Getting you started on outdoor adventures

The Queen Mother called me this morning, early, and asked if I would like to go geocaching for the day. Hello! Like I ever need to be asked twice for an Outdoor Adventure. It was decided that we’d head to Sedona from Chino Valley, along the Interstate instead of over Jerome, caching along the way.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that my family isn’t really the biggest on doing a bunch of Park-and-Grab geocaches along a route. Oh, sure, we PLAN it, but we usually find something interesting along the way and get sidetracked. So, this was a new record for us: 10 finds in one day and 2 more that we attempted with no luck.

We started out along highway 169 going after a series of jeananjoe caches. jeananjoe are some local Prescott cachers that hide some NASTY micros and some very kind not-micros.

In one of the first caches of the day I found this AMAZING ring that just screamed my name:

It was also at this cache that we finally met a police officer while out caching. I’ve heard that 99.9% of law enforcement are totally cool when you explain what you were doing. This gentleman didn’t even seem to care WHAT we were doing poking around in the bushes as long as we hadn’t heard any gun shots. Apparently, he had been called out by a report from the locals about gun shots.

I was just glad that it wasn’t a report of suspicious characters poking around in the bushes!

The next cache of the day netted another wicked-cool ring, this time in yellow. You can see The Outdoor Princess & family “striking a pose” near the cache site. Another jeananjoe but not too hard a find.

Although, this being yet ANOTHER nut jar from jeananjoe, I did have to wonder just how many nuts they consume in a year!

I took this photo as an illustration of the term: UPR – Unnatural Pile of Rocks. Refers to common practice of stack rocks on top of the cache to hide its location. The resulting pile often stands out to natural formations. You can find out all about terms at the post: Log Abbreviations: Decoded!

This was the hiding place for a “theme cache”. This is the type where all trades are asked to have a common theme. In this case, trading pez dispensers. I was excited to see that there were 3 in the cache. Of course, I didn’t have time to actually hunt any of my old pez dispensers down so I couldn’t trade for one. I know I have one (or 5) in a box in my garage somewhere, but I just didn’t know WHERE. I’ll have to remember this cache and come back to trade one someday.

Unfortunately, a lot of these caches required the crossing of cattle guards. On foot. Neither The Queen Mother nor myself really likes crossing these things. I think it has something to do with my wonky depth perception alá my astigmatism. Still, The Queen Mother and The Outdoor Princess bravely crossed them. My dad, on the other hand, just trotted happily across. None of the hang-on, pigeon walking of us ladies!

Here’s a closeup of feet. Firmly planted on the slat, if at all possible, walk across on the concrete!

Now, my father, aka ESP Boss, really is NOT a fan of micros. Maybe that’s because the very first one we went after was another jeananjoe cache and we spent nearly an HOUR searching a “zebra” looking for it. To no avail. So, I did convince him to look for one.

I KNEW it had to be in the end of the guardrail. And it was a painted Altoids tin so it wasn’t TOO tiny. Thankfully, my mom, aka, The Queen Mother, found it easily.

This container was actually large enough for a few trade items so I left a pair of EatStayPlay geotokens and then signed the log.

From there, it was onto a series of not really hard to find, but great camo. Even though they were kinda out in the open, so to speak, we still had to hunt for them.

This last cache impressed me just because someone had taken the time to paint the tin the same colors as the dirt. Even though this LOOKS obvious from the photo, it was really well hid under a bush.

And, our favorite hide of the day was a travel bug hotel with a difficulty rating of 3. Even though we didn’t have any bugs to trade, I really wanted to find it since it was a FULL SIZE ammo can. I mean, who can hide something that big? (As usual, I am not going to post the GC code so as not to spoil anything. Just  the photos!)

Now, that doesn’t look like anything, right? Just a root sticking up? Well, scroll down!

The only thing about this cache was that the sticky-up root just invited a kick. I don’t know how long it’ll last with people kicking it all the time!

Holy cow! We didn’t have to dig for it, just lift a lid.

From here, we just had a few more we wanted to find, racing the coming darkness. And, since it WAS New Years Eve, we wanted to get home before the crazies came out!

We got close enough to SEE the red rocks of Sedona, but didn’t actually make it to town.

Since you can see from the FIRST family photo, we’ve started piling on the layers. Next time I go caching, I need a princess tee from CafePress!

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