Here is a sample subscription for you. Click here to start your FREE subscription
- Bad Tour Guide
- Missed Log
- Chores vs. Playing
- Scheduled Caching
- How to Hold More Than 500 Caches in your GPS
- More Recent Articles
- Search Rayzir Cache
I wrote back awhile ago that I wanted to play tour guide to some travel bugs. I wanted to do something special with the travelbugs with photos. I figured that would give the owner a bit of a thrill. But I guess I'm a bad tour guide.
I got an email last week from a travel bug owner asking me to move him along. He said the TB is only 2 months old and I was only the second person to enjoy it. Sure enough, I had the bug for 5 weeks. Man I suck. I felt really bad about it. I was going to move it along to LA, but my caching adventures didn't pan out. I told him that I'd move it along this last weekend and I did. I found a Travel Bug Hotel at the Chamber of Commerce. I dropped it off in hopes that it will move from this city to another. I also told him that I'd post a picture of my dog, as that was the goal of this TB. I couldn't get a nice pose of my dog and the TB, so I'll just have to dig into my photos to find a good pic of my dog.
The second one was this ginormous stuffed heart. This is the one I mentioned in a previous blog entry. I was hoping I'd be able to move him along. But because of his size, it was hard to find a cache that would hold him. It turned out I had him for 2 months! I didn't realize I had him for so long. I was able to get the picture of him on my Birthday Caching Adventure and Photoshop'd him the following week. I made him look like he was about to destroy Billings. I also stuffed him into the TB Hotel. He took up a good bulk of the space. I hope nobody gets mad at me for such a huge TB.
I guess next time I pick up a TB, I'll make sure I can move him in a timely manner. If not, he's staying behind.
Today I went out to the local park near the Yellowstone River. Its a great wildlife refuge with nice hiking trails. I knew there were a couple of caches that I have yet to hit in this area, so I thought I'd grab it.
The first was a quick park 'n grab. It took a bit of time to track it down, but when I found it, I felt a little stupid. It was a film canister and it was full of water. The log was soaked. But on the plus side, the log had a lovely blue tie-dyed look! Anyway, I spread the log out on my car. Since it was in the upper 80's, I figured I could probably dry it out while I searched for another cache.
I found one in the GPS and it looked familiar. But why would GSAK list it as unfound if I didn't find it? So I stared to go after it. I took the hard route and bushwhacked to the cache, only to find out that I have already discovered it awhile back. My name was in the log book. Well, I thought it was a GSAK bug. But when I got to work to double check if I logged it, I realized I didn't. Lucky for me, I had this blog to back me up. I looked for my log entry in the blog so now I know the date I discovered the cache. Log one more for my numbers. It only took me two trips to log it!
When I got back to the car, the log from the park 'n grab was dry. I signed the log and put it back where I found it. I guess that's my good deed for the day!
Now that I'm back, I had a ton of chores to catch up on. Today, I was going to be responsible and get some parts for a broken toilet during my lunch hour. But at the last minute, I decided I'd rather get a couple caches instead. I had to unload my POI's and Caches on my GPSr and my Palm before heading out. I was able to do that pretty quick and I grabbed a couple. They were pretty easy finds. The first one was in a park. The second was near my home that I've been meaning to grab. But its near a baseball field and usually full of muggles. But today it was quiet. It was a really cool container. It was a nano container with a built in magnet on the bottom and a screw top lid. It was about the size of two Cheerios stacked. The log was horizontal, which is a really great way for this kind of cache. Pretty cool.
I attempted two other caches. One I just drove by so I'd know the location. I'll go back for that one later. The other one was near my work. My lunch hour was winding down, so I didn't have much time to look. But I gave it about 5-10 minutes, but with no luck. Perhaps tomorrow, I'll take a nice long walk on my lunch hour and track that one down.
Well, we got back from our little vacation yesterday. I racked up 3000 miles on the car. As I stated before, it was a family trip and geocaching would be limited. I ended putting 2708 caches into the GPSr and my Palm. I was hoping that if I was in an area, I'd be able to see if there was a cache nearby. So you'd think with that much info at my fingertips, I'd find a lot, right? Nope. I found only 2.
I was expecting to find most of my caches at rest stops. I was a little surprised that the majority of the rest stops didn't have any caches! I thought those would be prime cache locations. I guess not.
Instead, I ended up getting a couple of LPC's in LA area. One was in a grocery store parking lot, and another was in a mall parking lot. Say what you like about LPC's, but when you are in a pinch, hurting for numbers, or just need a quick fix, LPC's are where they're at. If it wasn't for LPC's, I would have found nothing on this trip.
So my vacation was lacking in the geocaching department. I'm a little disappointed despite the fact we had a great time on the trip. I just wish I could have gone out and grabbed a few more. I guess next time, I'll have to schedule some caching time for myself. Otherwise I won't get any done. Oh well. Lesson learned.
My Garmin Venture Cx will only hold 500 waypoints. But this trip I'm taking, I had 2700 waypoints to load! What to do! Well, Garmin has a program called POI Loader. Basically it makes custom waypoints. These custom waypoints are saved on the MicroSD card, so you can have as many as the card will hold. It took a little looking, but I figured out how to do it. Here's what I found:
In GSAK
- Go to View - Add/Delete Columns
- Uncheck everything except Longitude and Latitude.
- Select TWO other data columns that you would like included on the GPS (I chose Waypoint Name and Container)
- Click OK
- Make sure "LOCK FIRST COLUMN" is unchecked (upper right above the first column)
- Rearrange the columns in the following order; LONGITUDE, LATTITUDE, Data 1 (I chose Waypoint Name), Data 2 (I chose Container).
- Save the View by going to View - Save Current View and choose a name
- Go to File - Export - CSV or Text
- For filename, browse to a place on your C: drive that you'd like to save your file to. When you name your file, be sure to add the extension (.csv)
- Make sure that USE DEFAULTS is checked.
- Click Generate
In POI Loader
- Make sure your GPS is on and hooked up to the computer.
- Launch POI Loader
- Scroll through the Find Device
- On the next screen, you can Load New POIs on your Device or Remove Previous POIs. Delete any custom POI's if needed.
- Choose Load New POIs and click Next
- Browse to the directory GSAK created your .csv file to.
- Make sure Express Mode is selected.
- Click Next and your Custom POI's will be loaded!
That's It! One more mystery solved!
More Recent Articles
