Team GravelShot Geocaching

Three states in one day

2009-01-03T22:40:00.001-06:00

Living in Shreveport puts us close to 3 other states all within about an hour's drive. We had never been to Arkansas before. We took a little trip north to Texarkana which is in two states. Being from Texas, we already had a bunch of Texas finds, so we concentrated mostly in Arkansas.

We took our time up an old farm road out of Louisiana through cotton fields and stopped by an old town with a few 100 people and ate lunch at an old general store that dated back to the early 1900's.

I think the coolest part of the entire trip was the Texarkana Post Office/Court House that straddled the Texas-Arkansas state line. We did the tourist thing and stood in two states at the same time.

It was a nice road trip to Arkansas, Texas, and back to Louisiana. Check out some more pictures below from Texarkana!

Christmas Caching with Family

2008-12-25T12:59:00.000-06:00

Merry Christmas! Trying to catch up on the blog. Check out some pics from our Christmas holidays with family in Texas!

Where's the treasure?

2008-11-22T21:19:00.000-06:00

Trale and I went searching for caches just north of Bossier City, LA. We hadn't been caching in some time, so we were both looking forward to finding some treasure.

It was a cold, overcast kinda day, perfect for some chili or geocaching. Mmmm....Chili sounds good!
We were off to a great start. We found our first two caches, grabbed two travel bugs. It was looking up... then one after another, we weren't finding the geocaches. Called a "DNF" for -Did Not Find-. One, two... then down the road, three... to another stop... four, and as we were leaving... five! Five DNF's out of the eight treasures we were trying to get.

May of the caches we were trying to find hadn't been found since May. So, I'm thinking maybe they ran off? We were pretty deep in the woods, so no telling what critter may have found them... the last two we "DNF," may have been to the lack of daylight.

Kind of a bummer hunt. What's the saying? "That's why they call it "fishing," not "catching."

Oh well... It was fun to get out driving the jeep with my oldest son looking for treasure. We did find a couple of travel bugs...those are always fun! Looking forward to some time off in December to travel to a geocaching heavy area. Talk to you soon.

Whoo hoo! Nice weather!

2008-09-07T14:53:00.000-06:00

If it wasn't 105 degree weather, than is was a hurricane for a week! Today we finally got some nice weather: cool temperatures and sunshine. We went geocaching north of Shreveport today near Blanchard and Mooringsport.

I wanted to make the trip to Caddo Lake for one particular cache that used to be an old main road with a sliding jaw bridge. They built a new bridge next to it in 1995 and decommissioned the old jaw bridge into a foot bridge, and a perfect location for a geocache. Can you see Mason at the bottom of the picture?

We only found five for the day, but it was fun just to get out. Below are more pics from today's treasure hunt. Happy Caching!

Treasure Hunting in Louisiana

2008-08-17T13:37:00.006-06:00

We moved to Louisiana about 4 months ago, and had been geocaching a few times, but not together as a family. In fact, Holli and I (without the boys) broke our one day find record a few months back hitting all the micros downtown Shreveport. We found 10 that day! That was a few months back.

It's been a while since we've all gone out as a family for some treasure, but it's also been 105 degrees for the past month! Today it was cloudy with a cool crisp bite in the air, clouds close to the ground like it was going to rain, but never a drop fell.
Finally! Some relief from the heat and took the first chance to get some treasure boxes. One of stops took us on a half-mile round trip hike on a little island park inside Shreveport near the Red River. It was a big cache full of goods, so it was worth the walk.

One box was hidden near the local YMCA. When we got within 30 feet, we knew it was a possibility that the geocache box was on the other side of the fence. Trale was able to squeeze through the gate nearby to search the other side in the woods. Even after we drove over there to look too, we had no luck finding this treasure today.

Geocaching is ok in Shreveport, but there were only 21 big caches within a 10 mile radius of the house, so we did quite a bit of driving around to get the 4 caches we found today, couldn't find 2.

We had fun and broke our geocaching dry streak! Cache on!

Family time and Alone time

2008-02-10T13:07:00.000-06:00

It's been a rainy cold couple of weekends and we finally got a break with some nice spring-like weather perfect for some family time and geocaching! Of course! We made a couple of trips!

