out..." It was in hearing this that I became mildly upset, but then emailed the owner telling him that 'great minds must think alike'. He then responded telling me that if I was going to be coming up to check it out, that I should wait and come up for this new multi he was putting out, and it would make the whole trip up for evil easter bunny worth it. Well, a week or so came, and the cache got published, but I thought nothing of it. 'Mini Me'. I don't really get it. He has Austin Powers pictures and some lines, but so what? 2.5/4.5, alright. Well, then I started reading ABOUT the cache...miniature versions of amazing milestones he had done. I had soon become wrapped around "Slammer47" and his incredible profile, full of wonderful milestone caches he had done. I began feeling down on myself, about how I haven't done any wicked sweet killer fun caches in my time. Now, I've only been caching 4 months...but I still felt I needed to pursue more. I had already done the cache Lane Change, but we had sent up another member from our team to retrieve it. Slowly, all of Slammer's favorite caches had been added to my "MUST DO THESE" list. However, in studying and prepping for my milestones, and coming quickly up to my number 1-0-0-0, I thought...what a better cache to do than one that embodies all of these other caches in one...the very spirit of these amazing caches, not only to Slammer, but to every other person who has used any of these caches as a milestone in the past. It is in that, I knew this had to be my 1000. I set out, thinking the worst...that some climb would be more than I could bare, or that the tunnel tighter than I would be comfortable to enter. However, with Abuhhhh taking on the tunnels, and me doing the monkey work, I can successfully say that I have done one of the best caches to date, and recovered my 1000th cache. Thank you Slammer for the exciting cache, and the great memories. Now on the rest of the big versions!"

Here are some pictures from the different stages through the multi:






Here is Ian entering the first stage - A narrow tunnel with the second stage clue inside.







Me going after the second stage - A mini ammo box somewhere up this tree - only problem was there were no branches, only little nubs and notches along the way.





Me trying to retrieve a covered matchstick box tied to a branch just out of reach on the 4th stage while walking along a horizontally fallen tree over a little pond area.







The 6th stage, the mini "Lane Change" - climbing REALLY high in the tree to retrieve the last clues for the final:










Slammer had visited earlier in the day, preparing the cache, making sure everything was in tact, and leaving a travel jeep "trophy" for me to retrieve.




After caching with Ian around Tipp City, and clearing the 1,000 cache mark, we celebrated with a set of wings and a few beers at BW-3 on our way back home. It was a good way to relax, and think about the past 4 months of caching. I can't wait for the next 1,000 and what they bring!