Another GREAT weekend geocaching trip!!!

I got a text at work on Friday.  "We are good to go!"

What this meant was our weekend geocaching trip was ON! 

Saturday morning Jim & Lynn (jtmlam59) pulled up in front our house.  Nana & I had just finished packing up the SNAP-mobile and just before 7AM we left Surprising Suffolk and headed south towards Rocky Mount, NC.  We had a target list of 178 geocaches and two days to complete our mission.  After a quick stop at a local eatery for breakfast, we headed south and made another quick stop to check on a SNAP cache at the southern end of SNAP-land.  Once we confirmed that all was fine we commenced our mission:  FIND ALL THESE CACHES!!!

Granted our route was not the most direct but we eventually started finding caches in numerous caching series as "Little Country Church #xxx" and "ARS#xxx" (stands for Another Road Sign).  Other series we crossed paths with were "XX0813 31 Days of Geocaching", "C.R.S. #xx" (Country Road Sign) and "Tour de Nash County ##".

While on our way towards Rocky Mount we stopped in Battleboro to try a puzzle cache called "Calling all Taphophiles - Battleboro".  Now that we know what a Taphophile is we can proudly state: "We are Taphophiles!  A Taphopile is a person who enjoys searching through graveyards and cemeteries to see the wonderful headstones, death dates or interesting epitaphs.  Nana & I have always enjoyed touring graveyards while geocaching.  Some of the more interesting caches we have found have been in or around

cemeteries.

Back to the story:  We continued on our way and eventually made it to Rocky Mount.  We continued down our target list grabbing easy caches all the way into the afternoon.  Once we arrived in Rocky Mount the caches did get a little more challenging but we still pressed onward.  We got extremely lucky at the local "Off Your Rocker cache in Rocky Mount and made the grab without anyone being the wiser.  We, or should I say ATJ (All Terrain Jim) even climbed a tree for a cache during the late afternoon.  We even visit 3 different travel bug motels and exchange numerous TBs we had in our bags and picked some new ones to take on their missions!

 We eventually checked into the motel and then went out to eat.  After dinner we said "what the heck!" and picked up another 7 caches to make our daily total 87 finds with only 2 DNFs on the first day of our trip!

 Sunday morning we got up early and headed out before breakfast and regretted it almost immediately.  DNF after DNF with a few finds mixed in.  Back to the motel for a quick breakfast and then loaded up the SNAP-mobile for day 2.  We did get off to a rough start on Sunday but eventually we got ourselves back on the "FOUND IT TRAIN" and smiles were on our list and our faces.

One of the really cute series we ran into on the trip was the Smurf series.  Each container had a different Smurf attached and each cache was named for that particular Smurf!  Very Cute!!!

 Here we are, quite a ways from our home area.  We pull up to one of the caching series caches I mentioned above.  We make the find quickly and as we turned to head back to the SNAP-mobile 2 vehicles pull up right behind ours.  Out step 4 dear friends and fellow cachers from Hampton Roads!!!!  Right then and there we decide to hold a mini-Meet n Greet!!!

Another unique caching series we ran into in Rocky Mount was the "Up In A Tree #x" series and as the title states, you have to find and then climb up the tree to retrieve the cache.  Note: Nana & I would not have been able to get these without ATJ!!!

We eventually called it a day as it was time to head back towards Suffolk.  We took a slightly different route and picked up some more caches on the way home.  Sundays total was 50 finds and a huge number of DNFs (somewhere around 10 or 11)!!!

137 finds during a 2 day trip is fantastic and being with good friends made it a trip both Nana & I will remember for quite a long time.  

Thanks Jim and Lynn - not only for your company on the trip and all your help with the caches, but also for the fantastic birthday present !!!

As always - Stay Safe & Keep Caching!!!

SNAP!!! - Suffolk Nana & Papa

What have we been up to....

A cacher came up to me the other day and said "Really miss your blog, when you going to post another?"

I explained that between work, hosting afternoon events every weekday (during August) and trying to get ready to have a GSAK booth set up at the Virginia Mega event on my birthday, there really wasn't a lot of time to sit down and write a decent blog.  Besides, I got to come up with a topic to blog!!!!

Well, not sure if this counts (sure it does, just trying to be funny) but this daily geocaching streak is wearing me out!!!  Nana & I had never ever tried to be one of those geocachers that had over 365 days in a row of finding a cache.  Heck, our longest consecutive streak (before August) was 6 days.  And it is far too late in our geocaching experience to start now.  That was until August first rolled around and we figured, what the heck, let's try this streak caching for a change.

We have managed to either find a geocache or attend/host a geocaching event every day since August first.    So counting today we now have 21 days in a row.  We plan on extending this streak until September 2nd at which time we will gladly let it die.  The main reason we will let go of the streak is that with over 5000 finds, we have to travel at least 20 - 25 miles just to get to a cache we haven't already found and we tried those few already and they we not ready to be found by us!!!  Doesn't that sound a lot nicer than "We can't find them !!!"

The main effect this streak has had on us (other than being really tired) is our average finds per geocaching day has gone down from 17.5 to just below 13.0.  WOW!!!  Finding only one cache each day sure brings a 4 year average down quickly!!!

But one of the positive aspects of holding daily events is all the new cachers we have met.  It is always great to meet new cachers and answer questions for them.  We have also renewed friendships with cachers we knew but had lost touch with.  We have averaged just over 20 attendees at our August Afternoon Commuting Club geocaching events.  To top things off, the weatherman has been cooperating real nicely with our one to two hour events each day.  Other than one 10 minute downpour we have been blessed with nice temperatures and lovely weather.

Hopefully when September 2 gets here we will have a total of 33 days in a row and then we can go back to our normal weekend caching.

Please don't forget the upcoming GSHR 11th Annual Picnic here in Virginia.  Hope to see everyone there to get their MEGA-smilie!!!  Please drop by the booth/table I will have set up and say Hi!

As always - Stay Safe & Keep Caching!!!

SNAP!!! - Suffolk Nana & Papa

:)