#300-The End

It took five trips along the F2K highway but on Sunday afternoon we found and logged cache #300.

#300 put hubby's total 12 short of 600 caches for 2012

His look says, "How many pictures do you need to take?"

#300 gave me a total of 363 caches

The look says, "Take the d*** picture. I'm tired and I have to p**!"

The looks says, "Enough togetherness! Geocache on your own for awhile!"

Here are some of the things that caught my eye behind the lens 

of the camera the last three trips on F2K.

As we were heading to Florence on Wednesday, this hot air ballon

was floating along Highway 60. An unusual sight on our end

of the East Valley.

This entrance to a ranch road spoke to me.

Look at my previous post "Unique Rock Formations" and the hike along 

Weaver's needle Crosscut. This is Weaver's Needle about 30 miles away.

The Boulders have intrigued me since I first saw them in March 2010.

I never did post that road trip when my Mother visited us. 

Hubby is looking for a couple of caches amongst them.

Look at their size!

This was one of our more colorful cache finds on Saturday.

A clever cache title labeling the unique container.

Like icebergs, no two saguaros are alike.

There are A LOT of saguaros along the F2K road. 

This view was picture perfect.

Hubby removed this from the sole of my tennis shoe after one of 

our treks into the desert. I wore my hiking boots the last two trips.

This hill was the location for the Pearl Hart Cache. Here's the story:

"This is a historical cache placed in honor of a forgotten woman bandit named Pearl Hart. The old stagecoach route once ran from Globe to Florence near the cache site. Pearl Hart and her pal Joe Boot robbed the stage near Cane Springs, just NE of the cache site. Pearl was the only woman to ever rob a stagecoach, and it was also the last stagecoach robbery in America. The year was 1899. If you want to read more about Pearl Hart, check out the book "I, Pearl Hart" by Jane Candia Coleman." 

 

Pearl Hart and her pal, Joe Boot

Reading the book is on my list for this season...after January.

This is a view of the Ray Mine from the F2K road. We have never seen the 

water 'pool' when we have visited the viewing area. 

Although we have stopped and viewed the Ray Mine at least four times,

I have not posted photos on the blog that I can find. 

Another off the road cache was located along the AZ Trail.

The hiking club journeys along parts of the trail on several of their

hikes each season. We have not been this far south before.

I just like the laser cut sign.

"The Arizona National Scenic Trail is a continuous, 800+ mile diverse and scenic trail across Arizona from Mexico to Utah. It links deserts, mountains, canyons, communities and people."

It is used by hikers, bicyclists and those on horses.

I took several photos of the sign and other desert scenes.

It took about 10 or 15 minutes before I noticed the keys hanging

from the A. Are you missing the keys to your Honda Accord?

We drove past this dilapitated brick house several times.

The final time I just had to grab the camera.

The mailboxes were too interesting not to capture with the camera.

Very creative and clever!

I couldn't leave the F2K road without another photo of the second

crested saguaro near the side of road. Before geocaching, this was the 

reason we would drive the F2K highway; a rare sighting of this saguaro

phenomenon. Now I know there are TWO along this road.

Unique Rock Formations

Today's hike was an 8 mile climb among the Superstition Mountains. This was the first time hubby had been along on Weaver's Needle Crosscut. It featured some unique rock formations along the way. Total ascent was 2300'. Eight miles of up and down, up and down made for a group of very tired hikers at 3:00 today.

balancing rocks

Weaver's Needle

faces in the rock formations

parting of the rocks???

cherry on top?

animals in the rock formations

Weaver's Needle

Weaver's Needle

This is the view we usually see and recognize from many, many

miles away.

Merry Christmas from Our House to Yours!

Merry Christmas!

The stockings are outside this year

Scented pinecones near the door on the deck

Back door decor

Our tree with pepper lights and stockings

Lighted garland

Christmas tree display inside the house

Merry Christmas!

Best wishes for a prosperous and healthy New Year!

#100

As you know from a previous post this month, hubby has been bitten by the geocache bug. He has been wanting to cache along a 32 mile stretch of desert road called the Florence Kelvin Highway. Highway being a misnomer because 12 miles of the road is paved; the rest a well-graded gravel road through the desert. The reason for caching along this highway is the number of caches; more than 300. The caches are placed close together, about every 600 feet. This is referred to as a power cache. The same person has placed 300 hidden containers along the roadway. Others have placed caches now and then off the main road bringing the count to more than 300. 

We drove 30 miles Thursday morning to begin the caching adventure. Hubby needed a driver. I parked and the two of us walked along the road looking for buried treasure. He had the GPS so I was guessing at distance for finding caches. After missing a couple, and him having to back-track and log, I became the driver. He sat in the back seat with the van door open. I would motor 500-600 feet.  He would hop out, locate the pile of rocks, move them, find the canister, and we would sign the log.  He would return the cache and hop back in and we were off to the next one. We had no idea how many we would log that day. 

I have cached only one other time back home. It was our first time out and I found the first two caches of the day. We logged three on that adventure. Hubby went out several times on his own collecting 20+ caches before we left for the winter. He has logged over 200 caches in the last month. But Thursday's adventure was my first caching trip in AZ. There is very little variety to a film canister hidden in a pile of rocks next to a road sign or under a bush next to the road. (That is how most of the 300 are hidden.) The venture was about numbers for hubby.

The caches hidden by others, off the highway provided the variety. Variety in size, location, terrain, and challenge of the find. Here are some of the more interesting aspects of our adventure.

This was my first & best find of the day.

It is a spent .22 shell embedded in a post.

It required a TOT to extract the cache & the log.

TOT = tool of the trade = needle-nosed pliers

This was another find of mine.

A spent shotgun shell also buried in a fence post.

Sometimes the container is larger. 

This one was camouflaged with spray paint and

hidden in a dead saguaro stump.

Can you see the hidden cache?

Sometimes it is the materials used to hide

the caches that keep the hunt adventurous.

This cache was at the base of a saguaro,

under a pile of rocks.

This cache introduced us to a second crested saguaro along this highway. 

We knew about another one posted here.

Sometimes the container is rather large and not really hidden.

This ammo box was found under a bush.

It had room for treasures left by other cachers.

Sometimes hubby leaves something

 and adds to the collection.

Imagine my surprise when after 97 cache finds,

I reached number 100!

YEA!

Replacing the film canister back under the pile of rocks

for the next cacher.

This cache was #84 along the highway of 300, but

because we had found the others along the way, off the

highway, I had reached a milestone, albeit a rather small one,

in the world of geocaching.

Our reward for a very successful day of power geocaching...

dinner at the Greek restaurant in Florence!

We cached from 8:30 to 5:00 along about 9 miles of road.

We got more accomplished than hubby imagined.

Several more days of of power caching and we will 

have logged all 300!

Be watching the blog for the rest of this adventure...