Geocaching CITO Event in Smithfield, NC

Had an absolute blast at the Smithfield Saturday CITO event today. Not only did I get a chance to rub elbows with an amazing group of geocachers but one in particular who lead this event. The event itself was hosted by Team Black Weasel who did a great job including some very cool drawing prizes. You can check out all the details at geocaching.com and using the waypoint GC1WXK5.

Together we helped clean up not one but two Smithfield park areas and there was plenty of trash to be found. It was a glorious day weather wise and the entire experience was very enjoyable. I personally want to thank Cameron and his mom for giving another reason to come back and visit Smithfield, NC.

Below are the photographs that I took today at the event and some geocaching before and after.

Twelve of which were used in my September 12 of 12 presentation. Enjoy.

If you cannot see the viewer please go here to see the photos and slide show.

http://picasaweb.google.com/headhardhat/September122009CITOEvent?feat=directlink

GeoCache: I'm NOT Obsessed... Right?
http://headhardhat-geocache.blogspot.com/
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Please don't forget to visit our GeoSnippits Geocaching Tutorial Videos Website at http://www.geosnippits.com

HeadHardHat's Geocaching 12of12 For September, 2009

In case you are not familiar with the term 12 of 12, it is a photographic presentation of the photographer and in my case geocacher that every 12th of the month you take a zillion photos and widdle them down to your top 12 picks. It is kind of making a visual representation of yourself as a geocacher on a monthly basis. This was my first 12of12 and I had a blast.

This month's edition shows an attention to a CITO (Cache In and Trash OUT) event where about 20 of us went to two parks in Smithfield, NC and well, took out the trash.

Here is my 12 of 12 photos for September, I hope you enjoy them.

If the viewer does not show for some reason you can go here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/headhardhat/12of12September2009?feat=directlink

GeoCache: I'm NOT Obsessed... Right?
http://headhardhat-geocache.blogspot.com/
-------------------------------------------------------
Please don't forget to visit our GeoSnippits Geocaching Tutorial Videos Website at http://www.geosnippits.com

TimMcGrawlookalike is Mess'n With My Old Suede Shoes

Came home last night from another successful evening run in Smithfield, NC and did a quick glance at my email to see if any new caches published; and what to my wondering eyes did appear? Not one but two new caches just a few miles from where I work in Oxford. The posts came rather late and in a secluded part of the country so I was pretty sure they were not going to get found until today. Especially since both of them were from TimMcgrawlookalike and he is the only cacher that I know who has a working pair of night vision goggles. For now...

Anyhow, I get up this morning and drop daughter Geoness off at the bus stop. Yes I did remember this time to completely halt the forward motion of the vehicle so she didn't have to do that death roll thing again. She looses her lunch money every time she does that. We said our farewells as the gleam of the red flashers approached. I could feel my palms grip the steering wheel just a little tighter with the sound of the bus echoing in the distance. "Lets do this", I thought to myself and I stepped on the accelerator. The engine whined from the strain, tires lurching forward and I was pressed hard into my seat as my car lunged ... to a safe and legal posted speed as all good driving citizens should. "Morning officer", I said and waved when I noticed the police car driving just up the road. Have to stop watching all those spy movies.

But I digress, did my 60 mile venture to the cache sites and had a grand time playing follow the bouncy arrow in the tall wet grass. Hey they were First to Finds and what's a little water when it comes to suede? The first cache was a unique tin can hidden in a nice cozy spot. Opened it up to find a brand new log book and best of all clean sheetz! I happily signed the white papers and moved on for number two.

The second was one of those mean little caches that I just hate. You know the ones that are hidden in plain sight. I knew it was there but could I see the darn thing, oh heck no. Coords were just a bit off but that was expected. I could feel the moister of my now soaked shoes seaping through my work socks. A few more minutes passed and then booyah - success. Signed the untouched log and then jogged, well okay skipped to my car so I could get to work.

So that was my morning so far. Sure I now smell like wet dog and it will take me an hour to pull all the burrs out of my pant legs but when it comes to finding First To Finds. I may be a bit obsessed...

Thank You Smithfield, NC For A Great Afternoon of Caching

A couple of months ago I wrote a fairly nasty blog entry about my adventures or should I say LACK of adventures while caching in the Smithfield, NC area. Well that area has done quite a change and I had an absolutely fantastic time there yesterday afternoon. What made the difference? For starters I noticed that over the past few weeks a boat load of caches were enabled back into service. When my last attempt happened I had 10 our of 13 caches come up as DNF's. So after I observed all the effort in getting the area up to a decent standard I wanted to give it another go and I am so glad I did.

First I wanted to take another whack at the DNFs I knew had been replaced which was a real joy to do. Then I headed downtown for an effective cache raid with hopes of some nice finds. I am happy to report that my expectations were not only met but exceeded. In those few hours I was able to find fourteen smiley faces with many, many more to try for on another day.

Thank you so much to all the cache owners of Smithfield, NC for making the area a great place to go geocaching.

Troubles in Smithfield. Cache Found!

Well some times you get days like today. Went out with daughter Geoness to take our first swipe at the Smithfield, NC area and I cannot stress enough how bad it was. I have never seen anything like it.

Granted this was the first time I just loaded my Garmin with about 100 caches for the area and did not load up my palm with the cache info and cache hints. Since we were going for numbers I was not hitting anything more than a two in difficulty. No biggie right? What I didn't see were all the other DNFs for each of the tries we went for. What a shame. Long story short we had only three finds for the first 13 attempts. Very frustrating but it was the first time we had hit such a string of a blatant lack of maintenance.

By the time we hit the tenth DNF we decided to leave and hit a richer cache area and had no problems there. Sorry folks but this was a waste of $4.00 a gallon gas. Won't be going back there till we see the caches being better taken care of.

Almost forgot bumped into USAFSP and the rest of Team P who also were hitting dry spots in the Smithfield area. In fact the cache we were both going for turned up to be a DNF for both of us. Usafsp was telling me how he had gone as far as found a muggled cache, actually replaced the cache, gave the owner the new information and coords then the owner did not even bother to redo the coords. Tacky.

Team P are all such a nice family and Geoness and I had a great time talking to them. I wish them the very best in their Geo pursuits. Hopefully we can meet up again at a local event.

Hope Smithfield can get the caches cleaned up. It's a nice little town but gas is just too expensive for such a hit and miss place.