We decided to make a trip over to the zoo and find some treasure boxes on the way. There were some new ones in the downtown Pensacola area. I always put more than I think we'll have time for in the GPS, just in case we didn't find a few.... which happened! We were two for four for the day. One of the stops brought us to the nice new Palafox pier. The boys were sleeping in the back of the geo-jeep so Holli went on the hunt for this one by herself.

Along Bayfront Blvd, was an ammo can hidden under one of the water breaking rocks. I had to venture out careful not to break a foot off as I navigated the big rocks. We stopped there since it was getting late and we still haven't made it to the zoo.

There is a wonderful paved trail that runs through the middle of Milton where I decided to make a solo trip today. It's the Blackwater Heritage Trail. 9.2 Miles of paved trail for hikers, bikers, and horse riding. Best of all, it's right by the house!

There were three caches on the agenda this morning. So I loaded up my bike and off I went down the trail. Two were pretty easy. The third, however, was the toughest terrain I've encountered looking for treasure! How the hider found this spot to place the cache was amazing. I should have brought a machete, but that would have done me no good since the brush and thorns were so thick, there was no room to swing the blade. It was near impossible to walk the last 100 feet to reach the cache. I was determined to get this cache today. So I pushed through the thick brush, dead trees, and thorn vines leaving a little my skin behind in the process. Thank goodness the GPS was about 30 feet off, in my favor. I found the box near some old tin roofing. Great, I found it! Now I have to walk back!

The trail had some nice streams as I rode over some of the many bridges. Overall, about a 3 mile round trip today. Back to the geo-jeep with a geocoin in hand from the first cache of the day. I'll be back! I've already scouted a great place to hide my own geocache on the trail.

Cache on!

The Quest for #200

2008-01-06T21:09:00.000-06:00

I was starting to get close to 200 geocache finds in the last months of 2007, so I was going to try to hit #200 before the new year. By Christmas, I was short about 17 caches. During my trip to Texas, my Dad and I tried a "power cache." One of the rules of hiding a geocache is that they need to be a minimum of a .10th of a mile apart from one another. A "power cache" abuses the rule some by placing a string of caches placed about a .10th of a mile apart for a mile... 10 caches! Pretty cool! We only found 7 out of 10... there were a few missing in that mile.

By the time we got back home we needed to find 4 caches... and the procrastinator I am waited til New Year's Eve to find them. Before work I grabbed a couple at a rest stop and planned to find the last two on my way home... except I worked late that night and didn't get the final two! So, no 200 for '07.

It's not about the numbers anyway right? What a way to start off the new year by getting number 200. Since I was only two away, I had 12 months to make it happen. I wasn't going to be waiting til next Christmas either. We made a short move closer to Pensacola for my new job and while looking for a new house, we had a new place to find geocaches in the process. Two caches and BAM! #200! We made it! Hard to believe we have signed 200 logs since we started just a little over a year ago.

Happy New Year! Here's to many more geocaching finds with my family and friends!

Local Leftovers

2007-10-08T11:14:00.000-06:00

I was telling my wife the other day that we needed to go on a road trip to go geocaching, because there were none left to find locally. So I thought. I used this nice feature on geocaching.com under "my account" that allows you to search for caches but filter out finds near your home coordinates.

Here's what I found...
There are quite a few left in a 10 mile radius from my house. I know why some are out there still lingering on my "to do list. " I see that a couple of caches needed a boat, I remeber one had 6 stages to sort through, and a few I had tried too many times to find and gave up. So, can I borrow your boat or kayak and a hint? You wanna go geocaching?

Stuck!

2007-09-21T10:16:00.001-06:00

I got my Jeep back in May and have been in love with it ever since... blazing trails across Florida! One of my favorite places to "Jeep" around is on the Eglin Air Force Base Reservation, which is open to the public with a permit you get from Jackson Guard. I'm into geocaching and there are tons of them on the reservation. I wanted to hide my own there too.

So, Sunday morning, I opened my reservation map to hunt for places that I haven't been before where I might hide a geocache. I noticed there was a place just a few miles down the road! I was pretty excited to go scout out a new place on the reservation.

