Geocaching 3/11/13

It's Spring Break, so we are able to fit in a little weekday geocaching! We are hoping to hit up some local sites every day this week.  We started yesterday by heading into the desert less than a mile from our house to find Somewhere - Even Here. Mr. Mamie's brother Insamity was with us, enjoying a few last hours of sunshine and family time before heading back to Texas. We put the iPhone in Insamity's hands, hoping he'd get "hooked" on the fun and then get his wife and daughters into the game too. 

The cache site was in open desert, and the terrain was FULL of stickers - we ended up having to carry the GeoPups most of the way! Peanut didn't mind, as she is a tender baby, but I think Copper felt a little like his manhood was being insulted. Better than paws full of stickers, though.

Insamity did a great job locating the cache, and we signed the log and left our card. We then followed a conveniently located dirt road back to the RAV, sparing the doggies' paws (and self-esteem).

Geocaching brothers and pups.

We headed to the dog park then (after a stop at Maverik for sustenance, of course) and once again tried to locate a cache that is hidden there, to no avail. Somehow we're just missing it! Part of the challenge is that there are so many two- and four-legged "muggles" around, and we don't want to be too conspicuous as we poke around in bushes and under sprinkler valve covers. Perhaps another time....

After some doggie playtime and a quick trip to Mr. Mamie's office, we dropped the dogs off at home and picked up Insamity's luggage. Then it was time for the drive to Las Vegas, which for me meant making a nest in the back seat consisting of snacks (almonds and Smarties, weird combo I know), Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets on my iPod, my awesome camping/travel pillow, and the iPhone so I wouldn't miss a single Twitter/Facebook/Instagram update during the two hour drive. Insamity was delivered to his flight back to Dallas in a timely manner, and we proceeded on in search of geocaches and food.

After locating a convenient Roberto's, we ordered dinner and plotted some caches. We first tried a microcache close to the restaurant called HorzonAZ, but could not find it. Our previous luck with urban microcaches has not been good (The Wheels on the Bus and Sportsman's Paradise being prime examples), so we accepted defeat and moved on.

A picture of my delicious rolled taco dinner!

Next we tried the nearby Sun in the City and had success without much trouble. No photo because there was no way to do it without revealing the cache location.  

 

At this point it was 6:00 p.m. Mountain Time (though only 5:00 in Vegas), so we decided that we had better start heading north.   Along the way we used the Geocaching app on the iPhone to see what was around us, and it is AMAZING how many caches are located along the I-15 corridor in the middle of NOWHERE! At Moapa we drove into the desert on Piute Nation land to see if it would be possible to make a grab, but it was getting too dark.  We continued on home and saved several future possibilities on the app as we drove through the Virgin River Gorge - there are a ton of caches around Cedar Pocket, and that's an area neither of us has ever explored, so we're pretty excited.

Even with only two actual finds, it was a fun day of geocaching and adventuring!

~Mamie "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro!" (Hunter S. Thompson)