JaxParks 2015: Walter Jones Park

It's been years since I've posted anything here but today we were out for a walk as a family and my son saw a Geocache in the brush.   Family walks are scarce at his age, so finding a Geocache on a spontaneous walk in the park was an added bonus!   This was obviously easy to find since we weren't looking for it.   There was no pen so we didn't get to sign the log and of course had nothing to leave in it since we weren't expecting to find it.  It was fun to find and go through though.  It makes me want to do it again.  I'd love for my son to take over our account and look for Geocaches when he leaves home, maybe get some friends interested in it along the way.

As you can see from the photos, it's been a long time since we posted on this blog, my son is all grown up and graduating this year.   This is a nice little park to visit for a short walk, taking photos, and especially to watch the sunset.

  

July 4th Weekend

We wanted to get a GPS that would work in the car, and that would work for Geocaching so we've been putting off buying one until we decide which would be best. We finally read this info on the Garmin Nuvi and paperless caching so we decided to give the Garmin Nuvi 200 a whirl. After downloading the programs suggested and running the macro, I had 500 caches within 200 miles loaded and ready to find in my new GPS! Although it doesn't do one thing we hoped it would, it's pretty cool since it holds all the info from Geocaching.com so we don't even need to print anything out to carry with us.

I think I'm going to like this one. We can find caches anytime we're out riding around without having to worry about having the computer to look them up. When we travel, we can download Geocaches for any area we go to and load them into the GPS. Way cool in my book! It will take a little to get used to maneuvering with the GPS when we're out of the car and walking, but we proved today with the caches we found that it can be done. I found it easier to use than the handheld Magellen we had tried.

Here is the info on our latest finds since my last post...

7/06/2008 - Sunday
Hail To The Chief - Z
This was the first cache we went looking for with the new Garmin Nuvi 200. It took us a few minutes to figure out how to use the Nuvi out of the truck properly, but we did manage to find the cache. This one was quite clever and took all 3 of us. I pointed out the location, JT spied the hide and Tim figured out how to get it out. Tungett teamwork! This was a 35 mm cannister.

Beyond the Horizon
This one is just around the corner from our house, down a street we've never been down. We saw a HUGE rat down by the water. It was at least 15-20 lbs. We also saw a snake and a turtle. We researched the "rat" when we got home and have decided that it was a Nutria. Basically a big rat that causes more harm than good to the wetlands. After wondering around for awhile, we finally managed to find the right coordinates and locate the cache. It was supposed to have a couple of trackables in it, but they were missing. We dropped the Road Warrior Cache Movers Geocoin we had picked up last month. This one was a quart sized plastic container.

Goodby's Current
This is at the new boat dock about 1 mile from our house. We've been meaning to stop and grab this one for awhile. It was a neat hide with cool camo and Tim was the one who managed to find it.

Is That What I Think It Is?
This was just around the corner and a fairly easy find. JT's sharp eyes spied this one. This was a small camo pouch.

Volunteer Cache
This one was down a path into a swampy wooded area. Although we were looking for a gallon sized plastic container, we walked around in circles alot looking for this one. I was stung on the legs several times by something, we ran into quite a few banana spiders, and Tim did a really cool jig when he ran into one. :) It started raining, we were sweating like pigs and I was ready to give up when I finally spied it hiding under a palmetto. It didn't have anything good in it so we signed the log and headed out.

Beat the Heat Meat & Greet (Event Cache)
At 3:30, wet from sweating and being in the rain, we headed to The Loop for an organized NEFGA event. We thought it would be a good chance to finally meet some Geocachers so we went. There were quite a few people and we met a few whose names we recognized from caches we had found. There were lots of coins to look at and be discovered. It was nice to put a few faces with names we've seen.

7/05/2008 - Saturday
Today we went to Alpine Grove Park off S.R. 13 to possibly spy out a spot for a Geocache. When we turned into the park entrance we saw 6 adults circling a tree across the street. They were obviously looking for a Geocache. We went for a walk in the park looking at possible hiding places and we crossed paths with them as they came in looking for a couple that were already placed in the park. We spoke to them briefly, but didn't introduce ourselves or get their names so I don't know who they were. Hopefully they'll log some finds there and we'll find out who they were. Now that we have our GPS we can go back and see about finding the ones that area already in the park. It was a nice park and we'll definitely have to go back with the dogs sometime and maybe do a picnic.