Off we went with my wife and two boys. It was great, a nice paved road at the entrance, there was a river running through it, just a great natural area. We drove down a "not-so-traveled" road just off the main dirt road. It was a nice drive until we got to an old culvert pipe. I didn't want to attempt jumping over it, especially with the kids in tow. But, my wife said, "you can make it!" So, I drove over it, and made it ok. Not even 100 feet from there we ended up in a huge sand pit! I've drove through sand pits a million times already, so no big deal right? If I was only paying attention to the road. I was driving too slow and got stuck....big time!

I tried everything to get us out... no good. So I called the Air Force Range Patrol. I had my GPS on so I was able to give him exact coordinates as to our location. Thank goodness, because I don't think I could have given him directions since I was unfamiliar with the area. The range officer was great! He came out, helped us call a 4X4 tow truck. (which they all declined) The officer told me that this road was notorious for swallowing vehicles. The tow truck guys knew that too. So, after about 30 minutes calling every tow truck in the county, we were stuck. The officer offered us a ride back to our house, just down the road. It was up to us to get it out.

We went back that afternoon with a jack and ply wood to try to boost the jeep out of the sand. Our first attempt was no good. By then it was getting pretty dark... we remembered the officer telling us not to stay out too late: very poisonous snakes and the over 400 bears on the reservation were enough warning for us to bolt at sundown.

Monday, I came back to try again only to find out the reservation and base were closed due to test missions they hold. I thought, "great! my Jeep will be blown up when I get back"

Tuesday, baby sick... daddy duty since Holli was out working on the other side of town.

Wednesday! This is it! I can do it! um.... no. I tried all day long. I even got the Jeep to move... 20 feet... still in the sand pit! I was beat down, physically and mentally. I was ready just to leave it there to become part of the forest. When I went to work that night to catch up, I checked my voicemail... A nice fellow on there offered to pull me out of the sand... he had a big truck with two winches he said on the message!

I thought this was great! One of my listeners is going to help me out! How cool is that! Yesterday, he came out there. The truck was huge! I walked up to the truck and said jokingly, I don't think your truck is quite big enough! Ha! It was more than enough truck to get me out. My Jeep looked like a matchbox car next to this monster truck. He didn't even need the winch. Just a tow strap and off I went, the Jeep rolled like it was on a concrete paved road.

I was so relieved! There was a tropical storm coming and I knew it was the last day or my Jeep would become a permanent part of the swamp. Thanks again Chad! I'm in your debt bro! Can I keep your number for next time?

I learned a wonderful lesson that day... never listen to your wife! Haha!

Family caching!

2007-08-25T21:00:00.000-06:00

It's been so hot here in Florida lately, I haven't wanted to do anything outdoors including geocaching! I was surfing around geocaching.com this morning and found a nice little pocket of caches just north of the toll bridge south of Milton. I figured if we geocached early enough, we could beat the heat. So, I got everybody up and going, even woke up the wife early on her day to sleep in... just so we could go geocaching. I had nine picked out, thinking we'd only hit 3 or 4 before it got too hot on us. We got going and started with one cache named "$150.00." Sometime part of the fun of geocaching is finding out why a geocache is named what it is. Check it out! It was right behind the sign...look closely!

<<<-------------

Up the toll bridge and walked through a nature trail. Which started out nice and open and then got thicker and thicker like a jungle. That's no good for the wife who hates all the bugs in the summertime. I have to agree to a degree... I hate the bugs buzzing around my ears, but love the outdoors! I credit my Dad for that. I enjoy being outdoors more the older I get! Can you see us? Usually, we pass on looking for micros because there is no treasure inside, just a log to sign. Trale likes treasure, but this time we found them and Trale enjoyed it too! We took a break at McDonalds along the way and as kids do... they have accidents. Mason had a pretty big one. He was standing on the chair (like daddy told him not to) and as he took a step to turn around, he fell... hard! He landed against the wall, but on the way down his face and nose slammed, just right, on the molding (a sharp piece of wood.) I thought he broke his nose the way it bled and the way he screamed. He turned out to be ok, but it was pretty tramatic for Mason and daddy too! Not the last injury of they day though. We stopped by one cache just outside a bowling alley, Trale reached to pull out the cache and pulled out some big ants with it! He got a few bites on him. I had some good stuff in my geo-bag to ease the sting. We'll we got to the part of the day when it was getting pretty darn hot, but not before we logged all nine geocaches... a family record number of finds for one day! We had a ton of fun, the kids were great, and the injuries were at a minimum! Can't beat that! Cache On!

