I feel compelled to attend geocaching events. I really appreciate the time and effort the hosts put in to make them fun and enjoyable. By attending I feel like I am saying “great job” and “thanks” for creating an opportunity for me to get to know more great people and just visit with folks who enjoy the things that I do.

An Event is a fixed time and place and if you miss it, there is no tomorrow. A geocache? Well, that will be there next week when I’ll have more time. At least that is what I tell myself. (But really when do any of us really ever have more time?)

It seems like I need to have a mountainside fall on me to get me to actually step away from all of the little things that seem so important, like laundry, housecleaning and oh yeah, work, to get me to go outside and caching. Going caching alone is often just the ticket I need to sooth my soul. I get a great sense of peace just hanging out in the nature that surrounds me on a mountainside or in a great park. Other times, I just have more fun caching with friends. And Geocaching Events are the place to make Geocaching Friends.

So, thank you to all my geocaching friends, old and new, for brightening so many of my days this last week. Which brings me to my icons!

I was lucky enough to attend three “10 Years!” geocaching anniversary events last weekend.

10 Years! – Tacoma, WA (GC26TQB) 10 Years! – Seattle, WA (GC25617) 10 Years! – Olympia, WA (GC273T6)

I had a blast at each and every one!

Picked up a webcam cache while out running errands.

Phatboyz…Go dogz (GCH3NT)

And finally was able to do my first Earthcache!

It’s the Water…and a Parking Lot, Too! (GC1B9WN)

Not a bad geocaching week! Enjoy your weekend and Happy Caching!

When I first learned about geocaching one of the things that galvanized it in my being was the fact that “Cache In Trash Out” was part of it’s philosophy. This year will be the first year since I started geocaching that I will not be working on a CITO weekend. I’m really looking forward to being able to attend my first CITO event. Along the Cache In Trash Out lines, a couple of news stories have recently caught my eye and raised my concerns about geocacher saftey during CITO events this year.

The first one was a story in the “Tacoma News Tribune” by John Dodge entitled Beach cleanup April 17 – watch for bad pesticide canisters. Expended 1-liter aluminum canisters containing Aluminum Phosphide, a fumigant used on ships to kill insects and pests in the cargo holds, are washing ashore along the Washington coastline. So far, all of the canisters found have had the the caps on. When a cap is removed and the contents exposed to air, the result is Toxic Phosphide Gas. The gas has a strong garlic odor. I’m not sure which bothers me more: the fact that closed canisters are arriving on shore, or that, open ones, may be sunk just offshore. Either way, anyone doing cleanup along the coast should know about the dangers involved. Make sure to read the news article “here” for information on what to do if you find one of these canisters and who to contact when you do.

Kalamazoo Enforcement Team

The latest and increasingly popular way to make meth requires little space, common household ingredients, a few plastic water or soda bottles, some tubing, duct tape and just a few tablets of pseudoephedrine found in cold and allergy medications. Everything fits nicely into a little cooler to make them easily transportable, usually riding around in the car with the user. These little mobil labs can make about 8 grams of meth in a shot. Not a lot, but enough to make this method of “cooking” viable for the meth user. When the process is complete, the toxic chemical waste product leftovers are simply wrapped in a plastic bag and tossed out the car window. More often than not landing on a roadside near you and me.

These little mobile labs can also easily be set up on public lands and in large woodland parks. The toxic waste products are just left to contaminate the soil and groundwater and become a serious danger to animal and human alike. If and when they are found, a Hazmat team must be called to “clean” the site.

The “trash labs” trash, blends in well with the “normal” carelessly discarded items and it is easy to mistake a soda bottle full of toxic chemicals for old discarded bottles of soda. The difference is the the explosion factor.

In Saulny’s NY Times article, Paul G. Matyas, the undersherriff in Kalamazoo County, Michigan states: “Well, that’s not pop. You pick it up, and it could explode. Acid could spill and burn you. At one of the sites about a week ago, we found a dead deer, and I know exactly what happened.”

So make sure you know what it is that you are picking up this CITO season. If you are unsure what you are looking at, err on the side of caution. If you find anything suspicious, please contact your local authorities to have the items removed and disposed of properly. We don’t want to see anyone get hurt and at the same time, we want to make sure that soda bottles full of toxic chemicals don’t accidentaly end up in the recycling or trash bins.

This year is also a big milestone for Earth Day and the EPA. They both turn 40. You can learn more about their history here: Earth Day Turns 40.

It’s hard to believe that 40 years have passed since my first Earth Day. I was 5 at the time and my kindergarten teacher made sure it was a memorable event for all of us. (Thank you for that Ms. Jenkins!) I remember to this day being so excited to think that I, as a child, could help make the world a better place! It was my first CITO really, even though it was just picking up liter around the school campus, I felt like I was part of something bigger that was happening in the world for the very first time. I’ve never lost that feeling. It changed me.

