Geocaching Road Trip to Michigan Almost Here

Can't wait... Can't wait... Can't wait...

Sure leaving at 4:30 am on Saturday is going to suck but the road trip to Michigan is going to be a blast. Miss Geoness and I will be adding three more states to our geocaching stats and hopefully the extra four or five hours will be worth it. I usually take the NC, VA, WV, OH then MI route. Been there, done that too many times. This time we are going NC, TN, KY, IN, OH, MI route. Hey when it comes to geocaching there is never a direct path.

I completely expect some pretty sites and some fun time geocaching. That is just getting there. I will be stomping all over Michigan for Michigan Magazine TV and out GeoSnippits segments for them. Can't wait.

More to come and check often because I will be updating this blog, my twitter account and Loopt accounts showing my last known gps coords. that will be going on all next week. Stay tuned.

You can find my latest tweets and loopt statuses on the lower right side of my blog. See you there.

My main blog: http://headhardhat-geocache.blogspot.com/

Please don't forget to visit our GeoSnippits Geocaching Tutorial Videos Website at http://www.geosnippits.com

GeoSnippits Video - Planning A Geocaching Route - Road Trip To The Ocean

Oh man, there is nothing like a road trip and this one was extra special for me cuz we were going to the ocean. What a great opportunity to do a GeoSnippits episode about Planning a Geocaching Route. That is where you map out a plan of the roads you are going to travel on from your starting point to your destination and if there are any geocaches nearby you can pick them up. Great idea!

We planned a road trip from Raleigh, NC down to the east coast and Kure Beach, NC. This is about a two hour trip. Along the way we did some cool geocaching and ran into some rather interesting things along the way. You will have to check out the video to see what I mean.

If you are interested in a great geocaching phone app you can also see GeocacheNavigator by Trimble in the video. I use it all the time and highly recommend it.

If the player is not available above you can use this link to see the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqIelUSlqNQ

So sit back, relax and enjoy the show. Hope this is a much fun to watch as we had making it.

Please don't forget to visit our GeoSnippits Geocaching Tutorial Videos Website at http://www.geosnippits.com

Remembering The Days of Fold Up Maps To Now

I was recently asked a series of questions from a software company in regards to how I felt about GPS mapping and planning routes. While contemplating the questions over a glass of sweet tea and a sandwich it had occurred to me. It really was not too long ago people actually went coast to coast with nothing more than a paperback atlas and the beckoning of the road.

Sure we had fold up state maps which in my experience never folded back exactly into their original printed form and to find a city or street we would cross reference letter and number combinations to the grid on the map itself. Yet we managed, nowadays we panic if we forget our cell phone at home and drive back to retrieve it before heading out again. Don't even tell me you haven't done that.

How much of our road abilities have we traded with our modern conveniences? How much of our natural instincts for remembering landmarks and getting from place A to place B have we lost? I went geocaching last weekend and drove all over Cary, NC. Led by my auto navigation GPS from one geocache to the next I blissfully navigated. Yet if asked I could not tell you exactly where I went. I remember finding the geocaches but am mostly blank of any notable landmarks or roads that I drove upon. Does it matter? I wonder.

The Magic that was MapQuest
Back in the day when I wanted to plan a road trip I used Mapquest. I was known for always having my routes planned and printed in advance. Having the ease of a route planned for me was a bit of a miracle and solved the trouble of how to get from one place to the other. Though it still did not resolve the bigger stress while driving. That would be how far up the road was my next turn? In other words, I would be looking at that printed piece of paper a zillion times even when I knew there was sometimes hundreds of miles before a particular turn would be coming up. The pressure of making sure you didn't miss a turn was intense. I mean if you missed it would be like falling off the side of the world never to be seen again. How would you know how to detour if the printed instructions didn't tell you how to do it?

Google Maps
Then the electronic age and with it came Google Maps on my Palm PDA. No more paper maps! I would have a bluetooth connection from my PDA to my phone and could get map updates when needed. This did not completely take the stress of travelling away but I knew that I would never get 'completely' lost on a trip. As far as checking for when the next turn came was at least visible by seeing my position on the map itself. What a great concept.

Hellllo Garmin.
Sure I heard of Tom Tom but GPSs back then were too expensive for me and I had ways of getting from point a to point b. Why did I want to fork out several hundred dollars for one of those? Ridiculous. Then in February of last year the Garmin Nuvi dropped in price and I finally bought one. Jeez what a difference. Not only did I not have to worry about the up coming turns but it warned me in advance that the turn was coming. I no longer had to squint at night trying to read road signs. My eyes are not as good as they used to was and it was like having a radar out there keeping me where I was supposed to be. What a relief. Sure people can argue that today's automobile GPS units still do not always find the quickest or shortest route but it does what it says and gets you there, regardless.

