Wolf Creek and Golden OR

Today we went south for a successful day of geocaching in Wolf Creek, Golden, and a quick stop in Glendale for one and then at the north bound rest area to grab "back in the woods".

Back in the Woods eluded us once before with the iPhone with the over head being so dense. This time Dawn came up with it after about 15 minutes ... all I could hear was I FOUND IT - real loud .. she get's so excited on these finds that are challenges.

Golden was really peaceful. We could not find one of them and that is so frustrating. It is supposed to be a small lock and lock and we could just not find it anywhere. We looked everywhere that one could be, under the steps to the old church; under the porch to the church; we picked up every rock in the area; looked under the bench; looked everywhere and gave up on it after an hour or so ... must have been muggled.

The other three in Golden were successful and so was all the ones in Wolf Creek. What a neat little cemetery we found in Wolf Creek where "Historical Place" was placed.

We had to laugh at speed limit sign in the county park walking out to retrieve "Home Run" ... of course Nosey Rosey sniffed them both out from the their hiding places.

A little side benefit to our trip today was filling a quart container with Blackberries in Wolf Creek. The berry bushes are all over the place.

Then on the way home I checked our geocaching email and saw that a new one from "themasonfamily2" was published at the exit coming up on our drive northward on Interstate 5. A short exit to retrieve that one was all Nosey Rosey needed to finish our day of geocaching off.

Pictured ... the speed limit sign in Wolf Creek County Park, Dawn in the old ghost town church in Golden Dawn at the Golden General Store (this ain't Walmart). Another picture is of the motor in the Wolf Creek cemetery ... very unusual in deed.

All and all it was a great day and we had loads of fun and had a great history lesson in Golden.

Riddle to Glide Loop

This morning I got up EARLY and headed south before sunrise and headed out to the Riddle - Glide Loop where I was the FTF on a new one that has sat there for 2 days without being found. I just could not let it go for someone else to be the FTF so I looked for it and after the iPhone settled down with it's GPS it pointed right at it. Ah ha .. find # 1 for the day.

My next find was at the Spawning Beds upstream ... this was a quick one and off to the next one. It was called ROCK PIT and I wish all my geocaches were this obvious, pictured. The second picture is at West Fork with a tunnel going through the mountain leading to the bridge over Cow Creek. It really stood out even though the area was one big rock pit. I passed right by the POND and went to Pioneers Graves ... read the history marker. There was history markers all over the place. I had no idea there was a ghost town up there called West Fork that served as a railroad spur back in the 1880's ... and the Chinese helped build the railroad up there. Interesting Drive!!!

Finally made it to Glendale and found THE GAZEBO and GLENDALE # 2. Coming back with Dawn to find GLENDALE # 1 and THE CART PROJECT. Even though Glendale is small there are lots of muggles around early in the morning.

A real nice loop from Riddle to Glendale.

Out to Gravel Bin Raft Launch

This morning I got up and headed east on highway 138 out past Steamboat Inn. I found 7 geocaches for the trip and really had to use my geosenses since my iPhone has limited GPS use outside the AT&T service area. But, I have so many county geocaches saved to my iPhone I can find them outside the service area.

I ventured all the way out to Gravel Bin Raft put in location (pictured) and found one right off the bat even if my GPS was bouncing all over the place. It helps to read the hints... LOL.

I started my morning out by climbing the steep hill up the 14th tee for disc golf to find WHISTLERS and what a hike it was. I do not recommend it to anyone who might have bad knees .. mine was killing me. If you have a bad heart I would avoid this one too. The rating for terrain is not so accurate and should be increased. Certainly a 3 at least. But I logged it.

Sunday I am going to drive down Little River Road and go out to Hemlock Lake and hope to find all the geocaches along the way. This area looks pretty interesting for geocaches and I have not been out to Hemlock lake for about 13 years or so.

