Muggled!

A couple weekends ago, I discovered that a couple of our geocaches had gone missing.

If you are wondering what a geocache is ... feel free to dig through this blog at Sheppy's Blog: Geocache. If you are still having trouble with the concept, check out Geocaching 101.

Anyway, I was checking up on my geocaches (as I do from time to time) in the Pence Park area. The first one I checked on was Sheppy McShepardSons (take II). It was not where it is supposed to be. To be honest, of all the geocaches that I've hidden, this is the one that I thought would be the least likely to go missing. I guess I was wrong. This did not make me happy.

More McShepardSons

Well, do you remember that I hid a new geocache? If not, see McShepardSons on Independence Mountain.

It has not been getting very many visitors. In fact, after almost 3 weeks, it had only been logged as found once on its online log. There were a couple of entries in the paper log in the cache. It seems weird to me that someone would find the cache and not sign online, but maybe that is just me.

Anyway, while hiking up to the top of Independence Mountain, I thought maybe more people would visit the cache if there were more to find on the way up.

McShepardSons on Independence Mountain

I placed what I hope will be the Sheppy Family's third geocache.

McShepardSons on Independence Mountain

It is currently submitted for review. The only thing that would prevent it from being published is any multi-stage caches that have one of the steps in the area. Unfortunately, I have no way of knowing where all those might be unless I find every multi-cache that might be anywhere close to this area. I didn't see any multi-caches particularly close, so I think my chances are pretty good.

Searching Guacamole

I introduced a new Travel Bug to the world yesterday:

Searching Guacamole

I know my obsession with Travel Bugs is childish and/or nerdy. I don't care. The whole concept fascinates me. In a weird sort of way, I live vicariously through these little travelers.

On Searching Guacamole's Profile, I introduced him very similarly like I did Search & Rescue. Both list their "mission" to find and hopefully rescue my first travel bug Guacamole.

Return of Taco Pterodactyl

Back in January, I reported that my Travel Bug, Taco Pterodactyl had gone missing.

If you want, go back and see Missing Taco Pterodactyl?

On December 31th, this geo-cacher said "good-bye" to my little Taco Pterodactyl and dropped him off at "Want a Steak, Want a Shake, or will you get Gas?".

On January 5, a log on this cache says, "Nice cache no trackable inside tho".

I contacted all the people who had logged visits to that cache between the time Taco entered the cache and the time he was reported missing. I got answers from 4 out of the 6 saying they had not seen the poor little guy. The other 2 never answered.

I had no choice but to consider Taco MIA. 

Missing Taco Pterodactyl?

I'm afraid my travel bug, Taco Pterodactyl has gone missing.

Taco is my second oldest travel bug, and until recently, the oldest one still surviving.

For quite awhile he was traveling across Florida with one geo-cacher. On December 31th, this geo-cacher said "good-bye" to my little Taco Pterodactyl and dropped him off at "Want a Steak, Want a Shake, or will you get Gas?".

On January 5, a log on this cache says, "Nice cache no trackable inside tho".

Assuming that the January 5th log is correct, and that cacher did not just miss Taco Pterodactyl in there, either someone picked him up and forgot to log him, or someone picked him up and didn't know to log him, or someone stole him.

Of course, I am hoping that someone just forgot to log him. Perhaps by the time you read this, it will have been logged.

Premium Geocaching

Exciting news!

I am now a Premium Member on Geocaching.com !

If you follow this blog, you've seen some of my posts about my family's GeoCaching adventures.  To me it is a wonderfully fun hobby. If you don't know what geocaching is, check out Geocaching 101. 

One of the really cool things about the hobby is that you can do it practically for free. You need some sort of hand-held GPS or a smartphone on which to load an app, but other than that, all you need to do is go to the website, sign up for a free account, and start doing your thing.

I think it is an awesome way to add adventure to family hikes. This is especially true if you have kids, but from time to time I will do some searching without the kids.

An Update on my Travel Bugs

I am fascinated with Travel Bugs.

You probably know this, but just in case, a Travel Bug is a type of geocaching "trackable". Basically, it is sort of like a game piece. The bug is a tag attached to an object that travels from cache to cache.You can read more about these little hitchhikers at Geocaching 101.

So, it is cool to me that you can easily look and see where a travel bug has gone.

My First Multi-Cache

If you follow this blog, you know that our family is into geocaching. Usually, it is an activity that I do with the kids, but fairly often I'll go off and do it on my own. I hate to admit that. I'm sure it makes me some sort of geek. It is fun for me, though, and sometimes it is something I do when I am on my own. Judge me if you must. It is just how I am.

Biking and Hiking and Geocaching and Canoeing

Busy day Friday.

We had decided to visit our friends in Breckenridge this weekend, and I took a PTO day.

Early in the morning, sometime before dawn, I grabbed some stuff, put my mountain bike on the back of the minivan, and headed up to Mt. Falcon Open Space Park.

There were a couple geocaches that I thought I would like to pick up. One is a multi-stage cache that I had begun a week or so before.

Another Waterton Bike Ride

Saturday, we loaded our mountain bikes on the back of our mini-van and took them to Waterton Canyon. You may remember Waterton Canyon from such posts as Biking with the Sheep. In fact, I've just realized that I blog about it enough that I might as well have a Sheppy's Blog: Waterton Canyon "label". You can follow that link to see all our adventures in this canyon (including this blog post).

As a reminder, Waterton Canyon is the beginning of the 480 mile Colorado Trail. The canyon is a good place to take the kids riding.  It is off-road, but nice and wide. It is also very scenic, with access to the South Platte river and rocks to climb. It only has a slight elevation gain, so it is pretty easy without being too simple.