As far as planning out a road trip I still use Google Earth. I am able to scope out different routes and visually see how long they will take and how far off the beaten path to get there. Very handy and again it is more for observing the big picture rather than to sweat the little details.

So there you have it. We trade some of our honed landmark recognition skills for more confidence that we can never really get lost again. For me that is a trade I am willing to make. Just hope that the GPS network is always going to be out there and working. I no longer remember if you have to turn right or left at the big oak tree down the street.


Please don't forget to visit our GeoSnippits Geocaching Tutorial Videos Website at http://www.geosnippits.com

North Carolina Five Day Road Trip To Michigan Summary

Fourth of July weekend.... What Fourth of July weekend?

Well another road trip to Michigan from North Carolina is under my belt. Think that is about a dozen or so now but the important thing is daughter Amanda is back home. The weekend blew by like it was not even there and I currently feel like I was run over by a semi. Below is the complete summary and there are several phone-in articles showing mainly my adventures going from NC to Michigan. Coming back home was for the most part tiring, wet and storm drenched. Add in the multitudes of traffic and beyond belief gas prices and you get the gist. Here are the stats:

Days: Friday, Saturday, Sunday July 4 - 6, 2008

Miles: 1874 - including visits to my family on east side of Michigan

Average Price of Gas: $4.19 with highest in Michigan

Hours Coming and Going: 16 hours going to Michigan (add in caching)
15 hours coming back to NC (holiday traffic)



Caching States:
North Carolina
Virginia
West Virginia
Ohio
Michigan

Number of Caches Found: 18

Number of Travel Bugs/Coins Traded: 26

Number of police cars sighted: 48 - no kidding. Including one near my first cache near RDU airport.

Visited:
Four cemeteries including are really cool one from early 1800s in Virginia.
Multitudes of rest areas (some even to use the facilities).
Almost went crashing down two steep, wet, muddy, brier filled hills whilst caching.
Was interrupted by a small herd of hill climbing cattle (did not know they can do steep trails)
Found caching partner in the form of a large black snake who decided to be resting in a bush I was looking in. Did not see the business end but the side of it I did see was like a 1 1/2 inch PVC pipe.
Drove through numerous thunderstorms in West Virginia mountains and near home in Raleigh, North Carolina

Mutant Mantis and my micro GPS travel bugs logged 1095 miles on this trip.

All in all a fun but exhausting trip. Glad now to get back into the caching hunts of home.

Cache on a Rope

I have had several people ask me about the photo of myself and a cache on a rope.

Shown here is me in my most observant best. I took out my Etrex and did the basic dog chasing his tail circular moment for about five minutes looking for where this darn cache could be.

Then when I realized that I looked everywhere except up, I looked. Now in my defence the cache was actual another 15 feet higher then pictured but it did give me that real "Doh" feeling when I realized the location.

I can imagine it must really be hidden well when the trees are all leafed out.

Name of the cache is "End of the line " and it is in Ohio off of I-77 south of Canton. For some reason this particular cache does not seem to get many hits and I left a very cool Blue Dragon TB in it hoping it would get discovered. So if you are in the neighborhood.....

North Carolina to Michigan Road Trip Summary

Wow! What a road trip and I know I had fun cuz I feel like a truck ran over me...

Here is a quick summary of what I encountered in three days:

Visited States: North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio and Michigan.

Number of miles: 1700 +

Caches Visited: 34

Caches Found: 29

New Caches I placed: 1 in Ohio and 2 in Virginia

New Travel Bugs Placed: 1 in Ohio and 1 in West Virginia


Photos of my sidekick TB Mantis taken: Lost count and it now has a rather big head about the whole thing.. See it's TB page here:
http://www.geocaching.com/track/details.aspx?guid=35fe742e-fb4b-4fcf-9fec-3634553b0045









Cache Environments:

Hiked at least 1/2 a mile into three different wooded areas (Virginia and West Virginia). No I did not see any bears, darn.

Hiked 1 1/2 miles into a swamp land for two caches. Granted the trails were way above par and wood chipped through 90% of them. The photos are breathtaking. (Ohio)

Must have hit every rest stop and service plaza through route.

Did a bunch of scouring in the St. Clair Shores area of Michigan and found the urban way of caching quite different to what I am used to. Introduced Geocaching to Brother Scott who now is completely hooked. He suffers from the same "shiny toys" syndrome that I do. I expect that a Garmin will be in his stocking any day now (why wait for Christmas?).

All in all a really great time though when you plan a trip like this you have to be very careful of how much caching you are going to do. I did not realize and the next thing I knew the 12 hour normal trip turned into an 18 hour very long trip (each way). So a note to the wise is to plan some overnight stops instead of plowing straight through.


Oh and if you want to see every blow by blow of my road trip. Please check out below from April 15th thru the 17th. All of those entries were sent in via my cell phone. Isn't modern technology great (when it works). Enjoy!