7/04/2008 - Friday

Joker Undercover
We were headed to some friend's house for a July 4th cookout when we realized there was a cache nearby behind a grocery store so weH stopped by to grab it before the cookout. Tim found it pretty quickly. It was a magnetic key holder with no magnet. We signed the log and left a travel bug in it.

6/21/2008 - Saturday

I-295 Loop Cache #4
We took my sister out to look for a few geocaches on this day. We only found 1 out of 3 we attempted. I was hoping we'd have a couple of exciting finds with her in tow so she could understand why we enjoy it so much, but unfortunately we didn't. This one was by a very busy road with lots of people looking at us and some people on a nearby bench waiting for the bus. JT managed to get down on the ground and find this magnetic keyholder's hiding place. Now if I can just teach him not to yell "I FOUND IT!!!" while holding it up in the air when there are muggles around we'll be doing good.

6/16/2008 - Monday

Henry Flagler's Railroad - Sunbeam
JT and I headed out on this afternoon hoping to be the FTF a new cache. It was nice location near the railroad tracks and JT found it. We weren't the FTF though. A friend of the guy who placed it claimed FTF.


6/12/2008 - Thursday

Pushing Tin
This one has eluded us a couple of times and we decided it was time to go and find it once and for all. 3rd time was a charm and we found it! Tim had looked at the area before, but apparently not quite close enough. He was surprised when he realized he had missed it before. This was a neat camo job, although it should have been easier for us. Finally, we can mark this off and not have to go back.

Shopping for a GPS & a few more finds...

A few days ago I decided to go ahead and purchase a handheld GPS unit. After looking around a little bit trying to decide, I ended up with a Magellan Triton 200. I'm having a heck of a time figuring it out... I can't get the drivers to load into my computers (we tried it on 2 different computers) so I can't get the computer and GPS to connect.

I have gone and found a couple of Geocaches using it trying to see how accurate it was. I have to say where I was looking, the Google maps were easier for me to use to find things. However, using the GPS, the coordinates were right on for the caches I've found. There are a couple more that I got very close to according to the GPS, but there was a police officer parked right next to one and pond and a fence in between me and the other. So I'll have to go back for both of those.

I'm trying to decide whether or not I want to keep this Magellan or take it back and get something else. If you visit and have an opinion on any of the GPS units, please feel free to use the comment link and share your thoughts with me.

Found in the last few days:

• Stars and Stripes: Flying High
  My 9 yr old found it easily since we'd seen this type of hide before. However, I didn't understand the name or the hints given by others. Hmmm.... Left something.
  
  
• For Sale...Pond complete with ducks & cranes
  Coordinates were exact according to my GPS. Found it without too much trouble other than huge spider web, thick woods and a Momma bird who didn't like me that close to her babies! Took Red Serendipity Travel Dog Bug to move along to another cache. Left USA by Madhatters Neverland Geocoin, Butterfly keychain & bookmarks.
  
  
• Right on Target - Out in Plain Sight!
  Coordinates were exact according to my GPS. Drove right up and found it right away. It was cool camo though, wouldn't be noticed by anyone but Geocachers. Getting log back was a challenge!
  

Discovering Geocaching

• "Geocaching is an outdoor treasure-hunting game in which the participants use a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver or other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers (called "geocaches" or "caches") anywhere in the world. A typical cache is a small waterproof container containing a logbook and "treasure," usually toys or trinkets of little value. Today, well over 540,000 geocaches are registered on various websites devoted to the pastime. Geocaches are currently placed in over 100 countries around the world and on all seven continents, including Antarctica." From Wikipedia

I've heard about Geocaching before and it sounded like fun, but since I didn't have a GPS and I thought most people hid things in hard to find or hard to get to places, I didn't really look into it.

Tonight I was online and came upon a mention of Geocaching again so I thought I would look into it. My husband, Tim, has been wanting to purchase a portable GPS unit for his motorcycle, so I thought this might be something fun for us to do as a family and give me an excuse to want to invest in the GPS unit.

So I logged onto Geocaching.com and spent quite a bit of time reading all about it and looking around. What I discovered is that there are Geocaches EVERYWHERE! There are several right here in my suburban neighborhood in public places.

I also discovered that with Google Maps, I should be able to pinpoint some of them close enough to be able to find them. So I decided my son, JT, and I would give it a try tomorrow. He's on Spring Break and bored and this would give us something fun to do. We are headed to the Zoo tomorrow so I looked for something near there and found one that is right near the entrance so we will check it out in the morning.

I'll post here how that goes!