Casa Grande, Again

Last Saturday was our third trip to Casa Grande in eight days. The first, undocumented trip, was to meet with former Watertown educators and their wives. The four of us had worked together 15+ years and known each other much longer. PI Day was the following day and we returned for geocaching and pie. Sherry joined us again, last Saturday, for some geocaching events and ... geocaching adventures.

We met at a city park outside of the community for a cache in, trash out event or CITO. We were assigned a quadrant in the park and proceeded to pick up trash.

One of the rules of the park is NO GLASS CONTAINERS. Guess what I am picking up? Shattered pieces of glass bottles.

Sherry and I worked together. My most disgusting items were a dirty diaper and used condom. We found lots of plastic bags, broken bottles, and the usual trash from picnickers. We also startled a large jackrabbit and many little geckos. It was a rewarding 90 minutes.

As you can see our group collected a lot of trash, including an old TV. Why do people use a city park for their dumping ground?

Following the CITO, geocachers met as a group, collected some information about soon-to-be-published geocaches, and headed out in small groups to find them.

The first stop was along the narrow road with no off-road parking. Our destination was a pile of boulders, one of the unique features of this city park.

Cachers climbed the boulders to get to ground zero, the location of the cache container, but were stopped by the sighting of a rattlesnake curled on the rocks below. (Hubby took the above photo. He does not know how to use the camera features on the iPhone. I would not climb on the boulders to check it out.)

Another geocacher got a very good photo of the snake. I asked him to send it to me. The snake did stir and hiss a bit when the dozen or so folks climbed on the boulders above his sunny spot, but it settled down when it realized no one was getting any closer. (The geocache was NOT in its territory.)
The experience was a good reminder: we were in the desert and snakes do live there! We stayed away from rock piles for the rest of the day. We walked with sticks everywhere we went.

Where's Waldo?

from the inside looking out

Who do you suppose got the cache?

fresh evidence of the food chain in the desert

The three of us hopped in Lil' Red to find a special cache outside the park area, but nearby in the desert. There are few good, direct roads so we did the best we could, given the GPS coordinates. Lil' Red encountered a steep wash.

we've done worse; let's do this!

needed low-4 wheel drive to make it up the hill

look at the dust fly & wheels spin

she & the driver did not make it the first try

...so they tried again

more gas, more spinning tires & flying dust

SUCCESS!

Sherry chose to walk (wonder why???) and documented Lil' Red's attempts as she worked her way down and back up, out of the wash.  

Less than a mile away we found the cache and a much better desert road for our return trip to the city park.

When we got back, most of the people had already left. We ate our lunch, thanked the host of the two events (CITO & Lunch Meet & Greet) and the seven new geocaches, and headed back home. 

Just one of many unique pile of boulders in North Mountain Park, Casa Grande. 

Any photographs without my tag are photos taken by Sherry. Thanks Sherry for tagging along on our adventures, for riding in the back seat of Lil' Red, and for willingly hopping in and out of the jeep while we geocache. We enjoy your company and are happy to have had you with us on these weekend adventures.

3.14.15

3.14.15 or Saturday, March 14, 2015 was a special day in the geocaching and math world. 3.141592653... is the numerical value of PI. We celebrated by attending not one, not two, but three PI Day events and collecting some puzzle geocaches.

I saw this T-shirt on a Facebook ad and ordered it. As soon as I clicked the final button, I knew I had goofed as it was advertised as women's cut (which I wanted for the neckline) but meant for the body shape. The largest size probably would not fit...but the T-shirt was so dang cute! I was right. I could fit the T-shirt over my bosom, but I looked very gross. I offered to sell the T-shirt to Marlene, a fellow geocacher who gladly and proudly wore the shirt all day. She was a HIT at the first event of the day. many people asked to have a picture of her or with her.

geocachers registering for the event

socializing until the raffle

pie was one of the door prizes

none of the three of us won

the registration line

the two photographers taking a group photo

can you find me?

I am taking a photo of the photographers

Geocachers attending this PI Day event

We drove several miles to have breakfast at the second PI Day event. We visited with some more geocachers before getting back in Lil' Red and heading south to Coolidge and Casa Grande to do some serious geocaching. 

and attending our third PI Day event

blueberry, peach & cherry pie in Casa Grande

Spring Training Baseball

We attended a Spring Training game on the west side of the valley last week. My cousin Cheryl and her husband joined us. Usually it is Hubby and Steve who go to the games, but this gave us, Cheryl and I, a chance to visit and catch-up.

Goodyear Ball Park

Home of the Cincinnati Reds and the Cleveland Indians

Can you guess on which day we attended the game?

(hint: notice the GREEN caps?)

Not many people sitting in the full sun seats

The shaded seats were quite full

After an hour in the hot sun, Cheryl and I moved to shaded seats and had a nice breeze to help with the high 80º temperatures that day. After a nice dinner together, we came back to the park to attend a real St. Patrick's Day party with our Irish friends, the O'Reillys.

First Day of Spring

My intention was to capture some flowering cacti here in the resort to post for the first day of spring, but a late afternoon thunderstorm rolled in from the east and changed my plans.