Meeting of the cachers...In a Flash!

2007-08-11T22:10:00.000-06:00

What's cooler than geocaching?... geocaching with about 30 other people who geocache! Panama City was holding a "Flash Mob" Event cache. The concept? Walk around like nothing is going on then at an exact time, everybody meets all of a sudden, sign the log and scatter in 15 minutes or less! The event took place at a wonderful park just outside of Panama City. (We played at the nearby park until the said time to meet) Even though it was about 50 miles from home, we wanted to go since it was the closest event and it would be our first event geocache. Most of the geocachers there were from the Panama City area, but there was a group we know in Destin, the Redneck Rebels, and even a crew from Tallahassee. You could tell we were there because of our rowdy boys, who were present! We spent more time corralling them than chatting, but we were only there for a little while since it was a Flash Mob Event. So they didn't do too much damage! This was a ton of fun, I even walked away with a great swag bag that I won in a drawing. Can't wait until the next event in Alabama... it's three days long! We'll have to see about that one when we get to the end of September!

Cache on!

Micro Mania !!

2007-08-02T17:34:00.000-06:00

The kids love geocaching, but they like the big treasure more than the micros. So there are dozens of micros we have not found. So while the kids were at daycare, the wife and I snuck away from work to hit a few micro geocaches! We stayed in the urban jungle since Holli is scared of the bugs in the woods. She's a girlie girl!

Micros are, as the name suggests, are very small: from old prescription bottles that might hold a small coin or trade item to a custom made cache no bigger around than a dime that holds only a log.

Holli found this nano under the fire hydrant. It was very small, you can barely see it in the picture. The water sprinkers were turned on in that field, but we managed to stay dry. Behind me was Target!

We stopped by a little park we have visited before while in Destin and always said we should put a micro here. Come to find out, there was one there! ...and it had been there for a long time and we didn't even know it. That's the cool thing about geocaches, you pass by one everyday and don't even know it sometimes! We logged five micros for the afternoon. It was like a mini-date for us, and we went geocaching! Cache on!

FTF Joy!

2007-07-29T11:55:00.000-06:00

Being the first to find (FTF) for a new geocache is always fun. Sometimes there are great prizes like new travel bugs, gift cards, etc. Sometimes it's just the bragging rights of beating everybody to the cache and being first!

It's been since February since we got FTF honors. Competition is pretty fierce locally getting a FTF. Six Little Spookies have owned the "FTF" title lately, getting new caches within hours of it's publishing.

While I was surfing geocaching.com early this morning, I noticed a new cache on the island. I was jumping for joy to go find this cache. I just knew if I didn't get going that we were going to get beat out again! So I woke everybody up to go geocaching in another attempt to beat out the Spookies!

When we arrived, it seems a little too quiet, like somebody already found the cache. We kept an eye on vehicles that drove by while we were looking, nervous that another team was going to drop in and steal the coveted FTF.

We were looking for a nano cache. Which means it's smaller around than a dime and about as tall as a pencil top. Very tiny! Which can make the task of finding the cache very difficult. After fumbling around the zero point on my GPS, we found it. Now for the news... were we the FTF? After a glance at the log, there were no writings on the new log. We did it! FTF! Whoo hoo!

After we logged our proud accomplishment, the cache owner replied back to me...

