Another Event...More Friends....

Attended the Roanoke Area Geocachers Grillin, Chillin and Caching Event on Saturday. Excellent Food. Met a few more folks and got to visit with a few people we met at our first event last month.

I had a really good time. The food was awesome. The park was really nice. Weather was perfect. And I guess I was just in a good mood. We heard some cool caching stories, and did I mention that the food was excellent?

We learned more about travel bugs. We took Daisy, and she just loved all the attention she got. We met a little dog, Krammer, who had a travel bug on his harness to be discovered. You discover a travel item and it goes into your stats. Krammer's mom, SnoopinAround, has only been caching about a year and has over 3000 finds under her belt!

Beth and Ms. Garmin participated in a field test to demonstrate the accuracy of different types of GPS's. Now you'll remember I mentioned the bias against highway-type GPS's in an earlier post. I am happy to report that Ms. Garmin did well and she found the coordinates nearly as well as the higher priced units. And for a fraction of the cost! I was pleased.

After the event we attempted a few caches that were placed specifically for the event. We bombed out. I was taken hostage on the Blue Ridge Parkway for several hours. Long story here, which I'll let Beth blog about if she so chooses.

I put together an eleven second video for the group, which if I can figure out how to post it here I will. Technology is great, but there is a learning curve.




Well, back to the work week. GeoCaching back on hold for a few days. Have a good one.

Pip (Dragon)


More pics from the event can be viewed here.

Beth's Perspective On First Event

Our first event! I was psyched. I had a plan that would guarantee us some gold buttons if not silver, but it appears that others had the same plan. There were ten cache points, each with one gold, one silver, and ten bronze buttons.








As people started coming in to register I began to think, oh boy, this is going to be hard. There were about fifty to seventy five people. My plan was to go after the middle caches working up to ten then dropping back to the first set. What I did not expect was that the streets would be listed on the paper. This gave the locals an advantage I believe.

We got our paper at noon and watched the people run to vehicles, jump in and take off. We stopped in a parking lot to enter all the coordinates and took off. I was cursing all the red lights while Pippa was decoding the hints and handling Ms. Garmin.

Our first stop, we are going for the gold baby, oops, there are cachers, damn. Looks like others had the same plan I had, so much for strategy. The excitement of racing through Roanoke Co. was strong and I kept thinking of the reality show, "The Amazing Race." wow what they must feel for that much money on the line and different countries.

We saw some beautiful areas, and some not so beautiful, as Ms. Garmin took us through some rough areas to roads that no longer exist. We saw some areas more than once since we were not savvy on the streets of Roanoke, we did a lot of back tracking. We made it to eight of the ten caches points and collected four bronze buttons in the five hrs. allotted for this race.

When we checked in, we were told this was considered a great feat since we were unfamiliar with the areas.

I insisted on going to one last point which was off the Blue Ridge Parkway. This would have been a much nicer drive if I wasn't racing twenty miles over the speed limit and trying to pass every car we happened upon. We found this cache but it was empty. Pippa was worried that we would not get checked back in on time, and I the adventurous fast driving person I am, told her not to fret, we would be there in time. We got back with only three minutes to spare, that was a little close, but we were able to turn in our find.

We won nothing but had a great experience and met new people. Got to see new areas and just have a great day for only $48, gas and food. Oh, and I got a Pirate Bandanna which will be my new geocaching fashion accessory. Looking forward to the next event.

On the way home, Pip got to see her first double rainbow. Interesting enough, my sister, Mary Dee also saw one in Harrisonburg, VA. It was a really cool day.