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Playing Hooky for Hockey (and Geocaching)
Confession: I played hooky for hockey today. Ok, so it was really a vacation day that I had been planning for the past couple of months. My kiddo was playing with his school band at the local minor league hockey team’s daytime game today. I love watching him play and I kinda like hockey, so I thought it would be fun to go to the game. If you take away one thing from this post, let it be this: Do not, I repeat, DO NOT, ever under any circumstances go to any sporting event on one of the “Get Schooled by Skates” school field trip days. When I tell you…
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Water’s Edge: A Virtual Geocache
When you think of a virtual geocache, you most often think of something that’s quick and easy to find. Maybe you just need to take a picture or email the cache owner the answer to a simple question that can be found at ground zero. You usually don’t think of a 3.5 terrain multi stage virtual. But that’s exactly what Water’s Edge is. I saw this cache on my map every time I looked in the area, and for years I’d been putting it off. I mean a 4-mile hike for one smiley? Who does that? But I knew inevitably I would have to complete this cache one day. It…
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Attending a Geocaching Mega Event: 10 Planning Tips
Geocaching is so much more than just finding hidden containers and signing a log. There’s a whole social side to the hobby! Most geocachers love getting together with others who share the same love of the activity, compare notes, plan outings, etc. What better way to do all that than by attending a Mega event? A Mega event is usually an annual event with more than 500 attendees. There are many different types of Mega events, and each one has its own draw. Most are themed, have other side events, have contests and prizes, and have new caches hidden for the purpose of the attendees to find. They can certainly…
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Spring Break at Great Wolf Lodge
Most people go someplace warm for spring break. Not us! This year, our family chose Minneapolis, Minnesota, where there was still about a foot of snow on the ground in some places! We stayed at the Great Wolf Lodge in Bloomington, MN, which is just a few blocks from the Mall of America. It may have been cold out, but there was plenty to do inside. And let me tell you, it was the perfect spring break destination with three boys 13 and under. The Room We arrived at the Great Wolf midday on Saturday. Even though we were there before the official check in time, our room was…
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Stories of Foolish Geocaching
A couple of weeks ago, I had the privilege of sitting in on Episode 325 of the geocaching tech podcast, GeoGearHeads. This weekly show has been around in its current form since 2011 and is hosted by DarrylW4 and ChrisOfTheNorthwest with a revolving third and sometimes 4th guest host. Scott and I have appeared a few times to talk about various subject matters. This week’s topic was “Foolish Cachers III.” I don’t think it was a coincidence that we were asked to join them for this particular topic, since we have a few stories about doing what some may consider foolish things while caching. We did tell a couple of…
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Geocaching day trip to Valpo
I hit the jackpot in the kid department. I mean, I know I’m a bit biased, but my kid is awesome. He’s funny and kind. He’s sweet and caring and even sometimes a little bit bossy. But what I love most about him is that he shares the same sense of adventure that I have. And he loves geocaching adventures. So when it’s a holiday here in the US, and he has no school and I’m fortunate enough to have a government job that closes on most bank holidays, bigmac06 (kiddo’s geocaching name) and I love to head out on an adventure. A few weeks ago, I asked him what…
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The story of us
Who knew this little “hobby” of mine could change my life so much? Not only has it taken me to some incredible places and created countless memories, but it also introduced me to my sweetie. If you’ve been geocaching for a while and pay attention to social media, you may recognize him. That’s Scott Berks. Yep, that scottberks. Former co-host of (the NSFW) Chicago Geocacher Podcast and current co-host of The Geocaching Podcast. I met him at a cache. I had no idea who he was. See, I was relatively new at the time. I had been caching about a year and a half but only had about 50 or…