--->Just wanted to thank you for the $5 I won on a bet this morning. My husband and I had a bet going as to who would find the Little Marler cache first - he bet on the Six Little Spookies and I bet on you LOL I never knew that little park was there until the other night when Troy and I were out for a cache hunt/date night and found your cache at Marler Park (which is one of our favorite fishing spots)After we left there we turned in to see who had that cool ferris wheel type light (Club 10 - and no we didn't go in LOL) and we saw the little park. Troy tells me that's a big make-out place late at night (obviously he spent too much time at the Timbers when he was young)I thought it looked like the perfect place for the nano I've had sitting on my desk for way too long. So I wanted to say thanks for the $5 and for leading us to the Mini Marler park.
Have a good one!
Redneck Rebels
redneckrebelsgeocachingadventures.blogspot.com

Six Little Spookies came in third on this try. Here's what they wrote!
--->"Team Gravelshot will get first crack at all the caches for the next few weeks, as Spooky 1 is at SOS in Montgomery until the end of August. So make sure you get the FTFs before the weekends! ;) That's your only chance! :)"

It's all fun competition between cachers, it makes the game that much more fun.

Keep cachin'

Caching up!

2007-07-05T11:41:00.000-06:00

Took some time off this week and went on a long needed solo geocaching trip. I hit some of the more difficult caches where you can't take children. The University Of West Florida in Pensacola has some wonderful bike and hike trails that hide a nice selection of geocaches! It was half swamp trail, half dry land. Lots of bridges...watch out for alligators!

Off I go in the Scout (my geo-jeep). I stopped by a few geocaches on campus that were not on the trail. The first too right off were soaked! One of the containers was one of those zip-loc throw away containers. The lid was off and the container was cracked. Everything inside was soggy and starting to mold. I scribbled my name on the water-logged log and moved on to the trails.

It was pretty hot for 9am. The humidity was pretty high and the sun was relentless. On to the first cache in the trails. About 3/4 of a mile away. I get to the general area and pick up my GPS and see my range accuracy was skipping between 20 and 50 feet. I get as good as 5 feet accuracy with no clouds, no trees, but tt was thick woods and knew this was going to be a tough one. Not to worry, I brought my map with the clues and.... um... where's my map? I lost my map on the way down. My bag must have knocked it out of my back pocket. I had to find this one on my own. I remembered reading that two of the caches where under palmettos. So I took a chance and started looking for the mini palms. Sure enough, there it was hidden under some dead palm leaves.

Logged it and on to the next! On the way, I noticed the trails had little name tags like Coke Can, The Gorge, Tree Hugger. and I noticed the bugs! The bugs were really, er... bugging me! They kept buzzing my head: flying into my ears, running into my head, just insane! Bug spray didn't even keep them away. The entire time on the trails, these flies were on me. They never did bite... just buzzed me!

I drank a lot of water as you can imagine. By the time I finished the first part of the trails, I was soaked from head to toe in sweat! As fast as I was drinking, I was sweating it. Kinda gross, but I loved it!

There were 15 geocaches on my list to get. Thunder and lighting stopped me at 9. A new one day find record for me. Dispite the soggy logs, bugs, heat, sweat. I had a blast!

Oh... and on my way out of the trail, a 12 year old kid and his dad past by and said, "did you see the gator?" The kid said they were off to feed it. Glad it didn't feed on me today!

And I found my map too!

Who's Hunting What?

2007-05-31T10:48:00.000-06:00

You know me, you know I love to go geocaching! It's a GPS based treasure hunting game.

One geocache has been alluding me, 5 times now, near the Indian Temple Mound Museum. Stopped by real quick this morning to see if my luck would change. There were people everywhere looking for treasure, but not the treasure I was looking for. It took me a while to figure that out too.

When I showed up, a kid told me they have been looking for it all morning with no luck. I told him I had been out here 5 times already looking for it. He said "they added another clue today." I said "really? The only clue I know is "a lot of clams" (which I got from the geocaching website) He looked at me a little funny and kept searching. I went back to searching myself for the geocache, when another kid said hey does that (the GPS) help you find it. I said, "you don't have one? it tells me I'm 5 feet from it!" He said, "they posted the coordinates?" That's when I realized, we weren't looking for the same "treasure."

Turns out all the people around the Indian Temple were looking for the Billy Bowlegs Treasure Coin, that's worth $1500 in prizes to the person who finds the coin. People were looking in the same exact spot I was for the geocache as they were for the pirate coin. I searched for 40 minutes for the geocache with no luck. I figure somebody may have taken it...again!

Muggles! Arrgggghhh! haha!

See you on the hunt!

