On the Road Again - Spring 2007 by Brian Geery (geefours)

I submitted an article in the spring of 2006 describing some of the caching tips and tricks we used while caching on our trip from Sturgeon, MO to our home in Albuquerque. We've added a few new tricks to our bag since then, and we had another neat trip over spring break (2007). So I thought I'd send in another article.

Once again our Geocaching hobby (or obsession) has completely changed how we plan a trip. Last summer some friends of ours moved from Los Lunas to Gaithersburg, MD. The husband works for the Bureau of Land Management, and he transferred to the DC office. He rides the metro train to work to his building amongst many big government buildings in the heart of downtown near the mall area. They had been telling us how many things there are to see and do in the area, so the offer of free room and board was all the motivation we needed to start planning our trip to coincide with their kids' spring break. So much history to see, so many famous landmarks to visit, so many new places to discover, and so many caches along the way!

CacheStats

Last fall I was observing a team's profile (Peasinapod) and saw that they had a U.S. map that shows which states they have cached in. (They've hit every state and several countries too.) Plus they had a bunch of cool statistics. At the time they were using a program called CacheStats (see www.logicweave.com). We started using CacheStats for our profile which automatically populates our own U.S. map. That inspired us to get a lot more color into that U.S. map. This trip turned out to be a great way to hit some states that we didn't think we would get to visit in a long time.

Google Maps

We were sitting around the supper table when we first started talking seriously about taking this trip. Tricia got down our tattered atlas, and even without the aid of a computer algorithm, the logical route to take from Albuquerque to Gaithersburg is pretty straightforward. There are interstates the whole way, so you can eyeball the most direct route. It would have added Tennessee, Virginia and Maryland to our U.S. map. Then we went to www.googlemaps.com and it recommended the same course. But one cool thing about Google Maps is that you can continue to add destinations. We started playing around with other intermediate stops and found a way that led us through Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia and finally Maryland. It was only 100 miles longer than the most direct route! We also planned a more northerly excursion back home that took us through Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and finally back home to New Mexico. There is no computer algorithm that will route you through Pennsylvania on the way home from Gaithersburg to Albuquerque, yet it seemed like the perfect route to us. (You may laugh though, when you see how far we went into Pennsylvania.)

GSAK and Pocket Queries

Once again, GSAK and Pocket Queries were invaluable in organizing a plethora of potential caches along the route. New since the last article is the ability to generate a Route Pocket Query. Before this neat feature was added to geocaching.com, I had to go through a tedious process of creating several massive queries, and then use GSAK to filter out caches too far away from our planned route. I usually had to do a few trial runs before the trip just to make sure my queries were covering the route properly. It consumed enough time that I typically did all the work in advance of the trip and didn't update while on the road. But Route Pocket Queries are so straightforward we would schedule one to run the day before we would cover that ground to keep all our information up to date. The routes we took were popular enough that we didn't have to create any new Route Pocket Queries. I find that searching by zip code is the most effective way to find routes that pass through a city. We typically included caches within ½ mile of the road. We generally didn't stop for caches in the big cities. They can be very close to the freeway yet take 20 minutes to drive to. It sure is hard to watch one scroll past on the GPSr screen though. The picture below shows all the caches along our route heading east.

Laptop Computer

Tricia kept a daily log of the trip. It covers March 24 to April 9 and chronicles our 4840 miles of trekking to the east coast and back, totaling 15 typed pages. Additionally, she made an effort to make each cache log entry more meaningful than TFTC. She did most of the typing while we were driving along thanks to our laptop computer and power inverter. We stayed at hotels with wireless internet access, so she could copy and paste what she previously wrote into the log entries. That really sped up the cache logging, but it seemed like the Geocaching site was slow to respond several evenings. Sometimes she would be done in a few minutes. Other times it would take so long that she'd give up for the evening and try again in the morning. I don't know if a lot of people were tying up the site over spring break, but it made me wish for a program to log caches off-line that would then automatically upload to the site when an internet connection was available.

Another task made so much easier with our laptop computer was keeping track of all the travel bugs. We moved 48 separate travel bugs during the trip. Tricia kept an Excel spreadsheet with their numbers and desired destinations. Prior to the trip we met with Ron from The Justice League to pick up some TBs to deliver out east. A few weeks prior to that we had started accumulating TBs and were able to take a Hartman-Catwoman lobster TB closer to the ocean. We had a Travel Tag from Mike of W4MK that we took to Georgia. We made a special point to pick up a TB named Amanda Bug from an Albuquerque cache prior to our trip just because of the name, but then found that the owners wanted it returned to Alabama. We took it back home, and the owners were able to retrieve it. We were touched by what they wrote and could tell they were grateful for the delivery.

We still rely heavily on our mapping software that of course requires a computer. We didn't always have time to plan the day's stops until we were heading towards our next destination. We like to stop at exits that have multiple caches and are easily accessible. When there are so many caches available, but so little time because you have to get down the road, it pays to be selective with your stops. We screened out a lot of caches due to their lack of quick access from the interstate.

DVD Player

Ok, not technically required for Geocaching, but you try riding 4840 miles with a 5 and 9 year old, and you'll be stopping first chance you get to pick up one of these.

Digital Camera

We uploaded several pictures to the site while on the road. It sure is handy to have a digital camera for that. When we first started caching we just had a film camera, so we were much less generous with the pictures than we are now. We started taking pictures every time we crossed a state line, but eventually gave that up. The picture below shows some cherry blossoms and the Washington Monument.

Jefferson Memorial and some cherry blossoms

Happy cachers and some cherry blossoms (notice the GPSr in Tricia's hand along with a list of DC virtual caches)

The Capitol Building and some cherry blossoms

Potpourri

In addition to stopping for caches, we did some of the conventional travel games. We tried to spot a license plate from all 50 states. We never did see Montana, but got the rest of the US plus a few from Canada and Mexico. We'll see DangerMouse this summer (Tricia's sister from Montana). We followed the GPSr-calculated route to a cache near the mighty Mississippi River called Grant's Debacle. It almost became our debacle. To give our machine's credit, it did get us there, but I began to get worried when we started heading down a pretty steep incline on a one-lane dirt road on the side of a levee through what seemed to be a junk pile in someone's back yard.

If you go to the DC area, be prepared to walk and walk. Tricia's foot still hasn't recovered. Parking the car and riding the metro was a very smart idea. If you to go the DC area during spring break and the peak of cherry blossoms and ride the metro, hang onto your 5-year old. You should visit the listing for Geocachers Anonymous (GCV7P5) to see just how addicted you are to geocaching. At least we could answer no to one question.

There are a lot of caches in Nashville. We set a new one-day record there. (I won't say the number lest you get it confused with a number required for a New Mexico county cache.) Clarksville, AR is still a great caching stop, but there are snakes there. My biggest pet peeve is a cache supposedly full of TBs or coins that turns out to be empty. We were really looking forward to a cache called Vicksburg, Under Siege because listed several cool coins in it. It turns out they had been taken months ago.

We limited most searches to 5 minutes. After that, it was back in the van and log a DNF. Cachers are a great group of people. We had contacts from cache owners all along our trip, one even inviting us to meet for a cup of coffee and a chance to swap stories. We were already heading down the road, but it was nice to get the friendly offer.

Final cache tally - 225!