We will surely get to 340 tomorrow ... but feeling so lonely since Nosey Rosey is doing her shifts over at Mercy Hospital. We won't be able to team up until next weekend when we plan on going down to Golden, Oregon - a ghost town with lots of historical sites from what we have heard.

Umpqua Gold and others

Today we want to venture out for a couple of hours west of Melrose and OMG .. what a day we had. Probably the toughest day yet since started geocaching in March.

We found Umpqua Gold clear at the top of the Callahan's Range and what a view we had. Pictured is the scene from up there on the crest of the Callahan's where we found Umpqua Gold and Where the Ferns Are .. we tried to find Reforest Lookout on the back side of the mountain but alas a DNF for us after searching for this ammo can for about an hour. All we found was lots of slippery soil, poison oak, berry bushes, Madrone, horse flies... but no ammo can. That is three DNFs in a row for this one and something tells me it is MIA. We wandered around all over the place and finally gave up when my iPhone got down to 20% power for the day.

Nosey Rosey needs to work at the hospital tomorrow but I will be getting up with her to bail out and head up the north Umpqua River to see how many I can find out where I have no signal with AT&T but I can still find geocaches using the saved button for all the caches out there.

I hope to find plenty. My goal is to make t iout Diamond Lake and beyond. I hurt my knee today climbing around the side of the mountain looking for Reforested Lookout but I don't care. I am not going to let that stop me from looking for more east of here.

We also found Eternally Eden just outside of Melrose and and another in the Umpqua Valley Winery Tours too. It was at Hillcrest Winery ... one of these days we are going to need to stop in and sample some wine while on this tour looking for geocaches.

It is all in the numbers ... FTF is just a bonus ... if it happens it happens. Maximize the numbers.

Fun in Grants Pass

Today we went to Grants Pass to do some geocaching in a new region ... did we ever have fun. They are all over the place in Grants Pass and they were there for the pickings it seems. We were 18 for 18 in our finds. The only reason we quit was because my iPhone went dead in the battery because our car charger went bad. So, we went to Walmart and bought a new car charger for iPhones and now it holds a charge a bit longer. I wish we were spending the night in GP so we could find even more tomorrow.
Pictured is Dawn logging in her find on a bridge spanning over the Rogue River where she found a geocoin.

On way home we stopped at Safe House off I-5 so I could show Dawn what it looked like and she could not believe it. She loved it.

Tomorrow we are getting up a bit earlier to find some in the Tyee area and west of Sutherlin before it gets to HOT. It was 97 degrees in GP ... and very humid. We are wiped out tonight.

Grants Pass

We will be heading to Grants Pass for the weekend and spend the night to look for some new geocaches in a new region in Oregon. I have been to Grants Pass many times but I am sure we will explore parts of it that we have not seen before. We hope to make our goal of 300 with this trip. We got the notice about the UVGA Meet and Eat on the 22nd of August and we will be attending for sure. Will be telling all my friends that are in the valley including those that want to find out what geocaching is all about first hand. This is a good way to get introduced to all us high-tech explorers and discover how much fun it is.

Be sure to click the link for Meet and Eat to the right to get details.

We found our first time early morning, in the dark, FTF this morning. We got the notice that a new geocache went public while watching Late Night on TV and I slipped my jeans and a shirt on and Dawn and I drove out to see if we can find it. It was the second place I looked. Dawn received the honor of filling out the log. Did not even have to use a flash light since there was so much light from the parking lot. So cool.

Going to Florence tomorrow to visit with some Boy Scouts at Camp Baker south of town. Of course I will be hunting for geocaches to camp on the way to Elkton and then in Florence in the afternoon when I pick up a leather duffel bag at the the store that sells all leather items for $20.

This weekend we will be going down to Grants Pass and do some hunting for geocaches that are there. This city is just filled with them and it will virgin area for us to hunt. Looking forward to writing TFTC on a lot of new logs there.