Yes we still geocache!

2007-05-26T15:50:00.000-06:00

Ok, so it's been a while since we've made a post here. Not because we haven't tried, but when we've been geocaching the past month, we were only getting one or maybe two at a time, or we just forgot the camera.

Our mission today? To go geocaching, remember the camera, and get more than one geocache today! Trale was hard at work early this morning getting maps ready for the hunt. Also our first adventure in our geo-jeep!

We went up to Niceville for our expedition, but first we stopped at our favorite Niceville establishment, Dairy Queen! Then off to the Niceville Children's Park to cool off. Ok, now we're ready!

There is a very nice nature preserve with a fresh water creek that runs through it. Lots of people swimming and playing in the creek. Even folks in canoes! On this geocache, depending on how much it rains, can change the difficulty greatly. But since we haven't had a good rain in nearly two months, this cache was fairly easy to get to. It was a little muddy under the pier, but not too much I couldn't find the treasure box.

Got a couple of new geocoins to put into the world to travel, so I dropped the "Hippie Dude Coin" off on the way back home at a new geocache we haven't found yet on the Eglin AFB reservation.

One of the geocoin's mission is to go to Europe since it is based on the Euro Currency they use. Check it out! I haven't dropped it off yet. I'm going to investigate a little to see if any fellow geocachers might be traveling across the pond. That way I know it gets there.

We'll have a great week...and if you need a little taste of Florida... here ya go!

On the road...again!

2007-04-03T20:26:00.000-06:00

We were on the road again, back home to Texas this weekend. It was great to see everybody! It rained alot, didn't know if that would get in our geocaching plans. The rain let up a little, so my sister Tay and I went out to try to find a few. According to the Weather Underground, the radar showed the rain was over...wrong! Not only did we try unsuccessfully for three (that's right, three) geocaches, the skies opened up and we got soaked. We stopped after we started to hear lightning and called it a day, empty handed.

We tried again a couple of days later. The sun was out this time and so were the mosquitoes! Big ones, like Volkswagons. That didn't stop us, we loaded up in Paw-Paws truck with the kids and took off on a geocaching expedition around The Woodlands.

Went up to this nature preserve on 1488. I had known it was there, but never been. We jumped out of the truck in search of the prize. It was a nice 3/4 mile round trip according to my GPSr. The trail sign said that the trail went back even further and led to a pond. Really nice place to do some fishin' and escape.

The last geocache was a little difficult to get to. We couldn't figure out how to get close to it. We drove around it a few times, until we realized it was over on Montgomery College's land on the other side of the ditch. It was easy to get once we got there! I thought we were going to be eaten alive by the mosquitoes walking down the trail. Tons of them! Mosquito spray saved the day!

We collected a few Travel Bugs during the trip and dropped some off on the way back to Florida at a geocache on the side of the road just outside of Baytown, Texas. It was in another really old cemetery. It was nice just to get out the mess of traffic we were in right there.

Back in Florida! There are a few new geocaches in the area, so we'll be out again soon with more stories and geocaching fun!

See more pictures in our online photo album by clicking here!

On the road!

2007-03-24T18:22:00.000-06:00

We took our geocaching expedition on the road today. Off to Mobile, Alabama to visit the wife's family and to geocache, of course!

First off, was a little place on Dauphin Island. This cache was not the typical tupperware box or army ammo can. It was a bird house!

One of the greatest things about geocaching is that it takes you places you would never go otherwise or know about. The next cache took us to an old cemetery in downtown Mobile. So old, in fact, a confederate cemetery from the civil war was located here. Most headstones were in the 1861-1865 time frame. Exploring the cemetery on the way out, I saw a headstone that was dated 1799! Holli's Mom proved to be a great geocacher for her first time!!

On the way to the next couple of "treasure boxes" on the west side of Mobile. Came across one of the nicest parks ever! It had a nice walk in the woods which hid a frisbee golf course and a geocache!

Off to a birthday party now. Had a great time in Mobile and found some really fun geocaches. On the road again next week to visit family in Texas. Yes, I've already put together my map! See you out on the trail!

-Todd

See the rest of the pictures from today on our online photo album, by clicking here.