The river is certainly up compared to most (probably all) of the pictures you've seen on this blog. We've had a good snowy winter in the mountains plus a pretty wet spring so far.

Devil's Head Hike

Saturday, we needed something to do. I decided to take the family on a hike in Pike National Forest. Before the kids were born, my wife and I had done the Devil's Head Fire Lookout Trail, but the kids had never been there and I thought it was something they might enjoy.

The drive to the trailhead took longer than I remember. This might be part of the reason we've never brought the boys. But, after about an hour and a half, we were in the National Forest Recreation Area.

Geo-Ride in May

My wife had a thing to go to Saturday.

This meant that the boys had to make a decision. Should we stay inside all day and play video games? Should we spend the day outside riding our bikes?

The boys voted for video games. I voted for the bike ride. 2 to 1. I won.

One of the few advantages of being the parent is that my vote (usually) counts for more.

We loaded our bikes on the back of the minivan and headed over to Chatfield  Reservoir State Park. A few days ago I had loaded some geo-caches into my GPS for us to search for at some point. Saturday was a perfect opportunity.

Sheppy McShepardSons (take II), Take 2

So, remember a couple of weekends ago, my wife, kids and I tried to hide our geocache? See McShepardSons take 2 as a reminder.

Later the same day I posted the entry, I got a message from a geo-reviewer telling me that the spot we picked was too close to a physical location of a multi-step cache. I would have to move our cache. Unfortunately, those multi-caches are the reason we've had such a difficult time finding a spot up till now.

Tuesday night, I went back to Pence Park and got the container and looked around for another spot.

I found one after about a 1.3 mile hike. I placed it and re-submitted my new hiding spot.

McShepardSons take 2

So, way back in September, I reported that we had hidden a geocache. See Placing Sheppy McShepardSons take 1.

Do you know what a geocache is? If you follow this blog on a regular basis, you have probably noticed our renewed interest in geocaching (see Sheppy's Blog: Geocache), and probably have either figured it out or don't really care. If not, it is basically a global hide-and-seek game using GPS coordinates.

As it turned out, we were too close to a "Multi-Cache", and that spot got rejected. We tried a few more spots, but we kept running into the same issue ... the cache was too close to some other one that we couldn't see. Eventually, we sort of gave up trying to find a spot for the winter.

Missing Travel Bug: Guacamole

Have you seen this Travel Bug? He is missing already. If you have him, or know where he is, or even have some idea where he might be, leave a comment on this blog post. Better yet, do it on his geocache page, Guacamole.

Better yet, if you have him .... LOG HIM!

Again, the webpage on which you can leave a comment or log him is:

Guacamole

Placing Sheppy McShepardSons take 1

My boys ... especially Little Brother have been working on making a geocache to hide.

Do you know what a geocache is? If you follow this blog on a regular basis, you have probably noticed our renewed interest in geocaching (see Sheppy's Blog: Geocache), and probably have either figured it out or don't really care. If not, it is basically a global hide-and-seek game using GPS coordinates.

If you are interested in learning more, take a few minutes and check out "Geocaching in 2 Minutes" and / or  "Geocaching 101". Go ahead ... I'll wait.

So, anyway, we have been FINDING geocaches since November 2008. This is our first attempt to hide a geocache. My youngest pretty much took the lead on this one. He found the container, and convinced Mommy to empty it of its previous contents. He talked his dad into taking him to the store and buying Camo duct tape (weird that we didn't have any already ... right?). He applied the tape, found a log book, assembled the contents, and coordinated getting a little information sheet about geocaching printed out and laminated to put in the cache.

Guacamole -- Have Bug. Will Travel

My kids have sort of had a renewed interest in geocaching lately. Here it is two weeks in a row I am able to blog about it. As I mentioned last week, we have gone quite awhile without doing any geocaching. That was too bad, because it really seems like a great way to help enhance the whole outdoor experience with the family.

If you don't know what geocaching is, take a few minutes and check out "Geocaching in 2 Minutes" and / or  "Geocaching 101". Go ahead ... I'll wait.

Anyway, we have just "stepped up our geocaching game". Quite some time ago, I gave my oldest son a couple of Travel Bug tags. We didn't do anything with them and somehow they ended up lost in his room for months. If you have ever seen the normal state of his room, it does not surprise you that these were lost in the chaos.

Geocaching up to St Mary's Glacier

When I was typing up my Article about Letterboxing post yesterday, I realized that it had really been a long time since we had been geocaching. We actually tried to go two weekends ago when Grandma and Grandpa Shepard were visiting, but the battery ran out on our GPS right at the beginning of our hike. Since then, I've added a couple of fresh batteries to our Geocaching pack so this would not happen to us again.

Before that attempt, the last time we had been geocaching was way back in April on our Geocaching Bike Ride.

Before that, the last time I blogged about purposely geocaching was back in 2009 with Valley of Fire. We have actually done geocaching that I have not blogged about, but really not that much.

Yesterday, I decided to load up my GPS with a few stops on a hike up to St. Mary's Glacier.

Article about Letterboxing

This morning, I got an email from the Contact Me form on this blog.

It was from the author of an article on a website called Part Time Nanny, who thought my readers might enjoy reading about Letter Boxing. As I mentioned just recently, pretty much whenever I get an email asking me to share an article, I do it. I'm pretty easy that way.

The article is:

21 Blogs to Read Before Letterboxing with Your Family