I received another DNF on DROP IN THE BALLOT BOX - NOT on Diamond Lake Blvd. I took Dawn over there last night and she found it right away. Of course she new what it looked like. The point is that it is still there. Since we got so many DNF's on this we upgraded the difficulty to 2.5 from 1.5 at the recommendation of one of the latest DNF. It is not your typical Micro. Look for it - not only see. It is right in front of you.

EARLY MORNING

Got up early and went down to the Glendale area finding only four geocaches and found six travel bugs in total. Dropped all six of them off at my IVY HILTON TRAVEL BUG HOTEL out towards Dixonville. It should have 12 TB's in there already from the six I dropped off yesterday from our trip to California.

I fell three times, poked in the face and in the back while looking for SAFE HOUSE off Boomer Mountain Road off of Interstate 5. I laughed all the wait out. SAFE HOUSE is probably the most expensive and most thought out geocache yet. Great job guys.

Now to go hide some more and perhaps find some more too.

If you are looking for the BALLOT BOX geocache I went to check on it this morning and it is still there. A couple who claims to have over 900 hides between them from Grants Pass complained because they do not like DNFs and felt I should have given them more of a hint. How come other local geocachers can find it? It is a bit more challenging. Also, I replaced A STEP ABOVE THE REST because it was muggled already since July 4th. Now it will be really easy to find.

IVY HILTON TB & GEOCOIN HOTEL

Dumped all my latest TBs and Geocoins that I found in California in the Ivy Hilton Travel Bug and geocoin Hotel here in Roseburg. Get to it and collect some TBs and coins to pass along their way.

Home from California

We are home at last. A very productive trip. We are up to 263 finds now and still have some days left until I need to get back to work. We have one travel bug and two geocoins that we need to get rid of soon so that they can travel on their way. Tomorrow is another day.

Wednesday Night

Will be leaving for Oregon tomorrow morning and will hopefully find many, many geocaches on the way home. We are up to 256 now and we want to reach 300 before the end of tomorrow. It has been a fun time seeing several new geocaches in California. I will be taking them back to Oregon and using them in my new hides. Really unusual hides in deed.

Douglas County Numbers Blitz series

After 4 PM today the DC Numbers Blitz Series will go public from geocaching.com and all geocachers from DC area will be able to be the first to find of at least one of them today and perhaps still over the weekend. I understand that "A step above the rest " and "Drop your ballot here" are a bit tough to find according to Whitetail and Traveler, but mickleson5 was the FTF on "Drop Your Ballot Here". Congrats Todd for being the first to find. Not my typical hide was it?

The Blitz series will be very easy to find and is meant to boost your numbers by at least 12 if not more by finding some that will be nearby a few of them at the same time.

Tomorrow morning we are off heading south on I - 5 to drive down to Travis AFB for a couple of days to find some geocaches all over the Fairfield and Vacaville, CA area before heading off to San Jose on Monday. In San Jose CA we will be going out and find as many of the geocaches as we can in that area too. Perhaps we will strike gold with the geocaches.

I will try to make an entry into the blog from California if we are near a wi-fi spot somewhere.

Until then Have a Happy 4th and be safe.

Thursday Morning

The other day started the blitzkrieg bombardment of geocache hides around the county. One, Douglas County Numbers Blitz # 9, was published last Tuesday by mistake. It is located in Sutherlin and congrats to lostswedes for the FTF. This morning Tyler's Eagle Project was published and it appears that lostswedes are the first to find again.

When the bombardment strikes this weekend it will be a little challenging to be a multiple FTF for these I am sure since they are all over the place.

We will be on vacation when the blitz happens but I will be notified by email on my iPhone on who will be the first to find for each of them while we are geocaching in California.

From my notifications it looks like there are a lot of people from points further south who are going to GeoWoodstock up north. They are all passing through our area and picking up a few geocaches along the way through our county. You can just follow them northward when they log their finds into geocaching.com. That means those same people will be coming through here going home from GW8 in a few days to make the return trip. More than likely they will be competition for the FTF on those of the blitz later.

Have a great 4th of July weekend geocaching.