Check out Stats!

2007-03-20T11:45:00.000-06:00

Check out our geocaching stats at the end of the page!

It's a cache-a-thon!

2007-03-18T11:49:00.000-06:00

Sunday we had our biggest one day bag of caches ever... Seven! Headed over to Pensacola for our geocaching adventure today. Our first stop was to our favorite geocaching stop, Dairy Queen! This Dairy Queen was special because of the awesome outlook into the bay, but it was also hiding a geocache close by, very close, in the parking lot! It was in the bushes across from the drive-thru so we had to watch for drive-by muggles. Trale jumped in to find this one.

University of West Florida was a gold mine for geocaching, we hit a few on a nice hiking trail on campus. Round trip we walked about a mile. The last one had a revine running through it, so holding the kids tight, we walked around to the treasure location which was under a really big fallen tree. There was a log nearby perfect to sit and check out the loot. On the way back from UWF, we made another stop to DQ for an ice cream snack. We headed back down scenic highway back towards the house, and stopped by my favorite irish pub restaurant, McGuires. There was treasure hiding there! When we pulled up, my GPSr was pointing to the bushes that had cars on both sides. I tried (not very hard) to find it, but no luck. Holli jumped out and shouted "I will find it!" Sure enough, she did.

Holli reached in and pulled out a little box that had some cool stuff inside. She got me a geocaching pin to put on my hat and Trale got a pin too. I'm so proud of my Bean, she actually most of the geocaches today. She's one step away from becoming a geogeek.

One more stop before going home for the day. Number 7! It was at the little park in Navarre on Highway 98. Another great view of the water. GPSr showed we were -8 feet below sea level. No wonder the hurricanes did so much damage here.

Another fun day of Geocaching at the Nixon Ranch! See ya next time! See these pics and more in our photo album.

-Todd

Zoo and Geocaching All In One Day!

2007-02-26T20:32:00.000-06:00

It's the first nice day in a while, so we went to the Zoo! Took lots of great pictures....

Holli's a pretty butterfly!
Cool Orangatan

Trale pets the lizards
The snake is big enough to eat Mason, but he ain't skeered!

One of the lions we could ride.

Check out the video of Mason when he learns about the ducks...

After the trip to the zoo, we went on a short trip geocaching on the Air Force Reservation north of Navarre. Trale was asleep through most of it, so I could only take a picture of my backpack and walking stick. It gets more press than me!!

Trale woke up for the last one, it had an interesting land feature, like it used to be a lake millions of years ago. According to my GPS, we walked down into this gulley 140 feet. It was beautiful, but a little spooky, maybe bigfoot lived down there.

We got to the site and Trale immediately knew to look behind the tree stump.

Don't have to work this weekend, so I'm sure you'll see us on the trail!

Until next time!
Team GravelShot: Todd, Holli, Trale and Mason

First Cache Hid Today!

2007-02-21T22:04:00.000-06:00

Our First Hide!
Well, it's about time right? I chose Liza Jackson Park as my first hide location today. When I got to the park this morning, I thought I'd find a hiding spot easily... Wrong! I walked around for close to an hour looking for a place... finally got in an area where there was no trash or foul odor. haha! You can see where I searched...round and round I go...
My first geocache also contained my first Travel Bug. I named it "Got Sand?" because of the keychain attached and the mission of the Travel Bug, which is to travel to different vacation spots.
I have a couple of more "treasures" to hide soon... Maybe this weekend.
CITO April 14th
I've decided to jump in and head up a Cache In Trash Out event here on the panhandle on Saturday, April 14th. I haven't nailed down a location yet, hope to get everything squared away for location this weekend... I'm taking your suggestions now for a location, email me at gravelshot@gmail.com Remember, the location needs to be in need of a good cleaning up. It's always a blast and a way for us geocachers to get together! Stay tuned!

NWF Geocaching Event?

2007-02-06T17:30:00.000-06:00

Searching around, it seems like the Northwest Florida Area has not done a geocaching event in a really long time! If you're in the area and reading this, let's put one together! How bout a nice time of the year like early May or June.

Don't know exactly what goes into doing an event. I imagine a park area and a place to put some "event" caches down.... let's see... food... more food.