Now 40 years later, I am still part of something bigger. Only the number of bigger things has changed; Earth Day, Geocaching and CITO. From 1970 to 2010 I can see that the world is indeed a much cleaner and healthier place. We have gotten smarter about our envirnoment and our impact on it. And while I am still picking up other peoples trash 40 years later, some of it much more dangerous than the gum wrappers from you childhood days, I can see a difference. So I’ll keep going. Doing what I can, where I can, and as smartly as I can this CITO season. At the end of the day I’ll feel good about what was accomplished and my part in it. I hope you will too.

Note: If you have any other warning or information on things to watch for during cleanups, please post in here in the comments section. Thanks~

The Groundspeak Geocaching, CITO and 10years Logo are registered trademarks of Groundspeak, Inc. Used with permission.

Remlinger Farms

cowws

• Date: July 3, 2010
• Location: Remlinger Farms in Carnation, Washington. (Looks like a beautiful location!)
• Hosts: COWWS – A fabulously fun bunch whos mission statement is: “To serve the caching community with the highest degree of silliness, fun and events we are able to.” I’ve been to their events and they are a blast!
• GC Listing: GC1QM7K If not published at time of posting it will be soon.
• Official Twitter Account of GWS8 – @geowoodstock

There you have it. I’ll post more as it comes in. To all who attended GWS7, travel home safely, and thanks for making Geowoodstock a success! Happy Caching!

47.63878 -121.90525
[where: 32610 NE 32nd Street Carnation, WA] ]]> http://coastcacher.com/blog/2009/05/23/geowoodstock-cowws/feed/ 0 47.6387875 -121.9052226 http://coastcacher.com/blog/2009/05/10/the-gps-maze-event-roundup/ http://coastcacher.com/blog/2009/05/10/the-gps-maze-event-roundup/#comments Sun, 10 May 2009 16:22:33 +0000 Kryptic http://krypticthoughts.com/ccblog/?p=1172
The GPS Adventure Maze event at Seattle’s Pacific Science Center was an eye-opening experience. I had never seen so many geocachers in one place! Even Jeremy seemed quite surprised by the turnout. There were lots of people snapping lots of pictures. The best ones belong to Jeremy. You can view Jeremy’s flicker photo set of the event here. I’d be very interested to know how may cachers actually went to the maze on that first day, even if they missed the event. There are 259 Event attended logs on the event page, but it seemed like there were more people than that as the day progressed. We spent the whole day at the Science Center and the maze always seemed to be packed.

One of the things I love about caching is geocoins. I got a surprise at the registration table for the event… A “Groundspeak Lackeys 2009″ Geocoin! It’s little surprises such as this that make going to events so worthwhile for me. It seems someone always has a coin for sale or a signature item to give. So, not only do I get to meet the actual person that goes with the names I see in the logbooks, I often get a memento as well. The other coin I procured from the PacSci Gift shop is a beauty. I knew this one was going to be available at the event thanks to my twitter and facebook friends. (Thanks guys!) This one was a bit pricey as coins go, at $14.99, but who can resist Signal the Frog! If you are interested in having one of these coins, it is available online at the Pacific Science Center’s Online Store.

Other than the event which was spectacular, my favorite part of my visit to the Center itself, was the Butterfly exhibit. What a beautiful collection of those magical creatures! I’ll definitely make more than one visit to this exhibit next year! Visit pacsci.org for a listing of current events and exhibits. It’s a great place to take the kids, and yes, you are a big kid too, and spend the day imagining, exploring and experiencing!

My first visit to Seattle was a good one. A great event shared with fellow geocachers and friends, the iconic sights of Seattle (the Space Needle is a few hundred yards away from the Science Center) and butterflies! Who could ask for more?! I think a huge “Thank You” is in order to the Minotaur Mazes Crew, Groundspeak and Lackeys, Trimble, The Washington State Geocaching Association, and especially to the staff at the Pacific Science Center for letting us geocachers over-run their facility and for being so helpful while we were doing it!

The staff and founders of Groundspeak, the parent company of Geocaching.com, Waymarking.com, and Wherigo.com, will be at the Meet and Greet being held before the opening of the exhibit at 10am-10:30am on the Saturday the 28th. These are the people who handle the nuts and bolts of the geocaching world and I look forward to meeting them and thanking them for all their hard work. It is because of every single one of them that I get to have so much fun!

It should be an exciting day and I am looking forward to it. Hope to see you all there!

Relevant Links

• The event cache listing page on Geocaching.com: GC1MMGC.
• Home of GPS Adventures Maze: GPSMaze.com
• The Pacific Science Centers page on GPSAdventureMaze.