We saw the rainbow before the rain came. The neighbors and I stood out in the street admiring the end to end full rainbow.

Loud thunder and lightning accompanied the rain. The temperature dropped at least 10-15 degrees as the storm rolled through.

hard rain

heavy rain

the white specks? hail

pea-sized hail on the grill mat/rug

the roof of Lil' Red

The air smells clean. Pollen count will be down for a day providing relief to the allergy suffering folks. Water is standing in the street. The 15 minute storm was a perfect way to welcome Spring!

How Many Cachers Does It Take?

One of the CV geocachers hosted a Geocaching event at a nearby lake. (Yes, AZ has lakes.) The event was open to all geocachers and had about 45 people attending. It was a perfect day to be on the shore of a lake.

on the shore of Canyon Lake

no coats at this event

cadon (from CA) and cardon (from MN)

How many cachers does it take to find a cache?

and they kept coming!

all of them looking at their GPS units!

that is the number of people who signed the log for the cache

Hubby and I found a few more caches on the way back to town

Sherry had joined us for the day & was the photographer

Yes, we watched where we were walking although

we were at a higher elevation on the Apache Trail road

Sticking with the theme of "How many cachers does it take?" Hubby and I tagged along with a small group of CV geocachers on the hunt for a newly placed, but difficult hide. We knew it was in a tree. We were quite certain we needed a ladder to retrieve it. Two CV cachers had found the cache. How hard could it be? Our 'leader' told us he had been to the location on two previous visits and had NOT found it. Nine of us piled into high clearance vehicles and headed to THE DESERT with a ladder. When we got to the location we found two more CV cachers looking for the hide. 

Doug on the ladder

Hubby in long sleeves and gloves

Where can it be?

I loaned my long-sleeve shirt to Gary so he could 

search the prickly, blood-drawing tree

FINALLY!

above eye level, a small hole had been drilled in a branch

a SMALL metal container, holding a strip of paper

had been dropped in the small hole

blending in with the color of the branch

It was a great hide and an even better FIND!

Geocaches are rated by size; from micro to large and even a not chosen category to further confuse. Caches are rated by the cache hider or owner on difficulty of the hide; from a 1 (easy) to 5 (most difficult). The terrain is also rated on a 1 to 5 scale; 1 being wheel chair accessible and 5 being climb a mountain or use scuba gear. 

The CV group continued in that area of the desert finding 4 more caches that afternoon. I found and logged another 2 (Hubby had found them last year) before we got home that very warm, but geocache successful, afternoon. 

I LOVE this game!

Our CV Geo Social Life

Hubby and I have really enjoyed the Tuesday morning meetings and gatherings of the CV geocaching group this winter season. The group of retired folks interested in geocaching has been growing each year and this year, it numbers between 40 and 50 people. Some folks are far more active than others. Some folks are just getting their feet wet. And thankfully, others are taking a mentoring role sharing their excitement and knowledge of the sport.

The first group event happened on a Tuesday morning late last month. We gathered at a city park to 'play' some geocaching games, have lunch, and seek out some newly placed cache hides.

The first game was placing our numbered golf tee in the spot of a given set of coordinates.  We were all given the same coords. No two tees were in the exact same spot.

 Some of us had GPSers and some were using their Smart phones. You can see the wide variety of where our units told us the coords were supposed to be.

My tee, #22. I was not near the actual spot. Nor was Hubby. Glad our units are accurate enough when we are looking for a hide.

The group had lunch and then went looking for the six new caches placed by the two CV organizers of the little event. We split into small groups and headed into the desert for the hunt. We were at #5 searching in the bushes, because that is where Ground Zero was on the 3 GPS units we had in the group.

Hubby was wearing gloves as he searched the 2 small bushes. All of a sudden he jumped back and said, "I just touched a rattlesnake!" Nancy and I got our phones out to document the snake, AFTER we moved back from the bushes. Luckily, the temps were in the 60s. The snake was so cold, he hardly moved. He did relocate in the next bush, rattling his tail as he slowly slithered to rehide. We made a quick phone call to learn the cache was NOT in those bushes, but a nearby 'tree' so we gladly left the rattler alone and very carefully completed the other two hides before joining the group.

(That experience has curtailed our desert geocaching. We are mostly hunting in town. We carry a stick if we are in brush and sand, and we look at the ground when we walk.)

A GeoBingo followed the collecting of new caches. I won a prize for completing my Geocard and I won a raffle ticket prize. (photos at the end)

Then it was time for the group photo. Neal set the timer...

and got a great group photo.  Some people had left before the photo. Some cachers did not join us that day. This is a 'about half' representation of the CV group of active geocachers.

I won a 'bag' of prizes, including a bird's nest with eggs, one of which is a geocache. The other trinkets are called swag and are items placed in a larger cache container, especially for kids to take or trade.

The bottle of wine was my GeoBingo prize. It was created by one of our clever & creative CV cachers. (Thanks, Marlene!) I am going to use her idea for a door prize at my SD caching events.

The CV cachers are an important part of our AZ geocaching family. We support and learn from each other. The weekly meetings have kept us in touch with a sport we truly enjoy. Thanks for your leadership, Doug.