Ideas? Please email me or leave a comment below.

Hook it up!

Solo Trip ...

2007-01-29T20:11:00.000-06:00

I took a couple of days off to rest from 12 hour days at work the past couple of weeks. Made some time to go geocaching, the perfect way to get away!

Eglin Air Force Base has portions open to the public with a recreation permit. These parts of the reservation are full of geocaches!! Let's go!

It was a chilly day, and once I got under the shade of the forest, it was much colder. But it felt refreshing. This first cache of the day was inside of an old hollow tree. As I was walking up to it, I heard a loud noise about 50 yards from me, like an animal shaking a tree. I jumped about 50 feet in the air. Didn't see what it was, but I didn't hear it again. I snagged this cache, snapped a picture and took off!

Just because you have a GPSr, doesn't mean it's the best way to get to a geocache, as I found out. The GPSr was pointing about .20 of a mile from the "treasure" location. So I took a hike about 500 yards. Up large inclines, down steep hills. It wasn't a straight and easy path. After about 450 yards I see a road. Another 50 yards from the road was the cache. Yes, I could've taken a different road and only had to walk 50 yards. But, geocaching is more about the journey than the destination!! Plus, I would not have walked by the pond or heard the creek nearby going the "easy" way.

I went up the road a ways and found the coolest Geocache location yet. According to this cache owner's site, it was an old whiskey still from the 1920's that was built by the US Government! It was never completed, but the ruins of what they built still remain. It was down a very wooded path. Once the GPSr said I had arrived, I didn't see anything, until I walked a little closer in the woods. It jumped out at me! It was very eerie and very cool!! I had to take a self-portrait of me sitting by it.

After a few smaller locations, I headed back to the house. What a ton of fun today! See you on the next adventure!

Ain't No Ticks On Me! Errr... Anymore!

2007-01-21T15:45:00.000-06:00

On a day that was, according to the weather man, cloudy and rainy, was in fact sunny and beautiful... let's go geocaching! We thought we needed a change and scenery, so we packed a picnic and headed to Pensacola. Stopped by Walmart for some $1.99 gas and what do you know, there was a geocache nearby. After the quick grab and go, we headed west for some treasure hunting!

We wanted to go somewhere unique, so we stopped by Bay Bluff park off of Scenic Hwy. Why is it called a bluff? Because the land just drops off into the ocean! Straight down the stairs we went looking for a picnic table. Come to find out there were to tables around, it was just a walking trial. So we jumped the fence and made our own spot. We watched people go by, watched the train go by about 50 yards in front of us, and watch Mason eat a sandwich with a little bit of sand top. Mmm...grain-y. Took a little stroll on the train tracks... playing chicken with the train... just kidding!

We headed back up the cliff... easier said than done. You find out real quick just how out of shape you are... Holli and Mason headed back to the car, and Trale and I went off-road for the "treasure." After a few near falls off the nearby cliff's we captured this one and back up the cliff...again, we went. Even Trale had to take a breather after the climb back up.

Found a strange tree hiding a geocache just down the road on a lot of waterfront land. It was at the end of the street and noticed many trees that could've been hiding the cache. After some wondering, I called in reinforcements (my wife) to help me look for it. Actually, I spotted it up a little ways from the acutal coordinates. Peek-a-boo!

Last one for the day was in downtown Gulf Breeze on the other side of the 3-Mile bridge. It was in a park being renovated and there was a lot of construction going on, but we pulled off the road to hunt the cache down. There was a dog park nearby and didn't think twice about it, until after I found the cache and got back in the car... We got ticks!! I didn't see them until we were a mile or so down the road when I noticed one of the little bugs crawling on my arm.... then on my pants and we pulled over as fast as I could at a nearby gas station. If Holli was driving with a tick on her, we'd been in the ditch already! After de-bugging, we took off again. After having ticks on you, it feels like you have ticks on you everytime you have an itch. Well I did have one more itch, but it was another tick crawling on me... we pulled into the zoo parking lot and nearly stripped looking for more ticks. Thankfully, none of the ticks took a bite and we were all safe.

Another adventurous outing, see you next time with Team GravelShot!