So now we know Cecil’s plan to take over the universe… and how ADHD has once again saved galaxy. Flash Fact- Riverside, Iowa celebrates an annual “TrekFest” which has welcomed many stars of Star Trek. Geocachers, there is only one cache in town and it celebrates the Captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise: not Robert April, Christopher Pike, or any of the other guys & gals, just James R. Kirk, (Whoops! That was changed after “Where No Man has Gone Before) I mean James Tiberius Kirk. How will all this change now that they have rebooted the franchise and Kirk has been born in space? Cecil might be the only one who knows. Time to head home.
Yes, we were there… and there is a geocache (a single solitary geocache) in Riverside.
We have had some storms and varied weather out here in the midwest so it has been a pretty nice way to test the viability of the solution I went with for the Dr. Who Cache Series containers. Long story short, it kind of worked.
What I was going to do was use a sticker to wrap the decon container, the problem was not the sticker, it was my design. Those people who have encountered this type of cache container know that it has rounded corners. This is fine until you get to a corner. While it did stay on the container, in most places, it didn’t work along the bottom. It seems that the sticker could adhere on one curved surface, add a second curve and it has difficulty. So, with this newfound knowledge I head back to the drawing board to redesign the wrap so that when finished the edges will end up resting on a flat surface.
There is a silver lining to this whole thing- the more I looked at my designs the more I knew I could do better. So I have redesigned the doctors & have also redesigned the TARDIS. Seeing how the original design printed some of the lines were too thin and some detail was lost. I now have a better idea on how to make the design work, which makes me happy.
Am I running out of time? Nope (I have a time machine). I have ordered a special pathtag to go with this series, when that pathtag arrives… then I am behind schedule. Until then I’m right on schedule!
Yes, it was a fascinating hotel (but it was cheap). The women’s restrooms were labeled “Damsels in Distress” The murals painted on the walls were done to look like tapestries. There was a swimming pool and hot tub (under repair) along with a rather interesting restaurant. I do not recommend the pork tenderloin unless you really don’t like pork tenderloins, then you might end up hating pork tenderloins.
Yes, when we got to our room we discovered that the decor had not been updated since the 1970’s, but we did not notice any bugs.
I hope everyone has a great weekend and will join us on Monday to find out why Sue & Cecil dragged me out to Iowa for a long weekend at the end of winter.
So as we crossed over the boarder to Iowa on this epic adventure we did end up getting one cache (GC2A17V) before calling it a day. After that we headed for the hotel in Iowa City. Sue had made the arrangements looking for something cheap and near the interstate (so we could make a quick getaway if needed 😉
We pull up to the hotel (in the dark) and we are greeted by something we might have seen in England… kind of, sort of, in a weird midwestern surreal way. Yes, we had found the only Tudor inspired Best Western in the world! There had to have been a sale on gargoyles… Sadly, there was no cache in the parking lot. Secondly, when I checked into the place on Foursquare one of the tips was “bugs.”
We were tired and headed to our room…
I know, I know, German geocachers do actually find real caches and sign logs… I also know that there are geocachers in the U.S. who don’t play by the “rules.” The thing is there are many geocache owners who find that their cache has been logged by someone (strangely a lot of times a German) who has miraculously also logged a cache in Fiji (and South Africa, and BeJing and… ) the same day. I’m assuming that German GPS units also contain a teleportation device. You might think it is just me, but if you check out Cecil’s storefront you’ll see a “Don’t Be a Geoslug” t-shirt (blatant plug) this was actually designed for a fellow cacher in Illinois who was tired of people not actually visiting the caches he had placed. In some cases someone had actually gotten another geocacher to sign logs for them. After a conversation with some fellow geocachers I had thought about changing the wording to “nicht eine Geoschnecke sein.”
Like golf, geocaching is one of those “games” where character is tested. On the golf course, you keep score, in most cases no one is looking over your shoulder counting your strokes or seeing if you moved the ball. You know if you cheated, you know it’s cheating & you have to live with it. In geocaching, you know what caches you have found and which ones you haven’t. I know Sue has over 3,000 finds and I was there for a lot of them, but since being kicked off the “ProfessorZoom” account I have only counted caches that I have found since tagging along with Cecil (around 1300).
Life when you aren’t a “diehard cacher” sometimes isn’t fair… then again I did finally get a chance to drive Poppy- Sue’s new MINI. I was even behind the wheel when we broke 1000 miles!
One nice thing about motoring & caching I have discovered is you tend to be able to go a bit further. When I was younger I could deadhead over 1,000 miles in a day (now- not so much). Stopping for a cache every once in a while actually helps me not to get tired, it breaks up the monotony of a long straight drive.
Nuff Said.
Yes, we plan our vacations by looking at our stats on geocaching.com. This trip was really planned (besides breaking in the new MINI) because we were both going a bit stir crazy. Since we stayed home for M.L. King Day it was decided that we needed to get away (or Cecil would be coming at us yelling “Heeerrrreee’sss Johnny!”) The nearest state that had not been colored in on the map- Iowa. It seems we have already cached in the warm states within a long weekend’s drive so we headed north.
What do you do when you get a new car? Go on a trip, of course. Sue didn’t let me anywhere behind the wheel for a least one tank of gas… I don’t think she trusts me after what happened to her Honda Del Sol- even though the insurance company agreed it was NOT my fault. That said we did have a trip on the books (the concept of a trip, just needed an excuse) “Poppy,” Sue’s new MINI, just gave us the excuse. Where did we go? If you follow me on Twitter you got tweets with every geocache Cecil logged along the way. If you don’t… stay tuned. We will be announcing that before Apple tells us anything about the iPad2 on Wednesday.
Before you start getting any bad ideas, I do love my family.
This is based on a true story and I am sure that anyone who has been caching long enough has a similar tale to tell. Â There is a cache near my parent’s house (it has been disabled as of this post) and I decided to share with my father my interest in geocaching. Â We walk down to the cache and (ignoring the GPS) head off in the wrong direction (like that hasn’t happened to you- the cache was about a cave so we headed to the cave- duh!) and start a simple search. Â A family arrives (it is a very scenic place) and while Sue and I go silent and start making sure we don’t look like we are searching my father announces to the family that we are geocaching and we are looking for a hidden box that has been placed in the area and on, and on, and on. Â I quietly walk away and find the cache as he is still chattering away with the family about the resort being built and other things. Â Those who have met my dad can picture this, he’s a very friendly guy… which doesn’t work too well when he’s trying to be the center of attention and you are trying to blend in.
